Moron, party of one.
I needed to shower this morning so that I could straighten my hair with less of a hassle. To do this, and leave my apartment by 8 AM, I needed to be out of bed by about 6:40 (15 minutes to shower, 30 to sit around while my hair dried, and 35 to get ready).
I set the alarm for 6:21.
I started waking up to the alarm going off before 6. In my sleepy stupor, I assumed that the alarm was just whacked, and continued to hit the snooze button every 9 minutes. At some point, I decided that I could just go to work with wet hair and put it in a ponytail, and reset my alarm for 7:30 (I hadn't gone to bed until 1 AM).
When I got up to reset the alarm for 7:30, I happened to glance at the time I had originally set it for.
5:21 AM.
Jesus Christ.
I stumbled through the routine of push the covers back, stand up, stumble to the alarm, hit the M&Ms to make it stop bleeping (I have an M&Ms alarm clock), stumble back to bed, flop down, pull covers over head, go back to sleep for an HOUR LONGER THAN I WAS SUPPOSED TO.
Why I assumed that the alarm was whacked and then didn't turn it off is beyond me. I really don't fuction well before 10 AM--this is proof.
In other news, I am spending the week doing mountains of laundry. I'm giving up my washer/dryer after this month, and my goal is to wash every piece of clothing I own between now and the day they come to pick it up--I figure this way, it's all washed for when I move in August. So far, I've done 3 loads. I estimate that I have another 6-8 to do. Happy happy, joy joy.
Oh, and I was approved for my new apartment. I came into work this morning to a voicemail from my leasing agent telling me that they were waiting on my criminal check, but everything else looks good. Fortunately, I can safely say that they won't find anything on my criminal background--it's the credit check that I was more concerned about, and if they already passed me on that, I'm home free. My new lease will start on August 22--weeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
I'm very excited to be going to Austin this weekend. One of my primary reasons for being excited is completely and utterly stupid, but in the interest of being honest--I "get" Austin fashion. It's much more casual, much more my style (my idea of dressing up is my short(er) cotton black skirt and a blue tank top with flip flops)... I don't really grasp Dallas fashion yet. Every time I think I've got it, it trips me up.
Basically, if I could live my life in khaki shorts and a tshirt or a button-down with the sleeves rolled up, I'd be money. I'd also be a female fratty, but what can you do?
Amended Tour O' Austin Schedule
Friday
- John and Tom arrive. Kelly picks them up from the airport at lunch and drops them at her apt. with a key.
- Kelly gets home from work. The trio eats dinner, then heads out for a night on the town in Dallas.
Saturday
- After sleeping in, the group spends the day lounging by the pool and getting a tan. Dinner that night at a fun Dallas restaurant (TBD), then Dealey Plaza and wandering around the West End.
Sunday
- Andrea (possibly), Tom, Kelly, and John set off for Austin early Sunday morning, stopping on the way through for breakfast tacos from the Taco Shack on the way to float the river in New Braunfels.
- Float the Comal--probably two trips down
- Midafternoon snack of pizza (roni) rolls at Double Dave's
- Check into the hotel
- Spend the afternoon wandering around the Capital, UT's campus, the Drag, etc.
- Dinner at Guero's
- Bob Schneider Concert
Monday
- Brunch at Trudy's
- either shopping around Austin, or San Marcos outlets
- late lunch/early dinner at Salt Lick
- fireworks/Austin symphony concert at Zilker Park
- bar at the Stephen F Austin Hotel
- 6th Street
Tuesday
- breakfast at Kerbey Lane
- head back to Dallas
4 AM seems like the opportune time to do some soul-searching.
I'd like to blame the result of this entry on alcohol.
Unfortunately, I'm not enough of a lightweight to legitmately blame 2 drinks consumed between 11 PM and 1 AM for this. Instead, I feel compelled to talk about myself and what makes me tick.
I am a commitment-phobic. I need a 12-step program to deal with this. I can pinpoint the reason for this, but I can't do a damn thing to fix it.
Last weekend, I went out to a bar with a group of friends. We arrived, got drinks, and settled around a group of benches on the rooftop deck to chat, dance (everyone but me), laugh, and have a good time. At one point, we decided to leave that bar for one across the street. However, as we got downstairs, we ran into more friends and decided to stay for a while--guilty conscience since the guys had just paid a $3 cover charge.
We decided to hang out inside the downstairs part of the bar. I was put in charge of obtaining a round of drinks for Susan, Summer, and myself.
Of course, as in any bar on a Saturday night, it was packed, and I couldn't get up there to get the bartender's attention. Figuring that my best bet was to hover behind two guys seated at the bar and wave when the bartender got close, I planted myself between them. Luckily, they were nice guys and scooched aside so that I could slip in between them to get drinks.
I passed off the drinks, then continued to stand there and chat with these two guys. We discovered that one had been in a leasing office at the same time as me earlier that day. They were nice. They were both attractive. The one I'd seen earlier that day was laying it on a bit too thick--plus he was mildly drunk, which is always reason to doubt intentions.
At any rate, his (sober, driving) friend and I hit it off. When a seat opened beside him, I took it. We chatted about school, work, life, family, drinking, and a host of other things for an hour and a half--rather significant when you consider that we were in the middle of a loud, crowded bar. Towards the end of the night, I realized that I needed to go locate my friends before I was stuck shacking up on Greenville for the evening. I bid the guy adieu (not really), and he asked for my number.
Against my better judgement, I gave it to him.
Fast forward to Thursday.
He called. I looked at my phone, didn't recognize the phone number, and let it go to voicemail. He left a voicemail, which I then listened to.
It's now early on Sunday morning, and I have yet to call him back.
Truth?
I'm not going to.
I'm so frightened of being in a relationship, being committed to someone, being vulnerable, that I will sit there and visualize all of the reasons why I shouldn't be in a relationship--and then I'll shoot it in the foot before there is even a remote possibility of it ever requiring a committment. This guy? In D-town for the summer. He'll be gone in two months. There's no chance of committment--he's just a nice, good-looking guy who would probably take me to a few dinners, make out with me if I wanted, and be a summer fling.
I can't even have that for fear of what it could become. I have a thousand excuses--I've done long distance, and I don't want to do it again. I'm only 23, and he's older. I just got out of a 3 year drain of a "relationship" in October. I'm too busy. I work weird hours. I just want time to go out with my friends, and I barely have time to do that as it is.
But what is my deal? Why do I let this affect me to the extent that it does? There's something wrong when I won't even go on a first date--I've already condemned the relationship to morphing into something serious, and I can't escape that.
Maybe this is the reason that I prefer to date guys that I know before I begin to date them--somehow, it's less pressure. When I'm spending time getting to know them, I'm doing it for the purpose of friendship--there's no reason to worry about whether I want to pursue anything serious with them.
In a perfect world, the voices in my head would shut up. I'd meet someone who makes me laugh--makes me smile until my cheeks hurt. Someone who knew how to make me stop taking myself so seriously. Someone who is content to spend a Saturday afternoon on the couch watching sports with me, or who is up for a good time with friends at a bar. Someone whose main motivation is spending time with me, and secondarily wants to get into my pants. Someone that feels the same way I do--we see each other when we can see each other, in whatever capacity we can--if that's a group thing, fine. If that's once a week, or once every other week, fine. No pressure.
We can lose ourselves
not find our way back home
til the whole world feels just like a Saturday night
Without a care in the world
Without a net underneath us
Float through the air
high as a kite.
Itchy feet.
No, I haven't come down with a case of nasty foot fungus.
It has occured to me lately that I'm entering the phase of life where it is acceptable to settle down. Acquire a husband. A house. A dog, 2.5 kids, and a picket fence.
I don't want it.
It's not that I categorically don't want it--it's just that I don't see how any of those things can fit in with what I want out of my life. A husband, maybe, but it's going to be at least 5 years before I'm ready to start thinking about being a Mrs.
I want to live in so many places--Miami, New York, Chicago, California, Portland, Seattle, London. Maybe it means moving every two years, and eventually settling in one of those locations. Even then, that's the next 14 years of my life committed to hopping around the country (and to some extent, the world). I've always moved after a few years, even if it's within the same state. At this point, I've spent a combined 7 years in the DFW area, and I'm ready to move on.
I want to live in New York while I'm still young enough to really enjoy it--they say that planners in New York need to make enough money to cover their rent, clothing, and subway fare--events and sales reps will feed you, get you drunk, and give you tickets to events.
I want to live in Miami for the experience of working for a certain agency--I really don't have an attachment to the city, but the experience of working at this place is something I want.
I want to live in Chicago because I love the city. I love the atmosphere. If it weren't for the weather (I don't think I could take too many Chicago winters), I'd make that the place where I want to end up indefinitely.
I want to live in California when I can afford it and appreciate it. I don't think I want to live in LA proper--maybe another city in the area. Seattle and Portland would be places I'd enjoy in ten years.
London is something I'd want just for the experience. Maybe that would come as a result of working for a major agency that has an office in London.
I have so many plans, and I'll be so disappointed in myself if I don't go through with at least a few of them.
Placeholder
For the "small world" post I need to do tomorrow.
Billy Joel.
When I was a little girl, I had a favorite song. I'm not sure when I fell in love with it--I'd guess age 2 or 3. That song has remained my favorite song to this day.
That song is Uptown Girl by Billy Joel.
Therefore, I find it highly amusing (and fitting) that I'm moving Uptown in August.
You do realize that the first thing I will do after unpacking my apartment is blast that song and dance around, right?
Recharge.
I am stressed, and frustrated, and tired, and generally antsy this week. Work has been an absolute beast. I spent 3 hours today figuring out why I was $1 million over budget.
Yeah, millions. I still can't fathom that amount of money.
At any rate, the point is that I found myself sitting at my desk at 5:00. I still had a pile of work to do. My desk, which I had spent thirty minutes cleaning the day before, was again buried. Even my twinkly Christmas lights couldn't cheer me up. And I started crying.
I stopped quickly, because ohmygod how pathetic would it be to cry at work? I left feeling generally craptastic, sad, and still on the verge of tears. This rarely happens to me, and when it does, I have no idea how to deal with it. My usual response of a bottle of wine and a chick flick with a girlfriend was out of the question, as everyone was busy. I got home, felt slightly better because my wireless router decided to work again, and stuck up an away message:
"In dire need of an adventure."
Ten minutes later, Erin came through.
I'm headed to San Antonio on Sunday. Erin is moving from Cincinnati to San Antonio, and she's scheduled to arrive on Sunday. I'll be there until 6 AM on Monday, at which point I will drive back to Dallas and go straight to work. I'll have to get permission tomorrow to be about an hour late, but I would be shocked if I'm turned down.
I'm going to hang out with one of my best friends from college. I'm going to help her unpack, admire her new engagement ring (!), and drink margaritas on the Riverwalk while she helps me sort out the mess that is my life. I won't even be there for 24 hours, but sometimes you just need to get away for a brief time to take a deep breath and keep going.
It says sit back and take this time
to lose your mind.
Damn the man.
I am breaking all of the rules and being a rebel.
Because I have been here a short amount of time, I am (technically) relegated to the third floor of the parking garage. I've been semi-beating the system by parking at the bottom of the ramp from the second to the third floors in the area that is covered--I'm on the third level, technically, but I've got covered parking.
This, however, is still remarkably inefficient. Every day, I park at the bottom of the ramp. I lock my car. I walk over to the garage exit. I walk across the skybridge to the second floor of the building. I take the stairs down to the first floor, and go to my desk.
The parking garage is not remotely full.
The first floor is remarkably empty. This is probably because NO ONE SITS ON THE FIRST FLOOR.
So, today, when I came back from lunch, I said "fuck it."
I parked on the first floor. I locked my car. I walked across the street, and I walked into the front door. No stairs. No waste of time.
So there.
Dude!
There are people besides Tom and Susan that read this thing? Holy crap on a stick!
Part of me is tempted to say "Yo, if you read this, comment and say 'I read this!'", but part of me is terrified that people really DON'T, and I'm just overshooting my appeal.
Whatever. Even if only 4 people read it, that's fine.
At lunch today, two amusing things happened:
1) the owner of the pizza place hit on me. Apparently, this was blatant, but being me, I completely missed it. My co-workers, however, did not, and they enjoyed an hour of teasing me mercilessly. He's rather good-looking, but I prefer not to mix my eating establishments with potential dates. I did that once with a Starbucks barista, and it was a solid month before I could go in there post-breakup without staring at the floor the whole time.
2) I had an Idea. An Idea of grand inspiration. To explain this, I must give you a bit of background information about advertising agencies. There are 3 major departments: account service (business side--they communicate between the client and the agency), media (number crunchers/analysts/"brains of the operation"), and creative (I think you can get that one on your own). Media and creative generally do not cross paths. And when we do, it's like trying to get an engineer to understand the mindset of a philosophy student.
But, never fear, because here comes my Idea.
Media v. Creative kickball game. Losing department pays for the margarita machine rental.
Our ref will be my friend from Account Service, so as not to bring in a biased judge.
Hell yes.
Gonna take my chance
Gonna rock and dance
Gonna hit the ground
with a brand new sound
Southern Thang
As a liberal (ooh, big bad scary liberal!) living in the South, I often feel as though I'm supposed to renounce the Southern culture.
At some point, it became difficult to be Southern and liberal. I'm not sure what prompted this, or why this is the case. Obviously, there are parts of Southern culture that are not things to be proud of, things to revere, things to look back on fondly. However, I think the same can be said for any part of the country--treatment of Chinese immigrants in California, treatment of Irish immigrants in the Northeast--every part of the country has its dirty little secrets.
Unfortunately, no one went to war over their disgraceful heritage the way that the South did--I think the fact that this region's transgressions are so much more vividly apparent has a lot to do with the way that the culture is viewed in American society today.
I think that the rest of the country has a view of the South as a region where things are backwards, where everyone is racist, where we all wave our arms in church, where women are still seen and not heard, where we blindly support the conservative party in power.
The sad part is that these stereotypes, these views, are truly the exception rather than the norm. Yes, they happen--I won't deny that they do. There are two unfortunate aspects to this: 1) That they still happen, and 2) That these problems are what receive publicity, and are what color the rest of the country's perception of the South.
I've lived my whole life here--from the deep South of North Carolina to Virginia to Louisiana to Texas. While I certainly do not agree with the dominant political and religious leanings of the region, there is so much that I am proud to be associated with, that I would miss having in my life.
Southerners are friendly--I challenge any other area of the country to match the prevailing attitude. Of course, if you don't enjoy the person standing in line behind you at Kroger striking up a conversation with you, this probably isn't where you want to live. People smile. People wave. People will talk to you as though they've known you for years when they'll spend a grand total of two minutes with you in a line, and then never see you again.
We are polite. I hold doors for anyone and everyone--men, women, children, grandmothers. I smile. I say please and thank you to the cashier, and I smile while I'm doing it. I say "Sir" and "Ma'am".
The girls are prettier. If you doubt me, I'll film John's reaction next time he's in Texas. He may like the boys now, but good lord, the man likes his Southern women. I still laugh about the trip we took to Austin a few years ago when all he could do was stare out of the car window, agape, and say things like "Texas girls... oh my God, Boston just can't compare. Seriously."
We work hard, and then we play hard. We care about our appearances more than might seem normal to you. Words like "y'all" are found in offices, interviews, and meetings.
I wish that everyone who has a negative view of the South could experience the culture here. The majority of it is simply one of pride in the way that we live our lives, the way that we treat each other, and the way that we act. Sure, there are quirky traditions that some may never understand (our propensity for young marriage comes to mind), but overall? It's a pretty cool place to live, and it will always hold a special place in my heart--no matter where I live.
Don't mock what you don't understand
It's a Southern thing.
