Tragic Maturity

The day that's not Friday

2007-10-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

...at least next week is only four days long. Well, the work week is, so that means I'll spend less time feeling guilty that I do very little "work" at work, unless I'm absolutely buried and panicking. But such is the life of a usability research recruiter, my occupation for the next almost-year.

I applied to the SJSU MLIS program on Tuesday, both because I've finally discovered (I think, fairly confidently) what I want to be when I grow up-- a librarian! Please to let me explain... First, I love me some books. If we've met, even for only about ten minutes, you probably know this about me. I love books, absolutely and fairly indiscriminately, sometimes humiliatingly so. But it's not just about the books, I promise. There is also the issue of information, the "I" part of the LIS master's program that I hope to be accepted into sometime soon(ish). Much more policy-focused than I originally thought, what with the Patriot Act and public funding and everything, so it seems as though I've found a way to get a graduate degree in a literature-related field without actually getting a graduate degree in Literature (yes, that's a capital L). The application process was shockingly simple, as SJSU requires nothing in the way of a GRE score (whereas before when I was considering b-school, I thought I'd have to take something as horrific as the GMAT), letters of rec, or even a personal statement. Apparently I send in...biographical information, like address, whether I'm a CA resident, and into what program I hope to be accepted, as well as an undergrad transcript, and...that's about it. First-come, first-served. Really odd, actually, when you consider the implications these two years of school will have, but I suppose advantageous in that I applied on the second day of the filing period. Because that's how on top of things I am.

This weekend we're going to Amador for this autumnal Big Crush event, so there should be a good deal of sipping and staggering, along with some purple-tongued pictures, if you, my three readers, are lucky.

Tuesday

2007-08-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

(I apologize in advance-- I wish I had actually been on drugs when this post was written)

Don't be disappointed about the lack of baseball game pictures...they would only have been of us eating hot dogs, drinking beer, and noting with a certain amount of disdain how not-as-nice-as-SBC the Coliseum is. It is, however, as Greg noticed, much like the Coliseum in Rome. I'm hoping he meant that in a very vague, architectural way, as in, "they're both round and hence similar" way, because otherwise I'm less excited for us to eventually go to Italy. (This would be, of course, after our fourteen million other trips to LA, New Jersey, and places that are more fun than both of the aforementioned places)

It's 9:04 on Tuesday, the bedroom is still 76 degrees, I'm home alone, and I couldn't finish the wine because the sediment was freaking me out a bit. Is it any wonder I feel a twinge of envy any time I read about a friend who is now living with her boyfriend in France, or a stranger who is still in the midst of renovating her family's house (each, for some reason, riveting to me)? Also, a note to self: your life is actually pretty awesome. You have a Tivo, a job at which there is regularly a dog, and some pretty sweet tricks for your boyfriend's upcoming birthday up your sleeve. And you don't have to carry 70 pounds of water back and forth to your village four times a day.

Midsummer

2007-08-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's probably too late to qualify as "midsummer"...but I'm lazy about posting, so there. One houseguest is out, and Greg's parents are coming on Saturday night. We're also down a roommate, so it's a veritable ghost town, sans tumbleweeds. I've decided that this post is just going to be a vehicle for pictures from our weekend in Napa, so without further ado...

To your left, you'll see the two boys. Happy already, you see, to be drinking wine. V. Sattui is very pretty, but a zoo on an August weekend.

Below, Greg and I are at Peju at the end of the day-- pretty blitzed on wine, because Napa is awesome. Excuse the tummy and posture, I haven't started Pilates just yet.

Ok friends...we're going to a baseball game this weekend. Maybe there will be more pictures, who can say?

Stability

2007-05-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

I'm settling into routines, and I'm not sure yet how I feel about them-- as individual routines unto themselves, as well as the fact that it's me who's settling into them. Does this mean that my life is becoming less exciting, that there are fewer possibilities open to me? Or does it just mean that they're that much more unexpected, that much better or worse, depending on what exactly the disruptions are? I'm used to, for instance, getting up each morning around 9, because I don't have to be at work until 11 (unless it's Friday or Saturday, in which case the timing is a little different). I wake up "early," and trudge around with my cup of tea, bleep-blooping the Tivo through whatever show I can cheat through and still make it to work on time. I like that morning time, waking up and still being a little suprised that Greg is there. Happy surprised, like finding out that the laundry has been done when I get home Saturday evening, or finding pink carnations and berries arranged in the white vase on the table. Yeah, we're probably still nauseating. To wit, I give you a belated New York/New Year's picture from a disposable camera that I just had developed:

Yep, that's us on the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm a little (only a little) sad that it's never cold enough here for cute little white hats and birhgt pink gloves.

Our new roommates have moved in: a girl from Greg's program and her boyfriend of about two years. It's interesting to watch them, because after having lived in different states for the last ten months or so, they're not only in the same ZIP code, but also in the same, smallish apartment, sharing a room and a bathroom. I don't know if they're as nest-y as we are, as she confessed yesterday that she likes showering because she likes to "stand under the warm water...all alone." Let's hope their relationship survives cohabitation-- I definitely recommend it as a fairly reliable way to test exactly how much, and for how long, one can stand one's significant other.

In conclusion, if anyone knows of any decently-paying, even-tangentially-education-related jobs that are up for grabs, let me know! You know, just in case...

Sprung

2007-04-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's spring, I think, technically now, but it's still tentative and brisk. Not the pollen-filled, bursting-with-green, twirly-new-dress-wearing full-swing Spring that we all know and love, but a seasonal change nonethless. The weather is trying to be warm, and the sun is making a good showing, so I guess the plant world and my credit cards are the only things standing between me and spring, the season that I tell people is my favorite, even though I'm generally more of a sucker for winter, where it's practically mandated that you gain weight just to stay warm (yes, I know I live in California, but I'm really good at making excuses).

On to things that people care more about... Let's see. I moved! Yes, it's like I'm "people" now, all financially independent and everything, which is scary and exhilarating and awesome. The biggest bonus is my (primary) roommate, who is pretty awesome as well; other highlights include Tivo, spotty internet, and a gym that does much more in the way of inducing guilt than inducing weight loss. I went a little crazy with the "home" shopping on Monday, buying various glassware sets, as well as floating shelves for the bedroom and some exterior lighting. It was all so cheap, though-- I definitely recommend going to Target on Monday in the early afternoon, as it's much less stressful than going on the weekend. It's things like that that make me wish I was unemployed, until I realize how much I like being able to buy things like food and sets of stemless wineglasses.

Also of note: I got promoted! All told, it's about a 6% raise and a bunch more responsibility, which I suppose is a shock to no one. I have/get to be more of a "people manager" now, which is alternately awful and pretty cool, but mostly headache-inducing, when I realize that allllll the people "under" me are older than I am, and at least half think they're smarter than I am (note to them: it probably isn't true; and even if it is...it doesn't really matter, so just do what I say because I have to spend upwards of 45 hours a week in this place and I need to have something go my way every now and then). Tomorrow is like a company-wide field trip, well, more of a revival, really, in which we all get together and talk about how we're doing, and how we're going to have to do better. Educational businesses, I've come to realize, are incredibly hard to manage, mostly because it's such a subjective field. Education is only as valuable as people believe it to be, and we only get "customers" when families are prioritizing it instead of, say...a new Escalade. This is surprising to no one, but always manages to depress me. Why isn't my chosen field monetarily rewarding as well as "emotionally rewarding"? (P.S. I can't buy new shoes with my emotions. Not in a literal, commercial sense, anyway)

I'm excited for it to be full-blown spring, so that I can try to find more reasons for it to be my (legitimate) favorite season. Well, that and it means that any future vacations (and summer! Although summer doesn't have the ring that it used to...) are that much closer.

The way things are

2007-03-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

Having offset weekends is an odd thing-- working from Tuesday through Saturday, any way you look at it, just kind of sucks. Monday off isn't such a great deal, as I'm not generally that excited about hanging out in the post office, or whatever grownup chores I'm supposed to be doing on that "good day to have off." The problem with these weekends is that they're going to be around until I get two more promotions at work, with the first one happening sometime toward the end of March/beginning of April, and the other at some point within ten or so months after-- and the second one isn't even something that I'm sure I want.

Who wouldn't want to be promoted at work? It reeks of lack of ambition, and makes me feel like I don't want to be successful. The rational part of my brain tells me it's ok not to want to be at the top (or any higher than I feel comfortable) of this organization, that it's not something that I plan to do as a "career" anyway, but the Type-A that's around from time to time wants to be the best, no matter what the competition is. In a job you're not sure you want? Doesn't matter, you should still be "winning," whatever that means. Sure, I want to go back to school, but how much does that determine how long I'm going to be working full-time? Also, why am I worrying about this eighteen months in advance?

On to the more exciting, (slightly) less nerve-wracking parts of my life...Moving Day is impending, with only about ten weeks separating me and cohabitation, and...I don't mind that much. It's the kind of thing where I'm fairly certain that I can't be completely sure about it until it happens, but at the moment it's an "all signs point to yes" situation. Being at home is odd now, and I'm sure I'm spending a majority of my time either at work or at Greg's, so I suppose it makes the most sense for me to move there, because I'm pretty sure it's illegal for me to live at work. (Not to mention...Milpitas? Probably not.)

Also on the horizon: trips! And lots of them! Tahoe with Greg's parents and some friends this month, as well as a momentous parents-meeting-each-other event, then an East Coast wedding in June, and potentially Hawaii in August. If I can swing all that time off work, everything will be perfect. Well, time off and some funds to pay for all these trips would be nice, but one thing at a time.

As stress levels mount, expect to be hearing (reading?) more from me. Together with my shiny new computer, I'll be back to my twice-a-week self in no time! Well, probably some time. We'll see.

Surprise!

2007-02-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

No obligatory Valentine's Day post! Not even one to talk about it retrospectively-- it was a low-key affair, with a dinner in and an exchange of cards. Other details that my six readers don't need to know about, and then it was on to Thursday, which was remarkable in that I got to sleep in.

I got my new laptop today! I feel like such a grownup, spending hundreds and hundreds of my hard-earned dollars on a complicated piece of machinery I don't entirely understand, and yet still like a child, itching to leave work so I can play with my new toy. My ridiculously, ridiculously expensive toy (oddly enough, I don't know how I'd feel about spending this much on, say...shoes?).

In other news, I got to work in a different center today, which was nice because it was the complete opposite of what my center is like on a Friday. They had one table open, with a total of four kids coming in for sessions today. Conversely, my usual Friday has six full tables for two hours, meaning that there are a good 30 or so kids coming and going in the two hours we have instruction that day. Madness! It was like having a day off, almost. Now the sad part is that I have to go to work and do a typical Saturday tomorrow...

A case of the Mondays

2006-12-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

...which is funny, really, because Monday is usually the second day of my weekend. Because I'm a work-nerd, however, and can't seem to take two whole days off (I've worked Mondays, even for a couple hours, for the last six weeks or so), I did manage to dive into my Development Report this morning, which thoroughly depressed me.

My Development Report is something I have to do, it's a part of my job, and it's this evil document that showed up right after my (stellar, I'm told) training review. It's about twelve pages, telling me and my superiors what I'm doing well, but also what I still kind of suck at. We tell the kids when they get frustrated, "It's ok. It's hard because you're learning! If it were easy, it wouldn't be fun!" And I wish I believed that 100%, but the truth is that I'm not used to not being at least mediocre at what I do. Yet here I am, in this job that I totally love, and want to be amazing at, and I'm stuck in the middle of this huge, nearly vertical, learning curve. I know what it's like just to be learning something and still feel quite "green," but this seems much larger. What I do on a daily basis has the potential to affect the way kids are able to approach learning and education, and I'm still idealistic/naive enough to think that that alone can change worlds. And that, besides the fact that my ego is getting kind of tired of having to prop me up after a six-day work week, is why I just have to kill myself to get better at my job.

Now, onto more pleasant happenings. I turned 23 about two weeks ago! Seeing as how 22 ended up being a fairly shitty year, I have nothing but the highest hopes for 23, and so far it's been on the awesome side of wonderful. The night before my actual birthday, I had the family get-together, where my mom and Dan got me a $100 spa gift certificate (which I haven't gotten around to using just yet because I've been so damn busy working) and Ryan's girlfriend Courtney got me a Borders gift certificate. Books and spa treatments? Could I be any more excited? Anyway. I had to work my my actual birthday, but pne of the kids brought me a present, this teddy bear that was holding body lotion, so that at least made the day bearable (oh jesus, I can pun now without even trying...).

The day after my birthday was the Day o' Greg-Celebration, and he surprised me with a drive up to Napa (neither of us has been before) for some wine tasting and dinner. We went to the Niebaum-Coppola (now Rubicon, who can say why...) winery, where we took a tour and drank and drank (let me tell you, being tipsy at a winery is pretty awesome), and then went to Peju, where we did another tasting and each bought a bottle of wine. We had tapas, then dinner at this place where I nearly wiped out as we were leaving-- I blame my shoes, not wine, for that near-spill. All in all, a really successful day. Oh, I was also presented with a compilation of our early, pre-meeting-each-other emails, aptly titled "From whence we lame," and it was nice to be able to glance back about three months at two people who didn't know a single thing about each other from the perspective I have now, where we can't seem to get enough.

And that? That's going amazingly well. He's skiing with friends right now, a celebration of his finals being over (although leaving me alone for almost an entire week just seems...mean), hence my prolific blogging. A few days after Christmas, I'm flying out to New York to see him and stay with his family over New Year's, which I'm sure will be fantastic, despite his constant assurances that I'm probably going to be frozen solid for the majority of my trip. I don't know, people...New York City, New Year's, with the man I love (and champagne, coziness, delayed Christmas presents, and ever-beloved time for pleasure reading)? Sounds just about perfect to me...

Lust

2006-10-23T22:49:00.000-07:00

You say "deadly sin," I say "necessary part of existence." And no, I'm not just talking about the clothes-tearing, heavy-breathing, sore-the-next-day sort (though we can't leave that out). Aside from plain old red-blooded American lust, I have to tell you, internet: among my other afflictions, I have real-estate lust.

It comes along with being what we'll call "a nester." I pore over Pottery Barn catalogs, stroke mixing bowls in Crate & Barrel, and get a little woozy wandering through Bed, Bath, and Beyond (it's got to be the "Beyond" that does it to me). Maybe it's just me being a good little capitalist, wanting a piece of real estate to inhabit, to have all to myself, to fill with my books and candles and cupcakes and...stuff. I want a place that I feel less obligated to return to from the comfort of someone else's bed, and a place that's equally hospitable to some cuddling of its own. The problem, as it generally is, is money. I want to move out, on some level I need to move out...but I need to save. That's the plan, saving. I have this car payment of mine, but really it comes down to motivation for davings, which is crystallizing at present into me being dead-set on moving out sometime around March. We'll see, though, how much longer I can be ok with living at home-- not that I don't love the family, it's just infantilizing after a certain point.

Onto another lust: the old wanderlust. This dovetails nicely with my good, old-fashioned lust, as I committed today to a cross-country trip, to a family home no less. Intimidating? Yeah. But no worse than the though of being apart for something like three weeks... That, and who else am I supposed to kiss at midnight? It matters, because I am almost entirely made of cheese, and you know, internet, that I love making the plans. Being in this crazy-good position where I feel like I can make these plans, and safely feel like they'll be successful? Even better. Yes, I'm happy and glowy and annoying.

I could totally get used to this.

Wise men say

2006-10-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

I think we can safely say, at this point, "Who does this?" To some extent, it was something I sought, even though I had no idea at the time what exactly I was hoping for. Safe to say, though, I got more than I asked for-- in the most amazing way possible. Now is the time to stop reading if you just don't want to know how gushy I can get. Otherwise, proceed! And don't say I didn't warn you.

Comfort level? Check. Banter? You bet. White-hot chemistry? Yeah...that, too. If I wasn't directly involved, I'd probably be annoyed, as with this hypothetical yet maybe-too-close-to-home couple. Conveniently, however, I benefit greatly from this continuous sweetness, and it's basically all I can do to keep from making even more excuses to spend time with him. And yet... and yet the together-time doesn't seem to be losing its shine just yet. Some might say that it's getting better and better, but we'll see. We'll see.

I just can't see myself getting tired of this anytime soon. And that, my friends? Good news. Very good news.

Tony Shalhoub!

2006-09-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Don't be disappointed when I write approximately nothing about Tony Shalhoub, despite the title. Ok, now that we're all over that...

So, it happened. "Back on the horse," and all that, though without all the horses and without me actually being on anything last night (because, yeah, ew). Wine, walking, and freezing our asses off, completely loving every second of it. Eight hours. Eight freaking hours! And I had to work this morning at 9, this pre-tiring myself out for my entire workday today. And, just let me say? Totally worth it.

Is it odd that most decisions on a date are made within the first five minutes? Does everyone do this? Within a mere 300 seconds, I knew that I wanted more than wine (I meant food there, but take it as you will), I knew that there were at least ten endearing things happening at once, and I knew that there wouldn't be those dreaded pauses when one or both people realize they have nothing to say to the other. Am I assuming things? Am I way off? Maybe. But really, I don't think so.

P.S. "...a creamy touch with a warm woody pulsation that counterpoints the vanilla sweetness." Too dirty? Or just dirty enough? Yeah, I think so, too.

...that's all there is.

2006-09-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

And then...it was over. I wouldn't say I got dumped, but it wasn't me who initiated the termination. The worst part is the shock, and I'm hard pressed to find a best part so far. Maybe an end to the anxiety dream where his friends and family stand around me telling me that we're too different, that I'm the dirty shiksa who has no conceivable future with the nice Jewish boy. Apparently, dreams do come true, but fortunately not in the literal sense-- it's probably too hard to get all those people gathered in one place just to point at and berate me. Mmm, neuroses! That's how I catch all my men.

It's the sort of thing that makes intellectual sense: we're both in big transitional periods right now, we live hundreds of miles apart, and weren't on any sort of "we're going to get married" path. I get it. Well, my brain does. It sucks...a lot, to think that I could potentially lose a friend as well as a boyfriend, but maybe I'll get lucky with this one. I don't like the idea of people just out there in the world, knowing too much damaging/embarrassing/intimate stuff about me, it just makes me nervous.

Maybe this is an opportunity, though. An opportunity to refocus, and be able to do exactly what I want with my life, as it is right now. The job has fallen into place, and I love it so far. That alone won't be enough to sustain me, I crave the constant interaction that I'd gotten so used to while I was at school. I miss living within walking distance of all my friends, I miss living on my own (or at least not at home), and I miss the freedom to blow off school and stay in bed all day. Most of these things, I can't change. But I DO need a hobby, someone (or someones) to spend my ever-dwindling downtime with, to do ridiculous things with, and to help me finish all those incomplete crossword puzzles. I'm trying a few things, so we'll see how that works out.

Important lesson learned today, on a much lighter note: do not listen to hilarious podcasts on public transportation. You will look completely insane, trying to suppress laughter and failing miserably. Trust me on this. I mean...my friend, she told me about this problem she was having.

Heat

2006-07-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Our power was out for the majority of the weekend, and only just got turned back on late this afternoon. Coupled with the 95-degree-plus temperatures, it made for a weekend of attempting to escape the heat during the day and becoming twisted in sweaty attempts to sleep once the sun went down, candles being producing too much heat to be useful. Without electricity, without light, the world seems smaller, slower. Because I'm in a fit of romanticism, I'll try to apply this to life in general.

The heat makes me want to (and become compelled to) do everything more slowly. Forget the ceaseless runaround of cooling autumn days, or the tentative hustle of cacophanous spring, summer brings out the slowpoke in me. Even things that I usually take my time doing, like eating, become inch-by-inch marathons, a wedge of watermelon lasting twenty minutes, a perspiring glass of lemonade lasting through an afternnon, its ice cubes dissolving like I'd want to, in the blinding heat of early afternoon. Avoidance of heat in public, air-conditioned places can only be stood for certain periods of time, in certain locations. The mall, with too many temptations and enormous crowds, won't do on a 100-degree day. Even a park, under the shade of a considerate tree with a good book (right now it's One Hundred Years of Solitude), isn't always the best. The night becomes something else altogether, too. Abbreviated summer pajamas become even more so, blankets are out of the question, and any evening breeze is like a whisper, assuring you that sleep will come eventually. No electricity in this heat leaves me damp, exhausted, and not a little frustrated. I wake up with my head at the foot of the bed, arms thrown above my head, bleary as a child padding into the kitchen for breakfast. The morning isn't so hot yet that it makes me want to bury myself in ice, so I take time to enjoy the sun before it becomes my sworn enemy.

This weekend I saw, count 'em, four movies: Lady in the Water, Clerks II, Monster House, and Superman Returns (if you want opinions, you'll have to go to the Xanga), each a little window into the way I hope to be entertained in the cool dark anonymity of a theatre. Am I a disciple of a mediocre (and perhaps narcissistic) storyteller? A foul-mouthed, cynical indie princess? An eight-year-old, saying "Ew!" when the main characters lean in for a prepubescent kiss? Or just a plain old summer blockbuster sucker? Who can say-- I'm probably most of these, and more, which raises some concern about my mental health as a result of ambient temperature. Thanks to a promotion going on at Ryan's work, all these movies were F-R-E-E, so that was even more of a treat.

Now the power's back on, though. What say I keep trying to live slowly, just out of pure spite?

"Sing, heavenly muse." Yowza.

Why yes, I do believe that's the grossest thing I've heard in a while...

2006-07-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

"Mistable personal lubricant." Enough said. Yecch. Maybe I'm a Puritan, but I doubt it. I don't want to see commercials for lube when the sun is still up, ok, KY?

The Devil Sat Next to Me at "The Devil Wears Prada"

2006-07-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, maybe that's a little harsh. Yesterday I went to go see "The Devil Wears Prada" with Steph (I know, I managed to hold out that long without seeing it, but I knew I had to eventually, chick-lit or no-- I love Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, and Adrian Grenier). Anyway. We went to the cheapie theater, where regualr tickets are something like $6.50, which is pure magic when you're used to paying upwards of $8 to see movies. The only problem with this price is that maybe, just maybe...I got what I paid for, in the form of the woman who was sitting right next to me.

First of all, I have to explain that I have a weird thing about wanting a buffer of at least one seat between me and the person sitting next to me, if they're outside my party. This is probably something unnecessary and neurotic, but I don't care. Just give me the buffer, ok? So this woman's first infraction, besides showing us a few minutes late for the movie, is sitting right next to me. Normal people wouldn't consider this a mortal sin, but I'm crazy and what folowed just made it clearer that this was only the first step in her plan to drive me crazy (crazier). Throughout the movie, she was that one person in the theater that has no concept of "inside voice," so all of the other people were privileged enough to hear things like, "Oh, that's so embarrassing!" at a moment of onscreen humiliation, and, should text appear onscreen, a gracious read-aloud of tidbits such as "New York Mirror." I don't know, maybe she had just learned to read and was showing off. Entertainingly enough, she seemed to oversympathize with the characters, so much so that when one of them got hit by a cab, her arms and legs flew up as if it was she who had been strck. Pure hilarity. However, after about two hours of this, I was ready to go.

If the movie had been any less awesome, I might have said something. But it was great, complete with the clothing montages that one expects in an "ugly duckling" movie, fashion name-dropping, and an opportunity to correctly identify Valentino and Heidi Klum to Steph, who asked at one point, "Is that Michael Kors? You said he was an orange man," to which I had to say, "No...there are a lot of orange men in fashion." Damn you, San Tropez sunless tanner! You've made Oompa Loompas out of creative, vain men (and women...Donatella Versace, I'm looking at you!).

Look forward to the upcoming (and yes, a little late) List of Things I Want to Do This Summer! I know, I can't wait, either.

in memoriam

2006-06-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

At Emily's memorial service last Saturday, our neighbor/pastor, Bob, read this letter on behalf of the siblings. My mom and Dan wrote letters as well, but as I don't have copies of theirs, I'll only be posting mine. I think it's more hopeful than my last post, and says what (I think) all three of us want to communicate to her...not to mention it was fairly cathartic to write, just to get all of it out and expressed. Without further ado...

Dear Emily,
The morning after the night that you passed was so sunny. It seemed wrong, at first, that such a beautifully warm say could follow a night that was so hard for us. After awhile, it made sense, though—of course a day like this would follow the night that we lost you, it seemed only fitting that the world seemed so bright. Heaven had you, one of its brightest stars, in it now, outshining the sun.
It was a day like one of the ones we’d all spent together in Twain Harte one summer, where we rented a boat for one of the last days of our trip. You’d refused to jump into the freezing water, and it finally took a push from Ryan to send you flailing into the lake. After that first plunge, you were fearless. You leaped into that lake more times than any of us could count, and we practically had to drag you out of it at the end of the day, soaking wet and, yes, a little sunburned. That fearlessness was something we saw often as you got older, especially once you were sick. In times when most of us would have been paralyzed, you wanted to enjoy all that you could. Our trips to Disneyland and New York are now some of our best memories, of you shouting in delight in the dark of Space Mountain, or of you smiling as we watched “Hairspray.” You took all that you could have out of those trips: heaping slices of chocolate cake, shopping trips at the world’s biggest Macy’s, and hopping to the front of the line at Grizzly Rapids.
We miss you already. Any sadness, though, is not for you, it’s for us. You’re happier and more comfortable than you’ve been in a long time, but our lives will be different forever, a little more empty. The way our family looks will always be different: the way we fit into a car (or two), the way we sit around a table for dinner, the way we arrange ourselves for a photo. Although our youngest member, you were by no means the smallest presence—the space in our hearts that you hold seems to be the biggest, especially right now, when having you gone seems so new. We were already all older then you, and without you here we feel just a little bit older.
We know that you loved life and us just as much as we loved you. Whether you were taking 15 minutes to unwrap a birthday present or 30 minutes to take a turn at Monopoly (which you would inevitably win, after we all gave up and Steph sold you all her properties for a dollar), you always seemed to want that moment to last just a little longer. You laughed the loudest and longest at Ryan’s jokes, and loved to read almost as much as Megan loved to give you new books to devour. Even when you probably didn’t feel much like smiling, we would almost compete to make you do it, because it proved that you, despite being so sick, could still light up a room.
It’s easy and hard at the same time to miss you, to feel an absence in our lives. It’s easy to miss the sound of your laugh, or the sight of your grin across the table—but the memories of these things happening, at home and in places like New York and Hawaii, remind us that you’ll always be here. I know you’re still watching us sometimes, from somewhere else, your laugh and smile still as warm and bright as that Sunday morning that woke us up after you passed. It’s hard now, not seeing or hearing you anymore, but you’re here where it matters most, in our hearts. There, you can be happy and safe, relaxed and carefree, until we see you again.

Love,
Megan, Ryan, and Stephanie

At a loss

2006-06-05T17:37:00.000-07:00

My stepsister, Emily Rose Haines, died late Saturday night.

Luckily, I had gone home for the weekend-- Mike's sister recently got engaged, and there was an engagement party at his house that I'd planned on attending Saturday afternoon, but I ended up just staying home. Following our trip to New York last week (I can't believe it was just a week ago), Emily's condition had gotten much worse. Already painfully thin and weak, she had deteriorated by Saturday to a state in which she was unable to get herself out of bed and to the bathroom or anyone else. Infantilized, completely unable to do anything for herself. She was moved from her bed in my mom and Dan's room into the living room, where she sat for most of the afternoon before being moved back to their room in the evening. The hospice nurse, who has been coming for the past two days, had talked to my parents and told them that they were looking at a time frame that probably involved days, not hours, but that the illness was coming to an end faster than anyone anticipated.

Since I was at home, I took the opportunity to go out with some friends, to let them know what was happening and blow off some steam, do anything else besides watch my sister die. We were out, and my phone rang. It was my mom, telling me that it was "bad," and that I should get home as soon as I could.

I got home and found my parents, Steph, and the nurse surrounding Emily's bed. She was back in her room, somewhere she wouldn't be scared because it was familiar and full of memories and people that she loved. Her grandparents arrived a little later, and then Ryan got home. When my mom told her that Ryan was there, Emily turned to him and said, over the sound of the oxygen rushing through her mask, "I'll miss you!" None of us could speak at a normal volume, and I heard Ryan whisper, "I'll miss you, too." She wanted us to talk-- not to her, just around her, so she could hear our voices and try to relax. What were we supposed to say? Our minds were so full that they were blank, and full of things unspeakable, rendering us all inarticulate in a moment when all she wanted was for us to talk. The nurse, who I am convinced has the absolute hardest job in the world, helped Emily relax, telling her to visualize a place that was safe, free from worry or pain, somewhere exactly the opposite of the state she's been in for over a year now. Every time the nurse paused, Emily commanded her to keep talking. Eventually, she pulled the oxygen mask off herself, took a few more breaths, and finally stopped breathing.

What was left on the bed was not Emily, it was what she had become because of cancer. Void of personality, it was the shell of what the cancer had consumed-- her once-long, platinum hair was reduced to an ash-blond 1/4-inch growth that hugged her skull. Her cheekbones stood out against her face, and her arms and legs had become useless appendages, too thin to contain any strength. Since her body had turned on her, our only consolation was her personality. Emily had a smile that coud blind you: her eyes lit up, and you would think her face was about to burst, her happiness exploding in front of you. There were a million and one ways to make her smile, to make her laugh, and it became a nearly selfish pursuit. You would want to make her smile just so you could know that it was still her, that even though much of her body was consumed by something malevolently alien, that smile was still there. We saw that smile for the last time a few minutes before she died-- she was struggling with each inhalation, but her eyes flew wide open, and she erupted in the most beaming smile that we'd seen in a long time.

It was as if she knew, as if she had chosen the time that she wanted to go. Even subject to this disease that controlled her body, Emily was in control of her ultimate fate. She was tired, tired of being a prisoner in her own body, tired of fighting with all that she had just to breathe, to do the things that we all take for granted. With people that she loved and was loved by, she chose to do what she wanted-- Emily escaped this world, she escaped the body that had turned against her, and is in that place that the nurse asked her to imagine. She's safe now, she's not worried or afraid.

I just wish I knew what we're supposed to do now.

The thing is...

2006-05-11T00:58:00.000-07:00

...that I've been absent from my online writing outlets for far too long. Anything I can think to write sounds silly, even in m head, which is never a good sign. But I suppose it's become a "use it or lose it"-type thing, where I've become afraid not to write and express and generally emote about everything that's going on. Luckily, because no one ever reads or comments on this, I can write without fear of response, critical or otherwise. Very liberating.

So, here's the thing. My family is changing, drastically and soon. Emily, diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease last May (I found out sometime during Memorial Day weekend, I remember making the call from Mike's apartment), has undergone all manner of treatment in the past year: chemo, radiation, the works. All possible drug families have been tried, and to no avail. Basically, at this point, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop her body from attacking itself, killing her in the process. Understand this: my thirteen year old stepsister is going to be dead in the next two or three months. The shape of my family, the way we make reservations for dinner, the way we fit into cars, every miniscule event that takes place on a daily basis, is fundamentally going to be changed. Forever.

How do you write about this? It seems unreal. This doesn't happen to anyone, right? This isn't happening to me, to my family, to my fucking thirteen-year-old sister. But it is, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Never before have I felt this out of control of a situation, and never before has that lack of control been so critical.

Earlier tonight at work, I was pitching this frequent-shopper Reward card to this man, and told him about accrual programs that come with it. "Who knows, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow...you could not even make it to forty-seven," he responds. Fucking smartass, that's all I needed. "Yeah, you could not even make it to fourteen," I told him, annoyed and ready to throw in his face that whatever sarcastic remark he wanted to make in the place of a simple "no" was going to be met with nothing short of heavy artillery. He asked what I meant, and I explained, eliciting not even a speck of sympathy from this wretched man. Part of me hopes that he does get hit by a bus...or maybe that he doesn't, that he finishes his long and miserable life with another thirty or so years, and maybe sometime along the way realizes that, as much as we make light of the cruel hand of Fate or whatever, some things just aren't fucking fair. And those things are far more profound than having the burden of bookstore coupons, or getting your car scratched in a parking lot.

I'm tired. Of school (which is done, officially, in about four weeks), of work (to which there is no end it sight, so I just have to suck it up), and sometimes of just having to scrape myself out of bed in the morning. Or afternoon, either way.

F(procrastination)

2006-03-19T20:44:00.000-08:00

Finals officially start tomorrow at 3 p.m., for me at least. I have a final in my Spanish literature survey class, one that spans over a century and contains more reading and historical facts than anyone can safely consume in ten weeks. Even better, I'm writing this instead of building an outline that will prepare me well enough to achieve approximately a B (which is what I got on the midterm after studying my ass off). And I'm going to watch Grey's when it comes on in a little over an hour, so yay for procrastination! I am, however, sitting in a good studying environment-- surrounded by no fewer than three girls who seem to be studying very intently. Who knows, though...they could be just as idle as I am, with crossword puzzles and the like. Yep, I'm that exciting.

Basketball has been consuming my life for the last three days-- seriously, every day since Thursday, there's been a game on when I wake up in the morning, and then games all through the day until about 9 or so in the evening. Then there are the ensuing SportsCenters and SCSRs, commentary and what have you, and here it is Sunday and I seemed to have slipped into some sort of basketball wormhole where studying for Spanish finals is the farthest thing from anyone's mind. It's a problem, certainly, but the Bruins are going to the Sweet Sixteen! At which point they will beat Gonzaga by cutting Adam Morrison's hair, thus removing the source of his power (Samson and Delilah, anyone?), and Arron Afflalo will score 80 points. It'll be amazing, just you wait.

After finals is spring break, which is still up in the air because I have no idea when or if I'm going to be able to go home because I start work on Tuesday at Borders, at which point I'll receive my schedule for my ensuing work hours. This means that I could end up spending the entire week in LA, all alone in my apartment. If you're reading this, and you'll be in LA, and you actually know enough about me to be able to contact me, please do so because I'll probably have some free time to go out once I finish doing fun things like dusting the apartment and counting the hairs on my arm. Otherwise, I'll get to go home! Which is always nice because of family and dog and all that, and I should be able to get some hours at the Big Green (my other, now secret-from-Borders job), not to mention the good times to be had with Mike's friends-that-have-become-my friends (even though I'm pretty sure that I won't be calling most of them anytime soon for some solo hanging-out time, we get along fabulously).

After spring break is spring quarter, my last ten weeks of study at UCLA. Writing that is horrifying enough, so I can't even begin to communicate my terror once I factor in the way that quarters seem to whiz by in a way that makes them seem more like 50 minutes instead of 50 days of class.

How did I get here? What have I been doing for four whole years? Ugh, I feel a list coming on, but don't hold your breath. I have a lot of studying to do.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

2006-03-13T17:26:00.000-08:00

...bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. That's right, kids! In order to convince myself and others (all two of you that read this) that I'm not just a little rain cloud, pessimistic and otherwise cynical and overcritical of the world in general, I'm making another list of things that I love, or that bring me inordinate amounts of pleasure. Here goes nothin'.

Text message conversations that get me through two-hour lectures. Hell, text messages that get me through nine-hour workdays.

Slippers. I have two pairs right now, ideal for shuffling around and muttering to oneself. Also come in handy because my feet are perpetually cold, a problem that no mere sock can solve.

Pleasure reading. Better yet, taking pleasure in something that I have to read, which makes school all the more interesting.

Words that sound better in Spanish than in English, like interesante and hemistiquio and estornudo.

Puns. Surprise! I'm a nerd. They're groaners, but the funniest thing that happened to me at word today involved a student pointing out part of a comic book where a guy gets hit in the face with a pie and a "pi" symbol. She got it, and I wanted to hug her-- but we can't touch the kids! (A safe policy, of course, but I prefer 'em a little older)

Bed. Really, anything related to bed: sleeping, not sleeping, everything in between. I've had a big bed since I've been sleeping in a big-girl bed (dorms and HOP excluded), and it's been my command center for about as long.

Car-singing. Come on, you know you do it. Even at "full volume," I'm not that loud, so I like to think that the fact that I don't really edit my performances when I have passengers is ok. Which it is, right? Sometimes I even throw in a little seated car-dancing. You can't beat that shit.

Unexpected collaborations. Crossword puzzles, getting someone else to pour milk on your cereal-- I might actually be talking about chivalry here, but I'd like to think I have some function in social interactions, other than "sit here and look pretty." All right, not collaboration. Just plain sharing, almost anything. I have approximately four or five boundaries, but am alarmingly open.

My iTunes "Sleep" playlist. So many other functions, of course, but best when one is trying to drift off with a minimum of effort. Highlights: Jeff Buckley, Aqualung, and Norah Jones. It's either sleeping or making-out music, and it's less cheesy to have a playlist called "Sleep."

I quit!

2006-03-13T17:03:00.000-08:00

Sometime around the Oscars, I decided that I was going to quit celebrities. Yes, in the "I wish I could quit you, celebrities" fashion. Let me clarify: I appreciate and love movies, I love the work that actors and actresses do, and I think it's immensely useful in terms of growth, interrogation, and expression of culture and ideas and what have you, not to mention entertainment and making me laugh until I ache and am afraid to take a sip of whatever I'm drinking for fear of losing it the hard way, through my nose. What I do not love, however, is the cult of celebrity that seems to have replaced any concern for quality entertainment-- I was going to be more specific and say that it's a particularly American problem, but that definitely isn't true and I don't think it's fair for me to accuse the US or any other country of being utterly soulless. This celebrity bullshit...it's just...old. I don't know if it's the proliferation of technology that makes us feel as if we know these people that are on television and in movies and, especially in LA, up our asses all the time, filling up even the local news in place of actual news and events (I know this is LA, and this is where a lot of them live, thus making celebrity news technically "local," but there has to be something else going on, right?). So my proposal is this: I'm doing my best to swear off the cult of celebrity, stepping off the wagon of "Nick and Jessica to reunite!" and "It's true-- Nicole Richie weighs 53 pounds!" and "Celebrities are just like us: they breathe air and eat stuff, from time to time!" This means no more tabloid-y magazines (which is an exercise in masochism at times, with US Weekly sitting on my coffee table, its gossipy siren song blaring in big, yellow letters), no more "Who wore what?" shows, and general avoidance of the E! Channel. So far, it's going well, but I have to admit that I've sneaked the occasional peek at Pink is the New Blog, lest I be out of the Britney Spears/Kevin Federline loop (word has it that yes, he's still disgusting).
Along with this "quitting" of celebrities has come its semi-corollary, avoidance of MTV. I used to love it, to revel in things like "Date My Mom" and "Made," but now that there's a new season of "The Real World," I think it's high time that I got my ass out of there. Now that I'm officially older than most of the cast of that show-- which is depressing in itself-- I'm more than a little tired of watching them screech around a well-equipped house, binge-drinking, and generally being obnoxious even though their duties while living in the house appear to consist of working in a tanning salon (one of the world's most disgusting places, and why a freaking tanning salon, for the love of God? Remember when they had semi-interesting jobs at radio stations and working with kids at community centers? I think MTV has decided to drop the facade of usefulness when it comes to employing the RW kids) and bitching at each other or hooking up, whatever creates the most unrest. Would people watch the show if they all got along? Probably not...it wouldn't make the best television. But aren't these people on the show thinking, somewhere in their addled minds, "Hey, I have to live with these people. Maybe I should act like a normal person, and try to get them to like me rather than being an obnoxious asshole..."? Apparently not. Another beef I have with MTV is the equally reprehensible show, "Parental Control," where a girl's parents try to find a new boyfriend for their daughter because they hate the current one so much. It just makes me uncomfortable, all that tension onscreen with no hint or promise of resolution-- not in real life, anyway. And I'd like to think that the people on these shows are real people, who don't cease to exist outside their 30 minutes of fame. That, I think, is one of the more troubling parts of reality tv, probably the most popular genre on MTV. Just think, too...in its original conception, MTV had something to do with music. What happened?
Conclusions? I feel like I'm about 30 seconds away from packing up after graduation and moving to Vermont, just to get away from all this celebrity shit. I could listen to nothing but NPR there, have syrup-chugging contests with my new flannel-shirted friends, and shop solely from the LL Bean and Land's End catalogues. What a life.

Home-bed advantage

2006-02-27T21:26:00.000-08:00

As is the case for most girls, I greatly enjoy anytime I get to have the home-bed advantage-- which is not all that often when you have a significant other who continually has the better living situation (I live in an impenetrable sorority house, he lives in an apartment; I live in an apartment, he has his own room...just not fair). The home-bed advantage is most important for girls, especially when the alternative bed/dwelling belongs to a male, because...
-a girl likes to have her toiletries and such at her disposal. This is not to say that boys don't have male-specific products that they might like to use, nor does it mean that they should just suck it up and use the Herbal Essences that lives in their girlfriend's shower. Neither does is preclude the possibility of a girl keeping the necessaries at said boyfriend's place (which works, but not as well. The B-team of makeup and toiletries, etc. has to live at the home-away-from-home, and is a sad substitute for the real thing). Simply put, it's better for both parties if the girl has at her disposal all the products and equipment that keep her looking, smelling, and feeling fresh...which is why the boy probably likes her in the first place. Everyone wins!
-generally, girls have nicer beds. Now, "nicer" is one of the least descriptive adjectives in the world, but I think it fits in this case. Hear (I suppose "read" is a better word in this situation) me out: while my current boyfriend has, hands down, a more amazing mattress and comfier sheet set than I've had in four years, his belong to a twin bed. Which is the bottom on a set of bunk beds. Which can lead to unfortunate head injuries in the heat of passion. I'm just saying. I know not all boys sleep in the bottom bunk, or any bunk at all for that matter, but let's also consider the composition of the bed in question. Was it made in the last week? When were the sheets last washed? What is that stain? Exactly. Just as boys will never understand the abundance of pillows on the average girl bed, girls will never understand why the flat sheet can't get in there and play a few innings.
-specific to my own situation is the roommate arrangement. I'd like to think that we're past the "having quiet sex while a roommate sleeps" stage, so the fact that I have a roommate shouldn't matter in terms of whoopie-making. My roommates are fun, and enjoy the Boy's company, and what guy doesn't want four lovely ladies laughing at all his jokes? On the other hand, there's the frat house. The boys, for the most part, are a lovable/tolerable bunch, but... they play basketball (right outside the window!) until about 2 in the morning. They aren't fans of "aiming" in the bathroom. They aren't appropriately concerned when their house begins to smell like Miller Lite and feet. And they can't be bothered to secure the doors to their bathroom stalls with anything more than magnets! Magnets! Come on!

This post ended up sounding a lot more complainy than I'd planned, and I really don't dislike the HOD as much as it would seem. Truly, any night that I get to spend with MB is generally wonderful...but sometimes a girl misses her moisturizer and hair serum.

Time to make the B.A.'s!

2006-02-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I forget what a huge degree-mill I'm attending. Yes, there are a million and one ways to make one's UCLA (or university in general) experience unique and wonderful and special, something that means those four-plus years amount to more than a piece of paper that you can hang on the office wall. However, there are definitely moments when the grade-grubbing, materially focused underbelly of education appears, and one such instance was today in my Shakespeare lecture.

I really enjoy the professor, mostly because he sees the humor, historical importance, and overall greatness that is Shakespeare (on whom I have a huge academic crush. This is true for Keats as well, despite his sickliness). Additionally, I think I'd be happy to spend the rest of my life as a student, despite the intermittent stress. I like the rhythm of a school year, the crescend leading into finals, and the relief of walking out of a room knowing that I've utterly demolished an exam, only to have the whole thing start again in a few weeks. I love learning for learning's sake, and am perfectly happy to learn about things I'll most likely never need to know except in Trivial Pursuit-- and I am an English major, after all, perhaps one of the least immediately practical concentrations one could pursue. This said, I'm consequently annoyed when I overhear people questioning the validity of a lecture or the proficiency of a professor, especially when I've been just short of enthralled for the past hour and a half. You see, anonymous people sitting behind me, it's important to realize the effects of editors on Shakespeare, because meanings can turn on a single word or stage direction. For the love of God, recognize this! It's supposed to be important to you, right? You didn't fill in the bubble next to "English" as a mistake when you were choosing a major, riiiiight?

Call me nerdy (because I like it), but I can't understand those with a need to practicalize everything. Sometimes you learn things that just are, and are destined to sit in your brain forever, only to be brought out in moments of heated debate or board game dominance. The degree isn't the point, it's just what happens to be at the end.

M is for made-up holidays

2006-01-31T22:51:00.000-08:00

In general, there are two camps when it comes to Valentine's Day: the one that loves it to death, painstakingly planning out every last detail so that the actual day is a veritable explosion in pink and red, with sugar, confetti, and enough hearts to clear a transplant wing, and the one whose collective eyes narrow in digust at the former group. Is it worse to be chirpy and slightly obsessed with this holiday or scornful and derisive of everyone who is? Let's examine... Looking at the members of either group, certain distinctions can be seen, for instance the relationship status of the majority of a group's members-- the grinches are single, perhaps having had dismal Valentine's Days in the past (whether attached or alone with Ben and Jerry's on that fateful day), while those who can't wait for the day to come are, for the most part, in relationships (or just generally like distributing Valentines to their friends, family, and coworkers, which after the age of 9 or so becomes a bit much).

Personally, I'm closer to the chirpy end of the spectrum, truth be told. As caustic as I may be in my daily life, there's something about a day constructed so that people can express whatever romantic feelings they might have (or even appreciation for whatever forms of love exist in their lives) that, well...warms my heart. "But we should be appreciative every day!" This is an argument that I've heard, and I'm sure everyone has either heard or given it at some point in their lives-- the problem is, we don't appreciate these things and people every day. That's not how it works. You (this is the editorial "you") should know this, It's-Just-A-Pagan-Holiday-Co-opted-By-Romans-and-Then-Hallmark Jones!

Also, I've consistently had in-relationship Valentine's Days for the past eight years (yes, that's kind of disgusting, but it just worked out that way), but have not once had a really great one. It's not a certain amount of money spent, or lavish preparation that I think would really make for a truly wonderful Valentine's Day, just a little extra consideration. Pretend it's my birthday, but for both of us-- so we both get to have fun and eat cake and stay up late watching cartoons or Animal Planet, as we are so wont to do. I'd be happy to receive flowers (something that has yet to happen in this particular relationship), make out for awhile, and spend a World of Warcraft-free evening together. Will it happen? We'll see.

Oh, and what should I do? The romantic-holiday muse is being evasive.

Alone time

2006-01-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

He's right. Everyone needs the alone time. I'm having an odd weekend/day in which I momentarily forget these things, and it makes me behave like a child, which is never that attractive.

Lauren and Sasha were gone this weekend to Vegas, and Jenna went home to take care of her dogs, so it was just me and Lindsay in our apartment-- very quiet, ample available alone time. I took advantage of some of it by being lazy and reading everything besides what I'm supposed to be reading (which, at the moment, includes Howard's End and some Spanish stuff), along with the required viewing of Food Network (dare I make the lamb that Rachael Ray did today? It looked so delicious and easy!). There were social moments, too, but in general I suppose I feel like this weekend nevery really took off. You know, those periods of time when, for whatever reason, there's just no momentum? That's kind of what I feel like the last two days have been. Odd, at best, and tragically lethargic at worst (there may have been a few "Wait, this isn't what I do. This isn't me" moments when I was basically a complaining child, but what's a weekend without a good tantrum?

On the subject of alone time, I feel I should mention that the majority of my time in high school was "alone time." It got to be a joke in my family: Dan called me "House Mouse" because I would shut myself in my room from the time I got back from school to the time I had to leave to go to school again the next day, with brief breaks for work, showering, and eating. Looking back on it, I'm a little annoyed at the nickname, which I think was unaware of my motivation for my self-imposed solitary confinement. It wasn't that I was as timid or antisocial as "House Mouse" suggests, but rather a desire to be in my own little world, where I could moderate the environment in terms of activity, noise (I discovered some of my favorite music during this period, and it always reminds me of very specific activities and time periods), and occupants. I like being social, I enjoy being around other people, but sometimes (most of the time, between the ages of about thirteen and eighteen) I'd prefer to be left alone. I look back on this with equal amounts of nostalgia and pride, because even though I'm sure I missed out on a lot of the social aspects of high school, I'd be a completely different person...and I like me, most of the time.

The moral of the story (this one that I'm essentially telling myself because of my pitiful number of readers) is, I guess, not to take alone (or "together") time for granted. Each is equally important, and the sum of all this time I how everyone is able to become who he or she "really" is (yeah, math isn't really my strongest suit). Oh, and remember that anything to the tune of, "I just really want to be left alone" isn't an insult, and probably isn't anything personal. As Stanley Tucci says in "Big Night" (which I really only saw once, but this has stuck with me), "Sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone."

One and done

2006-01-13T17:17:00.000-08:00

First week is over, and the weathermen are saying that rain is coming, so good news on all fronts. I don't know if it's because this is the first week in a long time that I've been in school and unemployed, or if it's just that the reality of this quarter's academic dificulty hasn't sunk in yet, but I'm feeling very...calm. Everything, for the first time in awhile, is going smoothly: school isn't killing me (yet), I'm talking regularly with my family, everyone's healthy (even the chemo recipient, whose counts are climbing and still manages to be the most amazing twelve-year-old I know), I'm eating well (and carrying around apples and baggies of baby carrots to make sure I do so is really dorky, but I'm willing to be a dork if it means less fat-assed-ness), significant other is still wonderful, and I'm generally excited about my classes (even the Spanish ones which, unlike the ones last quarter, are conducted entirely in Spanish). I'm sure this feeling will pass, so I felt like I had to document it in order to have a concrete reminder that there was a time when everything was ok (not that I expect my life to go spiraling out of control anytime soon, but it can't hurt, right?).

I received a really great compliment today from an ex-TA, via one of my roommates who has him as a TA this quarter. I told her to mention that we were friends, just as a name-drop type thing, and because I really enjoyed having this particular TA. She mentioned me, and relayed that he said he really enjoyed having me in his section, even though I didn't speak much, which he figured was just because I was more perceptive than the others in the class. It's probably kind of self-aggrandizing to even be writing about it, and I don't want to be interpreted as a show-off jackass (because really, I'm probably just a regular jackass, minus the show-off part), but I felt really validated, because I don't usually talk that much in class, because I hate to feel like I'm talking just to make noise-- I hate it when others make what seem like obvious comments, just so they can say they participated in the class. Really, don't say something because you want to be visible, say something because you've thought about it, which means yo can articulate it fully and argue about it. Besides this, he complimented my writing, which is always nice. Aside from a nearly pathological fear of seeming like an idiot, or someone who really has no business thinking they have anything interesting to say, writing professionally really is something I'd consider...but I have to convince myself of this before I try to take it anywhere.

Wow, that's the closest I've come to fully putting that wish out into the universe. I'm a firm believer that if you actually say in some way what you want, you'll eventually get it-- it's good to have reminders of these desires, to be able to look back at what you thought was really important, because sometimes you're even right. And that's the best kind of validation.

Winter, indeed.

2006-01-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

Apparently, southern California missed the memo about it being winter, because it's absolutely warm here-- I might have even broken a sweat wandering around Westwood today, looking for food, work, and readers. I only ended up finding the food, and sat outside Whole Foods waiting for sunburn to set in as I ate pasta salad. This might sound a little odd, but I'm annoyed that it's not a little more wintry here, but then again perpetual sun seems perfect for Los Angeles, which is generally sunny in every sense of the word. And that's what I find annoying. Hey, LA! Can you possibly ever be anything but a big fucking ray of sunshine? Yes, you're pretty, and you're full of pretty, pretty people, but what else is there? I may be anthropomorphizing this a little (or a lot), but I just don't see character in the weather of LA-- it all seems like permutations of warmth. Oh, except when it rains for about two weeks out of the year, and every weather segment of the local news is Storm Watch 2006! and no one goes to class (seriously, I've seen people skip midterms because of rain). Anyway, ew. Especially coming back from the wonderful Bay Area, where it's nice and chilly (it's not like I'm demanding snow or anything, I just need to know that there's something other than "Jesus, it's so freaking sunny!"), this non-winter Winter quarter seems anything but.

In which I am destitute and mildly insane

2005-12-11T21:58:00.000-08:00

My recovery from last week was gradual, but is finally complete with the three-plus hours I spent in the kitchen today capping off a three-day stint of pure relaxation.

Friday plans to have dinner with Mr. B were thwarted by a Shabbot dinner, so I satisfied myself with a sumptuous dinner of appetizers and side dishes at Chili's with Candice. Our waiter was of the non-annoying variety, and I think he thought we were a little odd for not getting any entrees-- but such is our way, eating a lot and looking like we're eating very little. Buoyed by our satisfactory dinner, we headed to Brew Co., the Westwood bar of choice (given that there are two acceptably bar-only places in Westwood, and the alternative is Maloney's, where I'm always either groped or just too crammed into a crappy little dark place after waiting too long in line, the eventual choice is always Brew Co. That, and they have a Beer of the Month that's $3 for a pint, which rocks my face). We were determined to be super social, and succeeded: we knew a total of about 6 people that came in-- on a fairly slow night-- and ended up getting free stuff from the bartender and this theater guy who'd just finished a three-night run of his one-man show. He and his friends were entertaining, as theater guys tend to be, but soon I was drunk (yes, alcohol, I get it) and ready to go. I walked to the HOD, awoke Mr. B, demanded attention, and fell asleep to Cartoon Network. Surely a successful Friday.

Saturday was a slow starter, in which I woke up earlier than he did and proceeded to neaten up, domestic OCD goddess that I am. Of course, I climbed back into bed when he woke up, so cleaning was abbreviated. Sepi's and basketball were afternoon activities, and then I went to do the last five hours of my law firm job, which I wish was more than just temporary because it paid about $2 more per hour than the Big Green does.

I did my Sunday morning ritual today, in which I imagine that I'm a real grownup and walk down to the Noah's to sit and have coffee and bagels with the LA Times. Something about breakfast and an enormous newspaper makes me feel like I'm already living the life I want to have, I don't know why. Indolence consumed my afternoon, then I spent about three hours in the kitchen, making beef stew, baked rigatoni, and chocolate revel bars, all of which ended satisfactorily. I can't seem to get started on the reflection journals that I need to do for my Spanish poetry volunteer project, but they're only going to end up being about five pages, which I can probably do in my sleep.

The problem with being aware that I can perform exceptionally well in high-pressure writing situations is that I rely on this skill, maybe too heavily. I'll wait until the absolute last minute because I know that I can get it done, and it'll be rewarded with some comment about how "beautifully" I write, or how "stylish" it is. Apparently style counts for a lot when you're an English major. And apparently I have it in spades. Good, but in a bad way.

Only the journals and two finals-- one on Tuesday, one on Thursday-- stand between me and home. I have three more shifts at the Big Green in Westwood, and plan to call the BG at home and an elementary school down here for employment opportunities...all in hopes I won't just be "making ends meet" when the end of the month comes. Being poor sucks.

Premature Aging

2005-09-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

To the naked eye, I appear to be a normal 21-year-old. I enjoy a good night out with my nearest and dearest, getting a little more than tipsy, and enjoying what little irresponsibility I'm able to get away with, usually in the form of skipping a full day of classes in favor of a nice day of shopping. But those that know me, know better. I'm actually approaching something closer to about 35.

Observe: on a recent drive down to Los Angeles, I purchased two magazines to read while Mike drove down the ever-ugly and boring I-5. The magazines in question? Marie Claire and Real Simple. The first, a nod to my youth and fashion obsession, as well as my hobby of living above my means/wishing that I could do so. The second, I was informed, meant for an audience more than a decade older, whose concerns are not so much making it to the Monday night meeting at their sorority houses so much as remembering to pick up all seven children from their various sports and music lessons. And I can't help my love for this magazine-- it's attractively laid out, full of cool tips for de-stressing and decorating, and even comes with perforated flashcards in the back, so that you can review what you've learned from the magazine! Amazing, I tell you.

Also submitted for review by all three of my readers as evidence of my premature (mental, at least) aging are my inordinate interest in home decor and cooking, as well as my love of music by James Taylor, Carole King, and the "singers and standards" channel of our digital cable music programming. Oh, and sometimes I enjoy an hour or two of Lifetime (don't tell anyone).

P.S. As I write this, a woman on the Food Network is making a sculpture out of cheddar. Cheese. Ugh.

I left my heart...

2005-08-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

Things I Love will be postponed until I have the wherewithal to actually compile a list, and I hate the idea of following up one list with another. I will, instead, do some semi-recounting of yesterday, together with some stuff that happened today (oh, and how much do you love that complete rejection of the "show not tell" idea in writing?).

Spent yesterday in San Francisco after a lunch in Oakland with Mike, which was nice. It felt like a day outside my life-- like I was someone other than myself, someone who was cosmopolitan and more independent, someone who routinely walks city streets and feels at home, rather than an almost-done-with college student who's been sleeping on an AeroBed at home for the last two months. I wandered from Market and Powell down to the Ferry Building, listening to my iPod and stopping in at some stores like Anthropologie that are barely representative of my life as it is now, but more like something I daydream about when I'm sitting in the Home Decor section of Borders. Once at the Embarcadero, I stopped into this restaurant and had a glass of wine and some mussels, something I wish I could make a habit of. Watching people pass, sipping wine and checking my phone for text messages, I felt like some future version of myself. This is what I want to do, this is where I want to be. Just this. This would be okay.

The night was spent at SBC, watching the Giants lose, but enjoying the ballgame nonetheless. There's something about baseball that makes it more romantic than other sporting events (yes, I had to completely girl out about sports, but at least I'm one of those girls that knows what's going on during most games)-- maybe it's the suspense, maybe it's the rush of emotion and cheering that comes with each burst of action, maybe I've seen Bull Durham too many times, but I've always associated baseball with sex. Really great, fulfilling sex that's intimate and familiar and comfortable. Relationship sex. Let's not even get started on the ballpark food-- some of the best at SBC, with garlic fries (because there's something about making out with someone whose breath is as rank as yours), the obligatory hot dogs, and smell of cinnamon toasted almonds and walnuts wafting amid the shouts of, "He's a bum!" There's nothing better than baseball.

Thanks, I'm not hungry

2005-08-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

Being home for this long makes me feel like I did back in high school. I don't think it's fair or correct to blame my feelings or any personality shifts on a place or group of people-- I have to accept some sort of personal responsibility for what I feel and do, of course-- but it's easier and easier to access the person I was back in high school the more time I spend here at home.

In high school, I was not a happy person. I smiled a lot, and did well in school, and had friends, participated in normal teenager activities, and was a complete mess. I don't know what it was that's changed in the last three years, but I'd like to think that it has to do with being able to assess and establish who I am, and who I want to be, without feeling like I had to perform whatever role would make those around me happiest and most comfortable. Yes, I've found another group of friends, another group of coworkers, different teacher that might have just served as substitutes for the ones that were there before, but I'd like to think that I took my "going away to school" experience and used it as an opportunity to make myself more closely resemble the person I'd prefer to be.

Since I've been in college, I've done so many things for the first time, like:
...living with an unknown roommate and forming one of the best friendships I've ever had with her, thus turning a potentially miserable year-long "situation" into something much better.
...having a "thing" with a foreign man. Who had a girlfriend. While I had a boyfriend. Yes, it was a bad idea. Yes, I was in my first month of college. And when he asked me to read him poems I'd written because he liked my accent, I didn't remember how to say no.
...actually reading and studying for a class, which was completely unnecessary in high school.
...actively avoiding attending class when I decided it'd be much more worthwhile to sleep, eat, or watch "Trading Spaces."
...meeting, in an airplane on the way back from Thanksgiving break, a guy with whom I would have a month-and-a-half long relationship (my shortest, by the way) and eventually dump over AIM (yes, I'm cruel).
...joining a sorority, something I thought I'd never do. And probably one of my best decisions made in college, where I've met all four of my roommates this year, a group of girls that would forgive my long absences with weekends full of television and BBC minseries based on Jane Austen novels.
...going on a first date on Valentine's Day with someone who would, after a little over a year, break up with me on a tennis court in the middle of the night. I was a mess for a little over a month (a really big mess), and still get a little uneasy when I spot him on campus.
...being drunk. Yes, I was one of those high school kids who went to one party in four years, mostly because no one had any idea who I was, and those that knew me were not the sort to have raging parties. As a corollary to this drunkennes, I must mention my sporadic intoxicated smoking habit, which branches into sobriety at times. Oops.
...gaining about twenty pounds. Due to abundant dining halls, late-night eating, and a lower-stress environment, college is the location of what we can call my "unfortunate weight gain." Yes, now I realize exactly how thin I was in high school. Understand that this was because I was not a happy individual, and food just tastes better when you're in good spirits.
...because of a lack of common sense, walking home (the long way) with a boy who ended up being less scummy than most others out that night that blackout ended last fall. One whom I've watched play hours of X-Box, whose apartment I've cleaned, and who graciously allowed me to sleep in his could-like bed, instead of alone in my prison-issue bottom bunk at the sorority house. And one who just might make me break my rule about saying it first. Maybe.

College is the best thing that ever happened to me. Because I'm such a big "what if..." person, I have to wonder if things might have been different if I'd gone to another school-- what would happen if I'd been presented with different choices, situations, individuals? I'd be different, but how different? How much can one person change, within the bounds of still remaining, at their core, "themselves"?

I could go on, but at this point it's pretty much like chasing my tail.

do it for the kids

2005-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

In my weaker moments, I've been known to partake in some MTV programming that brings out the more hateful side of my personality. Maybe not exactly hateful, and I'd like to think that it's their problem, and not mine. Take, for example, the show about sweet-sixteen parties that have larger budgets than I expect my wedding will have. I appreciate that some people have a lot more money than I do. Whatever, money. I like it, I have none of it, let's move on. However, I'd like to imagine that those with such cash aren't as ruffian-like as those who are so woefully without it-- and that the parents of these fortunate soon-to-be-sixteen year olds have the ability to exert some sort of control over their offspring.

This is not the case with the show I was watching due to boredom and plain morbid curiosity. The parents (mom, at least) aren't absent, they're there for the purchase of the ridiculously expensive dress, to arrange the rental of the venue for the party, to buy the silly-looking fan invitations. And they're just standing there as their child calls them names, berates them for not creating the most perfect "sweet sixteen" party ever. I don't know what my bigger problem is: watching these kids yell at their parents with no reponse, much less admonition, or watching enormous parties being planned for people who are less than a quarter into their lives and have earned none of the money that goes into this planning. Yes, I've had some birthday parties in my life. I may have even had a clown at one, when I was about five. However, I can safely say that no more than $200 has ever been spent on celebrating any of my twenty-one birthdays-- and I'm fine with that. I'm a big "time and place" girl, a firm believer in celebrations that are appropriate to the occasion. That is, if you're sixteen (which, today, means nothing except you might be getting your provisional driver's license), there's just no reason that you should be getting some huge blowout. You'll thank your parents for it someday-- fewer chances for you to prove (on camera, in the case of these kids) what an immature brat you are.

I'm not sure how I managed to muster such outrage at these kids, but that's what days of watching MTV, waiting for your shift at Starbucks, will do for you. I really should stick to reading.

Dear Kate Spade

2005-08-10T02:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Kate Spade,
Let me first say that I enjoy all your work, though I cam currently lacking the means to buy much of it. I think my next purchase will probably be your fragrance, which smells pleasantly of gardenias, something many women feel is a smell reminscient of the elderly, but strikes me as classic. Anyway, to the point of my correspondence: my utter admiration of the frames that you designed, the glasses which are now, more often than not, perched on my face. Not only do I find them aesthetically appealing, but they hold the weak-prescriptioned lens that eases the eye-strain-related headaches that I get when I'm not wearing them. I have also received much positive feedback from both ladies and gentleman, even when I wear them at work and look otherwise disgusting. Just this very evening, I was making a raspberry creme Frappuccino and, upon handing it off to the odd man who would order such a thing, received a compliment on said glasses-- my momentum, both physical and mental, was traveling in the opposite direction, and unfortunately I was unable to express gratitude for this comment, but you get the point. My truest thanks to you, Kate, for designing these glasses. You've proved the old saying untrue: boys do make passes at girls that wear glasses.
Best,
Megan

___________________________________________________________________

Sidebar and P.S. It's PMJ's birthday today. I hate that I remember this.

...imagine you're in the middle of the ocean...

2005-08-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

I just got back from eight glorious days in Hawaii. My family (the Brady Bunch, I've named the six-strong clan) rented a house on the North Shore of Oahu, near Haliewa, and it was absolutely amazing. Besides being able to wake up every day in an actual bed (a vacation from my AeroBed that I'm not really enjoying while at home) and wander out to the balcony overlooking the beach, I loved every second of all the stuff we got to do-- right after I reminded myself to stop being such a smart-ass and start enjoying paradise. We went to the Dole plantation (meh, I guess now I can say I'vee been there), into Waikiki during two of the days (we went on a catamaran ride during which I was punped full of $2 mai tais...thanks, Mom!), hiked up to Wahiawa Falls, into Waimea Bay, to the Polynesian Cultural Center to learn about the natives from...Mormons, and into nearby Haliewa for a couple days to browse shops and eat shave ice.
About the second day into the trip, I began to wish that I'd brought my laptop with me. Being in a setting like that, where I don't have to worry about schedules being entirely burnt out from working 50+ hour weeks, was a nice break for my body, but I was definitely full of things that I had to write about. What's left of it now that I'm home is mostly scrap, but I'll bring out what's left, for all four of my readers.

Last year, and even for a little while in my second year at UCLA, various English courses have had segments devoted to the sublime in poetry and such during the Romantic period. This was amazing to me-- I finally had a word to express the way I feel when I'm near or in the ocean. As neurotic as I am, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that I'm a little creeped out by the fact that the water I swim in is not filtered, chlorinated, and critter-free. The slightest brush of anything foreign against my toes will send me paddling in the opposite direction, but I still love the ocean. It makes me feel tiny, bobbing up and down in that vast puddle that covers more area than land. The awe-inspiring fear, I guess, is partly me being crazy, but may be a little bit of what Kant et al. were talking about when they described the fear that comes with observation of something in nature so unfathomably powerful. Few other things, I think, can inspire that response.

Sometimes

2005-07-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I just cannot believe the way my stepdad talks to my mom. Her response to him bellowing at her during an argument is to spit back just as much venom, but it's always amazing to me that she allows him to talk to her like that. I understand arguments-- hell, growing up with my parents living in the same house until I was about 12, it seems that I've heard more than my share of shouting matches. But it would seem logical that, in a second marriage, one might have a better idea of what one wanted and didn't want in a relationship. I know that I'm not one of the involved parties, but am routinely forced to listen to a) the argument itself, or b) the venting that follows when I talk to my mom the next morning, so I feel like I have a fairly good idea what's going on.

It's definitely a weird thing to observe, especially with Emily being sick, my mom and stepdad talking about it. I'll assume most of the talking is done behind closed doors, so as to be kept confidential from the other kids, so what I hear is them fighting about when Emily should go to bed, and whether her activity level is going to affect the readings from tests that will be run later this week. I think, for this situation, my mom is doing a great job of being a supportive and caring parent to a child that isn't biologically hers, and with whom she has previously had a somewhat strained relationship. Of course all of our relationships with the girls have changed since they've been living with us, but I think the most remarkable change has to be between my mom and Emily-- I see them interacting and becoming closer, with my mom taking her to most of her treatment appointments and being present each step of the way.

I'm beginning to understand my mom more, now that I have more perspective on her-- being away from home has allowed me the figurative and literal distance I needed to realize that she isn't the crazy lady I sometimes thought she was while I was in high school. But sometimes I just can't understand a lot of things about the way she communicates and reacts to certain situations...

Families are so weird.

Independence, indeed

2005-07-05T22:42:00.000-07:00

Got back today from a trip to Tahoe, taken with Mike and six of his friends to one of said friends' cabin. We left on Saturday, four of us-- Mike, me, his friend, and his friend's girlfriend-- drove up to Tahoe, got there that evening, and, after much deliberating and list-making, shopped for and made huge amounts of food for dinner. Sunday and Monday were great, we spent both days on the beach, managing not to get too sunburned, and even marginally enjoyed sleeping in a tent behind the cabin because there was no room for all of us to sleep in the cabin. All in all, it was an amazing trip. I got to spend more time with Mike over the weekend than I have since we've come home from school, and it was really...nice. I love hanging out with his friends-- it's not the kind of thing where I feel like an outsider because of old inside jokes, or because they don't like me or because I feel weird around them.

The best thing about going up to Tahoe, besides getting to spend time with amazing people in a gorgeous place, was that there was little conflict with parents over me actually going on the trip. I don't know if it's that they've finally realized that I'm 21 and at least semi-responsible, or if it's just because there's so much other stuff going on, family-wise, that they just decided not to interrogate me, but my mom and stepdad-- for the first time-- did not make me sweat out whether or not they were going to let me go on the trip. Yay, way to spend Independence Day weekend!

Work starts tomorrow at one of my two summer jobs: I'll be working as an aide in a primary special ed class. It pays ridiculously well (considering what I've been making at the Big Green), and should be an amazing experience, considering that I'm pretty dead set on this whole "being a teacher" thing. The only drawback is that I have to wake up ass-early in order to leave with my mom, the principal of the summer school where my job is, and the one who got me the job. I loves me some nepotism! I'm excited and nervous...kind of like a "first day of school" experience, all over again.

Being home

2005-06-27T00:20:00.000-07:00

There are things that I like about being home, and things that I definitely do not like. I enjoy that I'm able to spend time with my family whenever I want, I don't have to worry (for the most part) about supplying my own food, and I have a car (provided that I make the necessary arrangements with my brother beforehand. I don't like that I have to ask permission/debrief my Mom and Dan before I go out, face their disapproval when I do something that they don't like, and worry about cleaning and maintenance of parts of the house that I don't even use (laundry that isn't mine, etc.). It's harder now than it was when I lived at home during high school and such because I know what it's like to live away from home-- there's the perspective gained knowing that there's much more security, both wanted and unwanted, when I'm living at home. There's also the knowledge that I can survive while I'm living on my own; I'm still monetarily dependent on them, but I'm the one making sure that I don't gravely injure myself or forget to eat or anything.

I think the main problem I'm having is that they don't know who I've become in the last three years. Yes, I do think that I've changed at least a little in the time that I've been spending the majority of my time living away from home in LA, and I'd like to believe these have been changes for the better-- that is, changes that have indicated some evolution of my character in a positive direction. The person that my Mom and Dan see when they look at me, I feel, is the self-centered, sullen, can't-escape-the-surliness Megan of high school, someone that I'll admit to being when pressed. I used to be an absolute pain in the ass. I'd like to think that I'm not so much, anymore. Sure, I feel like there's still an undercurrent of attitude, but I feel a little more self-conscious when it comes to the ways that my behavior might be affecting other people. Of course, there's no way to bring this development up to the parental figures without sounding very Old Megan, that is, "Hey, you guys. You don't even know me anymore!" Too melodramatic, yes. Also, kind of a difficult thing to demonstrate. Definitely more time-consuming, at least.

I feel very out-of-place when I'm home, at times. I think that it's because the composition of our family has changed since I've lived at home full-time-- Steph and Emily have become a real part of it, more real than it was when they were just spending Sunday afternoons with us. This prompted a series of issues, and understandably so. It was a big change. That, along with the house that they moved into last year, the house in which I did not grow up, makes me feel like less a part of the family than everyone else. I know this is ridiculous, but...it's how I feel, at least sometimes (sorry if that sounds melodramatic).

All this said, I have to say that I'm trying to make the best of living at home. I am trying to be reasonable in otherwise rational situations, to show that I'm not just acting out of self-interest, and to be a valuable family member for the time that I'm living at home. Any sort of "setback" is really disheartening, given the brevity of my stay here in SJ, but I'm attempting to do something that resembles the proverbial, "Keep on truckin'."

...so it begins

2005-06-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Finals are (really) over now, and I've been home for five days. It seems like a lot more, though, and I don't know if it's because so much has happened or because we've done a lot in these five days.

EDIT (yes, it's here, for the sake of continuity): I went out with Brian on Thursday night. First to a bar called Beefy's Cabin (yes, it was too good to be true, complete with a complete disregard for the "no smoking in bars" law that California has), then to his friend's house, where I got to watch numerous games of pool, then to the outside of another "friend"s house, where we waited so long that I missed out on the Taco Bell for which I was jonesing. We got Jack in the Box instead, which was just about as tasty, and probably even worse for my ass. Intoxication was...experienced, and I feel like I was an extra-good girlfriend that night (given our past behavior while in relationships that weren't with each other). There, Brian, are you happy? You know I love you-- you ARE my fallback, after all.

My brother graduated from Wilcox last Friday, and of course the whole Brady Bunch was in attendance, amid the singing balloons, air horns, and even a pot and wooden spoon noisemaker of the oh-so-klassy ambience at graduation. Then again, looking at most of the times I had at Wilcox, I'm not at all surprised that it was so...ghetto? Anyway, it was great and hilarious to see my brother in a cap and gown, and welcome him into the better, post-high school world. My baby brother's all growns up!

Went to Modesto for the weekend, which was just about as eventful as it ever is... Didn't really leave the house all weekend, but got to watch a ton of Style Network. There's this show about wedding planning called, "Whose Wedding is it Anyway?" which is generally entertaining-- and this one that I saw must have been the "Tacky Bride/Groom Episode." Observe: one bride demanded that there be pigs in blankets at her wedding (what?!?!?! it's a WEDDING!), and one groom wanted people that didn't RSVP but showed up anyway to pay $60.25 (it's the extra quarter that really kills me, I think).

Sunday was Father's Day, and we (the entire Brady Bunch as well as my Dad) went to my brother's girlfriend's graduation party, a catered affair in a park in Santa Clara. Decent food, and I convinced one of my brother's friends that I'm completely hilarious (sucker!). As my Dad drives me home to drop off my stuff, I realize that I haven't brought the plastic set of drawers that contain ALL my underwear and pajamas. We go to Target, where I mistakenly buy the biggest underwear ever. Seriously, they're these briefs that could cover Delaware. It's horrible.

Yesterday I applied for jobs at Oakridge, at Victoria's Secret, Gap, Express, and Bath and Body. Group interviews should be within the next two weeks, so wish me luck-- I desperately need money.

Saw "Batman Begins" last night on the IMAX at The Tech with Mike, and it was so cool! We had semi-crappy seats, but the largeness of the screen, along with the awesomeness of the movie in general, made up for it. Everyone, go see "Batman Begins"!

Going to the library today, and maybe lining up at Starbucks job. Oh, and leave me comments! Please?

So close I can taste it

2005-06-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

So. Classes, for me, and for this year, are over. Done. I actually went to class yesterday, but mostly only because I had to take a quiz, get a paper back, and get the topic for my take-home final (which I learned yesterday only has to be four pages long. Please). I realized sometime during the four hours that I sat in one class and then the other that I probably wasn't missing out on that much. I don't know if it's the classes, or the professors, or what, but I definitely could have not gone to class even more than I already did (didn't?) and done fairly well, with the exception of quizzes. Anyway, school is pretty much over for the year, which is a relief and a little scary-- I only have one more year. A year might have seemed like a lot when I was in high school, but after this year has whizzed by, I feel very overwhelmed already by the idea of being a senior, of having the possibility of having to be a grownup staring me in the face, and probably sweating a lot.

This summer should be interesting, though. I'm going to be sharing a room with my brother, because I felt really uncomfortable taking away Emily's room (you know, what with the cancer and all), and because me living with him was the best alternative to the usual arrangement where I take her room and she has to sleep in Steph's (her sister's...and they fight like cats and dogs-- like Ryan and I did before I moved away to go to school). It's going to be weird not having my own room, but I think it should end up ok because we're a lot closer now than we used to be, and I'm (hopefully) going to be so busy that it's not like we're just going to be stuck in there with each other.

Emily officially has Stage IV Hodgkin's, which sounds scary and looks even scarier typed here on the screen. She's starting chemo today, and my mom asked me to pray for her ("Even though that's not really your thing") today. I promised that I'd send positive thoughts in the direction of San Jose-- to which she responded that I could at least say, "Please, God, let Emily be ok." I don't think the wording of a prayer is necessarily the most important, but ok Mom. When I actually think of my stepsister having cancer, I get overwhelmed and just the slightest bit nauseated. Other people have to deal with this, other families, not mine. Apparently, though, we do. Not to be melodramatic... Oh, I don't know. I'm just stressed about it right now, Googling and looking at WebMD and other things that seem to make it less real in a way, but no less horrifying.

I have no official job yet, which is a little worrisome, but should eventually be no problem. I'm so employable it's not even funny. Really!

All my friends who are seniors (with the exception of maybe, like, four) are going to be gone next year, off in the world doing adult things, like having jobs that aren't at Starbucks and buying cars and having authority. I'm going to miss Michelle so much. It's not like there hasn't been some time when we were separated for a long time before (she did, after all, spend a good nine months in D.C. last year), but it feels more permanent now because she's moving to Florida to work of some gubernatorial campaign. A huge opportunity for her, but dammit, she's my best friend (one of maybe about three people who know everything about me). Thank God for United, and the fact that I can fly for basically free whenever I miss her too much.

I've been nauseated the past few days, and my eating patterns have changed drastically (as in, disappeared, then reappeared in really gross places like Jack in the Box). I'd like this to stop, or at least regulate itself so I get the benefit of having lost weight if I simply must suffer the nausea.

I have a problem with conclusions...

2005-06-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

...and this is why I find the end of the year so traumatic. Sure, I'm "fine" right now, but by the end of this week, when my dad comes to take the bulk of my stuff home, I'll be a mess. Not because I'll only have my computer, some blanket or something to sleep with, and my computer (because that's all that will be allowed on the plane on which I'm flying home), but mostly because of how different I know summer is going to be.

If history is any indication, I should survive. The summer after my first year, I was mostly concerned with the survival of a relationship that was strong at school, but had never been tested by the 40-minute drive between our houses. That summer ended up fabulously, and the worries were unfounded. Last summer, I was ready to be away from school, and looking forward to having a cushy office job at Amasco, escaping the sights and smells of Starbucks. And I survived that, too, hairy short-term boyfriend and all. Each summer after a year in college seems like it'll bring such drastic changes-- and it does, sometimes. But they're not always bad.

So why am I worrying/pre-worrying? Because it's what I do. I'm worried about working this summer, even though I'm pretty certain I'll end up at some combination of Kaplan, Starbucks, and American Eagle. I'm worried about the maintenance of a relationship in the face of a lot less time together, even though we only live about 15 minutes apart and it hasn't been a problem over other school breaks. I'm worried that living at home won't be much fun, even though I know that I have much more freedom than I've had in the past and that I'll actually probably kind of enjoy it.

Everything is going to be fine. Everything is going to be fabulous. Really.

Speaking of terrible...

2005-05-31T22:56:00.000-07:00

So, Sunday morning (afternoon, really, but who's keeping track?), I leap out of bed at about 12 and decide that I have to clean the kitchen and living room over at Mike's-- something I do fairly regularly, because that's how often I'm over there and I feel a little uncomfortable pestering any of them to do it, since it bothers only me. I whirlwind-clean the area, sit down to survey my work, and decide to call my mom. I got the answering machine, and begin to leave a message. My mom picks up the phone while I'm in midsentence, saying that she has some "serious family news." Wondering what it could be, I'm completely dumbfounded when she tells me that Emily, my 12-year-old stepsister, has a mass in her lung and they don't really know what it is. They'd gone to the emergency room Saturday, where the ER doctor scared the shit out of all of them (bedside manner apparently isn't their main focus), and then went to Stanford where they talked to a pediatric oncologist. Yes, a cancer doctor.

I'm terrified. My mom explains that, given the situation, they're in the best possible hands because Stanford is an amazing hospital, and on Tuesday they're going to a nearby children's hospital to get Emily some more tests, like a CAT scan and a bone marrow test. er voice is breaking on the phone, I'm sure she's crying a little, and I'm trying to keep my crying as quiet as possible-- even though I'm sure my mom knows and is just as scared as I am. We talk about what it could possibly be, talk about more tests that she has to take, talk about how she's feeling right now, etc. and hang up. At this point, I pretty much start sobbing so loudly that Mike hears and comes out to comfort me. The crying subsides, but of course comes back when I recount the story to Michelle (because that's the kind of friends we are) and again last night when I think about the whole situation.

If there was any time that I wished I lived closer to home, it's now. Of course I couldn't have gotten through four whole years of college without something like this happening, making me hate that I'm all the way down in LA, making me wish more than anything I could just go home. But I can't, and all I can do is all everyone else is doing: waiting. Not fun, but I'm trying to stay positive...

This is one of several things causing stress right about now, so if I seem like more of a mess than usual, this is partially why.

Summer, continued

2005-05-31T16:52:00.000-07:00

I've made the summer fun to-do list a little longer to now include:

-go to Monterey Bay Aquarium. I haven't been since I was in middle school, and it would be so fun to go again. Especially since a trip to Monterey would probably include some awesome clam chowder, something I'm always in the mood for.

-have several beach bonfires. This happened a few times last summer and I was definitely a fan. Let's do it again, shall we?

-buy and devour the new Harry Potter book. Also, if I have the wherewithal to retrieve all the previous books, that'd be nice, too. We'll see if that happens, though. I'm never generally in the mood for a trip to Burlingame.

Oh, and I found out more about the Shakespeare in the Park and Cinema San Pedro things, and you can, too!
Shakespeare in the Park http://www.sfshakes.org/park/
Cinema San Pedro http://view.exacttarget.com/?ffcd16-fe9915727567037f72-fe2a137773640775771573
They both sound like they're going to be a lot of fun. I'll be there, and so should you.

Summer is a-comin'

2005-05-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Rather than taking notes or focusing on the lecture in either of my two classes today, I made a list of things that I want to do this summer. Consider it ongoing, and I'm totally willing to do things more than once-- especially if they're free/involve eating.

-take a cooking class

-have dinner at La Fondue, this really nice place where a lot of people would go before prom and other such events. Because I always had cheap-bastard prom dates, I would always end up somewhere lame. Not this summer!

-go to Great America. This reminds me of the summers after eighth and ninth grade, when my friends and I would take our season passes, the bus to Great America, and $5 and have some of the best days of our fourtenn-year-old lives.

-bond with Stephanie and Emily, my stepsisters. Because they only just moved in with us about a year ago, and because I've never spent a lot of one-on-one time with either, I feel like this is important.

-learn French and brush up on my Spanish. Maybe make Mike teach me Hebrew? I could be the equivalent of an Israeli three-year-old by August!

-make a cheesecake, because hey, I loooooove cheesecake

-save some money from my summer jobs. Yes, that's plural. I'm so broke it's not even funny.

-go to Giants games, in San Francisco because the park is so cool, and in San Jose because it's cheaper than a movie. And they have beer batters!

-work out at least three times a week. This should be easier than at school, because I can drive to the gym and sit in a jacuzzi and sauna afterward-- makes it much more worthwhile than Wooden.

-get together with old friends from high school. Something I do way too infrequently, and I think it might be nice to remind myself that I did have some fun between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.

-get great furniture and co-design the interior of my apartment. I know I'm only one of five roommates, but I'm a Martha disciple, dammit!

-regularly read newspapers. I enjoy the idea of being well-informed, but I've yet to decide whether to read the Mercury or the Chronicle. Either way, many crosswords will be attempted/completed.

-read at least seven "good" (or even "great" books). You know, those books that everyone is supposed to have read that I never really got around to-- as well as books that I just happen to stumble upon in Borders and end up loving.

-watch more "classic" films. This kind of goes along with the book thing: I've never seen movies like "Goodfellas," "Roman Holiday," and "His Girl Friday," and I feel like it's somehow important to have a handle on that kind of cultural currency (God, I've been in college too long). Also, it'll probaly come in handy for Trivial Pursuit.

-create amazing iPod playlists, so that whenever I need something other than a shuffle or a single song, album, or artist, I'm ready for anything.

-see Shakespeare in the Park. They do it in Cupertino, and I think it would be fun to take a really good picnic and watch a play-- a perfect summer evening, right?

-go to at least two concerts. I really wish I did this more often, and I feel like setting a goal, it'll seem more urgent and I'll actually get it done.

-paint something at Petroglyph, this place that lets you embellish your own mugs, plates, etc. I think this would be a fun thing to do with my mom because she's so crafty but doesn't really get to do that kind of stuff anymore.

-see free movies at Cinema San Pedro. It's funny that I put this on my list while I was in class, because I got back and had an email telling me that it started again on June 1. Cinema San Pedro, for those of you not in the know, is this awesome thing in downtown San Jose where they close off a section of the street and show a movie for free. Free things are awesome, and the whole event has a really fun feeling.

-go ice-blocking. I've done this before, and despite any itchiness, it's always really, really fun.

-play bocce ball and have dinner at Campo di Bocce, this place in Los Gatos where they have a restaurant as well as bocce ball courts. Haven't been there in awhile, but I remember that I have the skill of an old Italian man-- and that's just about all those guys seem to do. I rock at bocce ball.

-take a weekend camping trip. I know I turn into Zsa Zsa Gabor at the mere mention of camping, but in the interest of becoming more of a Renaissance woman, I think it might be fun to go camping on the beach or this one KOA that we went to when I was little.

-do something fun for the 4th of July. This is the most general of all my summer goals, but I think it's because I'm most open to anything on the 4th. As long as it involves fireworks, which I think are one of the most cheesily romantic things in the world (don't tell anyone this, or I might have to kill you), I'm good to go.

-hike at Rancho San Antonio. Similar to the camping thing, but I actually used to go there with my Grandpa, and I remember it being really pretty. Outdoors, me...who'd have thought?

-learn to knit or crochet-- successfully this time.

-take yoga and/or Pilates classes. I've never gotten around to doing this, and it seems like something I would/should do. Summer is as good a time as any...

Beautiful day, and I do ridiculous things

2005-05-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today were both gorgeous, typical of southern California early summer days, and I've been in a generally good mood as a result. Yesterday I got off work early, so I got to enjoy another hour and a half of sleep at Chez Bareket before getting up and taking him to class. Walked down to Westwood, stopped off at the 'bucks to get tips, and had lunch by myself at Enzo's-- huuuuuge salad and some penne, all for about $7. I made my way back to the house, stopping off at one of the many cheesy little clothing shops in the Village to buy a cute, light green halter-y top (hey, I had all that tip money burning a hole in my sushi wallet!). Spent the rest of the day lounging about, and later that night Jenna and I ordered a pizza from La Monica's, worth every cent of the $10.95 we paid for it (yessss, I love Monday specials!).

This morning, I exposed an unattractive side of myself to Mike when I noticed that he was listed as "single" on MySpace. Anyone normal would have reasoned that her boyfriend was not so much of a "details" guy and that it wasn't meant to be hurtful or as a sign of anything wrong, it was just something that slipped through the cracks, something that he didn't notice. I, however, proceeded to send him a message that was brief but basically alluded to the fact that I was concerned with this inconsistency. I worried about it for a good portion of the day, stressed about it with Michelle and Andy, who are probably two of the few lucky enough to know the depths of my psychosis, and returned home to find that it's been changed. Yes, we're both "in a relationship." I knew this, I knew that nothing was different from anything that's occurred in the past nearly-eight months of our relationship, but I still managed to obsess over something so inconsequential as MySpace.

It might be brought up that I care "too much" about what people think, and about what things look like. I can only say that, to me, it does matter what people think of me and things I do-- I can't lie about that. I'm of the opinion that everyone cares what people think of them to some degree, so I don't think that I'm overly self-conscious or too aware of other people's observations. Appearances, to me, matter. Yes, I know that they're not the most important thing in the world, and that sometimes I get carried away worrying about them, but that's just something stupid that I tend to get caught up in from time to time. Sorry. It happens. And I'd hope that I have at least a few good qualities that override my obsession with appearances.

I bought two books today in Ackerman rather than going to my criticism class, and I don't regret this choice at all. I got The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Everything is Illuminated, and I'm about 55 pages into the first, and I really, really like it so far. Everyone, go out and read it! I'm looking forward to all this pleasure reading, even if it is at the cost of things I should be reading, like Paradise Lost.

Formal, or Prom 2005

2005-05-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

Mike's formal was yesterday, and it was a nice culmination to a mostly mediocre, rushed day. I was scheduled to work from 1:15 to 6:15, about which I was pretty excited-- before I realized that I was supposed to be on a bus, in formalwear, at 5:00. So I worked for two hours, rushed home (stopping on the way to buy two pairs of shoes and a pair of pants), and got ready in a hurry with the help of Genie and Yanyi, who were kind enough to help me with my hair. I waited by a bus stop with the other dates (the guys were already at the hotel because they'd been there all day, getting initiated), and we call rode a nice little charter bus to the LAX Marriott.

Having a formal event at a hotel reminded me of the numerous proms that I've attended, but this was decidedly more fun. We had a nice dinner, and there were a million and a half speeches that went on waaaaaay too long, and finally there was dancing and whatnot. It was nice, too, because they all got initiated as a chapter last night, making them an official part of the frat-- I felt like I was there for something important, and maybe even a little warm and fuzzy. I like dressing up-- such a girl-- and it's always nice to see a dressed-up man. Yowza!

Is this a good or a bad thing?

2005-05-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

Your Birthdate: December 2

Your birth on the 2nd day of the month adds a degree of emotion, sensitivity, and intuition to your life.
The 2 is a very social number allowing you to make friends easily and quickly.
Yet you are apt to have a rather nervous air in the company of a large group.

You have a warmhearted nature and emotional understanding that constantly seeks affection.
You are more prone than most to become depressed and moody, as emotions can turn inward and cause anxiety and mental turmoil.
It can be hard for you to bounce back to reality when depression sets in.

I got this from some website whose link I've lost, but if you pester me enough, I might find it.

Theories

2005-05-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

Over my 21 years, I've formulated several theories about relationships, with the gracious help of some of my best friends. Here are two of the best:

1) The more bitchy, bitter, and cynical a girl is about guys, the more she really wants to be proven wrong.
I really didn't want to use the word "rescued," so I didn't-- but this is somehow related, just not in a way that is/sounds as pathetic. Yes, we women are a self-sufficient group, but the fact is...we'd like someone to share our amazingly wonderful lives with. And maybe even enhance the amazingness. So, after several attempts at finding a certain gentleman who can fulfill at least half of her needs, the lady in question may experience a certain growth in the "bitter cynicism" section of her personality. This, I suggest, is there as a protection against more weak-willed men who might further disappoint her. Only the strong and determined may break through this shell...and she really wants you to. Do it, make her happy, and she'll do the same for you.

2) Relationship trends move in a pendulum-like manner until settled on the "right" individual
Each relationship is a reaction to the previous, failed one. That is, once a relationship has ended, we seek out someone who is as different from the most recent ex as possible. This occurs with smaller and smaller variations until one has settled on the "right" individual (if you're the type that believes in that, and I think my jury's still out on this one). So if you were to draw or somehow graph these relationship trends, it might look something like the swinging of a pendulum, back and forth until it comes to rest in the middle.

See, theories can be fun! I just wish they made me feel more like I knew what the fuck I was doing and/or talking about...

Lists, lists...

2005-05-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

I was inexplicably tired and way too unfocused to actually do any substantial learning in class today, so instead I made two complementary lists.

Things I will miss about living in the House of Pi
1. Ruben and Maria
As horrible and elitist as it sounds that we have a maid and "houseboy" that come Monday through Friday, I must say that I really appreciate that there are people to clean our bathrooms, put out our meals, and generally do the things for us that normal people have to do for themselves. I'm still not really ok with putting dirty dishes in the sink and leaving them there for Ruben to wash when I could really do it myself, but I'm glad they're around. And Maria is about the nicest person in the House before 10 a.m.
2. Prepared meals
Often sketchy and lacking in variation (i.e., every Tuesday is soup and salad, every Friday is deli bar), our catered meals are nontheless a huge luxury. I can't really express my joy at having a meal just being delivered without me having to do any of the cooking or cleaning generally involved with food. I'm pretty convinced I'm going to lose weight next year because I'll eventually (or not-so-eventually) get too lazy to make real food for myself.
3. Not having to clean the kitchen or the bathroom
Because I have cleaned both the kitchen and the bathroom at my semi-"other" residence, I've gained some perspective on how lucky we are to have someone else cleaning these areas. I recently got on my hands and knees in a boy-apartment kitchen to scrub a floor that hadn't been really cleaned all year. Yes, it was gross, but I was tired of being afraid to step anywhere but the less-dirty mat that covers most of the floor. Take back the linoleum!
4. Inexhaustible bagels, instant oatmeal, and hot chocolate
On the weekends, our crazy and often terrible house mother locks up (yes, literally locks up) the refridgerators that contain leftover food, leaving us with what's left out, as well as food that we buy ourselves (this issue will be addressed in the other list). This poses a problem, but not an insurmountable one! The bagels, oatmeal, and hot chocolate can get any resourceful girl through an entire weekend.
5. The Skinny Mirror
There is a mirror on the wall between Room 1 and Room 2 that makes it appear that the individual reflected therein is a good 10-15 pounds lighter. So nice when I'm walking to my room after a long day of classes, and even nicer when I'm trying on outfits for some occasion.
6. Coke machine
This year, we finally reinstated the Coke machine. At first it was in the cook's room (so convenient!), but it has since moved outside (boo!). It's nice, however, to have caffeine just 65 cents and a short walk away.
7. TV room, 2003-2004
The TV room was my sanctuary last year, the place where I could go and know that at least three of my best friends in the house would be there, ready to watch a Saturday's worth of television. It's the place where Lindsay and I sat for over six hours to watch the entire BBC "Pride and Prejudice" in one sitting, and the place to which I returned to watch "Love Actually" by myself after walking home alone after a disastrous formal. Through thick and thin, the TV room was there for me. (tear)

Things I will NOT miss about living in the House of Pi
1. Mrs. Kaas
Our demon of a house mom, who goes out several nights a week, only to return to the house thoroughly soused and ready to yell at anyone who doesn't jump up immediately to answer the door or phone. She yells at Ruben and Maria, which is completely unnecessary, and last year used to walk around without her wig, which was just plain scary. Apparently exec and advisors have been trying to get her fired for years, but who knows when this will happen.
2. Sketchy internet
With 50-plus girls trying to all be online at the same time so that they can update their Facebook profiles and whatnot, the internet is prone to crashing, and the network always has some kind of virus. I know zero about computers, but I do know that I would like to have regularly-functioning internet, not some technological retardation due to some a-hole refusing to run a virus scan on her computer. I guess this is more a complaint about others in the house than the internet, but oh well.
3. Living across from the bathroom
Because we have a radio in the bathroom whose volume is regularly adjusted without concern for the neighbors of the bathroom, and because apparently many believe the bathroom is surrounded by some sound-proof force field. Which it isn't. Noise, noise, noise, noise. And I'm not a fan.
4. No fridge space
Not that much of a problem for me because I'm here maybe four or five days in a any given week, but we have a regularly-sized fridge for over fifty girls. Ridiculous! The fridge at the AC is used by four boys, and is regularly stuffed, despite the two additional mini-fridges in the living room. Given this comparison, and a healthy grasp of common sense, one can see the problems coming from such little fridge space.
5. No privacy
I wasn't aware of how much privacy and alone time I really need (especially with my great capacity for loneliness) before moving into the House of Pi. I'm just not really that ok with never, ever being alone in any area of the house. Also, I have issues with things like putting on makeup in front of others, which is particularly problematic when sharing a bathroom AND a bedroom. Yes, I'm neurotic, but I'm hoping it's the endearing kind of neurotic.
6. Ever-changing door codes
This actually happened today, so it's fresh in my mind. Every so often, generally after times of crisis in the house, the door codes get changed. Unfortunately, no one knows when it will be or what the new code will be until they get to the door to find a note that says, "Code changed, see outside library." The library is in the house. See any problems with this?
7. TV room, 2004-2005
Because the makeup of girls in the house changes from year to year, so too does the "vibe" (God, I hate that word). This year I feel like the TV room is always overcrowded with people who are watching something I don't want to watch. Yes, you may be a senior, but you joined the house a full year after I did. Shut up, we're going to watch Food Network.

Hot date

2005-05-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Went on a date on Saturday, and it was nice to get out of Westwood. Sometimes I get so restless and antsy in those four or five square blocks, and it seems like there's nothing new to do because I've done everything at least thrice. So we went down to Santa Monica, making a stop to look at puppies on the way, which is always necessary because I love the exquisite torture of looking at pets that I don't own. I'm having some serious dog withdrawals, and it helps somehow to coo at puppies through the Plexi-Glas of their little cubbies (it doesn't hurt when the accompanying gentleman humors me by actually making the stop, and gazes longingly with me at the adorableness of unattainable puppies). Walked around, looked at all manner of odd street performers, and settled on a dinner at this Italian place with cute decor (dozens of little glass oil lamps on the wall, giving a flattering glow to eaters). Had bruschetta (apparently a staple of our relationship, so much so that it's evolved into an inside joke), pasta, and freeeeeee chocolate cake, which only tasted better because we didn't have to day for it. Actually discussed that our relationship is a little over seven months old, which seems like a long time and not so long-- I think we began the relationship fairly quickly, and have settled into it in a way that keeps it interesting. At least, that's what I feel has happened, and good luck getting him to talk about it for any amount of time (not that I feel there needs to be a talk of any sort, but I have this need for reassurance that he prefers to acknowledge in more tacit ways). Saw "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," which was fun and made me want to read the book, and returned to the AC for...passing out to Seinfeld. All in all, a good night, and full of things I love: puppies, food, movies, meandering through shopping areas without spending money, and that guy. I may be a cheeseball, but I refuse to be the first to say it.

Killing me softly. Oh, I mean slowly.

2005-05-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

I am convinced that Starbucks will evenutally be the end of me. What with all this exhaustion and consequent irregular sleeping as a result of working 5-10 a.m. shifts for days on end, I can see no other conclusion to this cycle. Maybe it'll come when I'm walking to work one morning, too sleepy to see an oncoming bus, or maybe when I'm there, in an unfortunate steam-wand accident. Maybe even after I leave, I'll finally have overdosed on caffeine and my weak little heart (this part is true, really, because I have a semi-irregular heartbeat...) will give out and I'll be discovered lying in some gutter in Westwood by a friend on his or her way to get free coffee from me at work. Oh, Big Green. I don't love you, either.

Should really be reading Milton right now, or Kant or Augustine, but am instead preoccupied with finding sufficiently mindless online games with which to fill the time until I can go to bed and reasonably expect to go to sleep. Note: I'm at the AC, so sleep before about one is virtually impossible. However, the walk to work from here is less than ten minutes, so I suppose it's a trade I'm willing to make at that indecent hour.

Ok, off to distract and eventually induce fatigue...

Irregular much?

2005-05-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

I suppose the title of the post sounds a little scatological, but I promise it's just a reference to the frequency with which I post on this particular blog. You see, I have a Xanga, a MySpace blog, and another Blogger thing (which is probably officially dead because it's too full of skeletons to resurrect), so this one pretty much ends up being neglected. However, I've been recently very reflective, so here goes nothin'. It's so much easier to post in an online journal than to write in the fo' real one that I also have, probably because there are few/no emotionally scarring events related with any of the numerous online journals as there are with the single pen and paper one that I've been keeping since I was a senior in high school.

Oh, the scene of my mental rape. It's like it was yesterday, and not in any sort of pleasant way. We had just had our house painted, and the plastic had been taken off the windows, so Dan (my stepdad) was going around opening windows to let air circulate through the stuffy house. In my room, he spies the corner of my journal poking out from under a pillow on my bed and is compelled to read the entire thing. I get home that evening, and find out that he has been made physically ill by the contents of the journal, which involve numerous reports of sexual activities (all of which had been safe, consensual, and actually pretty fun) and perfectly normal teenage complaints about parents. The ensuing "conversation" with him and my mom involved them quoting parts of my entries and basically stripping me of dignity and any "privileges," such as having a normal senior prom (I had to be home at 11, which was awesome because I later found out that my date returned to prom after dropping me off. Completely bitchin', no?).

In years since, I've reclaimed the journal, which was confiscated (what were they going to do, re-read it?), and have made regained some semblance of a normal relationship with the two San Jose authority figures. I'd like to think that, if the whole thing had never happened, I still would have ended up at least a little more well-adjusted and willing to put faith in people. Not that I'll get the chance to explore alternate versions of my life, but wouldn't it be nice if I could?

Anyway, I have to get up early to work at 5 a.m. Not so much fun, but I'm severely poor and any little Starbucks change is greatly appreciated.

Another social event...oh, and boys are so WEIRD!

2005-01-28T13:49:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night was the "We Go Together" date party, and he and I wore semi-matchy footbally jerseys. I didn't look as manly as I'd feared, so that was nice. Not so nice, however, was the fact that the place was, at best, way too small and still not full, and that we, as one of about twenty couples there, appeared in zero pictures. I had no idea that this mattered to me, but apparently I see being photographed at social events as some sort of proof that I was there, and that I managed to at least look like I was having fun. But no, at no point did we get together and smile for any cameras.

Brought up Valentine's Day the other night, after about a ten-minute debate about whether I should do so with Andy and Michelle, only to be met with, "We have time." Sure, we have time, but I want to avoid the disaster that was last year...

On what was our one-year anniversary, The Athlete had a race in the morning, so I took that time to go pick up the fifty balloons that I ordered, stuff them in his room and attach reasons that I loved him, as well as finish this cheesy little book that I'd made for him. He comes back all sweaty from his race, is tired, showers, and finally reveals his big Valentine's surprise: we're driving to La Jolla for dinner! I'm excited, but still kind of unsure of what to wear, as well as why exactly we're going all that way for a dinner when there are plenty of decent restaurants here in LA. The drive takes about two and a half hours, and when we finally get there, I find out that we have no reservations anywhere, and are sure as hell not going to get a table anywhere without them, and I'm wearing jeans and a UCLA sweatshirt. The end? We end up eating at a sports bar, and I paid. Happy Valentine's Day, motherfuckers! ...and we all know how that story ended.

So basically now I'm terrified of something similar happening this year, which is completely unreasonable, I know, but still. I'm contemplating making emergency fallback reservations at some nice restaurant here in Westwood, just in case. And I'm totally unsure of what I'm supposed to do as far as gift-giving, etc. Don't want to be the one who is more into it, of course. Mustn't let on that I actually like him, oh nooo...

God, I hate being a girl. Make this weirdness go away, please? I'll be good, I promise.

Presents and other debauchery

2004-11-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

Last night was Presents, which is generally kind of debutante-sounding, even though the cutesy little part at the house during the day is followed by the most insane date party of the year. It's like this every year-- all the girls put on their black or white dresses (yeah, we're cult-y, but every house does it...so I guess that makes it ok) and pack onto too few school buses, get to the venue, and proceed to dry-hump their dates. Of course this year was no exception-- there were only two buses, so we had to triple up (or, in the case of my seat, quadruple. Not, fun, especially given that my and Mike's seatmates were making out and groping each other already.) The place was really cute, and a good deal of quasi-espionage had to be done to ensure that we got back into the Coolest Couch/Chair Thing Ever (ha, like putting your jacket on a seat will keep other, possibly intoxicated people from sitting there? Idiot.) Two Red Bull and vodkas and a gin and tonic later, I was just about ready to be home (not even necessarily mine, just someone's so that I didn't have to watch other people make out)...the "early" bus left a little after midnight, and I was on it.
Woke up before my "alarm" at 11 (ha, I got more than three hours of sleep last night!) and had semi-breakfast made for me (yes, I'm counting a bagel as breakfast. He made me an omelette the other day, so there.) Watched some thing about killer whales and seals and penguins on the National Geographic channel, felt old. I feel a little guilty about making him go out last night when he has a midterm today, but am really glad that we got to go-- I'll make it up somehow, I promise.
Technology is so fucked up. Last night I heard one of the girls talking with her date about how she's going to change her "relationship status" on her FaceBook profile to "in a relationship with ___" now because they're official-- as if the FaceBook profile is the thing that makes their relationship valid or legitimate. Even things like blogs (hello, Xanga, I believe you've become a little passive-aggressive, yet I'll still continue to update because I'm so OCD) have become this whole other dimension of relationships, making shit that was already confusing even more so. No one can be completely honest in a blog about a relationship, especially when the interest might be reading. How do you get around the "Ohh, I like him so much!" when that's a big part of what's going on at the moment? Ok, off to the land of truth-- the paper journal, which no one is allowed to read, although several have made attempts. Argh.