Motherhood

I know it may seem like Twixter One and I gave up on this blog, which we kind of did, but I've had this urge to write again ever since Bean was born. So I think that I'll write on here even if it's just purely cathartic reasons.

Baby Bean came into this world on August 14 at 1:48 pm. Funny story about that. He was due on August 25. The night before I went kind of crazy and psycho cleaned our entire apartment. Apparently that's a sign of labor and I didn't realize it. So the next morning, I went into my last day of work opening at 4:30 am and felt kind of strange to say the least. I got to work and was doing my thing and thought I felt my water break. The thing about being pregnant for the first time is you have zero idea what to expect. Some women's water don't break at all. And it's not how it seems in the movies. Your water doesn't break and 15 minutes later you're having a baby.

So I did the natural thing. I ignored it. I kept work until around 6 am when I was then pretty positive my water broke. The beginning contractions were also a sign. So I called Husband and woke him up. I then called my manager to come take over. He was freaking out. He called 3 different times on his way over because he thought I was going to pop out a baby in the back room. I laughed and kept working, because that's what I do. I headed home and Husband and I waited around for an hour or two until my contractions were closer together. I know you're supposed to go straight into the hospital when your water breaks but my contractions were still over 20 minutes apart. So we sat around and got everything ready since I would much rather be at home than in a hospital.

We finally go to the hospital around 8 am and checked in. No one tells you about this part of delivery. The boring part. We just sat around playing cards until they could move me into the actual delivery room. I had decided to have a natural birth even though the nurse who was first attending to me made me feel like an idiot about it. She proceeded to tell me about her 3 natural deliveries but how I wouldn't be able to do it. So that really pushed my confidence. But by the time I got to the hospital I was 6 cm dilated out of 10 and the contractions hadn't been unmanageable. So I told the biatch to STFU and kept going. I didn't really tell her that. I was much more pleasant. Which is surprising for a woman going into labor.

So skip the boring stuff, I had a horrible contraction and finally asked the nurse (a new much nicer one) if I could have some IV pain meds. She went to go get them and I was overcome with a desire to push about 2 hours earlier than they said I would. When the nurse got back I informed her, "Um....I feel a really strong urge to push" where she proceeded to laugh and check me out. Much to her surprise, I was ready to go. So she calls for another nurse to go get my doctor who was on her way to perform a circumcision. Husband is holding up one of my legs and the nurse the other while several other nurses flutter around prepping the room. When Bean was ready, he was sure ready. So I didn't even have time to get any meds and had to pop out a baby.

The pain was no picnic I'll tell you that. It was like the worst burning pain ever. Everyone told me you'd forget about the pain after the fact. Not entirely true. It doesn't feel as strongly in my head obviously, but I didn't just block it out either.

But once he was out, nothing really mattered. It was amazing to just see him outside of me. This thing that had been moving around, LIVING in me for 9 months was here. And he was the cutest squid baby I'd ever seen. (I don't care what anyone says, there is no cute newborn except your own.) In fact, I think Bean has graduated into being called Squid now. He had such a smooshy little face and a cone head covered in hair. I was born nearly bald so I have no clue where his hair came from. Even husband wasn't born with much hair at all.

I do have to say, I felt like a champion after the delivery. The nurses were all amazed that I was smiling and joking with them even up to the time to push. My doctor kept calling me a champion. My main nurse told me she would come in on her day off to deliver my second kid. The other nurse told me if all her deliveries were like mine she would work 7 days a week. And the last nurse (this is my favorite) told me I was the best and easiest delivery she had ever done in her five years at that hospital. So needless to say I felt like Wonder Woman. And Squid was perfect.

But now, 2 months later, I'm still in shock I have a kid. I'm a twixter. I haven't finished college, and I work a crappy job that most people use as a second job. Yet here I am. A mom. I start work this week so maybe that's why I'm feeling nostalgic about it. I don't feel like I'm ready to teach someone how to live. I mean I'm still trying to figure that out myself.

I wish I could stay home with him all the time. I also wish I could get more than 3 hours of sleep at a time. Supposedly that should be getting better in the next month or so. We'll see about that.

Twixter Two

Happy New Year, 18 days Late....

Well, even with the guilty hints from Twixter One, it has taken me a total of 18 days to update this brand new year, on top of the almost 6 months it has been since I've even updated at all.

Wow. That was an embarrassing revelation.

I had such high hopes of blogging all last year. It was supposed to be awesome! Twixter One and I had been working on getting our blog out there for the world to see then we just....stopped. Well, I stopped. Twixter One at least attempted, kind of. :)

Now is a new year, a time for new starts. I decided not to have any New Years Resolutions. I find I either never remember them or just feel guilty at the end of the year for not accomplishing them. The not accomplishing is usually followed by excuses to why it was an unrealistic goal in the first place. Excuse-Excuse-Whine-Whine-Whine.

Well I'm tired of whining. And I'm tired of my own excuses. So this year is a year about doing. Not goal setting and listing, it's a year of making it happen. Figuring out what the hell I actually LOVE in my life. Because I still don't truly know. I still feel like that floundering high school girl who can't decide what to major in because that determines what she'll be doing for the next 30 years of her life. How wrong was I? (Incredibly wrong, actually.)

So the real reason behind all this "doing" not pretending is my big news of 2011. I found out just before Christmas that Husband and I are expecting a little Twixter of our own. You read correctly. I'm preggo.

I do have to say how excited I am. This was not planned per say, but Husband and I were planning on kids within the next year or so anyhow. It was just a tidbit earlier than we had hoped. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone keeps telling me you are never truly ready to have kids. You just have to make it happen.

So yes, I do feel a sort of time crunch. Every time I get sick (which for me is night sickness, not morning sickness) I'm reminded of how much my body and life are going to be changing. Will forever be changed after this baby is born.

A little bit of honesty: When Husband and I found out I was pregnant, I freaked out. And not in a good way. All I saw was myself raising kids and doing nothing for the rest of my life. I mean, I have 6 college classes left to a degree. When am I going to take them? When are we going to want to set aside extra money for a crazy irresponsible projects (like moving across the country to start a production company) after we have kids? We actually have to be adults now.

Needless to say, I calmed down. A LOT. After the initial shock faded, I got excited. Who says my life has to end? It's a baby, not an anchor. My journey on this ocean of life doesn't need to marooned forever. I just picked up some extra crew.

My parents worked really hard to keep doing what they wanted to do with their lives, even after I was born. They started several business, and just kept living. I want that. I want to keep living. I'm still only 23 years old. (Oh yeah, my birthday was in November).

So there's that. Man, I forgot how awesome it feels to blog.

Hm. Maybe I can actually keep DOING it. What do you think Twixter One?

The Bad Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and though there’s a reason, I’ve been holding back from blogging about it.

In fact, I’ve been undecided since we started this blog about whether or not I’d blog about the subject at all. For one, this is a blog about growing up and while this certainly defines my version of “growing up”, it deviates so far away from everyone else’s version of “growing up” that I can’t argue it into the margin of error. And for two, it’s something that I usually avoid talking about. In fact, it’s something that actually took me a year to be comfortable telling anyone about at all - let alone announcing it to the world wide web.

But unfortunately at this stage in my life its becoming so overwhelming that its keeping me from blogging - both physically keeping me from being able to sit down at my laptop, and mentally keeping me from having anything to blog about.

I have fibromyalgia. The name probably sounds familiar, meaning that you’ve seen the commercial on at 2 o’clock in the afternoon where a silver haired old lady talks about her aches and pains and then supposes that the upcoming drug (and all the surgeon’s general warnings with very fine print) help her to live a normal life.

Well, I’m 22 years old and I feel like I’m doing about as well as a 78 year old lady. at least for now my hair is still brown.

Fibromyalgia wreaks havoc on your body. It makes you joints hurt, your muscles hurt, all the way down to your knuckles and your fingertips. There is never a day where my pain level is below a 4 or 5 - and those are the days I consider “good days.” My body is in a constant nerve war, leaving me continually exhausted physically and often cloudy and unfocused mentally.

I say this and it all makes sense to me, however I know that most people who read this will simply pass it off as “yea, I have days like that too” or think of me as a whinny hypochondriac who can’t handle being a little under the weather.

Well, I’m going on 3-years of being “under the weather” - a turbulent up and down, where I never know how I’m going to wake up the next morning. I’m tired of waking up each day and doing a mental check - legs good, knees bad, lower back is fine but my throat muscles are so stiff I can barely breathe. The last couple of months have been even worse as the doctor is trying to adjust my medication, leaving me in near tears every morning when it’s time to crawl out of bed.

It’s hard to explain, and even harder to explain how others should deal with the info. I don’t want to be treated differently, to have others tip toe around me or think that every time I sniffle it’s because of the fibro. (It’s not.) and yet, I need people to know and understand that I’m not a lazy or an unreliable friend when I constantly have to shift or back out of things.

I wish I was a normal twenty something, and most of the time I try to pretend that it’s so. I think I do a pretty good job of it. I push myself to go to parties and say yes to movie invitations, even when I know that it will be a mental game of “I think I can” to get myself through. Most days, it’s an accomplishment to make it through a 9-hour day at work, and when the clock hits 5:30 a sense of relief overcomes me that I haven’t fallen apart yet.

I don’t want to be like this. I’m not the introvert who wants to stay her room all day and follow friends on facebook who are out having marvelous adventures. I want to be out there, doing fun, crazy and insane things that you’re supposed to do in your twenties. But sometimes I feel like it’s going to take my entire twenties to fight through this miserable disease, and that by the time I come out on the other side I’ll find myself in adulthood having to “grow up” - when “growing up” is the only thing I’ve been doing the last year and a half that I’ve been on this regimen.

I wish this post wasn’t so disheartening or so sad, or that I had some cheery “so what do you think” to add to the end of it, but the fact is - life just kind of sucks right now. I feel like I’ve hit a rut - and this disease is only helping to turn the rut into a deep endless pit that I’ll never get out of. This week I’m making another trek over to the doctor to figure out what is going on, though that never seems to be the final answer. So, for now, excuse the spotty posting - if I ever get back to feeling close to normal again, I promise you more blogs will resume.

Lost without LOST

Wow.

That is all I can say. One of my favorite shows of time, the show I have been watching live since the 2nd season, is over.

I just finished the series finale of LOST not 30 minutes ago. I have to tell you I couldn't feel more satisfied.

This won't be a spoiler blog, just my feelings of the final episode overall.

After the finale, I feel completely happy. I know there are still questions left unanswered but honestly, I don't give a shit. I LOVED the finale. I watch this show not only for the mysteries but for the love of the characters and their journey through the hell that is the island and their realities. It has been the people that have kept me enthralled even 6 seasons later.

Jack has been my favorite character from the pilot episode. Even when he was a douche bag all throughout season 3-4, I was loyal. I knew that he would redeem himself. And my God, he did.

As stated before, I'm not a very emotional person, at least vocally. I definitely found myself gasping and jumping in my seat as the story came to a close.

And yes, I will admit it, I cried.

As the final shots and conversation were happening, tears of joy and saddness ran down my face. I've been watching Lost for the last 5 years. It's been such a huge part of my life. When we first got to college, Husband and I bought season 1 on sale and started it. We ended up staying up all night for 2 nights in my car due to the dorm rules watching it on my mini DVD player. After that we were hooked.

I went to Comic Con and watched the LOST panel 2 years running. I'll never forget nearly each commercial break turning to Husband and whatever friends were watching mouth agape yelling, "WHAT?!?! What does that even mean?!" I've theorized, dreamed, screamed, jumped, laughed, cried and fought about LOST. It's been apart of me for nearly 1/4 of my life. It will always be something very special to me.

While I'm happy it's over and I feel satisfied, I'm truly mourning that my longest TV relationship has come to an end.

Oh LOST. What in the world am I going to do without you?

Do you watch LOST? How did you feel about the ending?

I'm FREE!!!!

This morning is the morning I’ve been waiting for, working for, dreaming of for the last year and a half.

No - there’s no new job, ring, house, niece, nephew or cat.

But I WAS greeted with this lovely sight after making my internet rounds this morning:


That’s right! After 6-months of unemployment and over a year and a half of carrying a nasty balance on my two very high interest rate credit cards - I’M OFFICIALLY DEBT FREE!!! (Or at least bad debt free as I’ll be working to pay off “the big one” for years to come.)

I’m the kind of person who likes to work on a project, and see immediate results. I have a check list on my stickies that controls my life - I live to be able to check things off that list - to see immediate action and immediate results.

Of course, attempting to pay off thousands of dollars in credit card debt is not an instant gratification deal. At first I got frustrated - almost gave up - because even though I was brown bagging it to lunch and learning to enjoy window shopping, my credit card bill ate up my $100 payments like a little kid clearing broccoli from his dinner plate - there was SOMETHING gone, but no one could tell quite what.

But almost exactly a year later I have paid off every last penny. I feel a weight lifted from my shoulders - and it’s not just from the monetary freedom. I almost feel as if by paying off the last of my debts, I have finally put the stressful time of unemployment, my car accident, and the huge transition of moving solo to a brand new city behind me. I have paid my debt in full, and there is nothing left to haunt me from that stressful and trying time. I can start anew.

Now I have tons of plans for the future. Like HAVING A SAVINGS and finally tithing the full 10%. But none of my plans involve spending any extra money, or picking up those nasty credit cards again. In fact - I pretty much plan to stick to the same plan I’ve been on for this past year - just with a little extra cash to put towards much worthier investments. Here’s just a a few of my suggestions:

Budget for your expenses - and enjoyment - then sick to it!
I’ve heard time and time again from friends who will only budget for what they NEED (rent, food, utilities, gas) but feel guilty building in room in their budget for enjoyment. But just because you’re broke, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy life! In fact, you’re more likely to spend MORE money on “fun things” if you don’t budget for it. I have a budget for all the necessities, but I also built in a budget for entertainment, eating out, and my Disneyland pass. This way, I knew when it was okay to relax and enjoy myself - and when the budget ran tight, I stopped.

Pay Cash for EVERYTHING -or-
Use your credit card like a debit card - but be careful!
This is something that I’m split on, because I’ve done it both ways. For a while, I was using my credit card like a debit card - spending only the cash that I had in my checking account, and nothing more. It helped me earn up useful points (see more on that below) but it also got me into trouble. When I wasn’t scared about emptying my account, I didn’t analyze my purchases, and sometimes ran WAY over what I should have spent. It was also hard to track how much money I was putting towards my credit card debt - because I was transferring “regular expenses” to the credit card every pay check as well.

I eventually went back over to the old fashioned debit card / cash option, and now I pay for EVERYTHING out of my checking account. I switched over my automated payments to my debit card (with google reminders set to tell me when it’ll be taken out) and watch my mint.com account like a hawk to ensure I don’t stumble into overdraft. In fact, it’s worked pretty handy because I’m SO scared of going over, that I never even come close - helping me reign in my spending even more.

Put a little into savings, and the rest on to debt management
My savings is minuscule, but every month without fail I made sure something got deposited into my savings account to keep me afloat. However, once I fed my savings account, and made sure that the rest of my expenses would be covered - I dumped the rest onto my credit card. I realize this was a risky play, but as long as I knew that there was some money in savings to cover an emergency, and enough cash to cover me my money was doing little good just sitting in a checking account. Yes, it was nerve racking to see my checking balance low more often than not - but the comfort of seeing my credit card dip lower was better. In fact, if it wasn’t for a couple of major cash payments I made on my card in the last couple of months, I’d probably still be fighting the debt monster.

Use your points to pay finance fees
Obviously, one of the worst parts of credit card debt is the finance fees, they can eat you alive. However, even with the thousands of dollars of credit card debt, my total finance fees came under $100. How did I do this? Points, my friend. Since I was lucky enough to have a credit card with an amazing points system, I was able to cash in the thousands of points (from thousands of dollars) into cash - or rather statement credits that almost completely wiped out my finance fees.

Knowing I’ve finally conquered my credit card debt, and only for $100 worse, I feel like I can do anything! Well - anything that is, except for shopping. I think I’ll hold off on that for just a bit more.

Lover of Books

In High School I was a lover of books. My suitcase would constantly outweigh that of all 5 of my family members’ after 4 or 5 different novels were snuck into the side creases. I brought books to my brother’s soccer games, on long car rides to our favorite Mexican restaurant across town, and even on summer vacation. Our family vacation albums are filled with pictures of me curled up on the dock with a book and a sunburn while the rest of the kids splashed from the lake.

My love of books was probably what lead me to enroll in an Great Books honors program when I was in college. (And most likely my love of story that lead me to becoming a film major). Unfortunately, while my film degree lead me to consume more and more movies and TV by the day, my classical honors education almost dried up my desire to pick up a good book.

The 4-year program demanded thousands of pages of reading from me each week during every semester of my college career. (Don’t believe me? Go and pick up “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” and prepare yourself for my first week of freshman year.) My semesters were enlightening and intense, and at the end of the four years I can honestly say I earned my class ring. But after shoving thousands of years of literary genius into 4-years of mental insanity, I have no desire to read anything other than the headlines of Deadline.com .

I’m inching on a full year since graduation (and a year and a half after finishing my coursework) and I have successfully read 3 books. The first “The Sex Lives of Cannibals” took me a record 6-months to complete a measly 272 pages. On a slightly better record it took me 1 month to re-read “The Devil Wears Prada” and 4 days to read “The Hollywood Assistants Handbook” - not anywhere near the high literary caliber I’ve accustomed myself to but strangely applicable to my current situation in life.

It’s not that I don’t WANT to pick up the dusty paper backs that are still sitting in plastic crates in the side of my room. The epic tales of the centuries, combined with my own fond memories of microwaveable rice and cherry coke at 3 in the morning, still taunt me as I refuse to both unpack or sell my college treasures.

But, by the time the day is done, and I’ve read through all 118 of my Google Reader feeds, scoured hundreds of emails, and checked every facebook message while praying dinner is slightly edible - I’m exhausted. My brain is too tired to imagine delving into another world page by page - it is much much easier to press play on another Gilmore Girl rerun and know that even if I fall asleep, I can still predict the outcome in the end.

I’d always taken myself as a “lifelong learner” and somewhat glazed over the part of graduation where professors urged us to “continue our love of learning and our love of books” - believing that my newfound freedom would leave me plenty of room to read the books I now wanted to read. But a year out, I’m finding myself on the other side of the table.

What about you? Did years of academic rigor exhaust any love of books right out of you? or are your college paper backs now threadbare from many post-college book-a-thons?

Or better yet, any book recommendations for a post-collegiate who’s ready to slowly inch back into the world of the reading?

The Blog That Stopped All The Others

Well, to be honest, I can make a bunch of excuses why I haven't blogged in over 2 weeks I think now. I've had so much to do, I've been so busy with work, haven't had much to write about.

The problem is all aforementioned excuses and the plethora more I can create are not the truth. The reason I haven't written is because I was avoiding writing this blog in particular. Now you may say, "Why Twixter Two didn't you just skip this one and move on?" Ah. There in-lies the problem.

My grandfather, whom I call Opa died April 17 a few years ago. He had been sick for a few years, fighting cancer and going in and out of the hospital. Even though through all that, he'd always been there.

Ironically now that I'm trying to write this blog, I don't know what to say.

How do you blog about things like this? Even when it's "anonymous" I still can't seem to express how hard it is to randomly think about calling him and remembering I can't. I can still remember the smell of his house and his cologne. I remember stealing his brush as a little kid so I could brush my hair with it so it'd smell like him. My Opa helped raise me from a baby. I was the first kid's diaper he changed even after having 5 kids himself and other grandchildren before me.

For whatever reason I was his special girl and he was always my favorite. He was so proud of me graduating high school and going to college. I still get sad knowing that he wasn't there at my wedding.

Even though I didn't cry at his funeral, I feel like a piece of me is missing with him gone. I can't even begin to understand how it feels like to lose someone you love when it's a complete surprise. It's been a few years and I still can't help buy nearly cry when I see things that reminds me of him. It makes it even harder being back in Las Vegas where he's been most of my life. When I was in California, I could pretend like he was still there but I just kept forgetting to call. Here, it's real. His house has someone else in it. His favorite places to eat won't have him as a customer, and haven't for quite some time.

I'll forever pay full price for a pint of hagan daas coffee ice cream since that was always his favorite. He would eat it so smoothly straight out of the pint. As a kid, I'd sit on his kitchen counter eating his ice cream with my clumsy un-even scoops but he never seemed to care.

I still can't really talk to anyone about this. I feel embarassed for whatever reason. Like I shouldn't be this sad still when there are people like Husband who lost his dad. I can't even think about that idea.

I feel like i'm just emotional vomit blogging now. I think this is at least a start. Maybe now I can blog about more silly/fun things like the new Eclipse trailer or the book series I finished a few weeks ago. We'll see.

Back to Normal

The past couple of weeks I’ve been in a huge funk - to use the most simplistic term possible. Achy, tired, unmotivated I was jumping back into hermit mode where I thought a marathon of Gilmore Girls for the 3rd night in a row was the definition of a good time. Finally things have gotten sorted out, and for the first week in a while I feel like life is back to what normal should be.

This weekend I managed to skip out of the office a little early to make the drive down to San Marcos to see a couple of dear friends. Mr. A and I were in honors classes together in college and when he introduced me to Mrs. A (then Ms. C of course) we were insta-friends. Now they’re married and live a total of 2 and a half hours away from me, which I deem completely unfair. They’re expecting their first baby in just a couple months and I can’t wait to have a little niece or nephew to play with!! (I was very tempted to nickname them “Mama Bear” and “Papa Bear” in this entry as they’re the first of my friends to be married. But looks like practicality won out.)

Anyways, I spent Friday evening with them in their brand new house and Mama Bear (okay okay - I like it better) and I went shopping at Target for over two hours. You know that you’re the best of friends when shopping at Target is an adventure. The rest of the weekend flowed with coffee and conversation, and I remembered what it was like to have my close friends nearby. When everyone scattered after graduation it was hard to think of how our friendships would survive being such long distances apart, so I love having friends who pick up after months away like nothing ever happened.

Sunday was a rough day for me on the “getting back to normal” track, but Monday brought with it another long lost friend moment. Mrs. H (there I go again with the uncreativeness) drove up the 405 for some quality chinese take out and movie date. We gabbed too much to remember anything of the first half of Whip It but the second half has us totally pumped to find a roller derby in LA. We’re already brainstorming our derby names, and plotting ways to trick The Boy and her husband on a double date to the derby.

The rest of this week has seemed to speed by - fully bringing me up to speed and back to normal. I went down to my Alma Mater for the day to work on the Conference that I volunteer for every year, and got myself some yummy Chick Fil A while I was at it. Now The Boy is up North for a few nights before we head out on our vacation tomorrow - so EXCITED for my long weekend! See you next week!

Grown Up at 22

It was late on Friday afternoon and I’m maneuvering my tiny blue Nissan Sentra down the 5. The sun is streaming in from my window, the rays bouncing off of the waves that are peacefully lapping on the shore just off the side of the freeway. I kick off my Steve Maddens and grip the rubber pedals with my bare toes. My iPhone is streaming music both too old but too young to be cool, since I haven’t updated my music library since college. As I continue to drive up the coast I get a wave of memories - I pass the beach we went skinny dipping at after finals my sophomore year, and the place we made Twixter Two dance with her boa during her bachelorette party.

It’s a beautiful spring day in Southern California, and as I push my sunglasses back into my hair and take a sip of lemonade it hits me - This is my twenties. I am living in a city than many people can only dream of visiting and I have the freedom to appreciate it’s finer points. In that moment, all the stress of growing up melted away and I realized that I’ve grown up. It may not be the life that my parents, my friends, my co-workers or my roommates dream of when they think of living in LA at 22. But for the past 22 years I’ve dreamed of what my life would be like when I was a “grown up” and on days like today, I feel like I’m living that dream.

Of Generation HP

Recently, one of my unattainalbe life dreams actually became an attainable dream.

They announced the opening date of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Universal Studios Florida.

I consider myself of the Generation Harry Potter (HP). When the first HP book released, I was 11 years old, just like Harry Potter. For the books 1-3, I aged and experienced the same (general) life confusions as my fictional counterparts. And as the books spanned farther apart in release, the age and maturity of Harry Potter and friends matched mine.

I actually grew up with Harry Potter.

I felt like the world that he lived in could be my own. I could be a witch. I could study with Hermione for endless hours in the library. I could meander the ground and visit Hagrid's cabin during free periods. I also, could see myself absolutly loving Dumbledore and all his wisdom. My mother embraced the series whole heartedly, even against the fear of her children reading about wizards and witchcraft. It was the first book that Brother read on his own. He was the kid that hated reading and had attention issues. But he could sit on the floor of my room (with the only CD player upstairs) reading along with the books on tape for hours on end. It made him understand the power of reading and the world it creates.

When they started filming the movies, Harry Potter became real. The sets existed, somewhere in the world. Things I had only imagined in my mind were there, looking EXACTLY like they did in the books. I wanted to see the sets so bad. I didn't. Of course. As a young, normal person in the world, there was no way.

But now, oh now. They built the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I can actually go there. I can see the Hogwarts Express, billowing smoke ready to take new students to be sorted.

So, as nerdy as this post is, I will probably cry the first time I set foot on the park. It will be the world I dreamed about for 10 years literally alive before my eyes.

Wow. I am a nerd. But at least I'm not alone.

As If The World Couldn't Get Sadder...

Seriously? What is the world coming to?

One of the blogs I follow(mashable.com)updated this morning about a new dating site called Gamecrush.com. (Check out the original story here )

Here's the rundown on GameCrush: Gaming boys (or girls) sign up online and set up dates where they play games on their XBOX 360 or online computer games with the opposite sex. These dates last 10 minutes and the Gamer looking for love pays with points that are purchased with REAL MONEY. These points are paid as well as they are supposed to tip their "date" with whatever other points they have. Here's the kicker: the "date" can then redeem those points for cash.

This is a glamorized nerdy version of a phone sex line for nerds. W. T. F.

I mean, I get it. Nerdy guys sometimes have problems finding girls
who understand them, let alone want to play video games with them. But
resorting to paying for an online gaming date? I just can't even begin to
express how sad this is.

As a nerdy girl myself, I understand it can be difficult to find
someone who shares those traits with you. But there are people out
there!

Go on dates within your Guild members before paying for a date with some
random girl online.

I'll never understand this.

Not Exactly My Kind of Holiday

Exactly 5 years ago today, I ended a 6 month boy fast my senior year of high school. I write that again for those who don’t know me. My senior year of high school, I went on a no boy/flirting fast for 6 months to learn exactly who I am. It was seriously one of the best times in my life. So every year since then, I’ve tried to make every St. Patrick’s Day special.

This year started with an emotional breakdown.

Now, I’m not one to be very emotional. Like I’ve said in earlier blogs, even typing this now, I’m mildly regretting writing it. But alas, I will persevere.

I woke up this morning and just felt overwhelmed. Like everything in the entire world I was worried about was on the forefront of my mind. Then I got a text message from my favorite teacher of time (who happens to be my academic advisor, the officiant at my wedding, and stand-in grandpa since mine passed away). All he said was that he missed me and wished I could be TA-ing his class this year.

I just started bawling. I seriously couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get ready for work; nothing could make me feel better. I feel so bad for Husband. There was nothing he could do but just lay with me.

All my thoughts just kept spiraling. What if I don’t want to move to Florida? What if I want to move back to California? When am I going to finish school? What if I don’t get hired at Disney? What if this apartment doesn’t help make me happier in this stupid city? Can I really make it 5 more months here before I go nuts?

I’m apologizing now. I hate writing blogs like this. I always feel so “whoa-is-me! I-have-a-full-time-job-a-place-to-live-and-an-amazing-family but wah wah wah”.

But this is my blog entry. So whatevs.

I ended up being 3 hours late to work. Not a normal occurrence for me as I am a very on time person.

So even now at work, I feel on edge. Like someone is going to say something to me and I’m just going to start crying. There are very few things I hate more than crying in public. One would be wetting my pants. That’s seriously how much I hate crying in front of people.

So now I’m avoiding everyone like the plague and just counting down the hours until 2:30 when I can escape to the safety and solitude of my car.

Hopefully I can make it 2 more hours.

Not exactly the type of memory I like to have for St. Patrick’s Day. But I guess they can’t always be fun.

Memories

The other day I stopped by CVS to pick up a couple of photos from one-hour photo. My photo printer stopped working about 4-months ago, and now simply exists as an at-home flight check-in kiosk. and then only when it likes me.

However, I was struck with a very old memory. I remember the days when as a kid, I would go with Mum to Costco. The first thing to the right of the massive garage doors was the photo center. We would rush to the photo stacks and eagerly wait for Mum to turn the gigantic cart down an empty isle and rip open the packaging.

We’d stand on our tip toes as we waited to see which pictures were there. Half of the pictures were blurry, and occasionally Mum would lecture me on why I thought taking a picture of a brick was a good idea. (What can I say, I had a weird photographic eye even at that age.) But we’d ooh and aah over the photos of us as a family, right there in the isle of Costco.

Fast Forward 15-odd years to today. Where my baby sister doesn’t even pause after the shutter goes off, immediately begging “let me see! let me see!” (by the way, The Baby just turned 6!!! Happy Birthday munchkins!) Bad pictures are instantaneously deleted, and there’s plenty of room for pictures of bricks and leaves and my baby sisters dolls.

But the other day at CVS I tossed my photo order into the cart, and walked out of the store without even glancing at them until they went in the mail to my grandmother. She’s 103 and doesn’t own a computer, so we still hand write letters and mail her pictures. (Although, I’m sure if we gave her a chance she’d master the computer and be on facebook in no time. She is super woman after all.)

I’m all about the technological advances we’ve had and love the fact that as I’ve travelled the world my family can travel with me via the world wide web. But there are moments when I miss those days, crowded around a shopping cart - waiting as a family to see what memories were made and captured forever on one incredibly special photograph.

Sick Day

Today I’m out of work on a sick day.

Back when I was fresh out of college, a sick day sounded like a wonderful idea. Getting paid to stay at home and be sick - AWESOME! Of course, those were the days where I operated off of the thought that if I woke up with the teeniest of headaches (regardless of last nights activities) it was totally worth it to ditch classes.

Of course, in the real world staying home sick from work doesn’t work that way. I’ll go to work coughing and sneezing and ugggghing in order not to take a sick day. Because one day sick equals about 3 days worth of catch up, and most of the time it just isn’t worth it. Of course, most of my office tends to have this same “work through the pain” mentality, which means for a couple months at the end of last year our office was an feasting ground for whatever the hip disease at the moment was.

However today there was just no way I was crawling out of bed before noon. It’s 1:00 and I’m just now stumbling out of my PJs - right into another pair.

All this to say, sorry about the shortage of posts over the last week / weekend. I promise more to come as soon as I Ahh Ahh AhhhhhCHEW! Well, you get the idea.

Life on Autopilot

My little sister is learning how to drive. I’m not sure why they’re letting 8-year-olds get their permits (because my baby sister CANNOT be 15 already) but from the moment I arrived home for Christmas it was a constant begging of “Can we go to Target, or maybe to Albertsons? hmmm, does Mom need any milk for dinner?” Suddenly I was being offered up to run an endless list of errands, all from the passenger seat of my Nissan.

I remember when I first learned how to drive. I was so overwhelmed with everything I had to do - press the gas pedal just the right amount, turn the wheel, check the mirror, and don’t forget your turn signals. Everyone in the car had to stay silent, and if my left elbow itched, it itched until my car was fully into park. Just pulling out of my driveway into my residential neighborhood was a feat worthy of celebration and praise.

Today I left my apartment at 8:08 and suddenly the clock switched to 8:18 and I was pulling into my office - 4 miles away, with my makeup freshly applied, tea half empty in my left hand and email fully checked before I hit the office door. I don't actually remember turning out of my apartment onto the busy 4-lane street, or navigating morning traffic as I passed 3 freeways and the normal morning variety of idiot commute drivers. I just arrived, on auto-pilot, and walked through the door.

Funny how things change in a matter of a few years. Then again, I kinda feel like that's been life for me in general lately. 6-months ago I was completely overwhelmed at the thought of paying bills, maintaining my car, balancing work and life and a boyfriend, all while trying to learn navigating the new LA traffic that had become my life. Everything was an extreme stretch, and waking up at 7 am required conscious planning and effort.

Today I rolled out of bed and hit the shower before I realized my alarm hadn't even gone off. I checked my email and paid the gas bill simultaneously on my iPhone, not giving any thought to the process as I greeted the Fed-Ex guy at the office. Suddenly a life that was exciting and stressful and new has become ... autopilot.