Inspiration in the form of a plush rhino

SWF seeks brain.

2006-01-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

I am an idiot.

First of all, I misread my Outlook calendar last night and thought I had to be at work for an 8:30 meeting this morning. I did not. There was no meeting. I left my apartment (and subsequently woke up that much earlier) 25 minutes before I normally would. Traffic sucked, as it usually does at 7:50 AM on a Tuesday.

And yes, it's TUESDAY.

I was walking into the front door of the building as a very important agency person (Molly, you've received calls for him) was getting out of a car, presumably back from the airport. I headed up the stairs, pleased that I had actually worn nice clothing (grey slacks, black sweater) today instead of looking like my usual scrubby self.

And then, I ate it. I tripped over one of the steps and went stumbling headlong into the front doors. Said important agency person laughed as I sheepishly held the door open for him and said "Yeah, it's Monday."

IT ISN'T MONDAY, YOU MORON!

It's Tuesday. Fuck!

On the agenda for tonight is a healthy dinner, the gym, and TV. I have to (HAVE TO) go to sleep by 10 PM, as I have to (HAVE TO) go to the gym tomorrow morning before work. We're going to a Stars game tomorrow night, and then probably out afterwards--we haven't had a good weeknight drunkfest in a while, and I have a feeling we're due for it.

For those wondering what the hell is going on.

2006-01-13T13:11:00.000-08:00

I've been blogging elsewhere, and kept meaning to move said posts over to this blog (on the off chance anyone still reads it.)

I finally got around to doing that today.

In the future, I'll post them in both places. Enjoy.

Breakfast casualties.

2006-01-13T07:01:00.000-08:00

I've adopted a new plan for eating in the new year.

It goes into effect today, mostly because if you read my description of dinner last night, you know there is no way in hell I've abided by it yet.

Monday through Friday, I eat as heathily as possible. Saturday and Sunday are mine to blow off in terms of eating like absolute shit. However, on Friday mornings, I get to have a breakfast "treat"--namely because I never eat breakfast, and because it's Friday. And that always deserves a little celebration.

Today, I decided to swing by Starbucks on the way to work, figuring that since I was late anyway (wreck on 35. fucking 35.), 5 additional minutes wasn't going to kill anyone. Plus, since my supervisor and I live all of 8 blocks away from each other, chances were good that he was also running late.

He did beat me to work, for the record.

At any rate, I left Starbucks $5.25 poorer, and in posession of a grande Caramel Macchiato and a chocolate donut.

(Sidenote: I liked Starbucks better when it was free or deeply discounted.)

I saw the donut in the display case--one of those chocolate glazed jobs. I love those donuts. I got to work, sat down at my desk, took a sip of the coffee, and then plunged my hand into the bag to grab my donut.

Key word here: plunged.

Yeah, I saw the underside of the donut in the display case. The top of the donut also had chocolate icing (oh man, is it Friday). The top of the donut is what my hand just connected with.
Lovely.

Oh well. Time to put in a little less than 2 hours of work, then we're off to the Four Seasons for our pedicures. I hope that Jen remembered to wear open toed shoes... or I'm going to have a lot of fun telling everyone how goofy she looked walking back into work in those temporary foam flip flops they give you.

It's funny, the things that stick with you.

2006-01-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

I was in a meeting this afternoon at work, just before quitting time. A radio network was in to introduce our new sales rep to the media department.

Towards the end of the meeting, discussion turned to the comeback of talk radio. Someone asked whether Paul Harvey was still around... they assured us that he was, though he's got to be something like 86 at this point. This prompted a few Paul Harvey jokes ("His picture was taken when FM radio was introduced!"), and my supervisor turned to me and said "You probably don't know who they're talking about."

I actually do.

My dad used to pick me up from gymnastics practice, before the days when I was at workouts 20+ hours per week. We'd stay to watch the older girls for a few minutes, then head home so that I could finish my homework and eat dinner.

This was back in the days of the Oldsmobile Cutlass--not to be confused with the Oldsmobile station wagon that I inherited when I turned 16. The Cutlass was navy blue, and ancient. I came home from the hospital in that thing, and it stuck around until I was 12. The seats had the kind of padding only seen in senior citizens' land yachts nowadays, with bench seats in the front and the rear.

I digress.

My dad has a thing for talk radio. AM radio will stay around at least until he dies solely because it's the only thing that he listens to, apart from a few Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and Beach Boys CDs. Every drive home from practice, he'd have the Paul Harvey Show on the radio.
Every practice, my tortured 11-year old soul would beg him to change the station, to no avail. Paul Harvey was there to stay, no matter how much whining and pleading I did.

Back then, money was tighter. We didn't go without--we had sports, and my mom was always home for us. It was a tradeoff. We didn't go on big family vacations, and meals from McDonalds were a treat. I can probably count on two hands the number of times I went out to a "real" restaurant before junior high. As such, things like randomly buying supplies to make rice krispie treats at the grocery store were not the norm.

But every time we made that drive, with Paul Harvey in the background, my dad would pull into the Popeyes drive-thru and order me a small Coke and a biscuit.

When my supervisor asked me if I'd heard of Paul Harvey today at the meeting, I smiled, thought about those drives home, and said yes.

Oh, Lou Bega!

2006-01-11T16:02:00.000-08:00

You were so charming and catchy when you released Mambo No. 5. It was so thrilling to finally have a song involving Mardi Gras that could a) be sung in front of small children without getting you arrested, and b) be understood without the aid of a lyrics search on Google.

I realize that you're one-hit wonder. You'll undoubtedly appear on the next five versions of the VH1 show dedicated to such musicians. I realize that a lot of what you had going for you rested in the hat that you wore at a jaunty angle and the sexy bite to your voice. I realize that your success had more to do with whomever wrote the song, and very little to do with who actually sang it.

But Lou, baby--did you really have to stoop to doing the Applebees commercial to pay off the enormous debts that I'm sure you racked up during your moment in the sun?

3rd grade redux.

2006-01-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm on a field trip.

My lunch today consists of a small bag of Doritos, a peanut butter sandwich, and a can of Coke. Wrap some foil around the Coke, stick me in a park somewhere with 90 eight year olds, and I'd swear that I was back in 1991 on a field trip somewhere in New Orleans.

(Sidenote--I've noticed that field trip coolness varies directly in proportion to the type of district you're attending school in. New Orleans? We went to the Sunbeam Bread Factory (remember that one, Simon?) and a (free) national park. Virginia Beach? Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Nags Head. Seriously, folks)

I should be entering program information into flowcharts right now. I'm not. Obviously. My attention span is everywhere but on my work today. I just need to survive until 5 or so, and then I can go home and decompress on my couch. I need a second job. Badly. At this point, an extra $70 a week would make an enormous difference in my life. I'm so tired of living paycheck to paycheck. It brings back memories of the Summer of 2003, when I was so broke it was painful.

The peanut butter sandwich also reminds me of that. Try working an unpaid internship, taking classes, and trying desperately to find a part-time job that actually pays you. I never did, and subsequently wound up funneling my grocery money to my entertainment fund (which was still woefully inadequate), and thus spent the entire summer eating instant mashed potatoes and peanut butter sandwiches. On a good week, I had fresh fruit to go with the sandwiches. On the upside, I was really skinny. On the downside, I was probably bordering on malnourished.

The point to this is that I don't want to have to live that life again. When I was 21, it was tolerable for 3 or 4 months. Now that I'm getting close to birthday #24, I'd like to have a little more of a financial cushion. I just sat down to figure out what I'm paying out of the paycheck I get on Friday. Car payment, insurance, credit card, electric bill, apartment fee, and I'm left with a whopping $168.25 to hold me until I get paid again on the 30th. And it's not as if that
paycheck is going to rock my socks off, because once I pay the rent, I've killed nearly 70% of my paycheck.

I'm just sick of being so worried about money.

AmiLynn has amazing timing, as she just emailed me a link to an online tutoring site that pays $10/hour. I'm going to apply as soon as I finish this entry.

If anyone else has any ideas of how to earn money on a part time basis, preferably not weekends (that's My Time), throw 'em at me.

Misinterpreted conversation.

2006-01-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

Jen and I just finished watching the first episode of The Bachelor: Paris.

We've learned that it's never OK to list "My eggs are rotting and my clock is ticking" as a reason why you'd like to settle down.

Now that it's over, she's sprawled on the couch, and I'm camped on the floor. I'm watching the news, and she's surfing the internet.

So imagine my surprise when she looked up, held her hands a little ways apart, and said "Is this seven inches?"

I dare you to say that you didn't automatically think of that.

Listening...

2006-01-09T18:28:00.000-08:00

to Jen have a talk with her dog.

A 4 pound Chihuahua who has decided that in order to live a happy life, he must have a bite of my peanut butter sandwich. Apparently he feels that the best way to accomplish this goal is to make noises like a creaky door. I didn't know that dogs could make those noises.

Highlights from the lecture include "Koa, I have one word for you. Adoption. SPCA, buddy.", and "Son! It is not manly to beg for sex or food. STOP."

And on an unrelated note, I just overheard this gem from a phone call she's currently on:

"I'm sure she's seen more than two sets of balls to have a comparison."

I think they're talking about me.

An open letter to Austin.

2006-01-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Austin,

I love you, dear city. I really do. And because of this, I feel as though I should warn you of what you're going to face this weekend.

You see, there's a celebration scheduled for Sunday afternoon at Memorial Stadium. It's just a little shindig being thrown to honor the National Champion Texas Longhorns, complete with the band, cheerleaders, Bevo, and tens of thousands of insane Longhorn fans.

As such, I'm sure that you're anticipating a large crowd of idiots to descend on the Austin City Limits (I still need to steal one of those road signs...). But even though you're prepared for frat boys, former frat boys, crazy middle-aged alumni who like to try to drink the way they did in college, crazy young alumni who tend to forget they're not still in college, and just generally crazy fans, I don't think that you're ready for one of the possibilities.

See, AmiLynn and I may both be in Austin this weekend. And so help you, if we are, I cannot promise to act in a classy manner. Actually, I can promise to act crazy and get absolutely toasted, and I can promise that she'll be crazy and absolutely toasted, and we all know that a crazy and aboslutely toasted AmiLynn can be the stuff of legend.

So I apologize in advance, promise to document the weekend with an obscene number of photographs (though hopefully the subject matter will not be obscene), promise to contribute to the local economy, and promise to do my best to represent my second-generation Longhorn self.

Love,Kelly

Dear MollySara,

As I'm sure you can tell, I'll be in Austin this weekend. A little birdie told me that you will be as well. I'm trying to convince Jenny to come down with me--help me out here, OK?

Love,Jenny needs to see Austin and actually remember it.

Missing: motivation.

2006-01-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

I'm a lazy bastard.

In my defense, this is really the first Saturday in a month when I've had nothing to do, no one to answer to, and no obligations to fufill. The weather is gorgeous--I'm sitting in my apartment with the windows open and good music playing. I've only been awake for 3 hours, but I'm thinking of taking a nap.

Nothing to do or not, there are some things that need to get done. I need to do laundry because I'm running out of clean clothes. I need to go to the gym lest I develop an epic ass. I need to go to the grocery store because I have no toilet paper or Coke in the house, and that just doesn't work.

I don't want to do laundry because I'd have to sort out my clothes and walk the whopping fifty feet to the laundry room. I don't want to go to the gym because I'm sleepy and lazy. I don't want to go to the grocery store because, duh, the grocery store on a Saturday afternon is hell on earth. I'd almost rather go to the mall.

I'm going to keep being lazy until Jen calls me back. Then, I'll start to think about getting a plan going and accomplishing something today. Until then... I'll be on the couch, under my fleece blanket, dozing off.

Oh, and while I've heard rumors that they're doing the celebratory parade in Austin after school starts up again, I can't find anything concrete online--does anyone know anything? I'll definitely be coming into town for it, so the usual suspects should prepare themselves for a potential appearace by me on their couches.

And Matt and Carey, if you two aren't in town, so help me I will cut you. Not really. But I will be unhappy and begin to think that you're avoiding me.

And a new tradition is born.

2006-01-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are living under a rock or away from any and all forms of mass communication/human interaction, let me start by informing you that the University of Texas (at Austin) won the Rose Bowl last night, and subsequently the 2006 National Championship. They defeated the University of Southern California (I felt like using full names--more formal, you know) 41-38 in Pasadena.

Alright.

Originally, my plan was to be at this game. However, since that didn't happen (I still don't want to talk about it), I decided to do the next best thing--drive to Austin and watch it there so that when we won, I could go apeshit on Sixth Street.

Unfortunately, work this week has been all hands on deck, and I was unable to get the time off. That, and I have $50 in my bank account to last until the 15th (ouch). Remember to pay parking tickets on time so that they don't suddenly drain $55 from you. On that note, remember to examine streets from six inches away for signs of a BRICK CROSSWALK WITH NO WHITE LINES. *ahem*

Thus, I was forced to go with the next best alternative: watching at a bar in Uptown Dallas with several hundred other insane Longhorn fans... and a few annoying USC supporters. We wound up at Frankie's and snagged a pretty sweet corner table (no small feat considering that Frankie's apparently allowed reservations, and this was the only table left, and we ran over a few people on the way to snag it... kidding).

Highlights:

- yelling to the point that I had no voice this morning, and my throat still hurts
- Free Crown & Cokes from the Crown Royal Girls (and bless them, because there is not enough money in the world to convince me to dress in referee striped halter tops, short purple shorts, and boots)
- high fives every time the damn ball moved in a way that favored Texas (my palms are bruised. I'm not kidding)
- the genius guy standing next to me who decided it was a good idea to slam his fist into our table when we did something wrong, thus sending two glasses full of water EVERYWHERE, including all over 1) my pants, and 2) Andrea's purse
- Text message conversations with AmiLynn (I capitalized the goddamn second letter, OK?) involving the words "fuck", "cocksucker", "hell", and "love". Just trying to throw you off with that last one.
- The crazy employee who painted his (bald) head to look like a UT football helmet and ran around with a GIGANTIC burnt orange flag, directing the crowd in chants of "Hell Yeah, Fuck Yeah!"

And now, the new tradition.

Whe we played Ohio State in Columbus this year, I watched the game at a bar in Frisco with friends. When we were about halfway through the fourth quarter and didn't seem to have a prayer, Ryan and I left and decided we'd watch the remainder of the game at his apartment nearby, thus saving ourselves from public humiliation from the impending loss.

I left that evening with a bruised shin from jumping into the corner of Ryan's coffee table when we defeated Ohio State.

Last night, with 6 minutes to go, I gave up. I turned to Andrea and said "I can't do this", and we started to leave. A friend we'd made said "But you guys can't go now!". I replied "Well, when we played Ohio State, I left at about this point and we won."

"Get the hell out of here."
Heh.

Sure enough, I headed home to watch Texas go on to score twice more and win, 41-38.
While they didn't result from last night's activities, I have to wonder if it's any coincidence that my right shin is sporting a killer bruise right now.

Thus, I am now to leave any game that seems to be following this pattern, so long as I am not watching it in person. For the record, I was present for the Rose Bowl victory over Michigan in 2005, so apparently I'm just shitty luck when I'm at a bar.

And then there are days like today.

2006-01-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

It's Wednesday. While most workplaces now subscribe to the Casual Friday idea, it's days like today when I really appreciate the advertising industry and all of its quirks.

One of those quirks is that I'm currently sitting at my desk in jeans, a burnt orange tshirt, flip flops, and a North Face fleece (because while we're quirky, we haven't quite worked out the whole climate control thing). On a Wednesday. Beautiful.

I also discovered today that I can sleep until 7:45, get up, get dressed, straighten my hair, put on makeup, and still be at work by 8:35. Granted, this is a gamble because I never know what traffic will do (yesterday I left work at 6 and it took me almost an hour to get home), but still--sweet. Fifteen more minutes of sleep.

And finally, I have another reason to love my job. Our client gives us a Christmas (Holiday) gift each year. This year's model just arrived at my desk. Items included are:

- 2 of those folding camping/tailgating chairs
- 2 really, really nice travel coffee mugs
- a sweatshirt material blanket
- a soft-sided cooler that rolls with a handle that pulls out
- suckers
- a pen that also has a bubble wand and bubbles in it
- an AM/FM radio (batteries included)

It's really sweet. I can't decide which part is my favorite, but I have to say that the bubble wand-pen has provided the most entertainment thus far. I keep bubbling anyone who walks by my cube. I think this is supposed to double as a spiffy picnic setup.

It's just after 11. Erin and I are headed to lunch shortly, and then I'll have a mere 4.5 hours of work left. I'm leaving no later than 5 PM (I'll actually probably try to get out 10 minutes or so early) and meeting Andrea at the bar to watch the game. I am so nervous that my stomach is in knots.

On lazy days and self-evaluations.

2005-12-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

I've completely reversed my schedule while on vacation. Last night, I finally went to sleep at 3:30 AM (and I really wasn't that tired, either). I woke up at 11:30 this morning and probably would've slept for at least another hour if my phone hadn't rung. I'll work on fixing this on Monday night, as I don't have to be back at work until Tuesday of next week.

Jen and I headed for the gym at 1ish, and it proved to be a completely pointless trip for me. I forgot to bring my inhalor (or take a dose before leaving), and found myself beginning to wheeze after fifteen minutes on the elliptical machine. I got off and rested for five minutes before I decided to try walking on the treadmill. I got through ten minutes of that before my lungs started freaking. All in all, not such a productive day.

After that, we went to have lunch. The original plan was to sit outside at Gloria's so that we could bring Koa (her dog) with us (it's also a gorgeous day, so sitting outside seemed like a good idea). However, the stupid restaurant wouldn't allow him on the patio. Did I mention that Koa weighs 4 pounds dripping wet and would have simply sat in Jen's lap the entire time we were there? Whatever.

We wound up at Chuy's (mmm, creamy jalapeno) and spent the better part of an hour eating and talking about life. There are days like today when I feel like I have a strong grasp on who I am and what I want out of life, and there are days when all I really know is who I don't want to be and who I used to be. I'm not sure if I'm making progress or regressing, but I guess I'll find out eventually.

Now I'm home, and tired for some unknown reason. I need to clean my apartment because my parents are coming by tomorrow to help me hang my curtains up (six months after I moved in). I need to clean my apartment because it's a wreck and it's driving me nuts. I need to do some laundry, because I want to sleep on clean sheets tonight. All I really want to do is lay on my couch and watch a movie with candles lit, the windows open, and all of the lights turned off. I also need to move my car to the garage so that the newly washed exterior isn't covered in bird shit again by the morning.

Mostly I need (need, not want) to go camping sometime soon... just get out of town for a weekend and be away from everything, turn the cell phone off, and relax. Maybe hike and fish a bit, read a good book, do some drinking... anyone up for it?

Driving along in my automobile.

2005-12-26T16:18:00.000-08:00

My car, which I love dearly (and had better love dearly considering the check that I write each month to pay for it), was due for a routine oil change. The Honda dealership that I purchased it from was running a special, so I took it in to get that taken care of and my left front tire patched (slow leak).

The plan was to do that and then run to the mall for a pair of jeans.

They finished the tire patch and oil change pretty quickly, and I drove off towards the mall. It's exceptionally hot today in Dallas for December, so I turned on the a/c and waited for the car to cool down.

And waited.

And waited.

And then noticed that there was a loud rattling going on when the a/c was turned on, and that it was to the point that I could feel it via my foot on the accelerator.

I did a U-turn and headed back to the dealership to turn my car back in, thinking that perhaps I'd kicked a rock up into the system or something small like that. They said that they'd get to it as soon as they could, and they'd call me before they made any repairs.

By 5:00, I hadn't heard anything, so I called them.

Uh, yeah.

They have to replace my entire a/c system. Apparently, the compressor locked up and then contaminated the system. That's an estimated $1,600 repair. Holy shit. Luckily, they have all of the parts in, so they can repair it tomorrow.

Even more luckily, when I purchased my car in May, I purchased the Honda Care plan--which basically extends my warranty to 5 yr bumper-to-bumper for a mere $12/month.

I paid for that warranty something like three times over today with this a/c incident.

And for the record, I am the only person that I know who needs an a/c repair in DECEMBER.

Beer before liquor.

2005-12-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

Didn't we learn the lesson never to guzzle beer before hard liquor during our freshman year of college? Am i incapable of remembering anything that I learned during my freshman year of college?

And why didn't anyone remind me of this rule last night?

I hit Bennigan's with a few high school friends at 9 PM. 9-fucking-PM. Way too early for it to be a quality drinking night, so I assumed we'd have a couple, then head home at midnight.

Well.

We arrived and discovered that they had Paulaner Hefeweizen on tap. How cool is that? Seeing as Paulaner is the favorite beer of all 3 of us who were there last night, we had to drink that. And we probably would have all night.

After I had finished off #4 (Sean and Randy were ahead of me with #6 and #5, respectively), the server swung by and asked if we'd like another round. We all nodded (they nodded, I don't recall nodding, but since I'd had 4 and was feeling quite good, it's entirely possible).

After being amazed at the fact that I was actually drunk after 4 beers (the guys found this hilarious and pathetic), I mused that perhaps it was a good idea that I hadn't driven after 3 beers while I was in Austin a few weeks prior.

Then the server came back.

"I have to change out the keg on the Paulaner, so it'll be just a few minutes."

No problem. At some point during all of this, Sean's cousin and the cousin's friend had arrived, and we were cramming six people into a booth clearly made for four. This is when chaos ensued.
The server came back again.

"Uh, guys, bad news. You've basically singlehandedly killed my entire supply of Paulaner. Can I get you something else?"

The three of us looked at each other in relative shock. And then ordered alternate drinks.

I made the mistake of ordering a Cape Cod after 4 beers. Never again will I do this. When I got the drink, it was a very pale pink. I looked at Sean and said "Man, that's a lot of vodka and not a lot of cranberry." He concurred.

Then I took a sip, and it tasted fine. I was really drunk.

The rest of the night passed with that drink, another of the same, and a Red Snapper with a toast led by myself--"Here's to sleeping triple, seeing double, living single, and testing negative." Also, with me smoking two Camel Turkish Silvers, which was a decidedly bad plan. Because a) I don't smoke very often anymore, and b) I smoke Marlboro Lights, not Camel Turkish Silvers when I do.

And we were there until last call. Holy shit. Also, have you ever seen drunk people try to do math? Because it was pathetic. Then we couldn't get the pen to work. Also pathetic. I just pray that we left the guy a big enough tip, because we had to have been a nightmare.
I woke up this morning at 8 AM because my parents needed me to move my car (this marks the first time I've been absolutely wasted at my parents' house), and I was hovering somewhere between still drunk and hungover, with characteristics of both. My mother was about to go through my purse to get my keys and do it herself, which prompted me to launch myself across the room to get the purse.

See, someone gave me a sample sized thing of cinnamon lube last week as a joke, and it was still in my purse. Which is where I moved it to from the car because I drove last night when my dad and I went to pick up dinner.

I choked down advil and water and then slept for three hours. After some caffeine and a piece of pizza, I'm finally starting to feel human again.

And tomorrow night? Definitely playing it low-key.

Just for good measure.

2005-12-22T21:45:00.000-08:00

Two quotes (not spoken by me) from the drive to see Christmas lights:

"I think I'm a front door person. (beat) Better than a back door person."

"How many people do you know with a sack?"

Further adventures from tonight.

2005-12-22T20:14:00.000-08:00

A snippet of a conversation that just took place between one of the involved parties from the pervious entry. Dialogue begins with myself.

"I'm not tired."

"Me either."

"Well, I mean, I'm tired to the point that I don't want to go out-out, but I'm not tired enough to sleep or watch a movie and be low-key."

"Right, basically."

"Let's go look at Christmas lights."

"But... but I just showered, and I'm in bed wearing inappropriate attire for going out."

"Put some damn clothes on and let's go."

"I love that you know me well enough to know that I'm not wearing clothes right now."

"It creeps me out, actually. I'm showering, then I'm picking you up at 10:30."

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine."

*click*

The one where they molested the banana.

2005-12-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

Two of my girlfriends (platonic here, stop fantasizing) and I had an impromptu girls' night in this evening. Those kind are the best, and they usually result in the best stories.

It started with a chorus of "I want Pei Wei." "I want Pei Wei." "I want Pei Wei, too." Pei Wei just opened a store about four blocks from where we live, and we've been driving past it for two months and waiting for the "Open" sign to light up and invite us in. It opened this week, and we decided to walk over for dinner this evening.

Over fried rice, kung pao chicken, and honey seared shrimp, talk turned to sex and guys, helped along the way by our fortune cookies--which had us doing everything from sleeping our way up the corporate ladder to preparing today for what would happen tomorrow (in bed). Apparently I need to stretch tonight.

The three of us have somehow, along the way, become comfortable enough to discuss sex in sometimes graphic detail. It's our version of Sex & the City, 10 years younger and in Dallas instead of New York.

Well, and none of us are quite that obsessed with shoes, as far as I know.

Over dinner, one of my friends mentioned that she was in need of pointers for ways to transition from making out to...well. Making a face like a donut, if you will. In addition, she needed to know what to do with her hands before and during the act.

I'm not sure why, but she immediately looked at me and said "Will you teach me???"

Somehow, I became the "experienced" one of the group. My numbers, while low, have apparently achieved me a high level of expertise. I'm not sure that I agree, but I can share the knowledge that I have.

After another slightly embarassing moment wherein the word "fornicate" was used while a Pei Wei employee walked by, we packed up our leftovers and began the walk home.

When we got there, my friend ran to her apartment and returned with a banana.That poor banana.

She arranged the banana so that it was, um, erect. If you will. Then, she said "OK, teach me!"
And then I spent the next ten minutes using a yellow prop to explain various ways in which to pleasure a guy. The only way it would've been better was if we'd used the strawberry condom laying on the kitchen table (which we're all horrified by, because who wants to smell lube mixed with strawberries mixed with... that?), but that was a little bit too literal for my taste.
The banana looked normal and pristine before. My friend (the one not participating in said lesson) picked it up afterward and said "Christ, you sure did a number on this thing!"

It's nights like this that make me love my life.

"Um... yeah."

2005-12-19T21:35:00.000-08:00

Amilynn, should she be reading this, will appreciate this entry.

Actually, I can hear her laughing her ass off all the way from Houston. Honestly, the only reason she keeps me around is to laugh at me. Fortunately, I'm OK with that, and I even enjoy laughing at myself with her.

We're going through some "growing pains" at work, if you will. They're rearranging a lot of things, tearing down existing cubes, building new formats in their place, combining departments in new locations, etc. As a result, we've been doing a lot of moving in the past few weeks. We'll move to our permanent location while the office is closed at Christmas, but we made our first temporary move over the weekend.

I was out of the office on Friday to use up my last vacation day, and subsequently missed the distribution of the map of our temporary slots. I knew the general area of where to look today (second floor, right side), and figured I'd just wander until I found my boxes.

I got to work, walked in, and started to look around. One row... two rows... still looking. Found my supervisor's cube. Found his supervisor's cube. Found my former cubemate's cube. Finally, someone from my department told me that my co-worker couldn't find her stuff, and that judging from the look on my face, I was in the same position.

I went downstairs to my old cube, thinking that perhaps they were running late on moving us.
My old cube no longer existed. Scratch that concept.

I spotted the co-worker with missing boxes walking toward the back of the first floor and ran after her. She was being led to our new location.

First, we went through the temporary wall that's being erected.

Then, we went around a corner.

Then, another corner, where we found ourselves in a veritable cube graveyard. The place was completely deserted.

Then, in the far corner of the building, where I swear they're not even heating it right now, we found our desks. We jokingly refer to it as Outer Siberia, and have contemplated building a fort using old bedsheets out of our cubes.

As the four of us who wound up over there got settled in, I stood up and said "You know, I feel like Milton from Office Space. Tomorrow, we're going to walk in and they're going to tell me 'Um, yeah. We're going to need to make more space... if you could move your desk to the access road of 161, that'd be great.'"

If they come after my red Swingline stapler, people are going down.

Oh hell, here we go again.

2005-12-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

Sometime between graduating from high school and present-day, the days leading up to and following Christmas became a drunkfest.

It all started at Christmas, 2002. Somehow, the entire high school crew wound up at Mavericks on S. Cooper on Christmas Night. And my God, they got smashed.

At the time, I was not yet 21, so I became the designated driver. The night is still the stuff of legend.

This was immediately after Francione was hired at aTm, and several of my high school friends are Aggies. Thus, the majority of the night was spent shooting Alabama Slammers in honor of the new coach. After a few hours of drinking, four of us wound up at IHOP (because where else do you go when the bar closes at 2 AM and you want pancakes?).

And a Christmas tradition was born. Now we meet up every Christmas night--at least two or three of us--and we drink and catch up and talk about love, life, and the pursuit of happiness.
Or we discuss who is screwing whom, what we got for Christmas, and what other points of interest have come up since we last saw each other.

As the years have gone by, other nights have been added, and I seem to spend the better part of a week going out and drinking with various groups of friends.

My last day of work this year will be Thursday. On Thursday night, a friend-of-a-friend gets back into Dallas after having moved out of state. This friend-of-a-friend has a tendancy to cause nights of extreme and utter chaos (see: champagne by the pool/Nick & Sam's Tuesday). Given that we have Friday off, I have little doubt that Thursday will produce really incriminating pictures and really painful hangovers that find us moaning between sips of water at brunch on Friday.

There's a Christmas party on Christmas Night, and then we'll move to the after party. Where the after party will be is TBD--either a friend's apartment or Sherlock's, but I am not DDing this year. It's someone else's turn.

I'm sure that Friday night will find us at Bennigan's in A-town, drinking beer and Irish Coffee and catching up on high school gossip. The fact that I am off of work until January 3rd (and the fact that I'm not moving from Austin to Dallas this year) means that the amounts of trouble I can get into this year know no bounds. Let's all hope I don't get arrested, and let's all forgive me in advance for the many drunk dials I am sure I will make.

Mourning the loss of the afternoon nap.

2005-12-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

While I'm generally glad that when I get home at night, it's all "me" time (read: no more papers to write, tests to cram for, or outlines to compose), there are still certain things about the college lifestyle that I miss. In all honesty, I think if I could go back to the days of working a $8/hour job 30 hours per week, still pay my rent (ahh, student loans), make my car payment, be insured, and not have to actually attend or pass classes, I'd do it for a year or two until I got bored.

In all seriousness, I miss the afternoon nap more than anything else. Even when I was working and in school full-time, and therefore on campus roughly 14 hours per day between classes and my job, I could always find time to nap. Musics of Texas? Eh, who really needs to attend that when you can curl up on the oh-so-comfy couches of the UTC for an hour. Left Management early, and have 45 minutes to kill before an Adv. class? The Jester quiet study lounge is right around the corner.

There were, of course, the rare days when I could make it home to sleep in my own bed. However, most of my napping was done on campus. By the time I graduated (3.5 years at UT later), I had probably slept in 80% of the buildings on campus at some point. Benches, couches, two chairs pushed together... anything and everything that was a flat surface was fair game.
Then, I made the mistake of graduating and getting a "real" job.

See, you can't nap at a real job. If you're suddenly ass-tired at 3 PM, you don't get to say to yourself "Eh, I don't really need to be in on that conference call at 3:15... I'll just go snooze for 45 minutes and get the meeting notes from Jim Bob."

You could, but I imagine you'd get fired pretty quickly.

My afternoon napping is now restricted to Saturdays. I'd nap on Sundays, but the issue you run into there is that sleeping from 2 PM to 5 PM means that you will not fall asleep until 2 AM that night, which really screws with your 7 AM wakeup call on Monday. Sunday napping is only permissable after an exceptionally rough Saturday night (that said, I seem to nap on most Sundays, which might say a lot about how I spend my Saturdays).

You can sneak in a nap at work, but you have to do it in your car, at lunch. Since the weather in Texas is comfortable enough to enjoy without a/c or heat approximately 6 days out of the year, this means that you also have to have the car on, wasting gas, to keep yourself from dying of heatstroke or hypothermia. In addition, your co-workers will most likely make fun of you mercilessly if they see you sleeping in your car. I know this because I've made fun of my co-workers for doing this.

I also miss always being free at 3:15 PM on Thursday to trek to El Arroyo for 99 cent margaritas and the Cozumel Dinner, but that's a story for another time.

Urban Driving 101.

2005-12-12T21:01:00.000-08:00

I live in an uppity area of Dallas. As such, there is a roundabout of sorts located in the main intersection of the streets that run past the buildings that make up my apartment "complex".
While I realize that in the US roundabouts are not as common as 4 way stops (not that people here understand how to navigate those properly), I thought that they were fairly basic in terms of understanding.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I cannot begin to tell you the number of cars that I have seen completely and totally fuck up the negotiation of this strange concept. How hard is it to go to the right? If you need to make a left, you go to the right 3/4 of the way around the circle and it spits you out to the left of the point at which you started. If you need to go straight, you simply bear right in a semi-circle. Turning right is fairly simple--just turn right. Don't enter the roundabout while there's another car in it and about to pass you.

I'd detail how to make a U-turn, but I'm afraid that might be too much.

This is brought to you by the Mercedes SUV that almost jacked me this evening while I was attempting to go straight through the circle on my way to the parking garage. The Mercedes (located to my right) seemed to want to go left via the shortcut--without winding around the circle--while I was still driving directly in its path.

What a feeling.

2005-12-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

I don't remember the last time I was this productive on a Sunday at such an early hour.
I woke up, went to the gym, had a bloody mary, had lunch, watched a little TV, and then ran into an issue with my cell phone. For some reason, it decided to randomly restart itself while I was mid-text message. This, along with the fact that the display has been wonky lately, finally motivated me to go to the Sprint store and get them to check things out.

Somehow, I got the nicest Sprint employee ever. He decided to override his tech so I wouldn't have to wait 45 minutes for diagnostics to be run and just give me a new phone. It's the same phone, but that's fine. Miraculously, I didn't lose my numbers this time!!! I think this marks my 5th phone since signing up with Sprint. Unfortunately, of those 5, only one was a "chosen upgrade". Everything else happened as a result of whatever the most basic Samsung flip phone model at the time crapping out.

Next time, I think I'll buy a Sanyo.

While I was waiting for them to finish swapping my numbers and other stuff to the new phone, I wandered around Mockingbird Station. Even though it's worth your left (insert favored body part here) to get a parking spot at that place on a Sunday two weeks before Christmas, it's a pretty cool shopping area. They had a saxaphone playing Santa Claus (who looked surprisingly real, and who was surprisingly good) that I stopped to listen to for a bit while I had a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I also swung into Bath & Body Works for a "Tree" scented candle (since I lack the time to deal with a real tree this year), and browsed through Urban Outfitters (which prompted me to decide I need a fondue set).

For the record, I love shopping alone. Additionally for the record, I stopped in Paperie Co., which is obviously NOT a store designed with me in mind... I found a greeting card organizer and couldn't believe that people buy this crap.

After I retrieved my (new) phone, I headed back home, and actually buckled down and cleaned up my apartment. I still need to vacuum and clean the bathroom, but all of the dishes are in their proper place, the random bits of trash are cleaned up, the trash is taken out, and even the couch cushions are actually straightened up.

The real shocker is that all of this was done while it was still light out, and I suddenly realized that I'm not cut out for being productive because I get bored way too easily. I also realized that while I've got a lot of great friends in Dallas, they're spread out all over kingdom come, which is annoying when you want to do something casual like grab coffee or a bloody mary.

(I have the weirdest cravings for bloody marys lately. It's not surprising, given my love for all things tomato-related, but Matt is starting to think I'm even more off my rocker than previously indicated.)

In other words, it takes coordination, planning, and a specific event to motivate us to drive 10 or 15 miles to get to each other's houses. The ones who do live nearby are, unfortunately, otherwise occupied today.

At least now I only have 29 minutes to kill until Grey's Anatomy.

I may hate winter...

2005-12-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

but it's certainly difficult to be too down about it after the day I had on Wednesday. We're not touching Thursday, for the record.

I had to drag my ass out of bed early, as the ice storm hadn't arrived in Dallas quite yet. However, good thing #1 came in the form of my friend and co-worker (who happens to live in the building next to me) offering to drive both of us to work that day.

Any of you who have ever been in the car with me while there's traffic know that this is a blessing for myself, my heart, my blood pressure, and the likelihood of me getting off of the bus bound for hell.

So I got to work, puttered through an hour or two of meetings and excel spreadsheets, and suddenly it was time for lunch. The entire team was being taken to Via Real for (delicious) mexican food and a holiday lunch on the dime of one of the companies that we place advertising with (that much of society believes is an evil empire). I was expecting an hour, then back to the grindstone.

Instead, we got there and found out that we were in a private room. We walked into the private room and immediately gravitated towards the far corner... where there was a tub full of beer, bottles of wine, and pitchers of margarita (frozen and rocks).

Involving alcohol in advertising lunches guarantees several things: a) it will last for at least 2.5 hours, b) totally inappropriate topics for a business lunch will be discussed, and c) no one will want to do any work when they get back to the office.

Sure enough, we drank, ate queso, ate salsa, ate appetizers, drank more, ate real food, ate dessert, talked about the Texas vs. USC Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl tickets, sex, myspace, baby nurses, last year's Rose Bowl, college basketball, the possibility of Texas winning the national championship in 3 sports this year (football, basketball, baseball) and how cool that would be, the fact that Stanford's always the best athletic program because they have so damn many teams... you get the point.

Then we got back to the office at 2 to discover it was c-l-o-s-e-d due to inclement weather, and went home, where I proceeded to sit on my ass for three hours, then go to the Stars game, sit in $85 Platinum Level seats that I got for free, and drink more.

All in all, a quality Wednesday. Thank you, ice storm.

December Blues.

2005-12-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas. Let me start by saying that. But after talking to a friend of mine last night, I was reminded of how much this month has absolutely blown in the recent past. Right now, we're a week into the month, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Let's review, shall we?

Disclaimer: I realize that several of these so-called crappy events were well within my control. That doesn't make them any more enjoyable--if anything it makes it that much worse because they were entirely avoidable. Live and learn, and then move on.

2000
I finished my first semester at UT with absolutely stellar results. I'm talking genuis level here--I got a whopping 1.6 semester GPA. I'd like to say that I learned my lesson and fixed it during the spring semester (for the record, I did learn my lesson and would have fixed it if the spring hadn't turned into a 4 month nightmare). This put a rather large damper on all things Christmas and such.

2001
I was taking a year off from UT and living at home while attending community college. I pulled a Kelly/Sean, as we so appropriately named it last night, and dropped a class or two and didn't do so well in the others. Again, see the entry above regarding putting a damper on Christmas.

2002
I was back at UT. However, I made the mistake in August of taking Economics, Murphy's class, MIS, and Italian. I needed a 2.5 for the semester to remain at UT. I got a 2.46. I also had a relationship end (badly), and a 3 week long case of the stomach flu. I spent two weeks frantically appealing to advisers, deans, committees, and sleeping a lot so I wouldn't be puking. In the end, it worked out--with a bonus. Having the stomach flu right before Christmas means that you get to spend a week eating everything in sight so as to regain the weight you didnt' need to lose.

2003
I waited tables at a restaurant one summer, and planned to return to said establishment over Christmas break to earn some money. In between August and December, the managers busted a ring of servers for effectively stealing from the company. Somehow, my name was dropped (I didn't do it), and they had to investigate me before I could return to work. Between being accused of what amounted to a felony when you factored in how much money had been stolen and losing out on income = shitty.

2004
I spent last December having panic attacks, packing up my apartment, moving to Dallas, and crying. A lot. Because being the idiot that I am, I didnt' realize how much I'd miss Austin until I was staring at an empty apartment, a full U-haul, and 200 miles of I35 North.

2005
Crisis pending. Anyone want to take bets? Maybe I'll get laid off this year!

Josie's on a vacation far away...

2005-11-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

And my brain is with her.

I have no idea what my deal is (well, actually, I know exactly what my deal is--I'm distracted by some big stuff coming up in my life), but my God, I am going to find myself bunking down in traffic for the night if I'm not careful.

I went to Two Rows tonight with a friend of mine for $1 pint night.

Well, when I say "$1 pint night", I mean "any night of the week". I love Two Rows, particularly since I've finally developed a taste (or perhaps tolerance) for beer.

I finally got there after a fifteen minute drive behind every stupid driver in Dallas, walked into the restaurant, found my friend, and sat down. The server walked over, and the conversation went something like this:

"What can I get you to drink?"

"Umm... what do you have on draft?"

My friend and the server simultaneously pointed towards the menu of draft beers sitting right in front of me.

"Heh. Whoops. I'll have the Old Town Hefeweizen. And a glass of water."

My friend and the server then pointed towards the glass of water sitting next to me.

"Oh. Sorry."

I then turned to my friend, who I have not seen in a few weeks, and said "So how is law school going? What's new?"

He spent the next few minutes filling me in on the goings on of law school, friends family, travel plans, and other tidbits while I looked over the menu. During this, the server came back with my beer. My friend finished his update, we went back and forth about what I should order to eat, and then...

"So how is law school going?"

He looked at me like the moron that I am, and I said "Shit, I already asked you that, didn't I?"

I don't know what my deal is. Perhaps it was my run-in with the light fixture at the Omni Hotel on Friday (there's a post for another time)... perhaps it was the Friday night drinks... who knows? But I have got to get it together.

Or stop dyeing my hair, revert to my blonde roots, accept the fact that I look like every other female in Dallas, and blame it on that.

Heh.

2005-09-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

"Dear I-35;

I hate you. I loathe you. We are done. How many times have your fancy entrace ways lured me into your traffic sludge? Each time I get on, I'm locked into this slow moving train to hell, not a single exit ramp in sight. Why must you host an accident everyday, every G.D. f-ing hour?! Have I not given you enough attention? The long sad procession of drivers is like the arteries of some fat ass on his 7th helping of mashed potatoes. So, I-35, I've run off with Mopac. Yeah, you heard me. She treats me better, and even on her slow days she makes you look like the hagard old whore that you are. Interstate my ass! I'm done with you.

p.s. Keep my hubcaps, they'll just remind me of your years of abuse."

Thank you, Best of Craigslist.

Girls' time.

2005-08-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my life, I have more female friends than I do male friends.

This is utterly bizarre. I do not relate well to females. I don't know how to do makeup. I hate the mall. I do not like to dance. I don't wear heels. I don't know what my wedding dress will look like. I don't even know if I want to get married. I don't really like babies. I fear (and hate) committment. I do not like backstabbing and gossip.

In summary, the only girly things about me are:

a) I like romantic comedies. A lot.
b) I do not like beer. I have tried. I just don't like it. End scene.
c) I am addicted to Sex & the City, and pinot grigio.
d) I like pop music.

I like to talk about college football. At length. I know rankings. I read ESPN.com daily... usually more than once a day. I love to camp. I hate being indoors. I prefer shorts, a tshirt, and a baseball cap to a skirt, a tank top, and every hair in place.

As I'm sure that you can see, I fit in much better with the guy crowd talking about pre-season rankings over a piece of red meat than I do with the girl crowd buying lingerie at Victoria's Secret.

(I don't even own lingerie. What the hell is the point?)

But since I've moved to Dallas, I've found that the majority of my friends are girls. I'm not complaining--they're amazing people, and tend to lean towards not being girly moreso than being mall-obsessed. Someone once said that you spend your teen years acquiring as many girlfriends as you can, your twenties sorting through them, and your thirties holding onto the ones you have left for dear life.

I'm done sorting.

My best friend in Dallas is always there. On any given night, we're probably at her apartment (or mine, once I move) watching television or working our way back through Sex & the City, season by season. I have two high school friends that I'm still in touch with. They like to drag me out and make me dance. There are five or six more girls who are always up for happy hour or going to see the newest chick flick.

Sure, the guys are still around. But right now, it's time for the girls, apparently.

Oh, girls just wanna have fun

Check it.

2005-08-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

http://whatisplanc.blogspot.com

You'll find me there, occasionally.

Tell me something I didn't already know.

2005-08-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

American Cities That Best Fit You:

80% Austin

75% Atlanta

65% Denver

65% Las Vegas

60% Portland

Which American Cities Best Fit You?<

Back in the day

2005-08-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Before it was cool to have a blog, before there was a proliferation of people's opinions posted at whim on the internet, I used to have a gig writing for a website.

It went something like this:

Take 9 or 10 college kids, ranging in age from 19 to 22, and give them one rule: make one post per week.

Well, two rules. The second (unspoken) rule was "Don't be a dumbass." We all did OK with the rules. Most of the time.

I retired from my 2 year career as a writer in 2003, at age 21, as the site died down. Some people graduated, some people didn't have time anymore, and the posts became fewer and fewer.

When I posted my farewell entry, someone left a comment saying that they thought that my leaving the site felt like there was a character leaving the cast of Friends. I've never been more touched, and I've never felt more confident that people actually do enjoy reading things that I write. Sometimes.

I'm in the process of digging up my contributions, and I'll likely be posting some of the highlights as I find them. I found this one using the WayBack Machine, and it made me laugh to remember this moment in time. It was Labor Day, 2002. So, without further ado, here it is.

Lakeside Adventures

I believe more firmly than ever that pain is very much mental. Girls will empathize with me on this one--if you've ever cut your legs shaving, you really don't even feel it until you see the cut when you're drying off. I'm not sure why the brain works that way, nor do I have any desire to find out--but it's baffling all the same.

Labor Day... a day of cooking out, beer, swimming, going to the lake, and generally just having one last day of summer. Well, unless you're an Aggie. *gloats* Or you live in the Baylor Bubble. No matter which way you look at it, as an American, you have an obligation to eat red meat, refresh your tan one last time, and drink a beer on that day each year. I did all of that. Well, I tried to, anyway.

Windy Point is a very cool place to go if you're in Austin and the weather's nice. Not surprisingly, half of the people who live in Austin went there yesterday, to include myself and a group of friends. Among the highlights of the day:

White Trash Woman and the $30,000 truck

We had to take two carloads of people out there. One (the one I was in) managed to find a parking spot relatively close to the main gate and tollbooth. I think the other guys had to park halfway back to campus. While waiting, the four of us in the first carload just kind of stood around. One of the guys leaned up against some red truck--a decent truck, but c'mon--it's a truck. I don't think any of us were prepared for what happened as a result. All of a sudden, this trashy woman came flying towards us, screaming "Don't lean on my truck. It's a $30,000 truck. Get the hell off of it."

OK--maybe he shouldn't have been leaning on it, a fact that my friend readily acknowledged. However, since she was screaming at him, he wasn't exactly inclined to be cooperative. After he huffed a bit, she screamed "Don't you huff at me. Don't lean on my truck. It's a $30,000 truck." She drove off after that, proceeding to curse out the two park rangers preventing people from driving onto the point. I caught "I have 10 kids to pick up down there, and I can't make them walk all the way back up here. Why the hell can't I fucking drive down to the point?"

My friend raised two good points. One, trucks are made for hauling stuff. If you're worried about people leaning on it, you've purchased the wrong vehicle. And why would you spend that much money on a truck that couldn't serve the purpose it was created for? The second point was that it's generally a good idea to spend more on your trailer than on the vehicle you tow it with. Not exactly PC, but true. *sigh*

Watch out for Stabbing Rocks

I'm a self-admitted klutz. However, usually there's more drama involved in my injuries than there was yesterday.

As we were walking along the (rocky) path to find an unoccupied grill, I was actually being careful not to trip. Maybe wearing flip flops when it's that rocky isn't the wisest move, but hindsight is always 20/20. I felt myself kick a rock after a minute or two, but it wasn't enough to make me stumble, so I didn't even bother to look down.

When I did look down a minute later, the big toe on my right foot was gushing blood from a gash about 3/4 of an inch long and 1/4 of an inch wide. Lovely. I stopped, stared, and thought "Gee, it really doens't hurt for all that blood." My friends saw it at that point, and were all rather grossed out. To be honest, I was really grossed out, and it was on my toe. After we dumped the stuff at the table (another 100 yards away, I might add) one guy and I hiked back up to the front to see if the park rangers had some first aid stuff. They were quite impressed with my cut, and one antisceptic wipe and three band-aids later, I was good to go.

Of course, my day was shot so far as swimming, sand volleyball, and pretty much anything involving dirt or water. I called the UT nurses' advice line when I got home last night, and she advised that I get it stitched up. Then I thought about the fact that the Urgent Care center at the Health Center was closed, and I'd therefore have to wait through the Labor Day crowds at the ER. I now have an economy sized box of butterfly bandages and a huge tube of Neosporin.

Spatulas: An Essential Accessory for the Modern Griller

We had way too much shit in the way of food and beer when you considered that there were only eight of us, and of those eight, four were girls. The other six managed to get the grill going while I was in search of first-aid, and we popped the first of the burgers and hot dogs on when I got back.

We had everything you could need--beer, Smirnoff Ice, Dr. Pepper, Vanilla Coke, regular Coke, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, ketchup, two kinds of mustard, Capri Suns, lemonade, plates, paper towels, chips, salsa, forks, knives, napkins, and even a trash bag.

When it was was time to flip the first of the burgers, we realized we had no spatula. Yesterday was a learning experience--"How to grill with a fork and a few paper plates without third degree burns". Most of the burgers were more like crumbles of ground beef collected on a bun. Oh well. I didn't pack the cooler, so I feel no responsiblity.

The burgers really weren't bad, either.

I'm getting too old for this stuff.

2005-08-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Following is the email that I sent several of my friends this morning when I got to work:

I realize I said this after the wine/champagne incident of July.

However, I mean it this time. Last night was no bueno. See the following list of reasons:

1) You should never mix tequila, vodka, and pinot grigio
2) I don't remember driving home after Iris (or wherever the hell we were), but my car was in my parking lot this morning. This is disturbing on so many levels. I'm not sure how I thought I got home, but there's really no logic behind a drunk person's thinking.
3) When you make out with someone in a parking lot, you probably shouldn't a) expect them to remember your name, or b) be insulted when they don't.
4) I have got to stop documenting these nights of mayhem. Seriously-I might run for political office one day, and y'all are going to kill my campaign with this stuff!
5) The taste that I had in my mouth when I woke up at 5:30 AM (for no reason) was enough to make me want to die. Twice. Because I'm pretty sure I died last night already.

Do you know what I did? I got to my apartment at 10:30. I sat on the couch. I watched a little TV. I started to upload pictures. Then, the room began to spin, my stomach began to turn, and it was all downhill from there.

Jenn, go ahead and eat those sour cream chicken enchiladas that I left in your fridge. I never want to see, smell, or taste a sour cream chicken enchilada again. EVER. I puked. Multiple times. Then I brushed my teeth, did a load of laundry, and went to sleep. My life is an episode of Desperate Housewives. I'm the worst drunk ever-who the hell pukes and then does laundry before they pass out? In all seriousness, I'm beginning to think that I should stop eating sour cream chicken enchiladas while drinking-the only other time that I've puked (since age 6) came the day that I ate those for lunch. Then last night.

I'm telling you, there's something to this theory.

Open Letters.

2005-08-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Swollen Glands/Cough/Snot/Sore Throat,

Please go away. I have plans this weekend. You heard me--PLANS. Plans that involve going out, bowling while drunk, and getting shitty. These plans do not include laying on my couch and supporting Kleenex's third quarter revenue tally.

Dear car,

Please magically fill with gas overnight. Thank you.

Dear NFCU,

Thank you for giving me a credit card with an interest rate that does not make me want to cry. Also, thank you for restoring my faith in the fact that someday my credit history will not be quite so abysmal. You actually gave me an APR below the average rate.

Debauchery, Austin-style.

2005-08-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

I went to Austin this weekend. Normally, I fly solo on my trips to Austin--it affords me far more freedom. If I change my mind at 2 AM and decide that I'd like to swap couches, I can. I can do whatever I want without having to factor in someone else's preferences.

However, this weekend, I caravaned down with a group of four other girls. Four of us work togehter, and the fifth works in the same industry and went to college with me. One of the girls also went to school with us, while the remaining two had little (if any) Austin experience.

It is a weekend that we will not be forgetting anytime soon.

Those of us who can remember it, anyway...

Jenn and I hit the road at 5:30 on Friday. Once we were out of Dallas, the trip went smoothly. She chugged a Red Bull and occupied herself with making friends with drivers we passed on 35. Unfortunately, all but 2 were on their cell phones. She was disappointed to find that "they don't need to be friends with me. They already have friends. Aww..."

Indeed.

We ate at Hula Hut for dinner (see the "World's Biggest Spoon" pictures), and headed to Sixth Street. I had attempted to explain just how small of a world Austin is before we left Dallas (this was Jenn's first visit there), but I don't think she quite understood it. Until we walked into the first bar, one of my usual haunts, and ran into the creative interns from the agency. And thus began an entire night of seeing people I knew... most of whom weren't the ones I wanted to see.

We did shots at Cheers and said hi to my friend who bartends there (who I am willing to bet is again single, as he kissed me on the lips instead of the cheek, as per usual). We went to Cuba Libre to see another friend of mine.

She saw Leslie at one point.

"WHAT is that?"

"Huh? Oh, that's Leslie."

"What's a Leslie?"

"You've never heard of Leslie? He's famous. He wanders around Austin in that (a thong and tshirt), a teddy, or a powder blue leisure suit."

"That's disturbing."

"He runs for mayor."

"That's even more disturbing."

Hee.

The rest of the night passed quickly, and we then crashed at a friend's place. I got into a fight with my friend after Jenn had crashed, as he said she had a bad attitude. I told him that she was just exhausted, and not to mess with me.

Yes, ladies and gentleman (who know the rest of the story), I am that good of a friend.

On Saturay, we picked up Taco Shack (heaven), and then set to work deciding which river to float when we'd met back up with the rest of the group.

We decided on the Guadalupe.

Had I known then what was going to transpire in the next 8 hours, I probably would've thrown Jenn in the car and driven back to Dallas. Alas, I haven't figured out the whole seeing the future thing yet, so I went along blindly. And dumbly. And ever other bad "-ly" word I can think of.

Let's do the math:

- 6 people
- 1 case of beer
- 150 Jello shots
- 1 5 hour float (complete with rapids)
- 3 Canadians
- a partridge in a pear tree

In all seriousness.

Jenn got obliterated. You know how obliterated we got that fateful Wednesday night? She was worse.

I won't go into the details (she'd kill me), but I will say that she survived with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises.

I, on the other hand, stayed stone-cold sober, and am now nursing a badly bruised wrist. I had a disagreement with a rapid, and subsequently a disagreement with some rocks.

Jenn passed out at 8:30 on Satuday night.

I left to have dinner with friends, and called her at midnight to see if she was awake and wanted to come to my friend's place to watch a movie and sleep there. Apparently, she got my message when she woke up at 4:30 AM. Heh.

We hit the road after lunch at Shady Grove and arrived back in Dallas at 4. I wish that I could elaborate more, but our mantra for the weekend prevents it.

What happens in Austin, stays in Austin.

All in all, it was a great visit. I can't wait to go back in a few weeks for a (lower-key) trip.

But this time, it's my turn to get obliterated on the river.

I like to spend my days floatin' down the Guadalupe River
Drink a cold case of Lone Star Beer while my body shivers

Theme songs.

2005-07-31T00:12:00.000-07:00

Jenn and I have found a song that fits our lives to a T. Some parts are more her, some are more me, but hell--it doens't get much more accurate than this. Chorus omitted due to the fact that there's no real substance there.

Monday, hard to wake up
Fill my coffee cup, I'm out the door
Yeah, the freeway's standing still today
It's gonna make me late, and that's for sure
I'm running out of gas and out of time
Never gonna make it there by nine

Five years and there's no doubt
that I'm burnt out, I've had enough
So now boss man, here's my two weeks
I'll make it short and sweet, so listen up
I could work my life away, but why?
I got things to do before I die.

Some believe in destiny, and some believe in fate
I believe that happiness is something we create
You best believe that I'm not gonna wait
'cause there's gotta be something more

I get home, 7:30, the house is dirty but it can wait
Yeah, cause right now I need some downtime
To drink some red wine and celebrate
Armageddon could be knocking at my door
but I ain't gonna answer, that's for sure

Motherfucker!

2005-07-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend had the potential to go down in the books as one of the good ones.

- I didn't have to drive to A-town for once. Don't get me wrong--I love my family--but having to go once or twice a week really grates on your nerves after a while.

- There was a multitude of good quotes

- I got a parking pass with my (free) Rangers tickets (for excellent seats) for this Wednesday

- I went for a 2-mile run

- I got paid on Friday

- I had girls' night last night, and went out in Uptown tonight

These things, plus a few others that I'm too lazy to list, had all the makings of a great weekend spent chilling out in Dallas with no real obligations or set agenda. Even though we didn't stay out very long tonight (we're boring--what can I say?), I had fun, and I had Taco C at the end of the evening. And I got to watch the only Sex & the City episode where you see a penis, which was entertaining.

And then, I left Jenn's and walked out to my car.

And there it was.

A motherfucking parking ticket.

Did you know that it's illegal to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk? Yeah, I didn't. I know you can't block a fire hydrant. I know you can't park too close to a stop sign.

But a motherfucking crosswalk when it's not even a full-fledged intersection?

I'm so fucking pissed, for multiple reasons:

1) that part of the curb is NOT marked "no parking" in any way, shape, or form. I don't buy for a second that the "within 20 feet of a crosswalk" rule is one that anyone knows off the top of his or her head.

2) the guy behind me (who was obviously also within 20 feet, as my car is NOT 20 feet long) had no parking ticket.

3) the guy in front of me, who was parked in front of a motherfucking fire hydrant (!) had no ticket.

4) I do not have $30 to spare

5) The motherfucking city of Dallas police should be so busy with rapes, murders, and drunk drivers that giving out motherfucking parking tickets should be the LAST thing they're concerned with.

GODDAMMIT!

Obliterated, party of one.

2005-07-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

I got wasted last night.

Well, wasted is probably insufficient in terms of description.

I almost died last night, I think.

It started out innocently--I went over to Jenn's with a slice of cake and a bottle of Pinot Grigio, intending to have a glass of wine and watch Sex & the City.

Then it started going downhill.

I drank the entire bottle of wine. Jenn drank 3/4 of a bottle of her own wine. We ate the cake. We watched Sex & the City. We (me) decided that we needed more wine, so we trooped down the street to Wal Mart. We ended up leaving with a bottle of champagne. We drank the champagne by the pool in approximately 30 minutes--by this point, we'd been joined by a third person.

Then Jenn got a call from a friend of hers who was at one of Dallas' most hoity-toity restaurants. He used to work there, and he told us to come up there.

So we did.

And we had 2 or 3 more glasses of (very expensive, very free) wine. And then we went to a bar, and we had a drink.

And somewhere between the restaurant and the bar, I ended up kissing this guy (very briefly) in his car. He, I have to say, was a fantastic kisser. Total lip slut, but I'm not complaining. No numbers were exchanged, thank God, so it can remain a product of being drunk and being young and stupid.

I drove home (Oh my God, the stupidest thing I have EVER EVER EVER done), and passed out. And then I woke up at 3:30 AM because my phone was ringing and someone was pounding on the door--Jenn had left her keys in my car, and she was over to pick them up. I was not wearing pants (not sure why this is relevant), so I had to hide behind the door, hand her my car keys, and then crawl back into bed when she returned them.

I woke up at 7:40 AM--I'm absolutely shocked that I woke up--still drunk. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, grabbed the first clean clothes I found, and called Jenn. She answered with a "mmph", and then said she was considering calling in sick. I picked her up, drove us to work, picked up Whataburger, ate it, and have since been sitting at my desk. I'm still slightly drunk.

Oh.

My.

God.

Never, ever again. Never. I don't want to even LOOK at alcohol for at least two weeks. I don't want to smell it. I never want to drink pinot grigio again. I never want to drink champagne again. I never want to make out in a parking lot aga--well, scratch that one.

I woke up with a headache from the night before
'cause sometimes I drink
I spent the night with my head in a toilet bowl
that's where I like to think

100 Things

2005-07-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

Because I'm oh-so-original.

1. I secretly love Apple, and want an iBook.
2. I fully believe that inanimate objects have feelings.
3. I hate talking on the phone
4. but I want people to call me.
5. I am very shy
6. but you'd never know it if you know me well.
7. The concept of talking "dirty" mortifies me beyond belief, and I will never be wasted enough to pull it off.
8. Using "u" in place of "you" or "ur" in place of "your" will render you off of my buddy list/out of my call log.
9. Zach Morris from Saved By The Bell is my ideal guy in human form.
10. I wish I could sing
11. but I'll settle for being a good violin player.
12. I wish I had played cello, though.
13. I hate how insecure I am.
14. My weakness is creamy jalepeno and a margarita.
15. I still sleep with a pound puppy named Cooler that I've had for 21 years
16. And the baby blanket I've had for 23.
17. Speaking of sleep, I can't sleep anywhere but on my stomach
18. and I never sleep as well when I'm not in my own bed
19. or when someone is in bed with me.
20. I can't watch scary movies.
21. I hate making decisions
22. which is why being laid back is a good thing for me
23. because I don't really care what anyone else decides, as long as I don't have to do it.
24. This means that my worst nightmare would be to date someone as apathetic as me.
25. I like Dave Matthews, even though it's cool to hate him now.
26. I've never understood the desire to have sex in your parents' bed
27. and I really think people who want to are freaky.
28. I used to hate my job
29. but now I think it's pretty cool
30. and I'm not just saying that because of all the free stuff I get.
31. I think penguins are the coolest animal ever
32. and I totally want a pet penguin, even if that's not realistic.
33. I used to want to be a doctor
34. then I took chemistry and decided to go into corporate communications instead.
35. I'm slightly dyslexic--I scramble numbers, not letters.
36. This is ironic, considering that 90% of my job is centered around numbers.
37. I have severe ADD.
38. My right leg is 1.25" longer than my left
39. you can't tell because when I walk, I don't straighten my right leg completely
40. so no, I don't have a limp.
41. But I do have a tendancy to trip over air.
42. I like my hair better as brunette than blonde.
43. I wear flip flops non-stop from March to November
44. I get flip flop tan lines even if I'm not wearing them while out in the sun.
45. I don't know if I want to get married
46. but if I do, I think I want a destination wedding. So much less hassle.
47. It would probably be in the Bahamas
48. but I have no idea who my bridesmaids would be
49. nor do I know what kind of engagement ring I would want.
50. I'm told that this is not normal for a female.
51. I like my sister now
52. It took us 21 years to get to a place where we could actually relate to each other
53. I blame the four year age difference.
54. I've always loved her, but loving someone doesn't obligate you to like them--that has to be voluntary.
55. I hate driving when there are other people on the road
56. and I wish that I had the power to take people's licenses away on the spot for being stupid drivers.
57. If I could have one superpower, it would be the ability to fly.
58. I suck at picking favorite movies, books, and songs.
59. I look nothing like my father
60. but I am exactly like him in terms of personality.
61. I have puked exactly one time since I was six years old
62. it was because I got absolutely wasted
63. I don't remember anything from that night,
64. but I woke up the next morning sans shirt in my (male) friend's bed
65. Oops.
66. I have come to the conclusion that pre-martial sex is not fun enough to make up for the stress it causes
67. because no matter how many forms of birth control you're using, you will panic every month when it's time for your period
68. though it is nice to look forward to getting your period, because when you're abstinent, you don't want it.
69. I used to hate fireworks because of the loud noise
70. but I no longer need to stick my fingers in my ears to tolerate them.
71. I have an 80% hearing loss in my left ear
72. and it's really inconvenient
73. but I do have limited lip reading skills that I employ when in bars and restaurants where it's hard to hear people
74. but I have to remember to explain why I'm staring at someone's mouth.
75. I hate pancakes.
76. I'm not a fan of chocolate or candy either.
77. I also hate water,
78. and it totally has a taste to it.
79. I love being outside
80. and I wish I could go camping more often.
81. although I am terrified of snakes, so this might not be the best plan.
82. I was sick for six straight weeks two years ago
83. and my glands still haven't stopped swelling from it.
84. I think that green skittles represent all that is evil about the world.
85. but green M&Ms are my favorite.
86. I think that it is better to have a few very close friends than a lot of casual friends.
87. If you had told me five years ago that I'd still be in frequent contact with people from high school, I would've laughed you out of the room
88. and I'm still glad we don't do five year reunions.
89. I think that getting married right out of college is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.
90. People that cannot control the volume of their voices annoy the crap out of me
91. as do people that interrupt.
92. Sometimes I wish I'd done the creative sequence
93. and then I look at people I know who did the creative sequence and are still unemployed
94. and I think "damn, media is awesome"
95. I love college football
96. but I hate the NFL.
97. I don't so much like kids
98. they're awfully weird.
99. I am neither a cat nor a dog person.
100. my birthday occasionally falls on Mother's Day.

What a feeling

2005-07-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to think that I've jumped ship on the growing up process.

On the objective, rational side of things, I'm not concerned. 23 isn't exactly old. 24 isn't either, for that matter. I don't feel the need to, so why should I?

On the emotional, stupid side of things, I feel pressured.

I don't want to be in a relationship right now. I don't want to have to figure out how to date someone, how to like someone, how to fit someone into my life. I'm sure that if a prospect appeared that motivated me to want to do these things, I'd have no problems--however, I'm certainly not seeking it out. One might say that I'm even avoiding it.

But when I hear one of my best friends telling me that she can't go to lunch on Saturday because she has to try on wedding dresses, one of my other friends talking about how she's met a guy that she'll even call for casual phone conversations every day, another friend discussing the new guy in her life that she really likes... another friend that is slowly moving towards getting to know a guy in the capacity of dating...

Don't leave me to be single alone, y'all.

I've dealt with friends before who find a boyfriend or girlfriend and do one of two things: 1) They disappear until the breakup occurs, or 2) They stick around, but they never go anywhere without the significant other (which is quite honestly even more annoying than if they just disappeared. I signed up to be friends with you. Your girlfriend sucks. I don't want to hang out with her every time I see you.).

It sucks, but generally the majority of my other friends are still single, and it's not an issue.

However, as we get older, people are (understandably) looking to find that person that they want to settle down with, register at Target with, fight over who cleans the bathroom with. And that means that at any given moment, my pool of single friends is likely going to be outnumbered by my pool of attached friends. This leaves me off in the lonely land of being the "single one of the group", which, in a word, sucks.

Of course, I should be thankful that we're not at the point where my attached friends will invite me to dinner and "Surprise! Michael, our friend who is also single, just happened to be free tonight!"

In other words, I don't want a relationship. I don't think, anyway. But at the same time, I don't want to be left on the dock completely alone while everyone else sails off into the sunset.

One of y'all is going to have to hang out with me to fish off of the pier for a while longer.

All I wanna do is rock this motherfucker all night long y'all
Nonstop til the crack of dawn y'all
Ass knockin til you can't go on

Holy stupidity, Batman!

2005-07-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

I have little to no detail about the flight that John and Tom are arriving on today. This is because Tweedledum and Tweedledumbass neglected to ever give me information.

All I've got is that they're on United. I was told by John that they land at 10:56 AM.

Imagine my surprise when my phone rang at 10:15 AM and the caller ID said John's name. My first thought?

"You guys are supposed to be on a plane, in the sky, without cell phone service."

I answered, and we had a conversation that went something like this:

John: We're here! We're at gate B29.
Kelly: What do you mean, you're here? It's 10:15
John: Well, yeah, the plane was delayed.
Kelly: Delayed?! You told me you were landing at 11 AM!
John: It is 11 A--oh shit... this is central time... it's only 10:15.

*sigh*

Their asses are still at the airport because I couldn't leave work until 11, LIKE I HAD PLANNED TO DO.

I'm on my way to get them now. Wish me luck.

Moron, party of one.

2005-06-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-26T01:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

For the "small world" post I need to do tomorrow.

Billy Joel.

2005-06-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-06-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

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.

Nineteen.

2005-05-31T23:20:00.000-07:00

There's a small problem I'm becoming more and more aware of.

My life from ages 19-22 is a big blur.

Maybe that just goes with the territory of an up and down, on and off, almost 3 year relationship where you're busy figuring out who you are, busy growing up, while making that fit with someone else.

I was 19 when I met him. It was during what I now affectionately refer to as the "lost year". I was tired, and scared, and stressed. I met him when I needed a bright spot in my life--when I needed someone who could make me smile.

He made me smile. He made me laugh, I was perfect. He was perfect. There are a dozen snapshots I carry around in my head of that time, funny memories, sweet ones, special ones.

Then something changed. I turned 20. I got a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit more mature. But somehow, the good parts didn't keep up with me, and things got a little bit worse. We fought, we were stubborn, we let things slip away because neither of us would bend. There were other factors, some that I'm not proud of. And then he decided it was time to let go. And he did.

Except that it didn't stick, and a month later, we were back to 19. A little more scarred, a little more cautious, but back where we had been--or as close as we could get. And it worked, for a little while. Until things went south as quickly as anything could possibly go south. Reprecussions from that time lasted for a year. Things were yelled, feelings were crushed, and a 4-month silence hovered.

Then he called. And slowly, gradually, things repaired themselves. We were more cautious this time. I had other things on the horizon. I met someone new, and for a minute, I was done. Then that ended. He was the first person I called, for reassurance, for comfort, for consistency. Because by then, that's what we were for the other--something constant. Dependable.

And we slid back into our same cycle. Nothing stands out much from that point onward--it's a general haze of what happened, but I can't pinpoint any exact moments the way that I could before. Weekends, random weeknight trips, fights, hugs, tears. It all fades into a year's time.

Then summer came again, and we took a new direction. I began to lift myself out of the fog, began to see the problems, the reasons not to bury my head in the sand again. I spent that summer trying to ignore them. Fall came, and I finally had to admit to myself that things had stalled, that things had failed to change, that things were truly over. And it hurt, and it was hard, and there were more fights and more tears and more periods of silence.

In the end, it was our consistency that was the problem.

In the time that he knew me, I had 3 birthdays. I changed majors. I had my first legal drink. I voted in a Presidential election for the second time. I made new friends, kept old ones, and left some behind. I grew up during all of that--I left some characteristics that weren't favorable behind. I matured. I became painfully level-headed when I had previously been prone to overreacting.

But in his eyes, I was 19. Even at age 22, I was 19. I was still naive. I still needed him. I was still his "little one". I don't think he intended to keep me that way. And if he did intend it, I don't think that it was even a bad thing in his mind. He liked me at 19. If he hadn't, none of this ever would have started.

He wanted me to be 19, but he wanted to be 23. And his 23 year old self was more and more frustrated--he could related to my 19 year old self when he was 20. When he was 23, it was more difficult. And I was changing. I wanted to be considered his equal. And as much as he tried, I was never going to stop being 19 to him.

It's been about 8 months since that ship finally sailed for good. I learned a lot during those 3 years, but right now my focus is on what I didn't learn.

This entry is painfully personal, and I'm not sure that it'll remain up.

But it's what is in my head, and what I needed to get out. It's real, and it's the stuff that I never tell anyone. Sure, it's not the most laid-back, level-headed piece of prose on the market, but no one is perfect.

Right?

Nineteen
Finished up with high school
Headed to a state school
Wandered into you.

I just want to be taken seriously.

2005-05-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is one of those "Poor me." blogs.

If you hate reading them, stop. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Do not bitch at me about this, because I do not care. It's my blog, and I'm not going to spew sunshine out of my ass all of the time.

Moving on.

I realize several things about myself.

I realize that I look very young for my age. I am aware that knowing no parameters (i.e., if I'm in college, done with college, in high school, working, etc.), most people would peg me to be 17-18. With the assumption in place that I'm in college, I tend to get 18-19.

People never assume that I've graduated, so I've never gotten the minimum guess of 22 before.

I realize that I look sweet. I'm blonde(ish). I'm short. Some might go so far as to describe me as "petite". I think I have too much personality for that term, but whatever.

I realize that I tend to be softspoken in situations where I do not know people.

What pisses me off is that people assume that, because of my appearance, I'm stupid. I'm imcompetent. I'm gullible. I'm sweet. I'm naive.

I'm NOT.

I'm intelligent. I dont' say this because I'm conceited, but because it's true. I'm very competent. I learn quickly, and I remember what I've learned. I'm not gullible. In fact, I'm very slow to trust people. I'm very closed off. I do not like to let people in. I'm not sweet. I'm blunt as hell with a mouth that a sailor would be ashamed of. I say things like "Fuck" and "Penis" and "Asshat" without a second thought. I'm not naive. I'm not going to qualify that one, but I'm not naive.

Stop assuming this shit about me. Stop assuming that because of the way I look, you can offer me $50 for tickets that I'm asking for $60 for. Stop saying things like "Sweetie, face value for those is $44."

Yes, and then there were $12 in service charges, so face is now $56. And I want that $12. Don't say "If those were lower level..." The game is sold out. There are guys donating kidneys for tickets to the Mavs playoff games. They are not going to care what level these seats are at. They do not have a possibly obstructed view. So when I say "I'll take $60", I'm not going to buy your bullshit justification of why they're not worth $60.

Note to self:

2005-05-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

Blog about being pissed off re: appearances and the way people are treated because of them.

It must be Thursday--I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

2005-05-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

Just call me Arthur Dent.

Tom does, at any rate.

Thursday is once again off of the schedule for next week. You give a day a chance to redeem itself, and it sends you right back down the shitter.

Whatever, Friday was awesome. Friday is the new Thursday.

I'm getting an intern (I think)! Woohoo! This was completely impromptu and unexpected. My team was at lunch today, and I happened to mention that I knew someone who had interviewed for an internship in another department. My head honcho supervisor said "Do you think we could use an intern?" to the group, and we all nodded emphatically. She said she would check with HR about getting one for the summer. Woohoo! An intern! Fewer reps to call! Fewer media kits to file! Less general shit work to do! Someone else can be responsible for printing and copying status for a few months!

I love it. LOVE. IT.

Don't get me wrong--calling reps and filing media kits and copying status (OK, maybe not that last one) have been good for me. I'm much more comfortable on the phone now than I was before. I know what to ask for when I request a rate card. I'm learning about publications and newspapers and all that fun stuff. Media kits are good to know about, so that when I'm sifting through 75 of them in my desk drawers, I remember that Fortune's is a dark blue while Forbes is gray.

You know, that kind of important stuff.

But the thing is that as I've grown more comfortable with those kinds of tasks, my workload of higher level tasks has grown considerably, and it's oftentimes difficult to finish the higher level tasks when I have to stop to do something like field calls from 10 reps that I left voicemails with in the morning. So, it'll be nice to have someone who I can divvy up the workload with, or have help me when I have more complicated projects to work on.

I'm considering renaming myself "Newspaper Maven". Seriously folks--I know more about newspapers and rates and ad sizes and terminology than I ever wanted to. If you name a city, I can most likely name the major daily off the top of my head. If you say a paper name, I can tell you what state it is located in--if not the specific city. I can tell you if a paper has zoned editions available. It's a little bit ridiculous. It wasn't intentional on anyone's part--it's just the way that the projects have fallen out lately. Oh well!

I should probably work on replacing all of the burnt out lightbulbs in my apartment tomorrow. I could call maintenance and have them do it, but considering that I've called 3 times to have my thermostat looked at and it still hasn't happened, I'm going to just do that myself.

I think I,
I could use a little break
But today was a good day.

FYI

2005-05-07T19:38:00.000-07:00

I turn 23 on Saturday. Things I'd appreciate getting include:

1) Season 1 of Scrubs on DVD (it comes out on May 17)
2) a copy of In Good Company on DVD
3) alcohol
4) help moving in August

I'm entirely joking, of course.

I categorically refuse to ever give these up.

2005-05-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

Girls' nights out/in.

I don't care if someone talked me into reproducing, I'm 40, and I've been married for 10 years. I ain't letting go of them.

There are just nights when you need some quality time with the girlfriends to do all of the things that guys give you crap for--drinking girly drinks (see: pina coladas), watching chick flicks (tonights movies are In Good Company and 13 Going on 30), shopping for couches...

Oh.

Yeah.

We do the unconventional girls' nights as well. Tonight, the agenda is to go buy a couch (for my friend--I'm still highly satisfied with the giant watermelon). She called me at my desk an hour ago and said "I have to go pick up the dog, then we can start on the girls night."

"What are we going to sit on?"

"Oh. Shit. Bring a pil--no, you know what? Let's go buy a couch. Fuck it--let's just do it tonight."

"Will they deliver tonight?"

"Probably not, but I'm buying one anyway."

Okay then.

So, the agenda consists of movies, alcohol, and a couch. And a long-haired Chihuahua named Coa. That's pronounced "Co-ah" for those of you who needed to know that mindless bit of information.

Informally, the agenda consists of talking about boys, boobs, work, girls that annoy us, food, the beach trip in August, and other such hot topics of conversation while we drink the alcohol and sit on the couch with the movies playing as background noise, and Coa looks at us and sighs because he could be doing so many Totally Cooler things with his Friday night, whether he lacks a major part of his gender identity or not.

This, obviously, is more the girls' night in variety. In Austin, the routine was Trudy's, then Center Stage. I had to adapt for Dallas, but I think I can get into the groove of Pina Coladas and perhaps some Pluckers delivery.

Girls' night out is another matter entirely. Girls' night out is loud and crude and drunk and fun. Not that girls' nights in aren't, but out is just an animal all its own.

Cliche, but

Girls just wanna have fun.

RE: Thursday, May 12

2005-05-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Universe,

I'd like to let you know that I have made the executive decision to cancel next Thursday, May 12.

Please forgive the inconveniences this may cause you, but Thursday needs to be taught a lesson. I'm not ready to formally remove Thursday from the week on a permanent basis, but I feel that a one-week suspension from existence may help it learn how to be a nice day like the rest of the week. At this point, it has fallen lower than Monday--and we all know that that can never be a good sign.

Thursday's offenses are as follows:

1) Causing me a nervous breakdown at work. My workload was no different than it was on the previous days of this week, and yet Thursday brought on the frustration, near tears, and general mental exhaustion.

2) Causing me to write $1,125 in checks for rent and bills. Oh. My. God. Yes, Thursday, you had to take the ONE TIME in the past FOUR YEARS that my bank account balance has been above $1,000 and kill it in the name of Rent, Cable, Internet, and Auto Insurance. I want to live in a world where there is free Internet, Rent, Cable, and Insurance, dammit.

3) Putting traffic on 635 at 7 PM. This doesn't even touch on the fact that you had me at work until 7 PM. Right now, we're just addressing the fact that there was still TRAFFIC AT SEVEN FUCKING PM. This is absurd. The silver lining to staying late at work is SUPPOSED to be that there is no traffic, and that I (God forbid) enjoy driving for once.

4) Hiding my checkbook. I had to write $1,125 worth of checks today, so of course it was the day you decided to hide my checkbook. Way to go, Thursday.

5) Hiding my stamps. They were on the counter. Now they are not on the counter. Thursday, this is all your fault.

6) Keeping me at work until 7 PM. Thursday, I have now worked 44 hours this week. This is absurd. You should have let me out at five, but once again, I was the last person to leave. Thursday, you had better come through with a promotion and a raise sometime in the near future as part of your redemption program.

7) Causing me to miss the FREE alcohol and festivities at Taco Diner for the Wall Street Journal Cinco de Mayo celebration (see #6 for reason).

As you can all see, Thursday has committed some heinous offenses, and deserves to be punished.

However, Friday, if you can be particularly kickass, I might consider making Thursday's punishment less severe, and putting it on a probationary status prior to cancelling it.

To finish, a message brought to you by Loverboy:

Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody wants a little romance
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance

It's a good thing these guys only meet every other year.

2005-05-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/05/cheerleaders.law.reut/index.html

Where are my Killer Ds, I ask you??? If the most entertaining thing to come of this Session is the "1, 2, 3, 4, we can't shake it anymore" bill, then this is a huge letdown after the fleeing and harboring fleeing Democrats last time.

Continuing to delve into the female psyche.

2005-05-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

It's a scary place, but someone has to venture in there and report back to the masses, right?

This was all prompted by my dinner this evening. A female friend called me this afternoon and said "OK, I went to the bar where he was at on Friday, and now I need to talk about what happened and what it means. Margaritas in twenty?" This conversation got me thinking about how most girls (note: most. Not all think like this--some do the complete opposite, some do a modified version, some just don't think. Period.) react to just about anything a guy does until the words "I want to be exclusive" are spoken.

Girls are weird.

Seriously--we're total freaks. Guys seem to think they have us pinned insofar as our quirks are concerned--we show abnormal levels of attention to dates on the calendar, we have a list of things that you must do to stay on our good sides that we'll never actually reveal to you, the fits we throw over something as mundane as you calling an hour late would make you think that we had just been told that the world is ending. Or Nordstrom is closing. Something like that.

But gentlemen, you really have no idea how deep-seeded these issues and freaky hang-ups are.

Do you know that a female has analytical skills that would make most engineers cry?

We don't reveal these often, and rarely to a male. You see, we seem to focus on one area of our lives to overanalyze.

The love life.

It goes something like this.

Boy meets girl. Girl and boy decide that they are reasonably attracted to each other, and that they think they can stand to be around each other for several consecutive hours without anyone else around to save them from bad conversation and awkward silences. Boy and girl go out. Boy and girl talk. Boy kisses girl goodnight.

Boy goes home, goes to bed, and thinks "wow, I had a great time." the next day. Boy goes to lunch with a friend on Monday, and might mention "I think I'll call her again--the date went well."

Then boy will return his attention to his food and say something along the lines of "So, isn't the boss being a dick today?"

Girl goes inside after boy kisses her goodnight, and the calamity starts.

First, girl begins a conversation with herself in her head:

"When we were at dinner, he looked at me. I mean, he looked at me. What does that mean? He brushed my hand three times when he was reaching for his water glass--was that accidental? It had to be on purpose, right? I mean, three times. Three times means that it's gone beyond being accidental. He said 'I had a great time.' Does that mean he wants to have a great time again? Was that just his way of politely thanking me for the date while he was really thinking 'Not a snowball's chance in hell'?"

Girl goes to sleep. The next day, girl calls her girlfriends. Girl has a specific set of girlfriends that she will call, and each will serve a specific purpose.

Girlfriend #1 is the pessimist. Girl calls her for the worst-case scenario breakdown. Girlfriend #1 tells her that he was probably spacing out when he looked at her, that his water glass was right next to where her hand was resting on the table so of course it was an accident that he brushed her, that having a great time was probably the nicest thing he could think to say because he didn't want to blatantly be an asshole.

Girlfriend #2 is the optimist. Girl calls her to boost her ego and get her hopes up. Girlfriend #2 tells her that he couldn't help but stare at her because he is obviously falling in love with her, as evidenced by the fact that he brushed her hand three times on purpose. Girlfriend #2 explains that "I had a great time" is as serious as he can be on the first date without scaring Girl away, and that he wanted to say more if only he could have.

Girlfriend #3 is the realist. She will laugh at Girl for the fact that she is succumbing to the female overanalyzation dilemma and tell her she's an idiot and that she should find something else to think about. But then Girlfriend #3 will tell her that he looked at her because he was having fun, that the hand brushes were most likely accidents but perhaps subtle ways for him to guage whether she was physically attracted to him, and the fact that she didn't move her hand would have signified that. Girlfriend #3 tells her that "I had a great time" means exactly what it sounds like--that he had a great time, and that Girl should just be content with the fact that she made his evening a good one, and that the odds are in her favor for having another chance at doing that.

Now, don't start thinking that Girl is a psychotic marriage-seeker who wants to throw Boy down on one knee as quickly as possible, grab him by the nuts, and smother him with a Relationship.

The truth is that Girl probably wants to move at whatever speed they are both comfortable with, and that if Boy never called her again she'd be disappointed because she had a good time, but it would be fleeting. This is a fundamental difference between guys and girls, and I think that it's a lot of the reason that guys get freaked out and think that girls are getting too serious too quickly.

For some reason that I can't explain (and I wish I could, because I would be obscenely rich), girls think in black and white. If Boy tells Girl that he likes her, but that he wants to take things very slowly, Girl will (99.9% of the time) say "OK. All I needed to know was where you stood, and now that I do, I can go with that." Girls need to have definitions, girls need to know where the guy stands, girls need to know where the girl stands. This doesn't mean that a girl isn't laid back--the fact that she's going with whatever flow works for both of them suggests otherwise.

The funny thing is that girls do this even when the roles are reversed, so to speak. Case in point: A friend of mine had a very casual "relationship" about six months ago. She wanted nothing more out of this pseudo-dating scenario than to have a good time, have someone she could call when she was bored, and (let's be honest) have a good old fashioned booty call with no obligations or strings.

And yet, my friend still had to deal with this stuff. This time, it was the opposite--Girl spent her time anlyzing whether the guy was interested--same scenario, different spin. This time, Girl was concerned that he was interested, because Girl didn't want him to be. It's like we can't escape this inclination, even when we actually want nothing more out of the guy than the use of his penis and a chance to let ourselves go.

It just means that we're wired differently. So don't freak out if a girl seems to be seeking definition--she may just need you to say "I like you, and I like seeing you, and I just want to take it one hanging out session at a time" in order to take a deep breath and say "cool." Needing definition does not equate to "I need to be with you 24/7 and move my toothbrush into your bathroom and have clothes at your place in case I spend the night on a weekday". It just says that females need more reassurance than males.

Charisma coming out of my ass.

2005-04-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

This is what was said to me today. A group of my co-workers and I were headed to a lunch event, and as only 5 girls in a car can do, we were talking.

A lot.

After one set of commentary from me, one of my co-workers laughed and said "Kelly, you have charmisa coming out of your ass."

This amuses me to no end, because the truth is that I am painfully shy. It takes me forever and a day to be comfortable enough around people to let my true personality shine through... of course, since I more than make up for the initial lack of personality, they may wish that I remained painfully shy forever.

Whatever.

I think that perhaps the best compliment you can give me is to tell me that I have enough personality for two people. I spent a large part of my life being the quiet one in the background.

Well, I still tend to hang out in the background, and only contribute when a) I feel like it, b) I'm drunk, c) someone is being a dumbass and needs to be called on it, or d) the moon is in line with Saturn and there's a high tide.

Right.

One thing that all females, regardless of how un-female they may act most of the time, will do is talk about other females.

None of us can get past this. The best part is when you're discussing another female that you already don't like for something that is entirely out of her control. Case in point: during the lunch event today, we were lounging around a table, glasses of wine in hand (yes, at 11:30 AM. Screw you all). In walked a group from a rival agency... one that I inherently do not like because a) they made me interview with 6 people and then take a 500 question personality test (fucking come on), and b) they are elitist pricks who think they are better than everyone else.

Oooh, guess what guys--you suck.

At any rate, this group walks in. I'm sure they were all very nice, but they already had one strike against them. The choice of outfit knocked one member completely out of the ballpark.

People, you do not pair stripes with stripes. If you are female, and you do this, and other females see you, they will laugh and subtley point at you, and then they will laugh more, and they will bring it up at 4:30 PM when everyone is back at the office and in a sleepy wine-induced stupor.

You see, females cannot resist commenting on other females. The truth is that a girl is far more likely to notice my flaw of the moment than any guy. Well, any straight guy. Women spend so much time worrying about their appearance for the sake of guys, when the truth is that the guy is going to miss 98% of what she thinks is wrong with the way she looks.

However, her female counterparts will notice, file what they've noticed in their memories, and then pit your flaws against theirs to make themselves feel better. I'm not entirely sure why this happens--are we that desperate?

I'm not entirely sure.

But come on--friends don't let friends pair stripes with stripes.

Oh, and platform sandals went out after you turned 18. Which was at least 15 years ago.

Easy street.

2005-04-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm terrified that I took the easy way out.

I can justify my choices regarding employment after graduation all day long. I loved the people that I interviewed with, I loved everyone from the department, I loved the agency, the account, the opportunity, the fact that they loved me.

I'm getting wonderful experience. I learn something new every day. I become better at things I already knew how to do every day. I am proficient. I have skills that I will use for the rest of my career. My co-workers are wonderful. I have great perks.

I may live in Dallas, but I'm near some very close friends, from both high school and college. I'm near family. I like my life. I enjoy each day.

And up until today, I thought that I was glad I went this route. That I stayed in Texas. That I came to Dallas instead of taking a chance and moving to Chicago sans job. That Chicago would be there in a year. That I wouldn't regret spending time in Dallas.

And today, I heard news about an old friend. An old friend who moved to Chicago recently to pursue her dream of being an art director.

She did what I wanted to do. What I thought I wanted to do. What, when it comes down to it, I'm terrified that I didn't do for all of the wrong reasons.

I told myself that I didn't go because of everything I said in the beginning of this entry. The job. The people. The experience.

Now I'm afraid that I didn't go because I was scared.

I had a place to live--for free.

I had contacts.

I had people that wanted to hire me.

I had ambition. I fell in love with the city. I wanted to go.

So why didn't I? Why am I sitting in Dallas, painfully sad that I'm not the one in Chicago talking about how much I love it and doing what I really wanted to do?

I'm not one for regrets, but this is coming very close.

I just hope that in a year, I do it. I leave Texas, and I go somewhere new, and I take a chance. Because it's time to be brave, and it's time to be scared, and it's time to go through with it.

Coming out of my cage
and I'm doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
because I want it all.

Holy Reproduction, Batman!!!

2005-04-24T22:44:00.000-07:00

Presently, I am sporting several band-aids covering scrapes on my leg.

I own a couch, a mismatched chair, a set of tables from wal-mart, a secondhand entertainment center, a collection of mismatched bookshelves, a bed, a secondhand dresser, and a desk.

My pantry is stocked with such gourmet items as macaroni and cheese, Lipton noodles, pasta, and Pop-tarts.

On a good day, I remember to check the mail, rinse off my toothbrush, take my vitamins, and take out the trash.

On a bad day, I leave the apartment with clothes strewn throughout every room, empty Wendy's cups on the table, lights on, and dirty dishes.

My idea of long-term commitment is signing a 12-month lease.

And yet, friends of mine are having children.

I think we may have reached a point where I can't really related to them anymore. Marriage? Sure, I can see why you'd want to do that.

But you want to suck the snot out of another human being's nose because they can't do it themselves, at the age of 22?

Yeah, I don't get that.

On fake flowers and scraped-up ankles

2005-04-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm growing up.

No, stop laughing now--please. I may look like I'm 19, but as I approach birthday #23, I'm slowly moving towards being a fully functioning adult.

Last weekend, I bought a couch.

This weekend, I bought an entertainment center. It may be secondhand, but it wasn't free, and it matches the furniture I already own. Since making this purchase today, I've begun contemplating how I might make my living room look fully adult. I've finally settled on the idea of decorating the top of the entertainment center--I'm thinking a bouquet of fake flowers (sunflowers, preferably) and some framed pictures.

I'm also considering shifting around some bookshelves and attempting to balance out the room.

Next up is purchasing a slipcover for my armchair, so that it will match my curtains and my couch.

But let me tell you about the entertainment center. It's really not all that exciting, but the layers of skin on my ankle that were sacrificed to move this thing into my apartment are lying outside, loudly complaining that they deserve recognition and a breakdown of their final moments attached to my leg.

Ew, I know.

You see, this thing was already put together (duh--it was secondhand). And because I am 5'4" and rather small, I was at the top of the entertainment center, while my much taller friend was bearing the brunt of the weight on the bottom.

The only problem with this scenario? It's really difficult to walk backwards up a flight of stairs whilst hauling a rather heavy, bulky piece of furniture with you.

Especially when the friend helping you carry it is moving faster than you are, which means that every time you go up a step, your right ankle ends up slamming into a concrete stair in the back, and then having a large entertainment center slam into the front, edge-first.

I am now missing multiple layers of skin on that ankle. All that sacrifice just so that my apartment could look less college-like and more adult-like. I salute you, top layer of skin.

I think that I amuse my co-workers (the closest one in age to me is still 7 years older) because I am unabashadly 22. I realize that I am 22. I do not claim to be older and wiser than my 22 years would suggest. I fully admit to the fact that I have no idea exactly who I am or where I want to be in 5 years, that purchasing a watermelon-pink couch as been my most adult decision thus far, and that I cannot relate to their lives AT ALL. And I think they find this hilarious, because apparently most 22 year olds refuse to admit ANY of that.

I do enjoy being the exception rather than the rule.

I also enjoy the fact that I'm expected to come into work on Monday with stories of hangovers and wild parties and late nights, because they re-live their early 20s glory days through me. And Internet, I try not to disappoint.

For instance, it is Sunday night, and while those two margaritas may not have been enough to knock me out, there were definitely enough to get me buzzed.

So very, very true...

2005-04-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

eXpressive: 4/10
Practical: 3/10
Physical: 1/10
Giver: 4/10

You are a RSIT--Reserved Sentimental Intellectual Taker.

This makes you a Archetypal Older Child.

You are a hard nut to crack. You have a wicked sense of humor. Despite your reserved nature, you are more comfortable (and successful) in the meeting and courting mode than you are in a long term relationship.

You feel misunderstood, and usually you are. When you're in a good mood, you're funny, fascinating and a sexy firecracker, but when you're in a bad mood you are moody, broody and impatient. In courtship mode, you don't have to let anyone see your moody side. If you had your way, even in a long term relationship you would have enough time apart to deal with your bad moods yourself; unfortunately, it rarely works that way.

You stifle *a lot* of anger and frustration -- from all areas of your life -- so when it comes out it comes out nasty. More than any other type, your conflicts tend to turn on one tiny thing -- the dishes, the laundry -- that's really a scapegoat for your larger dissatisfactions with your relationship. You're baffled that your partner just can't do the dishes -- your partner is baffled that it's such a big deal.

The only way around it is to let the dishes go entirely and try to get at the real root of what's bothering you.

I'm making you sound like a bear, but the fact is that you're so warm and charming most of the time that it effectively offsets the times you're unhappy.

You will make a weirdly good parent.

Don't pair up with someone who'll make sexual demands of you. That's just not going to fly at all.

Of the 220482 people who have taken this quiz, 5.3 % are this type.

Who am I?

2005-04-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Wackiness: 66/100
Rationality: 34/100
Constructiveness: 72/100
Leadership: 96/100

You are a WECL--Wacky Emotional Constructive Leader. This makes you a People`s Advocate.

You are passionate about your causes, with a good heart and good endeavors. Your personal fire is contagious, and others wish they could be as dedicated to their beliefs as you are.

Your dedication may cause you to miss the boat on life's more slight and trivial activities. You will feel no loss when skipping some inane mixer, but it can be frustrating to others to whom such things are important. While you find it difficult to see other points of view, it may be useful to act as if you do, and play along once in a while.

In any event, you have buckets of charisma and a natural skill for making people open up. Your greatest asset is an ability to make progress while keeping the peace.

Of the 115844 people who have taken this quiz since tracking began (8/17/2004), 6.1 % are this type.

Junior-high Redux.

2005-04-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

I have a group of friends that I've known since high school.

For some reason, the more juvenile the entertainment, the better it is when it comes to us.

Case in point--the high school years:

In speaking with my college friends about their high school years, it seems that the "normal" thing to do on the weekends was get drunk at someone's house.

The only times I really drank in high school were when I was in New Orleans to visit friends. But then, if your first experience with alcohol was chugging Natty Light, I doubt you'd have cared much for the concept, either.

At any rate, we didn't do that in high school.

Instead, we spent all of our money on gas and toilet paper, picked the house with the most lenient parents presiding to stay at that night, and then went apeshit destroying each other's yards.

Criminal mischief highlights:

- hearing the trombone section of the high school band playing "Charge" outside of your window at 4 AM
- watching the police chase the trombone section down the street at 4 AM
- waking up to a cop knocking on the door and asking if you'd like to press charges for the 50-odd yard signs now located in your front yard
- Sean jumping into his car backwards through the window
- walking out to my car on Christmas Eve after working to find my windshield covered in honey and cottonballs

At any rate, when we got to college, we moved past the criminal mischief activities when we were back in A-town for breaks.

We moved on to things that were elementary school level.

A dream weekend of entertainment included the following:

- trekking to Veterans Park at midnight, through the woods (and God knows how many crack addicts and snakes we nearly stumbled upon when we went off the trail), to a rope swing someone had rigged up. the rope swung out over a small gorge, then you'd climb back up the rocks to go again. keep in mind that none of us have ever seen this rope in daylight, so we swung with no idea of what shape it was in, or if we'd be dying that night.

- playing frisbee. on top of the parking garage at the mall. after hours. and amazingly, we never got busted by security

- frisbee golf. i am terrible at this game, and always make it halfway through before i quit throwing and just watch everyone else. want to know how terrible? i lost my disc in knee-high grass once, and spent ten minutes looking for it. after ten minutes, Sean decided to help me. after thirty seconds, he found a $100 bill, and i found the disc.

- Risk. sure, it's nerdy, but we had a thing for board games.

- No Frills Grill. This one is actually age-appropriate, but it still has to be mentioned.

Sadly, 3 of the members of this little collective are now married. 1 is in Idaho. The remaining two (myself and Sean) were reminiscing the other night. We've now decided that we'll just have to have a reenactment one of these days.

Grocery Store, Here I Come

2005-04-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

I am going grocery shopping for the first time since... well, I don't remember. I guess the same school of thought applies to grocery shopping as does to changing your sheets--when you can no longer remember the last time you did this task, it's time to do it.

However, this time I have A List. And I am sticking to the List. I swear to God--if I come home with anything that is not one of the items listed below, I am in Big Trouble. Or something.

Lettuce
Tomatoes
Potatos
Bread
Pepperoni
Eggs
Light Sour Cream
Shredded Cheese
Cottage Cheese
Milk
Mozzerella
American Cheese
Margarine
Light Ranch
Lipton Noodles
Crackers
Cake Mix
Icing
Cupcake Cups
Cokes
Ben & Jerry's Marsha Marsha Marsmallow ice cream

It's hard to tell that I'm lactose intolerant from that list, isn't it? But in my defense, the cheeses listed serve very distinct differences: the American is for grilled cheese, the mozerella is for crackers & pepperoni (my favorite no-cooking dinner/lunch), the shredded is for omlettes and baked potatos, and the cottage is because I love it.

And now, I am off, and I am totally going to float a check to pay for all of this, because I have $46 in my bank account and I am too lazy to buy a few things now and the bulk of it tomorrow when I get paid--I despise going to the store, and once is enough for me.

a Plan.

2005-04-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have a Plan.

It is a grand plan, a plan that makes me feel settled and content, and a plan that presents little to no opportunity for regret.

This is my Plan.

1) move uptown in August.

2) Continue to work in Dallas until summer 2006

3) Move in summer 2006

I have no freakin' clue where I'm going to move to--that's the beauty of it. It won't be in Texas--that's one thing I do know. Current possibilities include Portland, Seattle, LA, and Chicago.

And of course, I'm sure you all know which one is the frontrunner.

Chicago. Duh.

Maybe I've never told you about my visit to Chicago in November to interview for jobs and get a feel for the city.

It was amazing. Fucking amazing. I can't even begin to explain why, because it wasn't really a tangible thing that made it so great. It was everything--the people, the food, the atmosphere, the culture, the attitude, the feeling, the buildings, the lake.

I walked down the street and it just fit. More than Austin ever did--and my God, did I fit with Austin.

I'm going to go balls to the wall and do something completely scary. I'm going to move to a city where I know exactly one person, where I've spent a total of 4 days in my life, and I'll probably be doing it alone. I'm going to do it because I'm 22, almost 23, and this is the time when I can just pack up and move anywhere--both in terms of my life, and in terms of my job.

And maybe I'll go, and I'll live there for a few years and decide "OK, enough." and I'll move on. But maybe I'll stay, and never stop loving it, and never want to leave.

But damn, I'm excited about finding out.

I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.

Sleep-deprived is not a good look for me.

2005-04-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

Seriously.

It's not that I can't function fairly well on small amounts of sleep--while the first few days are generally rough, I get used to it, and my body is OK with 4-5 hours a night on a routine basis. However, the adjustment period sucks motherfucking ass. My eyes hurt from keeping them open. I yawn every 10.2 seconds.

I look like ass.

I feel squinty and lethargic and cumbersome. I cannot think quickly, I cannot type quickly, I cannot do anything quickly.

Well, I can fall into bed and crash quickly, but they tend to frown on that while I'm at work and they're paying me to be here. I'm sure they'd be OK with me staying after hours to nap, but... well, yeah.

It is days like this when I thank my lucky stars that I can show up to work in jeans, flip flops and with my hair in a ponytail with no one batting an eye. Because, people, there is no way in hell I could navigate this day in heels. I can't navigate in heels on a day when I'm coming off of 10 hours of sleep, a killer shower, and an excellent hair day--there is a reason that I own stock in several flip-flop companies.

I am Busy and Important.

2005-03-29T21:03:00.000-08:00

I am kicking ass and taking names at work. Things went very, very well today, for the most part.

The downside of the day was when my Head Supervisor (caplitalized for emphasis) replied to my e-mail reminding her that I'd requested to take Friday as a PTO day by saying that "since the agency is now closed on Thursday and you and Jane (not her real name) are out on Monday afternoon, we may have to move your PTO day to another date." That was quite disappointing, and I went to my Favorite Supervisor to seek his wise advice.

Well, and to whine because I am not, in fact, out on this upcoming Monday afternoon--that'd be Monday the 11th, not the 4th. He said "Don't worry, it'll be fine." He moved onto this account a week before I did, so we're learning together, and bitching along the way.

The agency is closed on Thursday so that we can attend the funeral for the daughter of one of the agency employees. This is very sad, but it makes me really, really like the people I work for, because not many companies would shut the entire office and still pay the employees so that they could support their co-worker.

At any rate, we have a Beastly Project that has been looming over our heads for a MONTH. However, the client has given us direction, and we are on track to deliver it quickly and perfectly. Of course, I am one of the two people working on this project, and since my partner in crime is swamped with OTHER work, it's all me this week. And so, my Second Favorite Supervisor told me at 4 that I still get to have Friday off (good, because I already made plans that would be difficult to change).

I just have to come in on Thursday while the office is closed to finish this project that's due on Friday.

Instead, I opted to stay until 7 PM tonight, and I busted out half of the project, e-mailed a status update to my Partner in Crime and my Second Favorite Supervisor (which conveniently notes that I left the office at 7 freaking PM). I should have no trouble busting out the second half before I leave the office tomorrow evening, which means I do not have to come into the office on Thursday. Plus, this project gives me face time with my Second Favorite Supervisor. Face time with her has been sorely lacking lately, both because she just hasn't had any projects for me to do, and because my other immediate supervisor is back, and we've had to tackle another Beastly Project that seems to occupy 99.2% of my time.

But the other Beastly Project is coming to a close, and the first Beastly Project is actually not so beastly anymore. Definitely tedious, but not so much beastly.

You know, "this is what my day was like" entries really bore me and bother me. But I'm going to post this anyway, World, because I already typed it.

I don't care how you get to me
Just get to me

Things that piss me off, part I

2005-03-29T09:25:00.000-08:00

I am a rather laid-back, easygoing person. I go with the flow, take things as they come, and just try to enjoy life without stressing over mundane, unimportant crap. This is why I cannot fathom bothering to make room in my head for things like birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates of note. (Not really--I just have a sucky memory, and that coupled with my lack of effort to keep dates noted in my brain means I don't remember shit. On the other hand, I don't expect anyone else to, either.)

I was not always this way.

We can credit a guy I dated a few summers ago with loosening me up. You see, all the while I thought that he was banging my brains out. In actuality, he was banging some sense into my head.

Or maybe it was the fact that we'd do things like call in sick to work and spend the day gallavanting around the Greenbelt and generally enjoying life and rolling with the punches. And going to concerts I'd never have thought of--and sneaking into them so we didn't have to pay. Regardless, thanks to the summertime date, because I like myself a whole lot better now.

The whole point of this is that I'm laid back, you see?

And I don't waste energy being mad, because my God, what does that accomplish?

Oh yeah--it fuels bitter, sardonic rants that make people laugh. Unfortunately, friends, it still doesn't happen often. Fortunately, when it does, I am always Completely Justified in my anger, and I get to amuse people when I finally start to vent about it.

There are truely very, very few things you can do to actually ANGER me. Irritating me is another story--you can breathe in an offensive manner and irritate me, for God's sake. But actually making me mad? Oh, my friend, you are in TROUBLE.

One of the things that will most quickly piss me off? Blowing me off for a significant other.

Now, I am not the bitter single 30 year old woman who is ticked because she's sitting at home with her cats on a Saturday night whilst all of her friends are out with their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, whatever. No. I don't even like cats, to be honest--I prefer dogs. Plus, I like being single, so I don't really care if you have a boyfriend or not. Really.

But dude? If you blow me off For a Solid Month, do not expect me to be cheery and grateful when you finally descend from your throne of idiocy and self-absorption and deign to speak to me again.

Because, you see, when your boyfriend dumps your ass and you want someone to bring over a bottle of wine and tell you how much better you can do and how lucky he was, it's not going to be me.

I understand and fully support the notion of Couple Time. I do. Everyone needs one-on-one time with their significant other. However, trust me when I say that I've seen what happens when you go overboard with it. It's not pretty.

The friends you had pre-coupledom have moved on. They have boyfriends now. They've made the circle a little bit tighter to compensate for your perennial absence since your tongue was permanently lodged down the Significant Other's throat. Or maybe they just replaced you. They don't have time for you. Things have happend in their lives that you know nothing about because you never returned calls, and you cancelled plans at the last minute. Eventually, they stopped trying to hang out with you, and you didn't notice because you had the Significant Other to occupy your every waking moment.

So, don't blow off your friends. If you had plans with them, tell the Significant Other that you'll have to see him another night. Do not invite Significant Other along for the outing unless you run it by your friend first. And if your friend says "Well, I'd rather it just be us", listen to the, value their opinion, and act accordingly.

Friend is a four letter word.

You forget so quickly.

2005-03-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

I wish there was a rhyme or reason to why some people get sick, and some stay healthy. Why a 15 year old kid dies of cancer while a criminal enjoys a healthy life. You want to say "It's not FAIR. What did I/he/she do that's different? Why do they have to be sick? Why do they have to worry?".

And there's never a good enough explanation.

Don't you wish you were me?

2005-03-28T07:08:00.000-08:00

Cool things about working in advertising:

I am currently wearing jeans, flip flops, a plain black tshirt, and my Northface. Wait, I graduated from college? Huh?
We're taking a 2-hour lunch for someone's birthday today. We will take another 2-hour lunch in approximately a month to celebrate three birthdays, which should mean a 6-hour lunch, but I digress.
We get free shit. A lot. Let me list the free shit I've gotten in the last 4 months: about 50 lunches, a tshirt, one Mavs game at the Admiral level (and all of the free food and booze that came with it), one Mavs game at the Platinum level (and all of the free food and booze that came with it), subscriptions to about 10 magazines, the People 2005 Yearbook, 2 picture frames, 2 VIP tickets to the Rangers Home Opener (and all of the free food and booze that comes with it), a gumball machine, an 8-pack of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, 2 notebooks (One from EW that has a delectable picture of Jake Gyllenhall on it), lunch at the Four Seasons, lunch at the Mansion... I'll stop now
This flip flop/tshirt/jeans thing? I can do this just about any day of the week. The only days that I can't are when we have rep lunches, but hell--I'll throw on a pair of Banana pants for a free lunch.
*I* can talk on AIM at work (nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah)
This year, I have 12 agency holidays, plus 18 days of PTO. Oh. My. God. I had a 3-day weekend in January, February, and March on the agency's dime. In April, I have a 3-day weekend courtesy of PTO. In May, I have one 4-day weekend, and one 9-day weekend (entire week of Memorial Day off). In July, they give us the 4th and the 5th off.
25 cent Cokes. 'Nough said.

This exercise in positive thinking brought to you by the letter L.

The July Tour O' Austin Agenda

2005-03-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

Upon an IM conversation with John, my partner in crime, the following schedule has been prepared.

Friday

John and Tom arrive. Kelly retrieves them from the airport, drops them at her apartment with a key, and goes back to work.
Kelly gets home from work at 6. The group heads to dinner and drinks, then prepares for the Austin leg of the trip.

Saturday

Drive to Austin early in the morning.
Float the Guadalupe
Outlet shopping in San Marcos (John's idea. Don't blame me)
Dinner & drinks, then crash for the night in San Marcos

Sunday

Drive to Austin, have breakfast at Juan in a Million
Tour the Capitol, UT campus, and other misc. Austin sights.
Have lunch at Double Daves (PIZZA rolls, John. They're pizza rolls.)
Continue the tour o' Austin. Potential stops include Town Lake, the Cathedral of Junk, Mt. Bonnell (no, this one is a for sure), the Greenbelt (also for sure), and Barton Springs
Dinner at Guero's
go to the bar at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel
Go to Sixth Street

Monday (4th of July)

Have breakfast at Trudy's
Do whatever we didn't get to do on Sunday
Have lunch at Chuy's
Continue doing whatever we didn't get to do on Sunday
Dinner at Shady Grove (YAY!)
Fireworks/Austin Symphony concert at Zilker Park
Drinks at Trudy's

Tuesday

Early breakfast at Kerbey Lane
Drive back to Dallas, deposit the exhausted Bostonites at the airport and say a sad farewell.

My goal is to have both of them so in love, or in love again, with Austin by Tuesday that they return to Boston to quit their jobs and move to Texas. ;)

That Hill Country love is what I fancy

Where streams run clear and Lord,

the skies, they are so blue.

Single white female seeks suck-ass neighbors.

2005-03-20T01:05:00.000-08:00

I have lived in exactly 5 apartments in my lifetime. 4 were in Austin, 1 is in Dallas. In every. Single. Apartment, I have had some sort of sucky neighbors. Some are worse than others, but they all deserve to be tortured and shot at dawn. Or something.

Apartment #1. August 2002-May 2003. West Campus.
There were 2 major problems with this place. One was that the idiots above me couldn't quite grasp the fact that jumping up and down, dropping things, and yelling did, in fact, carry through to the rooms below them. However, this was really a mild problem, as they had normal sleep schedules and only pulled crap like this during daytime hours. Of course, it always happened on the rare occasion that I got to take an afternoon nap in my own bed (as opposed to in a random building on UT's campus--but that's another entry)...

No, the real problem were the morons next door to me. You see, in apartments, smells carry. A/C systems are shared. If you live near someone who sucks at cooking and/or enjoys cooking stank-ass nasty shit, you feel my pain.

Or, similarly, if you live near someone who likes to smoke. Indoors. And there is NO smell worse than stank-ass cigarette smoke after it has wafted through the ventilation system. Nevermind that it was a no-smoking-inside building. Nevermind that I bitched multiple times to the management. These assholes would start up at 2 freaking AM, and no amount of coaxing my ceiling fan to buck up and perform like a man would be of any help. However, had I known what was in my future insofar as hellacious neighbors, I probably wouldn't have cared much.

Apartment #2. May 2003-August 2003. North Campus.
Aside from a music major who has apparently never heard of the term "Practice Mute", this one really wasn't so bad. I mean, it looked like ASS from the outside (John saw it--it was the one that looked like a cheap-ass beach motel), but it was cute, and it was cheap. The problem in this one was actually my roommate, but she was kind of my neighbor.

See, Austin gets HOT in the summer. Like, hella-hot. Like, you can't actually get dressed until you've exited your car, or you will have a gigantic sweat mark on the back of your shirt.

But my roommate and I were both gone for the majority of the day--I left before her, as I had class and an internship, and she just had the latter, but we were both outta there by 10 AM, and not back until at least 5 PM. So, yes, it made no sense to keep the a/c at a nice, cool 77 degrees all day long for absolutely no one (not even a pet fish). However.

My logic dictated that it made more sense to turn the a/c up to about 85--that way, it would still run, but not as often, and not as hard. My roommate, however, thought we should just TURN IT OFF all day long. So, yours truly (who was ALWAYS the first one home, and so I got to deal with the heat while it cooled back down) would walk into an apartment that had reached something like 99 degrees, turn on the a/c, turn on the fan and point it directly at my sweat laden body as I laid on the sectional in various states of undress, and wait an HOUR for it to FINALLY cool back down to 77.

My roommate could not figure out why on earth our electric bills were in the neighborhood of $100 a month for a small 2-1 apartment. Um, genius? It takes waaaaaaaaaaaay more energy to cool an apartment from 99 to 77 EVERY SINGLE DAY than it does to just keep an apartment at 85 for 6 hours, then move it back down to 77. But, I lost that battle. Oh well.

Apartment #3. August 2003-August 2004. West Campus.
This one. Ohhh, this one.

I was on the first floor. Advantages: Easy move-in, easy to bring groceries in, quick entry and exit, easy to take trash out. Disadvantages: people lived above me.

This apartment had HUGE ceilings--14 feet, I think. It was cute, it was nice, I had the worst neighbors in history living above me. Guy next to me? Quiet as a mouse. I'd see him coming and going occasionally, and once he set the alarm on his stereo and wasn't home when it (VERY loudly) went off, but come on--once is once. Guy on the other side of me? Never heard him. Ever. Never saw him, either. Guys above me?

Oh. My. God.

First of all, they walked as though they weighed 300 pounds each. Every footstep. Second of all, they seemed to have no idea that they weren't on the first floor. They were constantly just dropping shit--heavy shit--on the floor. Textbooks, cast-iron skillets, who knows what. And at all hours of the night--I mean, when it's 4 AM, and you're clearing off your bed so that you can sleep, and you know there's a bedroom below you--don't drop a stack of five textbooks. Set it down.

And there was the Saturday when I lost it and let them have it. I'm sitting at my desk, in the den, working on a paper and studying. And all of a sudden, I hear a pounding on the ceiling/floor (depending on whose perspective you're looking at it from) above me. I thought it was going to collapse. A few minutes, and it happened AGAIN. I hauled ass up the stairs to find out what the hell was going on.

The idiot was sitting on the floor, watching a football game, and POUNDING HIS FISTS every few minutes. Um, HELLO?!?!?!?

And the sex. Oh, the sex. The floors squeaked. Therefore, when you put any weight on the floor, changed pressure, it squeaked. So when a bed moved, back and forth, the floor squeaked. And the guy whose bedroom was above me? Had a lot of sex. You say "Oh, well, why didn't you just go to sleep earlier/later than when they were having sex?"

Because no matter what time I went to bed--be it 10 PM or 3 AM--they were just starting to get it on. At first, it was funny. Then, it was fucking annoying. I mean, the guy didn't even have any fucking rhythm.

Luckily, he also had no endurance. But still. I wound up having to call the cops on them one night--not 311 for a noise complaint, but 911 for a domestic disturbance. It seems that the one having sex above me was not, as I had assumed from seeing a girl in and out of the apt. a lot, banging a she. It was a he. Which I found out the night they had a fight, and he kicked the boyfriend out. Who then proceeded to sit on the porch sobbing. And then the apt. resident followed him out to the parking lot, where they began a screaming match that could be heard twenty feet away through a wall. When I heard "You're hurting me, stop hurting me", I said "OK, enough". Yeah. Moving out was the greatest day of my LIFE, and I will NEVER EVER live below the top floor of the apartment again.

Apartment #4. August 2004-December 2004. West Campus.
This time, it was my next-door neighbors. The funny thing about these guys was that they honestly had NO IDEA how fucking loud they were. Every night, they'd be up til 4 or 5 AM, holding screaming conversations (no lie--I could hear EVERY word through a concrete wall) that would either a) keep me awake, or b) wake me up. If you're wondering how I learned about the concrete thing... I tried pounding on the wall one night.

Ouch.

There were nights when it wouldn't even be a conversation--just random screaming. Like they were playing a video game or something, and just... hollering. Bizarre. I called the cops so. many. times. I called the management company 3 times, and they got 3 warnings. At #4, you got evicted. I'm pretty sure they got evicted, because when I was checking that mangement company's website for apt. listings, theirs was suddenly vacant. Hee.

The funny part came one morning. I was up and getting ready for the day. It was about 9:45, and I assumed that was late enough for anyone to be awake, or close to it--it was a weekday, and we were college students, after all.

Uh, apparently not.

I started playing some music on my computer (which has rather nice speakers and a sub). I was listening to Fool in the Rain, covered by OAR, when the pounding began. Yep. The neighbor was apparently peeved that I was blasting music.

I turned it up. And put it on repeat. And then I left for the day.

A few nights later, I was asleep on my futon (as that's basically what I had to do to get ANY sleep since they made sleeping in my bedroom impossible) in the living room, when I woke up and heard them in the hall.

"Yeah, and the bitch next door? We're going to have a party this week on Wednesday to get her back. The other morning at like 8:00 she was blasting fucking Norah Jones and shit..."

This is as far as he got, as that was the point at which I got up, stepped out into the hall, and waved.

"Oh, hey guys--listen, Wednesday is totally cool with me. Oh, and it was 9:45. Pretty normal for those of us who actually go to class and accomplish things. And it wasn't Norah Jones. It was OAR. Like Norah Jones could generate enough volume to wake someone up. If you're going to mock my music, at least mock it correctly See ya!"

We didn't have any problems after that.

Apartment #5. December 2004-August 2005. North Dallas.
The chick below me this time.

See, I've had issues above, beside, and now below me. What's next? Diagonally?

She is also one that likes to smoke inside her apartment. And slam her front door, which shakes my entire apartment. And blast music late at night. And her television. And have her loud-ass friends over late at night, sitting on the balcony, which means that they keep me awake or wake me up.

She's really mild though, and since she responds well to the pound-the-foot-on-the-floor technique, I'll let it slide.

But goddammit, when I move in August, I'm moving into a house.

Stay up too late
and I'm too thin
We promise each other it's til the end.

Eye color identity crisis.

2005-03-17T14:08:00.000-08:00

For 21 years and 4 months, I was under the apparently mistaken impression that my eyes were a golden color without much variation.

For a year, they were blue, but that didn't stick--much to the disappointment of my father, whose half-Japanese self was apparently in love with the idea of an Aryan child--cornsilk blonde hair and blue, blue eyes. The blue eyes faded (to what I THOUGHT was honey colored) at a year. Sorry, dad--think of it as a warm-up for future disappointments at my hands.

I've grown up saying "I have hazel eyes". I only called them hazel because they didn't the definition of brown, blue, green, grey, or violet. However, it has come to my attention in recent years that my eyes are not, in fact, honey colored at all.

They're green.

Case #1: July 2001. Location: Atlanta Bread Company. Persons: myself and my boss. Scenario: A random conversation when I was picking up my paycheck.

Boss: Has anyone ever told you that you have amazing eyes?
Me: Uh, no. They're just... light brown.
Boss: No, no--they've got a gorgeous green tint to them.
Me: Thanks. Cool.

Case #2: October 2004. Location: Union C-Store. Persons: myself, random male customer in my line. Scenario: I was ringing up his Red Bull and Otis Spunkmeyer muffin (and college students wonder why their weight balloons).

RC: You have beautiful eyes. *cheesy grin*
Me: Um, thanks.
Me (turning to my co-worker after the RC left): Um, that was weird.
CW: Well, you do have pretty eyes (he's gay, thus I actually believe him).
Me: What the hell color are they?
CW: A really pretty green.
Me: Huh.

Case #3: December 2004. Location: Sex buddy's bed. Persons: myself, SB. Scenario: We were in bed, and I realized we'd been fooling around for several weeks and I had no idea what color his eyes were.

Me: What color are your eyes?
SB: Are you fucking kidding me? How do you not know that?
Me: Um. *Notices they're bright blue*
SB: My last name is German. I have blonde hair. You should've been able to deduce that one without even looking.
Me: Oh, like you know what color mine are.
SB: Green.
Me: Shit.

Case #4: Anytime in recent memory. Location: Any picture taken of me where you can see my eyes in enough detail to notice color. Scenario: Anything from taking shots to showing off rope burns (see Tom's bungee bull away message).

My eyes: bright green. Every time.

So, I now have to adapt my self-description to something along the lines of "Female, 5'4", slender, dark blonde hair, green eyes, crooked smile".

However, this is quite beneficial on March 17. I AM wearing green, but it's certainly not visible to anyone at work. Overzealous co-worker trolls around the area looking for someone to peg for not wearing green. Sees me.

"Aha! It's St. Patrick's Day! You're not wearing green!"

"Yes I am."

"Where?"

"I'm always wearing green."

"Huh? Do you have a tattoo or something?"

"No. I have green eyes."

"Dammit!"

Hee.

I know this lady with eyes as green as can be
And she will sit and stare directly at me
And her laugh will take me to my future
Throughout my past, there ain't shit left for me.

Musings.

2005-03-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

Since I need to kill 28 minutes between now and when my meeting is scheduled to start, I thought I'd do a nice breakdown of my plans for the next several (read: six) months.

March
25-27 Easter

April
1-3 Austin (Forty Acres Fest, guest speaking, etc.)
9-12 Tom visits/Rangers Home Opener
23-24 Jimmy Eat World rescheduled concert date in Austin (originally in January)

May
12-15 Chris' graduation (College Station), my birthday (Dallas and Austin), early celebration of Andrea's birthday (actually May 19)
27-June 1 Meg visits. Also includes a trip to Austin

June
June is boring so far. I kind of like it that way, to be honest.

July
1-5 John and Tom visit. Includes a trip to Austin for the 4th.
Yet to be determind weekend in July--house hunting.

August
Moving at some point--likely around the 15th.
31 Classes begin

September
23-25 Austin City Limits Music Festival

It's shaping up to be a nice year.

You Know You're in Austin When...

2005-03-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

You Know You're In Austin When...*

* Bold, red lines denote something that should invoke hysterical laughter and the statement "Ohmigod, that's soooooo true." John, enjoy.

Your co-worker tells you they have 8 body piercings, but none are visible.
You make over $100,000 and still can't afford a house
You never bother looking at the Capitol Metro schedule because you know the drivers have never seen it
You've been to more than one baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor
You have a very strong opinion on where your coffee beans are grown and can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian
A really great parking space can move you to tears
You know that anyone wearing pants in November is just visiting from Ohio
Your child's 3rd grade teacher has two pierced ears, a nose ring and is named "Breeze." And, after telling that to a friend, they still need to ask if the teacher is male or female
You are thinking of taking an adult class but you can't decide between yoga, aromatherapy, conversational Mandarin, or one on buliding your own web site
You haven't been to Hippie Hollow since the first month you moved to Austin
A man walks by on The Drag in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps... you don't notice.
A woman walks by on The Drag with live poultry... you dont' notice
You think that any guy with a George Clooney haircut must be visiting from the Midwest
You know that any woman with a George Clooney haircut is not a tourist
You keep a list of companies to boycott
Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is straight and your Mary Kay Lady is a guy in drag.
You occasionally see a guy on a unicycle whiz by you in your car and you say to yourself "Oh yeah, it's that guy again..."
You start to worry when you dont' see the cross-dressing, bearded guy in-a-tutu-and-a-bikini-top-who-has-made-a-statement-with-his-grocery-cart-and-cardboard-box-art/shelter on your way to work in the morning. Scarier yet, you know his name is actually Leslie.
You'll make dinner or bar plans around who's got the best margaritas
You have a tough time picking one of Austin's 8 24-hour restaurants
You complain about the prices but still shop at Central Market for the scene
You dont' even think about getting good seats to the Longhorn football games
You know the exact locations of three towing yards
Your summer shoes are your Birks and your winter shoes are your Birks with socks
Your entire wardrobe consists of: a black tank top, a GAP white tshirt, secondhand Levis, secondhand cutoff Levis, overalls, Longhorn sweats, anything polyester from the 70s, a bikini, Tevas, Birkenstocks, and running shoes
Dressing up to go out for a woman means throwing a tank top on over the sports bra you've had on all day because it's so DAMN HOT.
You find yourself wondering why magazine editors insist that swimsuit season starts on Memorial Day when it's really the end of February, or at the lateset the beginning of March
You consider chips, salsa, Kerbey Queso, and Shiner Bock a well balanced meal
You find yourself making beaded necklasces to give away as Christmas gifts
100 degrees for 3 straight months isn't unreasonable, 110 degrees is. And 90 degrees anywhere between May and September seems a little chilly
You figure skin cancer is inevitable because it's so DAMN HOT even your sunscreen won't stay on
When you go out, you make sure you've grabbed your water bottle before checking to see if you've got your wallet and keys
You don't mind parking a mile away as long as it's in the shade
(Girls) You ask yourself constantly if that's a cute guy or a butch girl. And you don't really care either way, because it's fun to wonder
You'd rather ride your bike than get in a car without a/c. At least on your bike, you're guaranteed a breeze regardless of traffic
Your professor decides in the middle of the Government lecture that now's as good of at ime as ever to tell his class of 500 he's gay. Like you didn't know. Like you even care.

If I had an extra ticket

2005-03-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

If I had an extra ticket to the Rangers opening day VIP party, I'd invite you.

We'd spend two hours eating food, listening to a live band, and rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers (or at least the financially viable) members of Metroplex Society (gee, that's not an oxymoron...). Actually, we'd spend two hours gorging ourselves on free food and being mysterious, because the Society members would be wondering why on earth two college kids (let's face it--outside of work, no one would believe we were out of school) were crashing their party.

We'd people watch. I'd keep up a running (witty) commentary while you chose the subject of the next verbal assault. Of course, the commentary would be very quiet, so that only you and I could hear it and laugh. Everyone would wonder why we were laughing. Maybe after we finished eating, we'd throw away our plates and dance to the band. Maybe no one else would be dancing, but they already think we're odd anyway--why not continue with that view?

The party would end, and we'd make our way into the stadium, to the really good seats. Movers and shakers always sit in the good seats, lower level, behind home plate. We'd continue to laugh over the fact that someone thought that we belonged with this group, when in reality we had more in common with their sons and daughters still perfecting keg stands and hangover cures.
During the game, we'd talk. Because really, what else do you do at a baseball game? Yes, you watch the game, but it's also oddly a place for deep conversation without the uncomfortable factor. And you and I love to talk, so we'd never run out of things to say.

But if we did fall silent, it would be that comfortable kind of silent--like you could never speak again, but remain in that person's presence, and you'd be content forever. Eventually, the witty banter would pick up again. I'd make fun of your hat, you'd make fun of... well, something. You'd find something.

We'd eat nachos and hot dogs and drink beer, again raising the eyebrows of the movers and shakers who were certain we'd be busted any second for our fake IDs. We'd while away the afternoon under the warm April sun, sunglasses on our faces, flip flops on our feet, just enjoying life.

And that's why I'd invite you, if I had an extra ticket.

And the ironic part is that in the 15 minutes that have lapsed between when I wrote this entry and when I'm actually posting it, I do have an extra ticket.

If I had a million dollars (if I had a million dollars)
I'd build a tree fort in our yard
You could help, it wouldn't be that hard

Dear life, you suck.

2005-03-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 5:30 this morning.

Now, if I had woken up at 5:30 AM because I went to sleep at some absurdly early hour the previous evening, I probably wouldn't be pissed. I'd probably just enjoy the extra hour to laze around, read a book, or daydream.

However, I didn't go to sleep til 12:30 AM, so waking up 5 hours later was not enjoyable.

Particularly since the reason I woke up was because I'd gotten my period. Don't like that? Skeeves you out? Get over it.

Now, females who are sexually active and not wanting to have babies are generally happy to see that time of the month arrive. For the first five minutes, anyway. After that, it's like "OK, thanks for the confirmation that it's just me in here, now go away." However, since I'm not even getting ass, I really have no desire to see this stupid biological wonder.

As it was, I managed to fall asleep again until 6:30, at which time I decided that fixing my hair was not a necessity, and reset my alarm for 7:15. I left the house in jeans and a fleece at 8:05, arrived at work, and immediately watched my day get worse.

I have fifty million things to do. I have one VERY important deadline to meet by EOD tomorrow. People are being stupid, people are not getting back to me, people are ANNOYING THE PISS OUT OF ME. I do not want to be here at work. I want to be at home, under my freshly laundered sheets, sleeping. But, I'm here, and I'm probably going to be here until at least 6 again.

And since I"ll be here til 6, I won't get home until almost 7. Then, I'll have to get my shit together, change, and go for my run. So I won't actually be able to sit down and relax until 8:30, what with the running and showering and all of that. And really, at 8:30, I'm going to have to make dinner, so again--no relaxing there.

And did I mention the pile of laundry that is growing at the foot of my bed? Huge. HUGE. Needs to be done TONIGHT. So now, I'm faced with cycling at least two loads through the washer and dryer, and adorning my apartment with 2 loads worth of clothes that can't be dried. And I need to straighten up the crap I left out last night so that I don't spend an entire weekend cleaning again in a few weeks, the way I did this past weekend.

Then, tomorrow, I can't go running, whcih is annoying me. I'm going to a Mavs game. Which is cool. In a luxury suite, which is way cool. But, you know, it kills my night, and I get nothing done, and that annoys me. I need to make food so I can take my lunch so I can save money so I can get out of debt... it's a vicious cycle.

And now, my crampy self is going to go be pissy. At Excel. While I work on yet another spreadsheet.

Bah.

If I could just grow up
Then everything would be just fine.
Why does my life suck?

The Ten Commandments of College

2005-03-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Tom, pay attention to number four.

The Ten Commandments of College
Update by Streeter Seidell on Apr. 5th, 2004

Media Update
» 115 New Photos and More!

-->Student was searching for divine inspiration. Student walked high on the mountain of knowledge and came across God. Student asked God how to live life as a college kid should. And God said unto him, follow these Ten Commandments and you shall be all a college kid is. And Student thanked God and it was good. And Student spread the Ten Commandments of College to all.

I- Thou Shalt Nap
And God gave unto Student a great gift, the gift of napping. God said to him, You shall spend half your day napping. You shall nap in class, in your room and in your friend’s room. And God said, if you don’t nap, you will not be able to stay up all night drinking. And Student said, Nap I shall, and it was good.

II- Thou Shalt Get Sick All the Time
Now God said to Student, you must be sick all of the time. And student said why. And God said unto him, you shall share drinks, stay up too late, drink too much and make out with people you don’t know. Therefore, God said, you shall be sick all year round. But God said, blessed are the sick for they have partied the hardest. And it was good.

III- Thou Shalt Write Witty Away Messages
Student asked, but God, how will I show everyone that I am funny? And God said unto him, thou shall write witty away messages. God said to student, you shall never just say you are in the shower, you shall say you are getting wet and wild…in the shower. You shall never say you are at class, you shall say you are sleeping…in class. God said, if you do not write witty away messages, I shall smite you. Blessed are the funny, for they will get many girls to be their friends but never hook up with them. And it was good.

IV- Thou Shalt Wear a Hoodie
And then Student asked God, God how do I look like a college kid. And God said unto student, you must wear a hoodie, for it is a useful garment. And you shall never wash it either. Student asked God what kind of Hoodie should it be and God said, you shall own one with your school’s logo on it and you shall own many others of varying colors and creeds. And Student was pleased and God was pleased.

V- Thou Shalt Shit a Lot
And Student asked of his bathroom habit and God told him, Student, you shall eat in the Cafeteria and you shall shit a lot. And it will not be good shit, it will be the shit of the devil for your ass shall burn for hours. Your school shall put laxatives in their food and you shall feel their pain. And Student began to weep, and God said unto him, Student, fear not the shit, for all your fellow students will be experiencing the same. And Student dried his eyes and thanked God and God told him to use wet naps to ease the pain.

VI- Thou Shalt Eat EasyMac
Student asked unto God if there was any alternatives to the cafeteria, and God said to him, you shall eat a lot of EasyMac. It is easy to make and you don’t need milk or a stove. And student said microwaves were forbidden by the RA. And God said to him, you shall hide the microwave under your bed with a towel on top. And Student asked, what if it is discovered. And God told him to stop being such a pussy, and it was good.

VII- Thou Shalt Hook Up
Student then asked of sex. And God said, Student, you shall hook up and be happy. You shall go home with random people every weekend and forget about them the next day. You shall see them at class and be awkward amongst their company. You shall exchange saliva at bars and parties and it will be good. And Student became gleeful and God told Student to wrap it up because He knows where she has been, but Student does not.

VIII- Thou Shalt Join a Club and Never Go to Meetings
Student inquired of his spare time and God reminded him that he should be napping. But Student said he wanted to do other things. So God said unto him, you shall join a club at the beginning of the semester, but then never go to meetings. And Student asked why he should not go to meetings, and God told him, because the glee club is gay. And Student understood His wisdom.

IX- Thou Shalt Wake Up Confused
God said to Student, there will come many a day when you shall wake up in the bed of another and not know where you are. You will not remember what you did last night and you shall be confused. You will see that you have nipple rings and a tattoo now and are covered in Sharpie. And Student was disturbed by this, but God said, you shall tell great stories about it to your friends someday. And Student understood and God took a sip of a beer. And God gave Student the final Commandment

X- Thou Shalt Gain Weight
And Student wished to hear the final commandment and God said he would not like it. But Student insisted, so God said unto him, you shall gain weight. However, God said, you will not buy new clothes, so you will wear sweat pants a lot. God said, Student, you will watch a lot of TV and become fat to which Student wept profusely. But God comforted Student saying, you will still get ass even if you cannot tie your shoes anymore. Student felt better and God pointed to Student’s chest saying, those will soon be bitch tits. And it was good.This is the word of God, follow the Ten Commandments of College or you will be smote!

Goal

2005-02-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

I'm going to run in (the half-marathon version of) this someday.

http://www.runtherock.com/

Totally cheesy "they helped me when I was younger, and now I"m going to run a half-marathon to benefit them" thing, but there you have it.

We are pleased to inform you...

2005-02-27T21:46:00.000-08:00

"We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the University of Texas at Austin. It is recommended that you contact your graduate adviser as soon as possible. It is a pleasure to welcome you as a graduate student. "

Translation:

"We are annoyed to inform you that you have been accepted to the University of Texas at Austin. To be honest, we wanted to reject you, but you had strong recommendations from two well-respected faculty members, and no one wanted to have to deal with their questions. We're only telling you to contact your academic advisor out of obligation, because we'd love it if you didn't, and we didn't have to hold a space for you. For crying out loud, you graduated in May--why are we having to welcome you again?"

Hee.

For lack of anything better to post.

2005-02-24T19:22:00.000-08:00

Ten random things about me
01. My right leg is 1.25" longer than my left. I often use this to justify my frequent stumbles over nothing.
02. I did not get my 12-year molars until I was 16.
03. My mother wanted to name me Mavournin. Thank God my father was present. And sane.
04. If I was taller, I would have a second sibling.
05. I am lactose-intolerant. Farewell, ice cream. And Lactaid is too expensive, before you suggest it.
06. I live for breakfast tacos.
07. Leslie Nielsen told my mother that I was a cute baby on a plane.
08. I have godawful motion sickness. However, this does grandfather me into the front seat on road trips.
09. I am a National Merit Commended Scholar. When my guidance counselor brought the letter to my pre-cal class, my teacher didn't believe her.
10. I threw my back out while watching The Fugitive. (I was alone. SHUT UP)

nine places i've visited
01. Paradise Island, Nassau, Bahamas
02. Chicago
03. Juarez, Mexico
04. Pasadena/Burbank/Los Angeles (yay Rose Bowl)
05. New York City
06. Washington, D.C.
07. Savannah
08. Portsmouth, New Hampshire
09. Boston

eight things I want to do before I die
01. Go to Europe
02. Live in Chicago
03. Work on a presidential campaign
04. Make a difference in someone's life
05. Be a foster parent
06. Run a marathon
07. Buy a Land Rover (hey, there had to be one materialistic thing)
08. Run a restaurant in the Caribbean

seven things to win my heart
01. Rub my forehead and play with my hair
02. Kiss my forehead every night before we go to sleep
03. Take me to a baseball game
04. Call me just to say you were thinking of me
05. Make me laugh
06. Buy me good-smelling candles
07. Give me a back massage. A good one.

six things I believe in
01. Happiness
02. That people are inherently good
03. myself.
04. That you know yourself better than anyone else does.
05. God
06. smiling

five things I'm afraid of
01. tornados
02. dying
03. snakes
04. fat
05. flying

four favorite items in my bedroom
01. Cooler & my baby blanket
02. My down comforter
03. My favorite pillow
04. cable TV

three things I do everyday
01. drink Coke
02. brush my teeth
03. hate driving

two things I'm trying not to do right now
01. think about the drive to work tomorrow
02. get my hopes up about Austin (and failing miserably)

one person I want to see right now
01. Not telling.

Something I've never told anyone.

2005-02-22T22:22:00.000-08:00

I have a fantasy of sorts. I've never really even admitted it to myself.

It is unbelievably cliche, but that doesn't make me want to do it any less.

I want to drive cross-country, to California, in a car. It will be an old convertible, top down. It will be sunset 24 hours per day. The weather will be warm--maybe 80 degrees--with just the slightest warm breeze. I'll be wearing sunglasses, sitting in the passenger seat. I'm not sure who is driving, but you're making me smile and laugh while I rest my right arm on the door, weaving my hand in and out of the wind.

Howie Day is playing on the stereo--is there really anything more perfect for that kind of feeling, that kind of moment, than songs like Collide? (for the record, I've liked Howie Day for quite a while, and while I'm excited that he's becoming popular, I'm sad it had to be with Collide. Somehow cheapens it for me).

There's no real purpose to our journey. It wasn't planned. One afternoon, we were sitting around, trying to find something to do. And you said "Let's drive to California". Maybe you were joking at first, but I said "OK" and took you seriously, just for a second. And then you took yourself seriously. And we grinned at each other, packed a few bags, and threw them in the trunk. We bought a map of the country at 7-11 and planned our route over cheese fries at a diner, highlighting the roads we would travel.

We only stopped in cities where we knew no one along the way. This trip wasn't meant to be shared with anyone else, even if it was just seeing old friends and having a place to rest for the night.

The funny thing is that the fantasy doesn't include actually reaching the Pacific Ocean. Somehow, the trip there is the important part.

The dawn is breaking
a light shining through
You're barely waking
and I'm tangled up in you

Kelly Moon, B.S., M.A.

2005-02-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

It has a nice ring to it, huh?

I never fancied myself an elitist academic snob, but my God, I cannot WAIT to use those last two letters when I feel the need to impress people. I think I'm as in love with the idea of completing post-graduate studies as I am with the career path I'll be taking at that point.

I'm even excited about my thesis, and I don't think I've ever looked forward to required writing in my LIFE.

And I'm also feeling entitled because they wanted ME. Me. Because, you see, I was technically not qualified for admission to the graduate school. They require a 3.0 GPA in upper-division coursework, as well as a UT-minimum of a 1000 on the GRE. Obviously, some programs require more than the 1000 minimum (the advertising program's average is an 1110), but as a whole, they need a 1000 so as to keep their stats up.

I had an 1160 on the GRE. No problem there.

However, I had a 2.78 upper-division GPA (don't ever take 18 hours, 15 of which are upper-division ad classes in one semester), thus meaning that if they hadn't actually wanted me, my recommendations from faculty/advisers, my statement of purpose, my resume, they could easily have rejected me as soon as they looked at my GPA.

And I'm aware that sounds completely egotistical, but I don't so much give a shit :)

So needless to say I'm odds and ends
But that's me, stumbling away
slowly learning that life is OK
Say after me
it's no better to be safe than sorry

Like, gag me.

2005-02-21T22:52:00.000-08:00

Get over yourself.

Yes, you.

You are an arrogant ass that is making more enemies than anyone should manage to make in a three week period.

You are not the be-all, end-all of life.

Your ideas aren't even that good. At best, they're mediocre. It's other peoples' suggestions about those ideas that makes them great. But do you give credit where credit is due? Nope.

You like to talk a good game, but in reality, there's nothing there. It's all surface. Don't get me wrong--you'd be an amazing actor, because you've somehow managed to convince a LOT of people that you actually have substance.

That, or everyone you hang out with has as much depth as you do.

I feel better now.

The Soundtrack of our Lives

2005-02-18T23:52:00.000-08:00

I'm one of those people who strongly associates music with my life. When I hear a song (specific song--I know that for some, it's albums) I am immediately taken back to where I was, how I felt, and who I was. Though sometimes it's just an artist in general...

For instance, Collide by Howie Day takes me back to leaving Austin. That afternoon, as I drove out of town (crying the entire way), that's what I was listening to. I remember the afternoon sun, the snapshots of scenes I passed on Mopac, then 183, then I 35 as I drove north towards Dallas. I remember the ache I felt inside as I left the city I love for a city I... well, hate.

Why Georgia by John Mayer is junior year of college. It's driving back and forth on 35 between my place and my friend's apartment in South Austin. It's Mozart's and cats and an ugly brown loveseat. It's hitting the 290 overpass on my way back into Austin from College Station early in the morning.

OAR in general is my Austin theme. There's nothing else I associate more strongly with the city... in particular one song. Night Shift... Stir it Up IS Austin for me. It's cruising southward on 35, windows down, sun in my face, friends in the car, on the way to float the river. It's a hot summer night on my way downtown. It's friends, it's good times, it's Starbucks study sessions, it's standing on my apartment's porch while the rain pours down and I talk to my best friend in Paris, trying to cram 2 weeks of our lives into a 30 minute conversation while my bare feet get wet from the splashing rain.

Patio by Nine Mile. It's spring semester of freshman year. It's a snapshot in my mind of sitting at the intersection of 24th and San Antonio, on the way back from TCBY and a drive down 2222 to look at the scenery. It's napping at Zilker Park on a gorgeous day with friends. It's Goldschlager and Jester and parties at the Beta house and that last bit of life where you're caught in limbo between who you were in high school and who you're going to be in college. Phish's version of Gin and Juice is a darker view of that year, I suppose. It's drinking and late nights and the couch in my friends' apartment and that fuzzy orange fleece blanket. It's laying on the pavement outside of Jester, waiting for friends. It's that the first shot I ever took was Seagram's Gin.

There are more, of course. But there's a few, just for an idea.

One good thing about music
When it hits you, you feel no pain

These times, they are a-changin'

2005-02-17T18:14:00.000-08:00

I don't do well with change.

Well, not quite. I don't welcome change. Once it happens, I deal, and I'm usually fine with it. But the initial process to begin the change?

Freaks my shit out.

I need to work on that.

The Notorious K-A-M

2005-02-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

You know, I am notorious for something.

Well, a few somethings.

One is that I am painfully un-female. I have a tangent to go off on for that thought, but I'll save it. Mental note: don't forget said tangent. OK. Moving on.

Another is that I am a horribly impatient driver. I scream at cars. I beat the steering wheel (but mind you, I do not beat the part with the airbag. Just the rim. Who wants to be my emergency contact when I break a hand one of these days?). I honk. My mother swears that I am going to be shot from doing all of this while living in Dallas. I think it's far more likely that anyone who actually sees me is so stunned at the sight of a small blonde girl screaming her lungs out while Vanessa Carlton plays in the background that they can't even find the glove compartment with their free hand.

And finally, perhaps my favorite piece of notoriety, I hate people.

No wait.

OK, part I of my last bit of notoriety is that I hate people.

Part II is that I enjoy nothing more than keeping up a running commentary about the people I see, and immediately hate.

My friend Kate's favorite thing to do when we went out to bars was stand next to me. You see, my running commentary is very exclusive. Most of the time I'm saying things while standing mere feet away from the subject of the disparagement, so it has to be very hush-hush. If you're not standing next to me, you'll have to rely on the person who does catch it to relay it to you--and we all know that secondhand snarkiness is SO not as good as the original form.

I need to get the snarkiness going again. I have been given the gift of keen observation and biting sarcasm--must combine them more often.

I feel as though I should include something I'm notorious for that's NICE. Because I am a nice person--I swear. I just seem short and bitter. My personality doesn't really match my outward appearance, does it? I'm all blonde and short and smiley and shit, and inside I'm this shrively, bitter, impossible to understand hag. Moving on.

My nice trait that I'm known for: I can listen. I can also give really, really kickass advice, but I don't do that unless it's asked for. I find that most of the time when someone says "I need advice about XYZ", they really mean "I need to talk this out with myself, but I need to do it out loud, and I need someone to listen to me so that I'm not that psycho talking to himself". If they talk it through, then ask for advice, they probably already know what they should do (and what I'm going to tell them), but they just don't want to do it.

Oh, and the tangent. What was it? *scrolls upward*

Oh, right. Me not being a girl.

See, just because I don't like flowers and I can't remember anniversaries and I'm not a fan of dressing up and stuff doesn't mean I don't appreciate special gestures.

Let's say that you're going to do something special for your girlfriend. If your girlfriend is any other female in the world that's not me, you'll probably buy her roses, maybe some chocolates, have her dress up for a fancy dinner, maybe take her dancing. There's probably a sunset involved, and you opening her door for her, and holding her hand across the table, blah blah blah. That's really, really cool of you. I support nice, romantic gestures. She'll appreciate it too, and you'll probably get laid. Several times, depending on how you play your cards.

Now, here's the thing. I don't like roses, I hate chocolate 98% of the time, and fancy dinners mean I can't wear my flip flops. Oh, and guys opening and closing car doors for me is creepy. Regular doors are cool. Car doors--eh.

However, that doesn't mean that I don't want you to do nice, romantic things for me. Instead, I like things like you surprising me at work with sandwiches and tickets to one of the Concerts in the Garden. Or a pair of seats to a Rangers game. Or maybe it's Friday afternoon, and you show up at my apartment with the car full of camping equipment and a weekend just for us. Or maybe you've picked up a six-pack of Corona Light (my favorite, for those keeping score at home. And no, the light is not because I'm counting calories--it's less filling. Or is that Miller Light?), and there's a big game on TV, and we're going to wear sweats and sprawl on the couch and snuggle.

*sidenote: I'm discovering that I like snuggling. SHUT UP.*

The whole point of this is that just because a girl isn't a conventional girl doesn't mean she still doesn't want to feel special and appreciated and flattered and all of that.

Yeah.

Signing off now.

Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?

Chicken Little.

2005-02-10T12:54:00.000-08:00

The sky is falling.

Well, the ceiling. And some walls. And pipes. And did I mention the particles of insulation flying everywhere?

Anyway.

I was in a conference room on the second floor for a meeting with the account service team. I have to do a little description of the agency for this to make sense. The whole thing is 3 stories, and all 3 open to a huge atrium (that's actually 4 stories tall) in the center. The ceilings are the industrial, exposed type--pipes running everywhere, etc. However, in some sections, there are "rooms"--places where they've created walls and a second pseudo-ceiling to close it off a bit.

Just to the left of the conference room we were in was one such area.

Picture it--the 5 of us sitting around the table, talking about insurance. Suddenly, there's a HUGE crash... and another, and it lasts about 10 seconds.

The 5 of us freeze, stare at each other, and then leap up and run to see what had happened (and how much does it say for us that the first thing we do is run TOWARDS the problem?).

One of the pseudo-rooms had collapsed. The framing for the ceiling buckled in one spot, which brought the whole thing down. Walls were cracked, pipes were dangling, insulation was falling out. Luckily, no one was hurt (save a guy who banged his knee on a trash can). Apparently it started shaking and everyone got out before it actually collapsed.

In other luck, the sprinkler head was not damaged, so the building isn't flooding at the moment.

This, however, does not make me feel warm and fuzzy about hte structure of this place. I imagine there'll be some lawsuit filing going on over this for the faulty construction. One would also hope that they'll be inspecting the rest of the building to make sure that it is structurally sound.

Is it bad if I hope they do it on a weekday so that we get a day off?

These walls are crumblin' down around me
We've never got any money

Goddamn

2005-01-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

What is it with me and last minute Mardi Gras trips?

My friend IM'd me just now and asked if I was still going. I said no, that the people I knew who were still going weren't people I wanted to stay with, and that the people I'd been planning to stay with couldn't make the trip. He said "You're welcome to stay with us. We're leaving at 9 AM on Friday and driving back Sunday morning."

This means I'd have to get myself to College Station on Thursday night, meaning I'd have to convince work to let me have Friday off. I'm going to volunteer to stay late all week to get the projects done, and hopefully they'll let me have it off as a PTO day. Cross your fingers...

Why I never had a fake ID.

2005-01-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

I can't get away with anything "bad". It's just my luck, I guess. I don't speed (well, not any more than what the flow of traffic is doing), I don't steal (even when we were 10, and everyone was taking a candy bar for fun), I don't drink and drive (even if I'm feeling perfectly fine)... I get caught when I do anything that isn't kosher.

Case in point:

Over the summer, I got a job at a restaurant near the UT campus. I only intended to work there for a month or two, and then get another on-campus job and quit. This place was open REALLY late (3 AM) and had a notoriously high turnover rate. I wasn't expecting it to be anything great, but I figured it was money, and I could live with it for two months.

Right.

I'd been there about a week, and turned in a schedule request. I asked to have Friday night off, explaining that my best friend was moving to Cincinatti that Saturday, and it was her going away party. If it had been any other job, I could've just gone over after work, but by 3:30 AM, the party would be long over and I would be ready to die from exhaustion. I figured that they'd take pity on me and let me have the night off, right?

Wrong.

They scheduled me. I tried to find a replacement--NO ONE wanted to take the shift.

You're probably thinking "So call in sick." Well, that wouldn't work either--you weren't allowed to call in sick. You had to actually show up, and then they had to send you home sick--physical proof of your illness, I suppose--it's pretty easy to fake sick over the phone. In-person faking requires a talent I don't posess.

I carefully weighed my options.

No, that's a lie. I took ten seconds and thought "What's more important? A job I'm going to quit in 2 months anyway, or saying goodbye to my friend who I'll rarely see anymore? Gee..."

I didn't show up for work that Friday night, and never went back. I didnt' regret it a damn bit, either. I did avoid the restaurant until I left Austin, however, but you would think that was the end of it, right?

Fast forward to now. They also have a Dallas location near my place of residence. I've called them once before to have dinner delivered, so my information (address, phone number, name, etc.) is already in their Dallas computer system. I called last night to order delivery, and had this conversation:

"What's your phone number?"

"My phone number (like I'm giving it out on here)"

"What's your first name?"

"Kelly"

"Kelly, are you from Austin?" (note: my phone's area code is still the Austin code)

"Yeah"

"Did you ever work at Pluckers?"

Mentally: Fuck! FUCK! "Nope"

"Oh, OK. We used to have an employee there with the same name. I'm from Austin too"

"How weird."

I ordered my food, gave him my credit card number, and hung up.

THAT is why I didn't have a fake ID. That shit only happens to me.

I teeter between tired
and really really tired
I'm wiped out and I'm wired
but I guess it's just as well.

Karma's a bitch

2005-01-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

I did something to piss someone in power off.

I'm not entirely sure what, but they've exacted their revenge via two avenues: Dallas traffic and the United States Postal Service.

I left a little bit late for work this morning, at 8:20. I don't *have* to be there until 9, so I was still on track to be there in plenty of time. I was up until 2 AM working at home, so I figured that being a few minutes late wouldn't be the end of the world.

My commute is in the opposite direction of what MOST Dallas commuters are doing. There's still traffic, and it can be heavy, but 90% of the time it's moving along steadily, particularly the 75N stretch of the commute. I have to go about 4 miles on 75 before I switch to 635, which is generally the problem child of the 13 mile trip.

This morning, I got onto 75 at 8:21.

I merged onto 635 at 9:23.

I finally got to work at 9:47, and I had a 10:00 meeting to haul ass to.

An hour to travel 4 miles. Oh. My. God.

Gah. Gah! GAH!

While I was at work, hating my life as usual, I checked the status of my package from Amazon.com.

This package already had a saga. They attempted to deliver it on January 15 to the 75208 zip code.

I live in 75206, and yes, I gave Amazon the correct shipping address.

So, the package is recorded as being missent and then returned to the facility on the 15th. I'm sure you can understand why I was getting concerned when the website said it went out again for delivery on the 16th, and I had seen no sign of it by the 19th. Upon calling the post office's 1-800 number, I was told to just wait for the next status update to the online tracking system.

Today, it said that the package was delivered at 6:50 PM last night. Great, right?

Well, not quite.

I did get a package last night. However, it wasn't from Amazon.com. The idiot postal workers scanned the wrong package as having been delivered, and now I have NO idea where my books and DVD are. And I'm getting pissed. I called the post office again, and this time they're submitting an inquiry to the local post office to find out what the hell the deal is. I should hear from them tomorrow.

It seems only appropriate to use some Postal Service lyrics now, huh?

The district sleeps alone tonight after the bars turn out their lights
and send the autos swerving into the lonliest evening
And I am finally seeing
why I was the one worth leaving

Insomniac Theatre

2005-01-10T23:35:00.000-08:00

I really need to work on my conceptual skills.

See, I have this horrible habit of constantly daydreaming. When I'm driving, when I'm at work, when I'm at lunch, when I'm on the phone, when I'm cooking, when I'm eating... you get the picture.

Now, I've moved on to daydreaming when I'm trying to go to sleep.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me, either.

I think it started because someone told me that if you think about something right before you go to sleep, the chances that you'll dream about it increase.

Of course, I probably should have taken into account the fact that I rarely dream about anything. So instead, this method of trying to control my dreams has morphed into this warped bedtime routine.

I take out my contacts, set my alarms (yes, plural), turn on the ceiling fan, shut the door, turn off the light, crawl into bed, snuggle under the covers, and start daydreaming. Except it's really not limited to daydreaming.

Sometimes I review the day. Sometimes I rewrite the past in my mind... sometimes I try to plan the future.

One thing I've learned from all of this has to do with the times that I try to rewrite the past... imagine how things would have gone if I had done this or that differently.

Truth?

I wouldn't change a thing.

There's not a single rewrite I can concoct that would put me in a place where I'd be as happy as I am today. I like my life. A lot. I like my family, I like my friends, I like my age, I like most everything about it.

I like who I am, who I've turned out to be. And as I mentally change Step A of sophomore year, or alter who I kissed on this night, I realize that without taking the path that I have, there are no guarantees as to who I would be right now.

And I'm not willing to take the risk.

Sure, I might be a better person than I am. But really--why do I need to be? I'm as lucky as they come. I've got a family that loves me and that is there for me. I have friends who make me laugh and make me feel content. I have a job. I have an employer who thinks the world of me and who was excited that I chose them. Yes, that I CHOSE them, because they thought I would choose someone else. I have a kickass grad school application. I have a good GRE score. I have the ability to move wherever I want, whenever I want, because the only person I have to answer to at the end of the day is me.

So while this whole daydreaming-turned-thoughtful thing might be bad for my sleep habits, it's been a wonderful thing for my outlook on life. Sure, I'll still fantasize about the future (and they change daily--everything from me meeting Mr. Right to me never meeting him and being happy about it to moving to Chicago to moving to England to being famous to being in a Presidential Cabinet--my personal favorite), but the past is something I wouldn't touch if I could.

Never have been one to write it down
Now I think I can
I know I'm stronger now
Who's looking south
Not me
I'm not looking back

So moved on.

2005-01-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

It's weird when feelings change after being static for a long time.

I'm not really certain of what caused the change. It could have been one of a few, or a combination of them.

Maybe it was time, maybe it was moving on to someone else, maybe it was distance, maybe it was decreased communication... whatever it was, it happened.

And I'm glad.

I've had one thing or another going on with this person for almost 3 years. And now, while he's still one of the most important friends that I have, it's not anything more than friendship. And that isn't going to change. But the feelings of it being anything else? Gone.

And I'm really good with that one. It feels good. I'm ready for this.

Bring it on, life.

I used to lose floating memories, found myself wishing I'd remember old times.
But I woke today,
felt another way,
felt free in the sky to fly.

Nick the Great

2005-01-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

It has been brought to my attention that I failed to give Nick credit for coming up with the idea that the yellow line is a very cool invention. My most sincere apologies to Nick, and I will even feature him in this entry as a way to make it up to him.

Nick is a very cool guy who has provided many hours of entertainment on AIM. He also provides me with an outlet for my Scrubs love, and agrees that Zach Braff is just that awesome. Other cool points about Nick:

- he likes Jimmy Eat World, and is my concert buddy for the show next Saturday
- he likes Something Corporate, and even sings along to it in the car
- he is a very cool person and recommended the Blue Hawaiian Boones to me at OU weekend
- he gives into peer pressure easily, especially when you're convincing him to take shots

But he's still going down in the drinking contest next Friday.

Alcohol, my permanent accessory
Alcohol, a party time necessity
Alcohol, alternative to feeling like yourself
Oh alcohol I still drink to your health

I don't like this at all.

2005-01-06T07:04:00.000-08:00

I nearly hit a curb on my way to work today. My car skidded on a patch of ice.

Yes folks, a patch of ice. In Texas. In early January. This is absurd.

The wind chill right now is 11. ELEVEN. The actual temperature is 24.

I live in Texas. Therefore, I should not be subjected to such harsh conditions. Yes, I know that there are people in North Dakota who are dealing with wind chills of -50 and their cars not starting, but my God--I'm so much better equipped to deal with ridiculous amounts of heat than ridiculous amounts of cold.

To top that off, I'm sick. Of course, it's kind of nice to have it be freezing cold out when you're sick. When you have a nasty cold in the summer, ever notice how absurd it is for you to be inside under ten blankets, going through kleenex boxes at the rate of one an hour? It's much more acceptable to be sick when it's cold out.

But then, I'm sick and I'm at work, so it's not like I really get to enjoy the whole buried under ten blankets watching a movie and eating soup thing. Instead, I get to sit in my chair at my computer, breathing through my mouth (because my nose is stopped up), and feeling as though my eyes are swollen partially shut.

I want to go home.

I would have called in sick, but I'm at the helm of a big project that needs to be done by today. Granted, the majority of the it is finished and it just needs a little tweaking. If my boss would get here, we could finish the tweaks, and then I could look into going home early.

I have such a great "I got to go home early" afternoon planned, too. It starts with a hot shower. After that, I've scheduled a nice long nap and movie watching session. I'll probably eat some soup somewhere in there--yay for comfort food. After that, I'll wake up around 6 feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the tedious task of unpacking my apartment.

So, let's get this show on the road.

I'm feeling pretty good, and that's the truth
It's neither drink nor drug induced
No, I'm just doin' alright

Danger Zone

2005-01-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, Target placed a Dollar Section near the entrance of the store.

The Dollar Section will be my financial downfall.

I went to Super Target tonight, as I was in need of groceries and a microwave, and I only wanted to make one stop. The microwave is quite nice, and is now sitting on my kitchen counter.

Of course, the first thing I did was walk through the Dollar Section with the intent of browsing.

Ten minutes later, the following items were in my cart:

- 4 martini glasses
- 4 of the old-style Coke glasses
- 1 set of 4 glass coasters
- 1 "Mozart and Martinis" CD
- 1 plastic basket

For those of you not keeping score at home, that's $11 worth of crap acquired in ten minutes.

My total bill tonight? $202. TWO HUNDRED AND TWO DOLLARS.

And the microwave, unfortunately, only accounts for $60 of that. What did I buy, you might ask? Everything.

The problem with moving is that you have to purchase the annoying, rather expensive items when you arrive at your new home. For me, that meant I was out of toilet paper ($7), Kleenex ($5), a razor (Don't ask--$7), soap ($5 for the giant liquid soap container), chicken ($10), contact solution ($6), and shaving gel ($3).

In all, that's another $43.

That means I only spent about $100 on food, which isn't bad. A large portion of that was to restock my pantry and freezer with items that won't go bad anytime soon--mac & cheese, soup, frozen pizza, frozen veggies (mmm, lima beans and green beans), stir fry, etc.

But between the Target run tonight and the fact that I have to pay my rent tomorrow, my nice, healthy $1200 bank account will now dwindle to... $660... then take out another $30 I spent on towels... $630... and another $100 spent on a birthday/christmas present for someone and a new down comforter for me... $530... $15 for gas... $515... then there are credit card bills to pay.

I need that $500 AMEX gift card now, please.

At least I get paid again on the 16th or so. And I should be getting my last paycheck from UT sometime soon.

Welcome to reality.

Well I've been working five days, full time
Ain't got no money
Everything is goin' fine.

That's it!

2005-01-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

The greatest invention ever:

The yellow line they put on the screen during football games to mark the first down.

I love that damn line, and I can't wait til they figure out how to make it appear to those of us actually AT the game ;)

So there.