You never really realize how much of a wreck your house is until you've been instructed to clean it. I mean, yeah, only one half of my bed could be comfortably reclined on because the other half was a mountain of my Alaska-trip clothes that I didn't bother washing as soon as I got home, but whatever.

Speaking of Alaska, holy shit was that fun. Like, I never thought it WOULDN'T be, but it kind of went and shattered my fun expectations like two hundred times over. Only barely seeing my mom once a day was just an added bonus on top of an already awesome vacation (although I will say that I somehow managed to always get glared at or worse during those scarce moments).

So basically it was a 7 day Alaskan cruise, and I was sharing a stateroom with Poki, easily one of my most entertaining, outspoken, and just plain awesome friends. Because I don't actually FEEL like cleaning anything, I'll write up a little day-by-day thing, more for my amusement than anything else. But first, some profiles:

Poki: One of my best friends since 8th grade. We've been going to different schools since that one year of frienship, and we're doing pretty well so far. She's a guitarist and basically should've been born in the 60s, end of story. Very outspoken and absolutely hilarious.

Stalker: Cousin of Third One and Psycho. Rich and priviliged, the product of bad parenting with lots of money. He's nice in a total frat-guy way, but you can totally tell he's gonna end up like his lecherous uncle (hitting on everything that moves). For now, though, he's pretty cool. I guess. When he's not being a total rich brat and acting like everything in the world is his to play with and destroy. Orange County boy, through and through.

Sunshine: Total sweetheart, a bit skanky, not much common sense. But that doesn't change the fact that she was one of my favorite people on the trip. She's just one of those people that you always want to hug because she's so damn happy. Lives in Orange County and attends the same school as Stalker and Psycho.

Klepto: Imagine an elf on crack who steals things and has no sense of personal space. Yeah, that's her. Washington girl.

Autumn: Keeps to herself in an annoyingly aloof kind of way. Just because you're make up's pretty doesn't mean you're better than us, honey.

Psycho: Cousin of Stalker and Third One. Going into 9th grade and very typical Armenian guy; thinks he's hot shit and is deluded into thinking that his dick is fifteen inches long and likes to announce what color his balls are at any given moment. Enjoys throwing chairs to prove his masculinity/penis size. I assure you, his imagination pwns realtiy by like two hundred (he shouldn't have made the mistake of going swimming in his disturbingly tiny cotton boxers that one night). Another Orange County kid.

Third One: Cousin of Stalker and Psycho. Couldn't get much of a read beyond him aside from 'generally hot, but in a kind of weird way that neither Poki nor I could really explain', probably because he spent most of his time with skankalicious. Even so, he seemed the most genuinely nice out of the three (Stalker, Psycho, and Third One). Orange County, yet again.

Skankalicious: One of those girls who goes into a jacuzzi with full make up and giant hoop earrings. Generally spent most of her time clinging to Third One. Oh, and she has a boyfriend back home, wherever that is. Not that I'm judging or anything. Nope, not me.

Red Head: Awesome, awesome, awesome guy. Total comic book nerd, which lead to a couple of great discussions. I also totally pwned him in Tekken, but whatever. I have ever intention of texting him when Watchmen comes out to geek out. Poki and I called him the wrong name for like three days before he finally corrected us. Resident of Chicago.

Jeans: Another cool guy. Like Psycho, going into high school this year, but like a million times more mature. Got his name because he went swimming with us in his jeans because the alternative was potentially waking up his parents in an attept to get trunks and being forced to call it a night. Talk about dedication to fun. New Jersey guy.

Fuzzy: Annoying kid who refused to shave his peach fuzz because he thought it made him manly. Really? No. Phail.

Mc Lovin': I'm not even kidding when I say this kid was not kind of like Mc Lovin'. He WAS Mc Lovin'. The Superbad guys BASED Mc Lovin' on this guy. Except they took out the asshole part. But he was appropriately socially inadept.

Lover: A guy I was kind of wary of at first, but he actually turned out to be really cool...and just a really good friend. Gives crazy good hugs. Like, it's not even okay. Waaaay into Poki, but settled for friend after he found out she had a boyfriend. Hails from Virginia.

Lover #2: Also totally into Poki, Lover's brother will sadly always be topped by Lover himself. I'm not even kidding. Also Virginia.

...and...

Day One: Poki and I (plus appropriate parental supervision and parental supervision's friends) arrived in Seattle, Washington...and discovered there is a reason Kurt Cobain wrote all those depressing Nirvana songs. Have you ever BEEN to Seattle? It's a rainy-overcast-icky-hellhole-of-vomit-death. You think I'm kidding? Try it. I dare you to go there and NOT go crazy. I was only there for like four hours, and I wanted to off myself. Anyways, so the first thing we did was attack the buffet that was already set up when we got on, because if there's anything we really did well that week, it was eat. Seriously, I can usually really inhale food in record time, but this trip was ridiculous for both of us. On the way to the buffet place, we passed through the indoor pool area (where we'd eventually spend a lot of time hanging out) and were randomly hit on by three guys in a hot tub who looked vaguely our age. Poki and I bolted into the food area like startled gazelles. I actually don't know how a startled gazelle acts, but I'm just guessing. Anyways, after gracefully shoving mountains of chicken, fish, broccoli, and rice into out mouths like the proper young ladies we are, we headed over to our "muster station" for a drill in Cruise safety. We spent most of the time playing with the orange life preservers we were instructed to bring from our rooms. Needless to say, if the boat was gonna sink we'd probably be the first ones dead. We returned to our room after a bit of poking around the boat (and more eating) and proceeded to engage in our second most popular activity of the entire cruise (after eating): sleeping. We woke in time for dinner and met my mom and her friends in our appointed Dining Room, Amalfi. Then we explored a little more, played some tennis with these crazy wooden paddle things and phailed miserably and later returned to our stateroom to sleep. Again.

Day Two: At sea all day, Poki and I were told that there was a "teen club" aboard the ship, which we were inclined to ignore because it honestly sounds kinda lamez0rz, except then someone mentioned a PS2 and Tekken 5 and suddenly "zomgz we are so there". Except we figured maybe later would be a better idea, so...we went later. In between, we basically ate and slept. Oh, and swam. A bit. Table tennis? Yes. But mostly eating and sleeping. Moar good food at Amalfi (with champagne sorbet, which is amazing and surprisingly very alcoholic and legal for us to have), followed by another round of weird-wooden-paddle tennis, which we hadn't improved upon at all. We stopped by Remix, the teen club, after our not-so-daily exercise, but we were generally ignored by absolutely everyone, and someone made a snide remark in Poki's direction to which she replied, "Sorry, could you try that again? I don't speak asshole," but too quietly for anyone to hear and we left rather peturbed. Also during our adventure into teen-land, we found out we had to be registered in order to use the Remix facilities. Despite our aversion to the people who were there, the call of Playstation 2 was just too great for us to resist, and we agreed to get my mom to register us the following day. If anyone else wanted to speak asshole to us, we'd just bitchslap them. Or ignore them. Or something. Our boat docked in Ketchikan at 2AM or so, and we were still up from all that mid-day sleeping we'd been doing.

Day Three: Everyone was off in Ketchikan at the UNGODLY hour of 10 in the morning, but before my mom left she informed me that there was an all-you-can-eat Calamari type of thing going down in one of the dining rooms for lunch, so Poki and I hauled ass to make it there by noon so that we could inhale some good old deep fried squid. We shared a table with these two Canadian women who provided us with some really great conversation; I liked them very much. You could tell that they were kind of trying to guage how obscene they could be without startling the poor American girls, but eventually we got them to the "If you have money in your tits, Canada will squeeze them until they're dry" point, so I'd say they relaxed fairely quickly in our presence. It was during this meal that we had our first flan (of four) of the trip: chocolate flan. Pretty good, just really not my thing because of how anti-chocolate I can be about pastry/created desert type of things. Afterwards, Poki and I disembarked the ship to go looking around Ketchikan, and we found some awesome jewelry and the most godly think to ever grace my taste buds: SALMON JERKY. Honestly, try it some time. So we spent some time in Ketchikan and discovered that the most beautiful girls in the whole effing world reside in Alaska, like that one who was working at the convenience store. Not like, make-up pretty, but genuinely "zomgz, you are gorgeous". Poki and I were very jealous. After a couple hours of prancing around in very, very cold weather (girls from Los Angeles do not do well anywhere below 50 degrees), we got back on the boat and returned to our staterooms to order flan #2 (a regular one, this time) from room service and then sleep until dinner. More salmon at Amalfi, and I wasn't complaining. Also, the adults got Appltinis, and Poki and I gladly accepted the tastes offered to us. My mom was bitching about how it was so strong, but I honestly didn't even taste the alcohol in it. Is that a bad sign? Dutifully playing the parts of pure teenagers, Poki and I ordered virgin Pina Coladas. They were excellent.

We then dragged my mom to Remix after dinner to sign us up...and we kind of died inside when we realized that everyone was watching One Tree Hill. But right before we could escape, one of the guys who had hit on us on the first day from the comfort of the hot tub (who we'd dubbed Stalker, and I will continue to refer to him as such) swooped in with a small posse and invited us to go raise hell around the boat with him. For lack of a better option, we joined the posse and quickly learned that Stalker was a very rich, privilidged kid from Orange County with a lecherous uncle, from one of those families that is just so incredibly lucky with everything in life that it's almost unreal. Like, "need to go up in an elevator but it's already there, open and waiting and empty without even having to push a button" lucky. It's crazy. Anyways, other members of this posse were Sunshine (another Orange County native), Autumn (who barely spoke to us...ever), and Klepto (a hyperactive kleptomaniac). We didn't really raise hell...more like walked around the boat a lot and laughed and talked and got to know one another. Which was actually pretty okay. We went back to Remix for scary movie night (One Missed Call...eh), and that is when I started noticing the weird hotness of Third One (cousin of Stalker and Psycho and member of the trio who hit on us when we first got on the boat), but unfortunately Skankalicious and he were already involved so I shrugged it off and eyed from afar. Oh, how subtle I am. For once, Poki and I went to bed at a decent time.

Day Four: From Juneau, with glaciers. We had an official excursion planned with a baked salmon lunch included, but that fell through so we just ended up taking a taxi up to Mendenhall glacier and Poki and I ate what was left of our salmon jerky with heavy hearts. Lots of myspace-y pictures were taken up by the glacier. I wanted to walk on it, but apparently that's been banned since some photographer guy fell into a crevice and broke his leg and died up there and wasn't found for like 14 years or something. I bought a magnet that was in his honor. It was five bucks. Wtf. But I guess it goes to some search and rescue team that rescues retards who ignore the warnings to not walk on the glaciers (like me, if Poki didn't hold me back) so whatever. We got a taxi back into town and took pictures with totem poles and I got some nail polish remover (totally pointless additional information ftw!), then my mom got totally freaked out because she thought she got hit on by some random guys (HAHAHAHA) so she walked back to the boat but Poki and I stayed in town for a while to look at all the crazy stuff they had. Also, a note on Juneau, Alaska: everyone there is stuck in the 90s. Music, cars, fashion, you name it and it's still 90s. Which I kind of liked, except for the clothes. Clothing-wise, the 90s were not a good time for anyone.

Dinner was at the boat's steakhouse that night, Tequila's. Super good porterhouse, even if it WAS super crazy huge and I couldn't finish it. Alcoholic beverage tasting of the night was Opus One, which is like super expensive and supposedly really good, but it just didn't go down right with me. Poki, on the other hand, can drink that shit like water. But she couldn't really deal with the Appltini from the night before, so I guess we're even. Desert was creme brulee, which we referred to as Flan on Fire (because that's basically what it is), thus making it our fourth flan of the trip.

Anyways, later that night we were playing our extreme, no-rules ping pong at like midnight when everyone joined us in the indoor swimming pool/ping pong area...and that's when Poki met Lover. I'm talking a guy who was waaay into her...even though she has a boyfriend. But hey, whatever. So we spent most of that night just kind of hanging out around the pool with everyone. Some of the guys decided to play extreme-run-around-the-table ping pong, which Autumn, Sunshine, and I decided to make more interesting by dumping pool water on the floor and hoping they slipped. Our ideas got more sadistic as the night went on, but we couldn't think of a place to get lighter fluid at 2 in the morning. Then people started jumping off of the balcony and into the pool. Awesome. No, really. It was. Poki has video of it on her phone. I only wish I'd done it...but bakinis on flat chested girls are notoriously good at falling off. We spent most of the rest of the night on the floor of the fifteenth floor (why? Because we could) talking and whatnot. Lover found out Poki had a boyfriend and retreated to Autumn. SECOND CHOICE, BITCH. Good for her. I think we all crawled off to our respective corners of the boat at 4AM.

Day 5: Skaaaagwaaaay. We had to wake up at 7AM. Um, NOT FUN. AT ALL. KTHNKX. But we did it anyways and slept through a lot of the train ride we had signed up for...but when we were awake, it was really, really beautiful. The train took us into Canada, and then we rode the bus back down into Alaska again and stopped by at this really cool little like...retro town type of thing called Liarsville. Kind of like Jamestown, y'know? Like, a historical site with people who act like they still live in that time? Except I liked it better than Jamestown because Liarsville was more entertaining. And we also got salmon out of it. Which was pretty much all I needed to make it a good trip. So we watched a short show that was actually really cute and then we panned for gold and my fingers nearly froze off for like three tiny little flakes, but whatever. It was still fun. OH GOD AND THE HUSKY. The big, beautiful husky that was just LAYING THERE that Poki and I totally would've kidnapped if that woman hadn't been like...RIGHT THERE. I want a Husky. Right now. Seriously. Anyways, the bus took us back into the main town of Skagway where we visted a Brothel Museum called The Red Onion Saloon. It used to be a brothel back in the days of the Gold Rush; fifteen thousand men to one hundred prostitutes. Um, with those kinds of numbers...if one person got an STD, everybody had it. But I digress. The building really used to be a brothel, and while the upstairs served as the museum, the saloon below was still up and running. I didn't get to try the food, but it certainly smelled good. I bought a shirt and a couple of garter belts, because God knows I have partially skankalicious whores best friends who would like them. Then Poki and I wandered around the town for a while, which was amusing until we saw Stalker, Psycho, and Third One sitting outside an ice cream place INGESTING FROZEN THINGS. Did I mention how COLD Skagway is? Like, it wasn't even FUNNY. I wasn't freezing my ass off, my ass had actually run back to California without me. So we bolted back to the boat because seeing people eat ice cream in freezing cold weather just did NOT sit well with us.

Dinner was most excellent, even if the service was a little bitchy every now and then. We at an Italian place called Sabattini's or something I can't spell like that, and the menu was actually like a taster type of thing where we got to try a little bit of everything. Yummy. Oh, and Poki and I had our fourth kind of flan of the cruise: feux flan. Okay, techincally it was this thing I can't pronounce that isn't flan, just kind of like it because it's basically flan but without the eggs, I guess, but whatever. It had this awesome honey caramel sauce that was literally to die for. Also, Poki is a desert enabler. Don't listen to her, she's just trying to sucker you in to help her eat half of her desert. That bitch. That I love.

After dinner, we decided to stop in on the dance party Remix had scheduled up in the Sky Lounge. There really weren't enough people for me to dance comfortably (I need to be disgused on all sides) so Poki and I participated in the Cha Cha Slide and then decided to sit most of the rest of it out and talk with a pretty awesome guy, Red Head...while I maybe badly sang some of the rest of the songs that played (Get Low, anyone? Oh, please don't kill me). After the dance party time, we decided to finally take advantage of that PS2 we'd been eyeing for a while now back down in Remix, and it turns out that we started a little Tekken trend that day. I was pretty unfamiliar with game until then, even though I do own one of the incarnations, so I was a little lacking in skill. Luckily, I pick up video games fast, so soon I was able to beat almost anyone, with the exception of Poki herself (who taught me well). Many joined us, including Lover #2 (Lover's brother), Red Head, and Favorite Kid (and I'm not just changing these names for the purpose of my blog...we really called them these names because no one really knew anyone's name until the last day when we exchanged information and all that). We played until Remix closed up at about 12:30AM, and then Poki and I decided to go see where everyone else had gone. Indoor pool? Yes. We were resistant to going all the way to our rooms to change, but then Lover and Stalker threatened to throw us in the pool in the clothes we had on if we didn't change, so we scurried off before our jeans ended up waterlogged. Hilarity ensued. And cantalope wars.

Day 6: Another day at sea, which was lovely because it meant we could sleep in however late we damn well pleased. Poki and I crawled out of bed at around noon, ate a nice buffet lunch, and we were GOING to go to Remix for a nice afternoon of Tekken...but then we discovered that IRON MAN was playing in the ship's movie theater. Um, I have never run down seven flights of stairs that fast. Ever. We missed the WINWORTHY "I do whatever it is that Mr. Stark requires me to do...including occasionally taking out the trash. Will that be all?" line (because Pepper Potts is my idol), but I still got to stare at every old man sexy frame of Tony Stark. OH SHUT UP, LIKE YOU'VE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT THAT WAY. It's like all those girls who are obsessed with Jack Sparrow. I would totally jump Tony Stark's bones in half a second. Two conditions: it would have to be after he got back from Afganastan, and I'd have to be Pepper Potts. Yeah, I'm picky. Whatever. Anyways, after Iron Man-for-the-fifth-time-in-theaters (third for Poki...we're probably gonna go see it again at the 2 dollar theater this weekend), we went back up to remix and Tekken'd the day away with Red Head, Lover #2, Fuzzy, Favorite Kid, Jeans, and some other people (including Mc Lovin' some bitchy kids who were like "MY CONTROLER DOESN'T WORK YOU'RE WINNING UNFAIRLYYY!!!". No kid, everyone's controller works just the same. You suck, shut up and deal with it). Excessive amounts of fun, really. Except that I wanted to put a heel through those kids' heads because they were being so whiny.

And then we took a break for the "formal dinner" (very little black dress ftw). Some people didn't want to, but Poki and I were kind of other parental duress, and besides...I think Red Head put it best when he said of the dinner, "Bitch, you do NOT stand in the way of me and my lobster." That's right, we had as many lobster tails as we wanted for dinner at Amalfi, but my favorite part was the shrimp. I swear, that stuff was grilled to PERFECTION. I ate like seven, and they were GIGANTIC. as;dklfjasdfj Yummmm. The adult drink of choice that night was a white wine of some kind that Adriane and I had our sips of. I can do white wine better than red wine, apparently. And vodka better than anything else. How sad.

But afterwards we went to a pretty sweet juggling show where Red Head's cousin was performing, and then returned to Remix for more Tekken. Then we all found out that there were glasses of champagne just laying around everywhere downstairs, so basically every teen there took off to partake in the alcohol that no one was really watching from the Champagne Waterfall party. Yeah, we all had like three and no one noticed because they just left them on trays around the main deck plaza. Win? I think yes. Poki went off somewhere outside with Lover and vanished into thin air, so some people went after them in hopes of viewing a scandal or providing a cock block or something (these people were big on cock blocks, although I can see why considering that two couples would just GO AT IT IN PUBLIC, but whatever). It was crazy cold outside though, so somehow Sunshine and I ended up army crawling across the 14th floor indoor atrium area in our super short dresses after some ping pong/pigging out on buffet food with Third One, which was hilarious even though we got caught twice by cruise workers. They really didn't seem to care much though. Sunshine, Stalker, Klepto and I hung out in that atrium until about 5 in the morning, and eventually we all went to bed...even though Poki and Lover were still MIA. But whatever, I figured she could handle herself and would come back when she was done. But then I realized that I still had her key. Um, alright then. I guess I'd just have to get woken up. Which I did, at about 5:45 AM. I was just like "whatever" when I saw Poki at the door and let her in, and then suddenly Lover jumps out from the side and is like "Wow, you were really cool about that." And I was like "WTF are you doing hiding!!" and he goes "Well...I kinda wanted to see your reaction when she got in. I was expecting you dirty slut! or something." And the conversation did get there, eventually. But I don't say stuff like that in hallways at 5 in the morning. But they really didn't do anything. Really. Even though they were in a pool for like four hours. Meh.

Day 7: Slept in until 1, I think, but can you blame us? Did all the usual stuff; ate, played Tekken, and then we docked in Victoria. Let me tell you something about Victoria, British Columbia. It is the most beautiful effing place that has EVER EXISTED. The end. No, I don't care if you've been to some small, beautiful European country. Victoria KICKS IT'S ASS and TAKES ITS NAME. In the most beautiful, ladly like way possible. Poki and I visted the gardens and they were absolutely gorgeous. Also, they had European candy there! Real Smarties! Crunchies! I was so excited. But I also started getting sick, which was kind of a pain in the ass. There's also a school in Victoria called South Park, which amused us for a while.

So we get back on the boat and after a bitchfest dinner with my mother, Poki and I escaped to Remix where we actually danced at the farewell dance party because...well, it was the last night. We took lots of pictures and exchanged information (Third One actually asked for my number and email...even though we barely ever spoke...hahahahaha in your face Skankalicious which was kind of odd but whatever) and did more dancing. And then Noftle called and Psycho decided to ask him what color and shape his balls were, but Third One was kind of occupying my attention by actually talking to me so I let it go until Psycho decided to give the phone back. Then Remix closed and Poki and I went back to our room to pack at light speed and change into our swimsuits. Mom drama ensued but we escaped (mostly) unscathed and made it to the indoor pool where our whole group celebrated our last night together. Basically there was lots of random dancing and hugging and sadness and happiness and jacuzzi-breaking and chicken fighting (Jeans and I lost miserably against Poki and Lover) and Red Head, Lover, Poki, Jeans, and I all dancing around in a one person outdoor shower at 5AM, fighting over the warm water and belting disney songs at the top of our lungs. Yes, we were sober.

We said our goodbyes indoors and Lover walked Poki and I to our room...and she seductively lured welcomed him inside for a little while, so we hung out and listened to music and took pictures until suddenly someone knocked on our door at 6AM. OH HAI, IT'S MY MOM. We shoved Lover in the bathroom shower and closed the door, then let my mom in. She did her usual bitching and then left, leaving us with big sighs of relief. Lover was ready to bolt, but I forced him to wait for me to check the hallway. Good thing I did, too, because as soon as I open the door, my mom is TWO STEPS AWAY, coming back. Before she even says anything, I'm like "Poki is in the bathroom!" and suddenly Lover is shoved back into the shower, this time with Poki blocking the small crack in the door and hurridly saying "Excuse me" and rather convincingly turning the water on and off and flushing the toilet. So I keep my cool and finally manage to get my mom away, and Poki and Lover stumble out of the bathroom and we're all basket cases of hysterical giggles and hyperventilation. So Lover leaves after I check the hallway for another mom raid (you never know) and Poki and I go to the buffet place to see what's for breakfast. We end up sleeping on the pool chairs like hobos, waiting to disembark. Somewhere in the middle of our sleep, we're prodded awake by some of our friends and we say our final goodbyes before everyone has to leave.
 

The end. Oh God, that took two hours. I have so much cleaning to do. But I figured I'd document that, if only for my own memory. Also, there are pictures. Actually, we have like a thousand more but Poki took them all and I just stole them from the small batch she put up on facebook.

Blaaaaah, senior year starts in three and a half days. Part of me is super excited and the rest of me is beyond scared because I'm doing SO EFFING MUCH. Yeah, just this week I have three meetings: Folio, Newspaper, and Senior Leader stuff. Throw college on top of that and I'm going to basically die. On a fire. Awesomesauce.

Okay, cleaning time. And I apologize for the headache I just gave anyone.