ARGH

Everything is irritating me! EVERYTHING! Everyone has an opinion on everything and nothing really seems to make any sense, and I don't know the right thing to do but everyone is just pissing me off. So, we go to Babies R Us and look at double strollers. They have 3 options that are double, and can clip 2 child seats into them. We find the one we want, find it on Craigslist for 1/3 the price, and get it. But, it doesn't fit in our car. The only way it fits in our car is to put the seats down but of course, with 2 car seats there, you can't do that. So, the GTI won't work. Josh has a truck and that won't work because there's no room for car seats, anyway. So now there's all these OPINIONS like why did you buy it, buy a new car, don't buy a new car, buy a hideous box to strap on top of your car, get 2 strollers, get 2 umbrella strollers, bla bla blabla bla. I literally just took myself out into the heat and tried to transform this thing and will it to fit into the back of my car, and I was just getting more and more pissed because I was wearing sandals and rolling over the tops of my feet, and I was like FUUUUUUUUUUU I HATE THIS I just want to throw everything in the street and never leave the house again because everyone and their opinions will drown me.

My Rules

I realized the other day that I have all these rules for living. Most of them revolve around food. Take the following, for example.

It's Sunday or Monday night (a SCHOOL night I still think of them) and I have a hankering for brownies. I watch the clock because no matter how much I want them, I am not going to bake brownies and eat them after 9 PM. It's the Brownie Cutoff. I don't want to be wired all night and sugared up before trying to go to bed. And I stick by that stupid rule, usually... except when I eat cookie dough for dinner or something.

I also usually don't just eat fries for a meal. Unless it's Friday, or a 3 day weekend, or something equally stupid. That one's like, 10 years old.

I fill my water glass in the morning when I start working. I have to finish this 8 ounce glass of water by the time it's lunch, so noon. Sometimes I am like, yay lunch! And then I look at the water glass and there's quite a bit in there, so I down it before heading into the other room to eat.

And yes, I still like to pair my food and sodas together, like fine wines. Orange food like a quesadilla gets orange soda. Where brown food like a burger gets a Coke.

And yeah maybe I really do have OCD like certain people in my past have wondered.

Dumb Things I Thought When I Was Younger

I was chuckling to myself this morning as I thought about things I used to do when I was younger. And I don't mean like, 10.. I mean I stopped doing these things only a few years ago.

When I was younger, I thought that when I was retail shopping and someone asked me at the checkout, "Is anyone helping you today?," that it meant "Is anyone helping you pay for your items today?" And I wondered why the hell they asked this. I mean, did women come in shopping and have someone "help them" with the price? Did some shadowed stranger just step up and slap down a credit card and pay for all the girls' stuff? Would they just say "Oh yeah, charge it to so and so"? I mean, what the hell was I thinking? Because of this, I always assumed the sales people thought I had some sugar daddy when in reality I never did. And because of this, I probably scammed at least tens of dollars in commissions from sales people. Because in reality, I WAS being helped. By the people who told me their names and opened the dressing rooms for me. Oops.

Another stupid thing I used to do was once my hair was cut, and they handed me the mirror - I never knew it was so look at the back of my hair. They would hand me the mirror and I would hold it in my hand and smile and nod and cringe a bit like, what is this all about? I just thought it was so I could look at my face in a DIFFERENT mirror. And you know, not look at the back of my hair. I was literally like 25 when I realized this wasn't the case. Oops. At least this one, unlike the above, didn't cost anyone any money.

Me too

Lately I've been having a lot of "me too, me too" moments. I tend to think of it as jealousy, but it's not really like that, not 100% I think. It's more of an "I wish I could have that too". And it's about one thing in particular, and it's hard to talk about. There's this marketing term called "Captive audience" or "engaged audience" or something, and basically it means it's a lot easier to sell people a car if they're in the MARKET for a new car. If they're not looking, they won't notice your advertising. But if there ARE looking, they're a lot more likely to pay attention to you. I feel like that's happening in my life now, these "me too" moments that I see everywhere.

And I wonder... is it really any different than it ever was, or am I an engaged audience now and I see this everywhere? It's like I can't escape it. Real life, work life, facebook. And then I'm like, I'd be a bitch to notice this and not say anything - and it's not like I'm not happy for these people but I feel all liar-y being like GREAT! GOOD FOR YOU! When in reality I don't really care about (most) of their situations. I just care about mine.

Me too.

Last Thursday, Josh and I took the GTI and drove a couple hours to LUSK, WYOMING! Home of a Best Western, another hotel, and... I think that's about maybe it. We almost hit a deer driving in too, which was weird. I also did that screamy gasp / grab the handle / shift uncomfortably in my seat thing because I thought we were going to crash before we even got to Fort Collins, which got Josh mad. By the time we finished our dinner though we'd apologized... I said I don't really make a conscious decision to DO it, it just happens. Total your car and see how easy going YOU are when someone else is driving. Anyway.

After staying the night in Lusk, we headed out to South Dakota in some back roads through the Black Hills. We saw a herd of buffalo, and drove past Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore.

Then we hit Rapid City, and as I was taking a look at all the attractions one stood our in particular: Dinosaur Park. I freaked out because I have pictures there from when I was about 3, sitting on these giant cement dinos with my cousins. Needless to say I made Josh veer off the main drag, and we get a bit outside of town... you know how when you're driving up to a major attraction you can see it, or the town starts looking a bit like "hey, Disneyland / Water Park / Tourist attraction is just ahead?" No, there was nothing. The road started veering up a hill, and going past these teeny little houses that looked super old, and I was about to give up but then Josh saw a dino head towering above the hill and I literally screamed. So, we jump out of the car and it's literally 100 degrees, and I start screaming DINOS! like I'm a 4 year old instead of a 28 year old on vacation, and I charge up these steps like, YEAH YEAH YEAH!!! And Josh took a ton of pictures of me on the same dinosaurs from 25 years before, and my heart was happy.




After that we ate at Taco Johns and made the lone drive to Sioux Falls, where I proceeded to drink too much margarita at the family reunion and almost pass out on the lawn. Instead I passed out in my room and woke up at 9:30, hung over and disoriented. So I had some dinner and went back to bed. Sunday we went to Lake Madison and water skied, and I wish I was still there doing that now because of how fun it is. The lake was full of green algae but not the sick foamy kind that makes me want to throw up thinking about it touching me. We had to leave pretty early though, so I was sad as it's been 10 years since I was there and will probably be 10 before I am back, though I really hope it's not that long. Monday was really low key, and then Tuesday.... was the bane of my existence driving 11 hours back to Colorado.

So the whole time I was complaining like, why can't they make a more direct highway from here to South Dakota? Why does this take so effing long? I started making plans to get a small plane, and a small pilot's license, and fly there. But that's not realistic either really, so I guess the only options continue to be to fly, or drive 11 hours past the Kearney Arch in Nebraska.
But anyway at least I got dino pictures, and buffalo pictures, and pictures of us at the lake because.. that's all that really matters to me. Make fun of me all you want but, South Dakota was a great vacation.

Somebody Motivate me!

May 3, has it really been that long since I posted? What's wrong with me? It's not like I've done nothing for the past month and a half, jeez.

I've done a lot of things. We bought a new truck, I downloaded some new songs, I semi-conquered my fears of doing a flyaway on the high bar in gymnastics (and ripped a hole in my hand and haven't been back since, eh). But for some reason finding the motivation to write in here just always evades me.

And it's weird because when I read my old Livejournal blog, I crack up and I'm so glad I have those things written down because hey, I think I'm pretty interesting. I think I used to update the old one more too because I linked to it from my MySpace page, but I don't use MySpace anymore and hence, no more updates that the world can see.

But anyway now I never write about anything much - maybe it's because my world is really small. Maybe I don't know what I want to do with my life (who does?). Maybe it's because I feel restless. I don't know, I need something new. I feel like all I do is sleep and work and not much in between, and that's a problem. And I know it's my problem (I DO know that, apparently a phrase that will be engraved on my tombstone by Matt) but I just don't know what to do about it. I need to get out of the house because I work here, and who wants to spend all day every day at their work? I need to find a creative writing class, or a stained glass class, or a dance or yoga class, or a new friend, or something.

And speaking of friends, one of my best friends was discussing moving out of the state of California, and my heart did like 10 backflips because I know Colorado is a potential state that said person could move to. And it got me thinking like, what would I do, and what would my life be like, if I had a really close friend live close to me again? What would I do differently (probably lots of things). I miss friends. It's not like I don't have any, but well, all of them live far away. And I know that was a sacrifice I made when I moved here too. But sometimes it's just fun to think about the things I would do differently if I had friends close to me again.

Which is probably why I'm aching to get out to Orange County again. Lots of friends that are always happy to see me. I know it's stupid that I didn't ask if I could fly there from work, but there will be another weekend. Or dammit, maybe that one. I want to go. I want to go see 311 in crappy seats on the grass. I want to wonder where I am going to work from. Maybe I'll just fly from San Francisco to Denver and turn my ass around and fly right back to Orange County. I can do whatever I want, I'm an adult! And I need this.

Me, 13 years ago

I bet you can't really see that image above, but that's me 13 years ago as a freshman in high school. Someone actually scanned in our entire class, and posted the images to Facebook. So using the power of screenshots and microsoft paint, I have exposed my 15 year old self to the very limited audiance that reads this blog. I mean seriously there's what, 2 of you?

I like this picture because it's hilarious. I mean, look at my shirt for example. It's one of the first shirts I paid for myself. I really broke the bank, I bought it at Wet Seal for 28 dollars. It was made of TOWEL MATERIAL, in case you're curious. Apparently those were really hip and with it at the time. I was probably also wearing jeans from Eddie Bauer, because at the time that's where I got them. But don't worry, soon after I know I got some wide leg jeans from Rampage or something. At the Santa Rosa mall, oh yeah.

Me in this picture? I couldn't even drive. I played water polo. I look like a female version of my brother. I hadn't figured out tweezers yet. I had a crush on a boy a grade higher than me, and I used to write "I like Scott" on my apple stickers and stick them on the bench where I ate lunch every day. (Yes, he eventually found them and it made his day, which still makes me smile). I wore the same shoes every day and paired everything with jeans.

But you know what? I still wear jeans with everything and wear the same shoes every day. I try to be different every now and then but I always go back to what I'm comfortable with. I guess I didn't turn out that bad after all.