Yeah, I Almost Cried

I liken relationships to tattoos, even though I only have one tattoo and the longest relationship I have had cannot be satisfactorily quantified by the smallest of metrics. It all kind of happens in the same stages. It's something you like and flirt with. Slowly you outline what it will be like. Nothing has happened but you've thought about it, or not, you love the idea of it and are filled with anticipation before you realize what is going on and it's too late.
The first sting you shrug off. It's fine. That was just a blip. The next one is a little worse and you begin to think maybe this won't work. Suddenly it feels like someone is dragging a dull knife through your skin. It's like fire and burns even after the needle has moved to the next section. You want to say, "stop, it's over," but don't want the other person to think you can't handle it and tell you to grow up. You bite your tongue or the inside of your cheek to try and redirect the pain. You try to hold in everything you want to say to be strong, but the truth is you suck and it hurts like a bitch! Soon enough it's done. You're kind of bleeding and put a piece of gauze over it to protect the open wound but can't help but try to lift up the bandages for another look. The scabs form and the blood is gone, but the surrounding area is still a little red. If you're lucky there's no itching (never had this problem in a relationship but with the tat it really itched, lol) and what's left was worth it. Kind of.
While you love it, your friends smile and agree that it's great, but after time they let you know what they really thought and it wasn't good. You defend it and say it's not that bad but maybe they're right. You spend some time remembering what it felt like and for whatever reason begin thinking you could do it again. For some reason it's harder to remember how much it hurt and you want another. It'll be great! Really! This time will be better. You remember thinking it wasn't going to be as bad as you had thought; riiiiiight, it was WAY WORSE! Why would it be different this time around? It still involves a needle. It may not be the same one (hopefully because that is gross) but they do the same thing... THEY SCREW YOU OVER! Well maybe not really but it's still going to hurt at some point. Any thoughts for another tat?
 I don't think this post gave me anything to add to my list of traits. Maybe big baby. Holler at me if you think of one.

BACK AT IT!

I'M BACK! For now at least. It has been over a year and I wish I could attribute it to me being caught up in my whirlwind of a life and jetting here and there or being stuck under a pile of paperwork at the office, but who are we kidding? My life is typical and ordinary and I am ok with that. Let's catch up! I think in my last few posts I had just finished college and was wondering where life would take me or really, where I would take life. I am back in my AWESOME home state, California, actually working in a field related to my degree and attempting to assimilate into society as an adult... not winning! I don't know if it is me resisting or if I am just completely puerile (I love that word) and not cutout for the adult thing, but I still feel like a big kid living in a world where I have outgrown my favorite t-shirt but still wear it everyday. Actually I play dress up with a  pair of slacks and a collared shirt and walk into my office and somehow have learned enough to get through the day. I LOVE MY JOB(and because of that it will not be spoken of very often on here)! So much better than when I was working at the Suckhouse as a server pretending (really never did it very convincingly) to be nice and care about whether your food was hot or cold. I think now that I no longer work in a restaurant I can get a few things off my chest... here we go!
There is nothing like working in a professional setting among people I can call my peers, who treat me like I am a person and not some idiot waiter who is somehow less than they are. Serving tables was the worst experience of my life. Yes, it got me through college but it is not something I would want to relive. I tried to have some fun along the way though. Most people don't understand the concept of not messing with people who handle your food.... at least wait till after your dinner is at the table and you are not going to order another diet coke. You would think it would go without saying.
The things you see servers doing to your food on tv really do happen. At least of the three places I worked they did. Maybe I was the only perpetrator but sometimes it felt good to feel like I got even with someone who was a jackass. Yes I spit or licked people's food. CRAP! Did I just drop a piece of toast on the ground? If you were an asshole I picked it back up and put it back on your plate. Sometimes I sneezed in drinks or my coworkers would stick their finger in a drink thinking I would care and dump it out and get a new one....*** NEWSFLASH *** I wasn't drinking it, I didn't care! Really the things I did were innumerable but never so awful were they unmentionable. Very few times did someone come in and have the sense to play nice until the end of their meal and then get away scott-free and think they got the last laugh by giving a 10% tip if anything at all... but then they forgot to take their card with them and left it at the table. Not smart. Your card went for a ride on the freeway and then flew out the window of my car. It happens. Sorry. So I think we have been making a list of my traits since I started this blog; let's add vindictive. Most people know not to piss me off. Nothing good comes out of it. WHEW!
Feels so good to get that off my chest and be back in the blogosphere! I am rededicating myself to Annotations. Also, any of my friends who read this should read my friend Sam's blog: http://samanthaherself.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html. She is way better at this blogging thing than I am and way funnier. Till next time!

Wine Country Wedding

This is a post I started after I attended my best friends wedding at the beginning of August and am only now posting at the request of one of my most loyal readers, "Your blog is seriously lacking."

When did this all happen? We grew up and now apparently it's time to get married. This last weekend I jumped a couple planes and stepped off at Sacramento International Airport, ready, with some slight trepidation, to attend the weekend festivities and as requested by the bride, sing as the bridesmaids made their long walks down the aisle before Ashley herself did the same. But all this would occur after I first stayed the night at Aaron and Megan's house for a quick visit that would never be long enough. Neither were actually there to pick me up because I had scheduled my flights to arrive as early in the day as possible not considering their work schedules, so my next step was getting into a disgusting shuttle with equally disgusting schmos and a driver whose eyeliner was too thick and hair that was unnaturally yellow (I mean, who are you kidding?). After this trip I decided that I would never fly coach again and never take a shuttle either. I am sorry Mr. I am past my 40's and studying to take the LSat but I do not want you spilling into my seat and I am not impressed with your practice booklet; please refrain from speaking to me.
After the plane and shuttle ride my trip could only get better. My time in Sac is never what I want it to be, unending. I love spending time with my favorite people who share the same last name as me and low-blows are never taken to heart but generally enjoyed and given the credit they deserve. Double-chins and comments about each others obesity are never off-limits and breaking into song about the ghetto are better than singing rounds of row, row, row your boat. The only thing that has changed is how late we stay up taking shots at one another. With the arrival of my cousin's first child and having work schedules that require their days to start at 5:30am, nights are called at 9:30pm instead of 2 and 3 in the morning and drinking has been reduced to a few MGD 64s which are great for avoiding a hangover in the morning but suck when you are chasing a buzz... you just never quite get there but we go to bed and call it a night anyways.
The next morning I woke up and took off to Napa. An hour drive isn't so bad; especially with a thermos of coffee to get me there. The wedding wasn't till the next day but the wedding rehearsal and dinner were that night and zipping (or sipping) around in Napa is not something I will say no to. The days activities went off without an incidence and the next day the wedding was about the same.... if you didn't count the woman who walked into the ceremony wearing a bright pink dress that may have been meant for a stripper (later we found out she had a little too much to drink and had she been a stripper the only thing she would have to take off was that dress. Just think her falling out of the car and legs in the air). Besides the  inappropriately dressed woman who was the escort.. I mean girlfriend of a groomsman, the wedding was a blast, the food was awesome and the beer and wine were free. A perfect wine country wedding. Congrats to one of my best friends and her new husband!

"For what it's worth"

This is a post for my friends and family; whether it pertains to the time I spent being miserable, apathetic, drunk or otherwise while in college, this goes out to them and is for what it's worth.

I've said it in a few posts as of late but college is over. There is a strange mix of weightlessness, like I'm floating somewhere in limbo with complete and utter joy, accompanied by an acute sense of fear that things will never be the same, that the people who have somehow come into my life will be lost as we leave to begin to live the rest of our lives, hoping that in some way the impact we made (or hoped to have made) will have been enough to ensure that we will remain some small part of one another. Then there are those people who have remained active participants in my life since high school, when the same feelings applied but a lifetime ago; college was on the horizon and freedom was a beacon of hope, naiveté was a false comfort and ambivalence was overcome with a belief that the rest of our lives began the moment the car was packed and we stepped into our roles as "independent" adults, attending classes we believed would give us the knowledge we lacked to be successful, active contributors in our communities and society at large. Being a kid was great, right?
Families grew farther apart, others tightened and expanded. Sisters got married and pregnant (in that order, thank god), parents got older and maybe slightly more frail but were still the compass we chose to follow or ignore. Sometimes tragedy was the mechanism by which friendships were decided to have no bounds and the catalyst that transformed lifelong ideals and forced change that may have otherwise never occurred. Roles were reversed, enforced or assigned. Titles became more numerous and life's endeavors more complicated but somehow everything kept moving.
Phone calls were frequent and innumerable. Minutes and hours were wasted with silence because sometimes it wasn't to talk that we called home, but just to have the comfort that if you wanted to say something the line was already connected. Eventually reliance on our formers lessened and shifted to those in the present. Together we would commiserate and scrutinize every detail of a case, quiz or test. Some didn't understand the relentless dissection of every word, but they weren't accountants and couldn't understand how such a routine was comfort to us, even as we discovered every mistake and error and estimated a grade that wouldn't be posted till the following week. Group breakfasts often followed 8am classes and afternoons after tests and weekends, that started on Wednesdays, were spent and forgotten at bars, while Facebook became a way to archive and begin to piece together a night lost at Ben's.
I've come to where I am now and wonder what I used to be and most likely wouldn't be able to recognize who it was back then that used to slide down hills on a block of ice, chase cows on a country road or drive up and down Partich Rd hunting Rebobs (but really hoping to not find anything but a good scare) because someone's parents paid for the gas. I guess it's all worked out for the best, even if some of it really sucked.

Life, it's happening.

I am still adjusting to the idea of being done with college (with the exception of one class I will finish this summer), but I suppose it has still been less than a week. There are no homework assignments, group projects, classes, quizzes or tests to study for or get worked up about, however, they have been replaced by the almost insurmountable task of packing up my apartment. It is a feat that has unmasked my ability to find value in the most worthless of items and forces me to ask myself why a post-it note was not thrown in the trash three years ago. The worst has been finding old receipts from purchases made at the likes of JCrew and company. Finding one would have been fine, but when you find 4 or more it can be somewhat devastating. Those I promptly threw out. No need to tally them, the damage has been done.
I call my apartment a hole but it actually has not been a horrible place to live while in school. Unless having neighbors who's sexual exploits have been on display via their balcony, or overheard through a mutual bedroom wall. I mean really? One, the whole balcony incident occurred in the middle of winter when it was like 30 degrees out and then the other one.... it doesn't feel that good and you are not making an X-rated movie, and if you are that is gross and no one will watch it unless they have a fetish for ugly people. People are gross. I look forward to the day when the only thing I share with a neighbor is a 10-foot privacy wall.I don't want you to think that I am a hermit or grump; I really enjoy the company of other people, but usually not my neighbors. When I have to listen to screaming that could be mistaken for a cat being skinned alive or you constantly slamming your front door, speaking in Spanish and then me being startled by my dog suddenly barking at the window... yeah I kind of hate you.

In other news, today I gave my dog, Kobi, a haircut. If you don't like it keep it to yourself; chances are I don't like yours either. 

The Late Post that had to be Reposted!

This is kind of annoying because I posted this entry to my blog a few days ago and for some reason it is no longer showing so I am reposting it. This is an entry I wrote back in March and never though was finished but looking at it now it seems complete.

I guess this blog-thing is going to be more difficult to keep up on than I had anticipated at first. I can only bring myself to write when I feel like it and not just because I have loads of material (and in the last couple weeks I have a lot).
I find that my morning ritual has become more and more standardized as of recently. Of course it begins with a groan and me cursing the sun for waking me up too early and then rolling back over and waking up another hour and a half later (and having an 8am class doesn't prevent me from doing this). Once I do decide I am almost ready to get up, I open one eye and check my Facebook on my phone that charges right next to me (it's my other half and sleeps on the right side of the bed... not the night stand), and then I shoot my cousin a menacing text if he hasn't already called, because he thinks it is his job to keep me on a normal sleep schedule and call at 7:30am, and wait for a few seconds before the screen lights up with his picture. My day has begun and it is easy to waste the morning switching between holding the phone at my ear and turning on speakerphone as I cook eggs and drink coffee, antagonizing one another as we would normally do if we were in the same room (I would settle for the same state at this point). Conversations are intermittently interrupted by the coos and giggles of almost 7 month-old Sam and stories about changing diapers or a new tooth or his eating habits. Normal conversation. You may not think so but it is extremely interesting and the best part of my mornings. Eventually Aaron (my cousin), bemoans the loss of the morning and we reluctantly give in to the call of our days and hang up. Bah.

You're an Egg.

Can I start this post by saying that I cannot stand Lady GaGa? Every time I get in my car and the radio comes on it's her. I will give her credit and say that her songs are not awful but just played to point that it makes me want to commit suicide. Also, in general, she is kind of just annoying. No one wakes up in the morning and says, "today I think I want to wear a bookshelf on my head because that is who I am." She is ridiculous and the biggest marketing scam ever conceived. I wish I could stuff her back in an egg and drop it in a pot of boiling water, dye it and then hide it in my backyard on Easter and forget about it. Over. Next.
In more relevant news, the stuff that pertains mostly to me, I finished my last semester of college! Praise Allah-Buddah-Shiva-who cares. Never I have I had such a feeling of elation and mobility. I could jump in the car and just leave. I won't but I feel like I could. I don't even really feel like I have to get a job at this point. When someone asks, "what do you do?" I can say, "I have a degree in accounting!" and be done with it. I think having a BS in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting gives me the right to do nothing. I think I have developed a slight issue with entitlement. Thank you college.
It is somewhat baffling that this phase of my life is over and I don't really know how to transition into the next part. This semester was lost somewhere in a bar, or left in the bottom of a pint glass, passing the time in class on Facebook chat with those sitting right next to me, scanning the room to assign celebrity likeatures and nicknames to classmates (or victims may be a more appropriate word). Rudolph (the puppet from those Christmas movies), Al Capone, Sister-wife and the most infamous Pompadour, were just a few of the favorites. I am unsure as to how this became our daily routine but it was what kept us sane, and trying to muffle the sound of our laughter during lectures was a greater accomplishment than getting an A on a test. Actually, assigning people alias' was my doing, but it was fun and sending people pictures of look-a-likes and trying to get them to laugh at the most inappropriate of times was my favorite pastime. Oh the things I learned in college.