Hippo-Critical

Someday (at least I hope), people will remember to be so grateful for all these wonderful things they keep listing when it's NOT 'the season'.
Forgive me. I appreciate your humble gratitude and commend you on realizing how blessed you are but the point is really diminished and mute for me when you post on Facebook how happy you are with your life when the stinkin' Holiday is coming right up.
Tell me how glad you are for your family and friends when you could just strangle your parents or when your friends are fighting and causing some silly drama you're going to forget about by next week. Tell me about your love of freedom and being able to get an education when it's finals week and you'd like to go eat out with your friends but you need to cram for that test early tomorrow morning.
Tell me you're grateful when it counts.
Otherwise? I really couldn't care.
Now, I don't mean ya can't have a list of stuff you're grateful for on Thanksgiving/Christmas, whatever. It just doesn't mean anything to me, personally.

Anyway, my Thanksgiving was pretty darn awesome. Despite the whole six people who were there (again, I'm used to over seventy guests). My mom decided this was the year I'd learn how to make a turkey....

Who ever said it was required to look nice?

No one. 

I won't remember a thing. It's gonna be the worst, most hilarious, terrifying and incredibly shameful thing when I eventually have to attempt my first turkey...by myself. It's completely different when my mom's there and basically just hands me the stuff to 'chop up and dump in'. I got that, pro-status. But if she left the room stuff would be burnin' up and boiling over all over the stove and someone would end up dead (and it wouldn't be the turkey).

BUT. I am a freakin' legit table setter.

Beautiful, eh? It's ok, I know. You don't need to say anything. Well, except for the fact that my mom brought out all the decorations (tablecloths and Thanksgiving-esque paraphernalia) soooo yeah, as a matter of fact I do wholly fail at housekeeping/hostessing. No big deal.

Ain't he a beaut? Larry, I believe, was his name.

It's been an interesting Black Friday weekend. Really the very first I've ever been directly involved in. Last year was kinda half-there but not really. This year, I met up with Mark at Fry's Electronics (also known as Felectronic Fry's according to the sign on the building) where he and JT had set up the most legit waiting-in-line fort (cuz really, it's so a fort)....

Yeah. We're kind of awesome.

So I got there around 1830-1900 (using military time cuz honestly guys, Black Friday means war). We nibbled on honeyed ham and watched A Knight's Tale and Fifth Element before putting it all away again around 2300 hours. Fry's opened at midnight, which sounds really nice, but lots of things we also needed to get weren't actually for sale till 0600. 

Dumb.

So we got in, split into two groups; divide and conquer style. An employee asked if JT was my husband.

"No, sir. Not that one."

I think he thought I was crazy.

Check this out, we were done gathering up everything we needed at 0012. Twelve minutes. We were good. We got in the checkout line, which was blessedly short and planned what we were going to do until 0600.

But wait! What is this?! We had needed a lot of multiple items so we had 3 of this and 3 of that and by the time we made it to the dude telling us which register to head for Mark finally noticed one of our power supply boxes were missing. Missing!

Some ninja had reached in and yoinked it right out of our basket. 

It's like it was Black Friday or something!

As annoying and rude as it was, I couldn't help but feel excited to actually experience a real BF (black friday not boyfriend) shenanigan. I'm just disappointed that I forgot about the facepaints. Poo.

So once we through that first time, JT went home cuz he wasn't willing to wait till 0600. Mark, Greg and I put the stuff in the truck (my new [old] baby, pictures to come...someday). Then headed back in for another power supply. We got one of the last few and went right to the checkout line...or what we thought was the checkout line. And it was, but it was the middle of the line rather than the end. This dude gives us a pitying look and points to the floating balloons peeking over the racks way far away on another aisle, "That's the end."

A Christmas Story, line for Santa much? Yeesh.

It took an hour and a half to get through the line and buy our one item we shouldn't've had to come back for. Silly.

By 0200 we were getting hungry so Mark decided he wanted Denny's and handed me his droid phone to find a location near us. But apparently you aren't supposed to click on any of the automatic fill in options cuz then it doesn't show you all of 'em. So we drove quite a few miles to find out that one Denny's has been replaced by a dentist office complex place. Lovely.

Drive some more miles back and find one that has one cook and two servers. Hello waiting half an hour just to be welcomed and then seated. Food was good, though. Driving back to Fry's we passed under the freeway, came up on the parking lot and found a Denny's right on the property. 

Only idiots don't see stuff like that.

So we laughed like the idiots we are. 

There isn't a facepalm strong enough.

Greg was a walking zombie so we sent him home. It was 0330 so we had some time to catch a quick power nap. Luckily, with the couch amenity we'd both brought some blankets and I had a couple pillows in my car so we were fairly comfortable....

0530 my phone went off and we stumbled out of my car, probably looking like bleary-eyed hobos. Found some more junk for really cheap (mail-in rebates that basically render the item FREE? Heck yes). And when I say 'junk' I mean important stuff that will make life easier as far as technology goes. Close enough.

By the time we were done shopping at 0630 it wasn't even worth it to go home so I just went to Mark's house and we slept for a few hours until noon when we went to SanTan mall and met up with one of my bestest friends from high school and her fiancee. 

Wet Seal tees and cami's, 5 for $20? I'll take 5...literally.

Charlotte Russe 30% off everything and clearance rack? Yeah, I hit that.

Also I'm addicted to scarves so has a new polka-dotty cutie.

Oh and Bath and Body travel size sanitizer bottles 5 for $5? I'll take 10. 

Black Friday = SUCCESS

So doing it all again next year.

Today was one of those days you stand back and give yourself a look over in the mirror and think, "Dang I did a good job this morning. It's like I'm actually pretty or something."
And then you spend the whole day inside and clean and don't see anybody.

Boo and a half.

But it's all better cuz the honey is coming over after work to gobble up some leftovers. I'd say it's worth it. Even though he still calls me beautiful when I've just taken a sunday nap at his house and I wore his clothes cuz sleeping in my [uncomfortable but still gorgeous] dress is just not preferrable and so I wake up with smeared makeup and a tangled hot mess living on my head. There are days I'm sure that boy is delusional. But what the hey, I am too so cool.

I'm grateful for LIFE ;) <3

Fails-giving

We've been that family that gets 70+ people together, crams 'em all in one house [insert awkward metaphor for stuffing inside a turkey] and commence the face stuffing!!
This year?
Mom, Dad, sister(s), brother, grandma and dog. Question on the 'sister(s)' cuz one might not even show resulting from Black Friday events. It's just our immediate family this year. Which, by societal standards, isn't that weird at all. But to me? It's freaky weird.
I won't answer the door every two minutes, sometimes just creepily waiting behind the door for people to come up and ring the bell since I saw them getting out of their cars but wanted to avoid the awkward "I'm standing here watching y'all approach and my face doesn't know how to conduct itself so I probably look like the poor turkey did before he got his neck chopped off and body plucked and....." well, you get the point.
We won't eat at one so there will be time to chat off the food baby, pack ourselves like sardines in a sardine can into the living room so we can do our annual family talent show (basically all the 5 year olds plunking out their beginning-beginners piano tunes and pausing for 5 whole minutes, staring at the keyboard in silence when they forget where they are in the song...then start over again) (and then the actual accomplished pianists, but I love that part).
There won't be any football in the home theatre, or barbies/dress-up, or cool knick-knacky crafts and there for sure won't be a communal watching of some Disney/Pixar flick such as Finding Nemo or Cars or one of the new awesome ones that have come out.

Thanksgiving in Utah was the best thing ever.
I totally took it for granted. Sad sauce.
I'm also pretty sure the Hostess-monster inside my mom is currently shriveling up and dying a sad, miserable death since she has no swarm of guests to cater to. Just us 5 people. Maybe my fiancee. Maybe. Poor, poor woman.

On a brighter note! Yesterday was the definition of AWESOME.
Ever heard of 'Desert Bus for Hope'? Yeah, I didn't think so [http://www.facebook.com/DesertBus]. There's a group of people up in Canada who host and have hosted a gamer marathon fundraiser for a charity called Child's Play, who give games to terminally ill children. They hang out in a basement, somebody plays desert bus (an awfully boring game consisting of driving a bus down a completely straight road from 'tucson' to 'las vegas') for hours on end and they take in donations and auction off some super cool items, have special guests and junk. They're on a live webcam and Mark has officially gotten me fully on the desertbus-boat (...o.O)
Being on said boat, when Mark called me Tuesday morning saying, "These dudes are driving from Tucson to Las Vegas in a big van and have prizes for anybody who stops them along the way. They're going down the I-10! We should do it!!" we both basically jumped at the chance. Especially considering they were embarking LIVE and they had awesome t-shirts included in the prizes. And how convenient! They were meeting someone at IKEA in tempe. Now we have to go.
He came and picked me up, we had a super stressful quicky fast quest to find some club soda ("clubbing" is sort of a phenomenon) but to no avail. I worked to keep Mark calm so he would drive like a not-crazy person and we could stay living, cuz that sounds really nice to me. I like life. We tried to keep up with what was going on in the basement up in Canada as well as the van travelling down the road using Mark's phone but the connection was quite dumb and the last thing we caught as we were taking the freeway exit to IKEA was the dudes leaving the building and showing the internets their nifty fat van they were travelling in and then oh, no!!! His phone went to poop. We scanned over the [monstrous] parking lot, looking for any van and picked out two that could possibly be it. We got out and went inside, looking really awkward as we had no clue where we should go or look or even if the people were still there.
We went back outside, Mark attempted connecting with his phone again and while he was distracted I heard a male's voice behind me saying something that I don't remember but at the time it sparked my brain and said, "Pay attention! These guys sound like nerds...."
IT WAS THEM.
I smacked Mark on the arm and he looked up and shouted, "Hey! It's you guys!"
We're such a good creeper-team.
So all in all, we found the people, they were super nice and fun to talk to. They had actually forgotten their prizes at home so I traded my high school '20 years of tradition' (that's actually spelled wrong and says 'traditon') musicals shirt for the little dudes Desertbus shirt and we were on the interwebz! Like, in the tubes! Sweeeeet.
Also, it was really entertaining to see Mark so nervous. He was shaking afterwards. Woot adrenaline!!

It's freakin' legit. I tell ya what.

We so exci-i-ted.

Update of Updates

<peeks around corner>
Are you still here??

So. There's a lot to talk about here and it's going to be a huge mess but I will get it all out and now I can really get to blogging again.
Firstly, to explain my random sabbatical from this online, public journal; I came home early from the college program. Before you judge me, realize that I was never getting credit for this adventure and merely went to enjoy the experience, get that chance to at least sniff out what reality is actually like (which, obviously, no better place than Disneyland, right? reality galore!) and live away from home, do my own personal, introspective DTR with Mark. Only problem was, I didn't need five whole months. In coming home early, I wanted to just finish out the lasts few weeks of the internship and not be explaining to countless people WHY, and HOW, and WHEN, and WHY again. I didn't want to be constantly thinking about leaving.
A) I hate feeling like a quitter. Or at least not sticking out till the end of something I got myself into (aka, "quitting")
B) Sure, let's think about leaving all the time so we never forget so then it feels like forever to finally actually be leaving. Sounds lovely.
C) It is Disneyland, after all :(

But I mean really, once I got engaged, why would I stay somewhere that isn't really helping along my education, I wash dishes all day long [life skills? Nah, I'm just a maid] AND I simply don't fit in anywhere? Plus, no pianos to speak of. No, I want to be with my fiance planning all these necessary wedding things and I want to spend this holiday season with my family.
Gmail and skype and texting and phone calls are just not the way I want to nail down all the wedding preparations. Sorry.

Secondly (except more like First-and-a-Halfly), I was actually surprising Mark in coming home. He knew I was planning on quitting before January but I had told him more along the timeline of the 'week of thanksgiving'....
I lied.
I came home on saturday, the twelfth. Had to implement the most extreme self control I have ever managed and not go see Mark that night. My mom and I got back to the house around 6:30 and I played my lovely piano for a little bit (teared up cuz I'm an emotional sap [and a complete silly mess from working at Dland]) and realized I totally suck now that it's been three months.
Fine, I don't "suck", I'll just actually have to sit down and really practice some things, run through my Handel book of finger exercises a couple times and unsloppify my technique. Boo and a half.
Mark works twelve hours on saturdays, 5:30-6 or something horrid like that. And it's the end of his work week. So popping by his place when he's completely exhausted and frustrated with all the stress and only being able to stay a couple hours before he should go to sleep just didn't sound all that enjoyable. So that's why I stayed home and spent some lovely time with a certain bestest buddy and her [kinda cool] hubby.
But on sunday morning, Mark and I have church at 9 am (wooty mcwootsauce) so I woke up, quite easily I might add, got all prettied up and went over to his house to wake him up. It went a little something like this;
<walk up to front door>
Oh, wait. It might be locked. Oh, this'll be fantastic....
<knock-knock>
....waiting....
<opens door>
Mm, same ol' bachelor pad.
Huh, I wonder why his light's on...maybe he's already awake?
<tiptoe quietly so as to not click heels on tile>
Baha, silly boy. All curled up in a ball with the light on.
<jump on bed, kiss cheek>
me:"Why are you sleeping with the light on??"
<lays like dead slug>
<rolls over>
<lays more>
<about to poke his cheek>
him: "Whaa--how are you here?"
me: "I'm magic!!"
<pause>
him: "No, seriously. How are you here??"
me: "Surprise!!"

I thoroughly enjoyed that. He seemed pleased as well.

Now, thirdly; since I've been back (a grand total of four days) I/we have--

• Whipped up a rough draft guest list; just a general idea of all the people we know [and holy dang if there's not a lot of you!!]
• Began gathering up already owned decor and picture frames
• More and more lists
• Booked the temple [more to come on that]
• Found THE dress [second one I tried on. EVAR. Huh, go figure]
• Sent out facebook event to rake in the addresses [I'll just need to ignore my notifications number for the next little while....it's kind of skyrocketing o_O]

And there's still so much to do. Thank goodness it's all for one of the biggest, best decisions I will ever make and I'm having a good time. Hopefully the good mood holds out till February. Oh, mama.

I am a bit worried about having my dress so early. I'm so in love with it and just wanna show it off to everyone (namely a certain fiance of mine) and wear it every day but gosh darn it it'll just hafta stay in the bag and hang in my mom's closet or something so I don't have such easy access to it....

Wasn't even supposed to dress shop today [er, yesterday now...this is the problem with blogging and not immediately posting, /sigh]. Was going to go check out a craigslist truck out in peoria with Mark early this [that] morning but he got an email and the truck is in a garage so we wouldn't be able to see it till 4pm and he has school from 4-9ish so that didn't work. So we went back to his apartment to clean and watch 'Once Upon a Time' but then he got called in to work.

And who likes to clean alone? Certainly not me.

So I called my mom and she told me to come on home and we'd sit down to talk over wedding plans.

Then all of a sudden we were wedding dress shopping. Just for the heck of it. To kinda get an idea of what's out there. It was still pretty early in the morning so we window shopped for about an hour and 'visited' about three different stores (and a couple long-gone shut down shops) before going back to AZ bridal. 

For some reason I was totally convinced and kept thinking to myself, "No way I'll find one today. We'll just look around and see what's 'on the market'." I may have been telling myself that to ward off the guilt that kept creeping in for not having my best friend/MOH there, when she really wanted to be there for dress shopping and I wanted her there as well....

But there'll be shoe shopping, and bridesmaid dress finding and all the other requirements of being a bride and MOH duo.

And so I fill out this weird form so I assume the employee can help me find exactly what I'm looking for in a wedding dress....
"I want to not look fat and be able to breathe...oh, and let's make it white I guess."
Like, seriously. Do you really gotta know ALL that?? o_O Silly.
She showed me to the racks that have the sleeved dresses on them and told us to grab six. So we did. The first one was beautiful. It was a lace-up which felt a lot nicer than I thought it would. Being tied in was a weird experience [thank HEAVENS we tossed corsets out as a necessity]. However, the supported hug of the bodice was nice. But it had that weird bunched up messy-poof skirt thing that I just don't understand.
K, fine the Belle-look is

whatever. Cute, if it's your thing [which it isn't mine].

But when you get to the point of

looking like a four year old took a stapler to your skirt I say, "whaaa??" And thusly, the first one got a 'yeah you look nice but let's see what else there is....'

The second one...I immediately loved. I had a dressing room that was straight across from the stagey mirror place so when I opened the curtain I got a first glance experience like I was in the place of everyone else who's gonna see me in it (namely, Mark) and I quickly found that in that split second moment there was a little 'ding!' in my head if the dress was something I could envision myself getting married in. And that second dress...in the famed words of Taylor Kerby, "I'm so attracted to myself right now!!"

Then turns out it's a little bit out of our budget, so I put on the brave face and return to the dressing room to <cross-fingers> find something even more fabulous.

But dress after dress and eight dresses later (and a small heart-attack after a teensy rip sound trying to pull one over my apparently too-wide behind) I was still glancing over at the 'favorite' hung on the wall to be used for comparison. Except there was none. I put the 'favorite' back on and just let it hug me in all the right places and felt so skinny and so beautiful and wished so hard it would just be March right then and there with everything all figured out and ready, set to go.

Turns out we could get a 15% off discount on the dress and they even threw in the lovely veil for free! Woohoo! Didn't know I even wanted a veil till they held it up to my head. 

I tried to come back with Allie later so she could see it, too (plus I just wanted to wear it again) but they'd accidentally already sent it off for cleaning.

Boo.

But I still has it! So it's all good and I'm so, so sos,o,so,soeoidlj excited!!!

Excited, I am.

But now I wanna get in the shower cuz I feel all gross from running around everywhere doing all these productive things today. So...bye, y'all!

I'll be posting more regularly now, promise :) Thanks for reading!

Unrelated to Life

When you can't hardly write another word for the tears that keep threatening.....well, then that means no one else is ever reading that chapter.
Breaking the hearts of your characters is like willingly slapping your heart on an exam table, cutting it open and finding your own worst fears and nightmares, pulling them out and having a tea party. Lemme tell ya, they aren't very good company. Lousy manners and a terribly offensive lot.

Yes. I, too, have taken my hand to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Something about 50,000 words in the month of November. I just like an excuse to type whatever passes through my brain like a lunatic who fancies rhythmic clicking seated before a vintage typewriter. With paper and ribbon. The 'ding' is pretty satisfying as well.
But basically I just delved into a certain idea and found myself getting to the end of playlists without even realizing the first song had ended and losing my breath and a terrible stinging in my eyes. And I haven't blogged in forever. And I miss people. And I....I would just really like to get back to MY life soon. The life that I enjoyed and reveled in and took for complete granted.
If I learned anything out here, it's that I had it made back in AZ; the most wonderful friends anyone could be blessed with, more laughter than I knew what to do with and the man who fills my bucket of happy dreams to overflowing. And that there are 3,198 spokes in the dish washing machine we use in the kitchen but that's just cuz I got bored and counted.
I just really don't want to cry right now.
Cuz it's almost 2 in the morning.
And I work at noon.
Which means I gotta leave my apartment by 11.
Which means I should totally be asleep.
But I want/need to get this idea/moment finished before I lose the emotional connection. I'm just a method writer and at the same time don't like being unhappy so that makes for very uncomplicated stories missing a conflict which, well, makes for no story at all. Not that I believe anybody really enjoys 'misery' but I do think I have a certain aversion to the emotion.

But now I have sufficiently run out of words and the moment is done. Except for when I go back through and add in the minute detail that gets lost in the flow of telling.
Being sad is exhausting. Goodness.
Thank y'all for being my shoulder to lean on when I can't give my characters one....thanks and good night.


ps-- I'm not writing much till I get home because I don't want to think much till I get home cuz maybe then time will go faster. I dunno. It's a hypothesis and I'll let you know how it goes.