I have a very bad feeling that the fraternities off S. Columbia Street in Chapel hill are playing this song on a nonstop loop, but I can’t help it, I love it so much.

Also, seriously, these guys look like this? I was under the impression they were 50. With beards.

Do you like the creativity of this title? I knew you would.

I thought this would be a neat feature for a mom who is hanging out with two kids under three-year-olds a lot. Oh, A LOT. J said he didn’t mind. That’s because he knows he is my number one in handsomeness.

Four current celebrity crushes:

Matt Damon, who will never leave the list.

Jon Hamm, holy shit, Jon Hamm.

Cory Monteith, who I recently found out is like almost thirty-years-old so it’s fine, also “Glee” is awesome, get over it.

Jimmy Fallon a little bit, or maybe a lot.

Last weekend J and I went to the Berkshires all by ourselves.

All by ourselves, guys. J’s parents kindly agreed to take Nora for three nights so we could drive a couple hours to a bed and breakfast for a relaxing weekend away before the new baby shows up. I decided I wanted to go away on this blessed weekend before I got too much further into the third trimester…before I got really huge and basically gave up on everything besides being pregnant. March. That is what is happening in March.

This weekend was awesome in a way that I can’t quite put into words. It was one of those rare occasions where the vacation was truly relaxing in all aspects. Like, neither of us was worried about any work commitments, Nora was safe and sound with family and the place we stayed was exactly what we’d wanted, complete with a great big sitting room with a huge fireplace. We spent our hours exploring little towns and talking to fellow travelers and reading.

One of the days I took a nice, hot shower and when I got out I decided, “I am just going to sit here and dry off for a while.” And that’s exactly what I did. It was all about having plenty of time on this vacation - the kind of time you simply don’t take for yourself when you’re enveloped in home life - and right here and now I’d like to urge all parents to plan their very own weekend away. And do it every year. Really!

Anyway, the very best moment of this particular weekend occurred when I was slowly waking up from a nap in our room, and I received a text from J, who was in the main house reading by the fire, explaining that I should come on over because the innkeeper had just served mulled apple cider and cupcakes. I was pulling on my boots within two seconds.

Before you chide me for describing this as the best moment of the trip, please recall that I’m pregnant.

When you wake up from a great nap and then someone is serving you apple cider and cupcakes, well, THAT is a vacation.

It was a little sad coming home, although great to see Nora, of course. I was starting to think that I wasn’t going to have another truly great moment for a very long time. But then MSNBC announced this week that on Friday, Oprah is going to be a guest on “Morning Joe,” the morning news program we watch fairly religiously. I have to admit, I got pretty excited. It might not be vacation-worthy stuff, but that pairing on a weekday morning, along with a good cup of coffee? That’s gold, baby.

In this post I was simply going to point out that the series finale - last show ever - of “The Hills” airs tonight and that I’d be watching it. And then I thought maybe I’d mention a few favorite moments. Maybe get a little nostalgic.

But then I did a search of my archives for posts I’ve written that include the words “The Hills” and…there were a lot of posts. A whole lot. Kind of an embarrassing amount. Like when I announced that I’d be live tweeting during the premiere. Or when I thought about Spencer. Or when we all commented about how J actually loves the show, despite saying that he hates it.

And more. A lot more posts.

So, farewell to “The Hills.” It appears that I’m gonna have to get a new hobby.

Last week after deciding I couldn’t possibly stay awake to watch the premiere of the final season (I hate you, MTV) of “The Hills,” I realized how ludicrous I was acting and tucked myself into bed for a half hour of the best television ever in the history of the world. Just deal with it.

That episode was so good, I mean, so good, my favorite part being the fact that Heidi’s jaw was sore so she had to talk in that tiny little voice. Bring on the drama. Anyway, as a belated tribute to this farewell season, I wanted to share this video my friend Sarah (thanks, Sarah!) just sent me. These children should all win Emmys.

1. “Timer”
2. “The Hangover,” but only the photo roll during the credits. The rest, honestly? It wasn’t the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. But any movie J and I saw in the theater this year gets major points because being in a movie theater was such a big deal that I remember each and every movie theater experience since Nora was born extremely fondly.
3. “Kicking and Screaming,” for the millionth time, which wasn’t made in 2009 and which never, ever loses its magic.

Um, holy shit. I can’t remember any other movies I saw this year. I saw “Funny People,” which I thought was, like, four or five hours too long, and last night J and I went to see “Avatar,” which I’m pretty sure deserves a post of its own.

Top five songs I heard:

1. “Daylight” by Matt & Kim - sometimes I daydream that I go out dancing somewhere and I ask them to play this song and they DO
2. “River” by Akron/Family
3. “Lights Out” by Santogold - number one song for turning up loud when I’m alone in the car
4. “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z - the presence of this song on the list indicates my desperate need to get back into music
5. “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver - although, apparently, this song was released in 2008

Readers, your turn. Comments, bring it.

I’ve been listening to the song “Daylight” by Matt and Kim a bunch on my iPod while I’m running and, yeah, I know that probably everybody who heard that song played in the ads for the NBC show “Community” downloaded it, and that it’s not cool or novel to like it so much, but I can’t help myself. Catchy, upbeat music has been where it’s at for me the past few months, and while I’m merely inching forward - slowly - in my quest to find worthwhile new music, I am, indeed, inching.

The song has the added bonus of causing me to, happily, think of Joel McHale (despite the fact that I don’t really like “Community” and am glad he’s still got “The Soup”), who I am a little bit in love with, and before you go saying anything, J, need I remind you of the adoration heaped upon a certain business and finance reporter every single weekday morning?

J is standing in our living room in his pajama pants and a t-shirt right now, watching the World Series Game 1 - a game, by the way, that I adamantly told him I would not watch with him, because I knew he was going to be obnoxious.

I told him, “No thanks, that sounds like a terrible night and I have a Dan Brown novel to read. I’ll be upstairs.”

But lo and behold, the game’s been on a couple hours and I’m still down here, sort of watching. J hasn’t been all that obnoxious, despite the fact that I informed him I would (obviously) be supporting the Phillies. Which, in this instance, is as easy as not getting excited when the Yankees do anything remarkable. The worst he’s done is tried to show me where he was sitting when he went to the Yankees/Angels game Sunday night, repeatedly pointing to the screen and saying, loudly, “Cara! Look! Look! Look! That’s where we were sitting.”

I’m not sure of the exact reasoning behind this, but I’m pretty sure my being a Red Sox fan allows me to ignore such behavior.

In any case I wanted to write a post in public support of the Not Yankees Phillies. My new favorite team. That I know nothing about. Except how much they are going to rock the World Series.

As I was saying, I’m busy September 22, 2010 because I’m going to see Pavement.

Ok. Background.

Please forgive me if I’ve told this rather un-climatic story before, either on this blog, or when we were hanging out and I was telling you about the more ridiculous moments in my young life, when, not only did I think I was really awesome, but you wanna know what? Maybe I was really awesome.

We were at this party. I don’t remember what year this was, but it was some point during my time at Boston University, and I’m guessing - due to the nature of the conversation I am about to relate - that we were in Allston or Brighton, student-heavy residential areas a little west of the main campus, where the bars were plentiful and the housing less expensive. It’s where the cool kids lived and partied and then went out for breakfast in an post-drunk-or-maybe-a-little-still-drunk stupor.

Anyway, I was at this party and let’s just imagine, for the sake of visualization, that I was wearing some corduroys I’d bought at the thrift store. And I’m getting a beer or something in the kitchen and I overheard some people talking about Pavement. Well, wouldn’t you know, I was a Pavement fan! I don’t know who’d gotten me into them…the always influential Matt Barbee and his mixed tapes, or maybe my brother, but no matter, I was a fan, and if there was one thing I knew as sure as I loved college parties was that it was really, really radical to a) know who Pavement was and b) be a fan.

I mean, it’s not like Pavement is some super-unknown band; they’re really well known in the world of indie rock, in fact. But for a young twenty-something, making her way at a large and diverse university, knowing about Pavement was, at certain parties, a good way of singling out the other music lovers. And then what you’d do is talk about the albums.

So I get in on the conversation and I’m talking to this girl who’s leaning against the door and is all “You like Pavement?” and I’m like “Yeah,” and we’re sort of drunk and life IS RADICAL. And she’s all, “Well, you know what their best album is, right? It’s ‘Wowee Zowee.’”

Now, people, everyone says that “Wowee Zowee” is the best Pavement album and I don’t know why. It’s full of short, weird little songs and I think the reason people say it’s their favorite is because liking Pavement isn’t unique enough and they want to try and be a little edgier. That’s just what I think, I can’t help it.

I countered that my favorite album was “Slanted and Enchanted,” which actually isn’t true anymore, but at the time, you know what? I wasn’t gonna follow all the “Wowee Zowee” lemmings. The two of us really got into it then, talking about the specifics of certain songs in sort of deranged, youthful analysis that I’m not even capable of anymore. Others joined the conversation and I semi-abandoned the people I’d come with. I’d become the cool girl who came to the party who loved Pavement, when I could have been a just another guest. A minor event, yes, but in the history of my musical past, a very nice memory.

So when my friend Jennifer called me the other day to announce that Pavement (the band sadly disbanded several years ago) was getting together for a reunion tour, and then found out that a few tickets would be going on sale early, there was simply no question, we had to get them. So we went online while on the phone to each other, like over excited seventh graders (if the Internet had existed in the way it does now when we were 13) and waited until the appointed hour and we got those tickets. Because it’s Pavement, and my love has never waned. I hope they play “Summer Babe.” And I know it will rock.