Just another Thursday!

This Thursday I went to another basketball game. It was very exciting. Not because I really like basketball games, but because I saw people from the real world, people from school, that helped bring me out of my fairytale land that I had been stranded in...Bedford, with no internet.

I was pleasantly reminded that I am not the only person that finds Spaz irritating and that other people are annoyed by his, let's call it attention-whore, need for people to notice him. :)

I saw Luke Smith after a long time without talking to him. I reminded him that he in fact had not lost his Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; that Jacque still had it after borrowing it from him because he refused to call either of us back for the last 6 months. I told him to give me a call I'll return it to him, not only that I'll give back his flask that he left in my car for weeks until I realized that the funk was not my umbrella, but his alcohol container that had leaked all over the passenger door ... shelf, pocket, receptacle? Anyway, so I told him to give me a call, he can pick them up anytime. I asked if he had my number. He said yes. I said, "Way to use it." I was snide, but I thought that he was our friend, and he totally ditched Jacque and me. I have to say that I wasn't surprised though. I didn't actually expect him to call either. I'll let you know if he ever does.

After the game I went over to Jason's and we decided to see the Darkness, that movie with Anna Paquin, not Claire Danes. Apparently, half the world thought she was in the movie. Poor Anna Paquin, she did the Piano and still gets no respect, Claire Danes does the Terminator... Anyway, so we watched that. It wasn't at all inspiring. It was sort of jump inducing, but it was like They, scary things come out in the dark, poor main characters. So after we drove back to Jason's, we decided to watch the Blair Witch Project, which definitely scares the bejesus out of both of us. It scares me because I go into the woods all the time. Crazy camp. Anyway, so we get scared out of our wits and need to watch a little Will and Grace to come back down to earth. Jason fell asleep while I watch just enough of a second episode to make the drive home. And I did drive home and I didn't get scared once. I'm an adult, you know.

Happy Hour!

Last night Jacque decided that Brian and Austen and whoever else they could round up were going to meet Jacque and me at her new office, admire it and then go to Happy Hour somewhere in Dallas - preferably on Greenville, because that's where I like to go! So I call Jacque today to talk about where to go and we decide that we have heard good things about the Blue Goose on Lower Greenville and that's where we'll go. Austen calls late and tells us they just finished playing football and that they have to take showers and they'll be right over. So the trip to Jacque's office is cancelled. Jacque comes over to the condo after she gets off work and we chat a little while we wait.

Brian calls us and informs us that they can't get a hold of Sachin, but they'll keep trying, so they haven't even left yet.

It's 5:30pm. They will never get here. Jacque and I decide to go to Happy Hour on our own and then they can meet us at Plucker's, the wings place that we had decided on last night. Done. So we drink at the Blue Goose for what seems like forever and they finally call.

They are stuck in traffic, duh, but will be here soon - however they want burgers. Can we go to Fudruckers?

NO! Heck no! But we come to an agreement that we can go to Joe Willy's. They think it sounds sketchy, but I reassure them that if it's good enough for the pledges, it's good enough for them! The boys get to watch football, drink beer, and eat hamburgers, and Jacque gets to drink beer and enjoy their company. I had chicken wings. But after Happy Hour, it seemed like fun.

That night we went back to Bedford in time to see Tom, our elusive friend that has very little time for us, but we love dearly anyway. On a short break from BYU we meet at midnight at Jacque's parent's house and chat for two hours. Jacque graciously lets me spend the night at her place and I hitch a ride back to Dallas with her in the morning on her way to work. When I got back to the condo I couldn't go to sleep so I read I am Charlotte Simmons, the new Tom Wolfe book.

It was over 600 pages and I am proud to say I read almost every single word. It was an interesting study of the behaviors of college students. The novel began with a brief synopsis of an experiment done on feral cats. The cats were kept in a room in individual cages. Half the cats had the amygdala, a mass of grey matter that controls emotions in higher animals, removed. An inapropriate effect of this was that the cats were turned on by things that would not sexually arouse an intact animal. Cats attempted copulation with such a frenzy, that they would begin chains of cats mounting each other. The scientist that was observing the study called a collegue in to witness this. He began opening cages so that the amygdalectomized cats might congregate on the floor. The first cat that was released immediately began humping the visitor's shoe. The scientist concluded that this was the leather in the shoe that excited the animal. At this point his assistant informed the scientist that this was one of the cats from the control group. The control cats had been watching the amygdalized cats and were so steeped in the hyper-sexually obsessed environment, that the behavior had been induced in them without the surgery. The scientist discovered that over time, a strong social or "cultural" atmosphere determined responses of perfectly normal, healthy animals. Tom Wolfe used this study to introduce a book about college students. Amusing, no? It makes total sense - and it makes the end of the book that much more interesting. You should go read it. Or hell, borrow the book from me.

Cheddars

So Monday I did absolutely nothing, but I didn't have enough time to do it in. I had tons of library books due and video rentals due and I drove to Dallas that afternoon with every intention of turning them in and heading back to Bedford to have dinner with Jacque, Austen, and some friends from high school that I hadn't seen in a while. I called Sean ahead of time to get me directions to the Dallas Public Library so that I could get there as quickly as possible. Sean took forever, finally gave me the directions and I was on my way. But I was already running late. I dropped off the books at SMU and followed the directions to DPL. They are different from the ones I got the website. Sean had mapquested it, like I told him not to. Excellent. So I wonder around the arts district completely lost and I have exactly 25 minutes to drive the 35 minutes it takes to meet my friends. So after I passed by those two homeless people in bright yellow jackets for the fourth time, I gave up and drove back to Bedford. I was angry and late, so I hauled ass, going about 90mph the whole way. I arrived at Cheddars about 5 minutes before everybody else did. Woohoo!

At dinner Brian and Sachin were being {really awesome}* and Austen seemed to love having his friends with him - he joined right in. I can't stand Sachin, the way he speaks, his opinions, and the way he behaves. Jacque told me that he was much better recently, but not tonight. Sachin and Brian devised a skit to be jerks to the waitress because as Sachin said, she took his drink order last because he was "brown". It involved Sachin speaking unintelligibly and Brian "translating" his order. This evolved to Sachin just saying "shiiit" and Brian giving the woman his food order. I, of course, insisted on ordering first and leaving the table, because as you know, I can't stand stupid people or the way they behave stupidly in public. That's just dumb. Like the nerd in "Never Been Kissed". You have to know your place. Don't recite poetry to the most popular boy in school when you were already being made fun of in the first place. That's just plain STUPID! It was a miserable dinner that resulted in the boys discussing their "hoes" and how well their "pimp business" is doing. I just wanted to shoot myself. Different area codes and each other's turf ... the amount of verbal diarrhea that came out of their mouths was astounding.

Lesson learned: I should have stayed in Dallas and returned the books and videos and avoided the late fees, thus avoiding a night of unnecessary discomfort. The end.

*sarcasm

Mono!!

So it was decided that Sean has mono. Lynn called me last night to tell me that. And that Erin and I have to get tested. It's really exciting! Jacque and Lynn were both trying to reach me all day, but when I turn off my cell and unplug the landlines, it's definitely harder for people to reach me. In my case a poor move. Because then I had to drive home so that Erin and I could go to the doctor the next morning. It's not like I didn't see this doctor a few weeks ago for him to prescribe nausea causing anti-biotics and tell me I don't have strep. Now I have to go in again and get tested for the mono. You know that involves needles! I hate needles. And I have to finish Christmas shopping! Grrr...

So we got up early to go over there and Lynn took her sweet time to call. She told the office 1:30pm. At 1:00pm she still wasn't ready to go. Erin and I were. 1:25pm comes around and she yells from her bedroom that she's ready, but we are not waiting any longer. Erin yells for her to meet us there. We get to the doctor's office and sign in and wait for them to call our names. Steve shows up 15 minutes later and asks where Lynn is. He calls her and she tells him that since we left her, she's decided she's not coming. Okay...

So Erin went to the bathroom, so I had to go first. I followed the nurse through the door with the push button lock and into the lab area where whe removes her coat and casually mentions that it is in fact cold outside. Yes, I reply, it is. She sits me down in a pleather chair with a bar that comes down across it like a padded high-chair. She put that rubber turnicate around my upper-arm and starts smacking the inside of my elbow. She grabs two empty vials and a needle. She puts on some rubber gloves from a box that says unpowdered latex gloves. There is a hand-written list taped to one of the bookcases next to me noting important precautions to use so that you don't get pricked by a needle. Perhaps this information will be of use to me! I don't want to be pricked by a needle!

Needle pricks don't have to occur! I stare at the list while she asks for my insurance card and starts writing information down on a clipboard. Always keep your fingers below the needle. I suppose they mean if the syringe is pointed toward the ceiling, but how often do you do that? The nurse always looms over me like a mad scientist when drawing my blood, so technically shouldn't it be above the needle? She slaps my arm a few more times, searching for something obviously besides the two large blue veins at the surface of my arm.

I flashback to the last time I had an IV, in high school. The young nurse called in this older woman, she was about 138 years old, to find a suitable vein with which to prod me. The nurse had told me next time, drink lots of water. I was really dehydrated. Perhaps that was because I was told not to eat anything for twelve hours and I had this incredible fear that that wouldn't be enough time for me to get rid of all the food in my stomach and the anesthesia would result in me vomiting while I was unconscious, causing me to die during simple hardware removal. But drink more water I will.

Five years later I have learned nothing. The nurse unties the rubber strap leaving a large red ring around my left arm and goes for the right one. She begins to slap again. She asks me what arm I normally have blood taken from. Neither, if possible, I think. I flash back to junior high which was the last time I remember having blood drawn. Right before the tears started welling up in my eyes I looked down at my left arm where the school nurse was about to jab me with that 10 inch needle...

"My left arm," I said quietly.

She unties my right arm and goes back to the left one. She reties the strap and begins slapping again. She wipes my arm with alcohol, goes for the needle, removes the cap and says, "Let's see if this one is okay."

This is a very UN-reassuring thing to hear before someone tries to draw blood. I recall that junior high torture... The woman stuck me twice in the left arm, twice in the right arm, and then moved back to the left arm for another jab before she was satisfied. Tears are streaming down my face and Lynn, my mother - the parent volunteer from hell, is yelling at me from across the cafeteria to stop being such a baby. As strangers and friends alike look from her to me and back to the red-headed woman scream at her blubbering daughter, I try to wipe my eyes. I am not afraid of inanimate objects!

I return to the lab room in Dallas as the nurse sticks the needle into my arm and attaches the tube to a vial. I am an adult. I have had much more painful experiences in my life than one prick in the arm and the knowledge that a tiny piece of metal is slowly letting out blood from my arm. I broke two toes this summer and that was far more painful. I cussed and ran for ice when I broke my toes. I cussed some more when close friends and relatives would step on my foot. But tears began to well up in my eyes as the nurse removed the first vial and attached the second one.

I am such a baby. The nurse finally removes the vial, removes the needle and quickly applies a large cotton ball with tape to my "wound" to catch all the blood. I go outside and hold the door as Erin walks in for the same fate. Erin however is not a baby. She had to fill 5 vials of blood for in-processing for the Air Force Academy. She also just gives her blood out for free whenever someone asks. Carter, whatever... Steve and I sit outside for a while and suddenly Erin walks out the door with another nurse following her with a glass of water. Erin's skin is pale and clammy and she looks like she's about to fall over. The nurse tells her to drink the water and for us to wait about 15 minutes until Erin feels better, she passed out while they were taking her blood. Erin explains to Steve and me that this happens every time and that the nurse said that next she should warn whoever is taking her blood that she has a tendency to do that, it scared the day-lights out of her. Erin explained that after she replaced the first vial with the second, everything started to go white, and then she woke up to find that she had almost slid down out of her high-chair, but not quite, because of that delightful bar. The nurse was screaming for help and Erin sits up and apologized. Then another nurse walks in and the first one goes, thanks for coming!

So I take Erin to Dallas with me and we watch this old movie called "Bell, Book, and Candle" with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. It is very amusing. We relax and prepare to brave the world again for last minute Christmas shopping. She tells Lynn we will meet her somewhere, which was a mistake. She and Lynn start fighting. We split up. Then we end up at the same store and they fight some more. Then we went home. It was nice.

I'll let you know if I ever find out the results of that mono test.

It snowed!

December 22nd. I went to work at 9am and sometime while I was there it began to snow. I didn't notice because the blinds were closed, but I was shocked when I was walking out of the office building on McKinney to find white flurries everywhere. It was so pleasant to drive home, make hot chocolate and watch winter movies until I fell asleep. Yay for naps. I've never really been a napper in the past but I see many in my future.

Tiiiiiiiiime, is on my side. Yes, it is.

I can't believe it's been three-ish weeks since I have been online. It's madness. I will now try to update this blog with everything that has happened. But I'm going to post them with the date they occured, so as not to confuse myself. Here we go. I'll start with the weekend of December 17-19th. Jacque, Austen and I went down to Huntsville, Hunstville? I don't know, we went to some city south of here to take pictures at a graduation. Jacque gets called by Flash Photography in Ft. Worth, where she used to work all the time, when they need extra help and Jacque calls us. So off we went. We left Friday evening and drove down there. We got there late and checked into our motel room. I can't really say a lot about the motel. The trip down was good - I had shotgun, Austen slept in the back. We didn't talk as much as we did on the last road trip as I recall, but we listened to a more diverse selection of music. A little Dixie Chicks, a little Metalica, the Top Gun Soundtrack. Lovely.

We got up at the butt-crack of dawn and worked two ceremonies. Jacque and I took pictures and Austen filmed the ceremony. It was very high paced and kind of stressful, because Jacque's boss was there and he is very particular. That's never good. We finished around 4:30pm. Part of the deal to get Austen to come with us for this weekend of fun was that we go to College Station Saturday night for his friend's party. It wasn't enough to get paid, he wanted a party too. Anyway, so we headed on over. I don't remember anyone's name, but it was one interesting party.

The guy that lived in the apartment we stayed at had a two bedroom by himself, so Jacque and I claimed the guest bedroom and Austen got the couch. His friends cooked burgers, Jacque and I made queso and we drank. There was one guy that was from Canadia and he entertained Jacque and me with his travel tales. Then this other guy came over and they played this game where they used beer bottle tops to try and knock bottle tops off of bottles. As the inappropriate beverages flowed, they began doing shtick. They were talking about "the league" and "women's rules" and were sort of entertaining at first, but quickly became annoying. So Jacque and I switched to playing three-man. Except we needed dice. So Austen and I walked over to some grocery store across the street. One of the funniest store trips. Austen guided me through the store like I was a small child and not the sober half of this two-some. But he bought the dice and the cough drops I so desperately needed to make it through the evening. Yay Austen!!

Then we went back to the apartment Jacque and I taught Austen how to play three-man. I mean, how to get schooled at three-man. He was already so far gone. For some reason he thought that drinking 100 proof mint-flavored inappropriate on the rocks was a really good idea. There was some Austen/Joe wrestling that was uncalled for, but all in all it was a successful party. We woke up late the next morning and headed back to Bedford. Good times. Then we rested up for Sunday night fun, because Erin came home and we went to see a movie. Then I had to go back to Dallas, because I had to go to work on Monday. Woot!

Kim's Birthday!

Okay, prior to the weekend of the 17-19 there was Thursday the 16th. I went to a basketball game and Kim's Birthday Extravaganza. Okay, we just went to Ben's, but ... shut up. We had fun, that's all that matters. Yay for karaoke. Kim's brother and I grilled her about her new "boyfriend" and then we judged him based on first impressions and decided he wasn't good enough for her. But what are you gonna do. She's having fun and that's all that matters. It's all a little blury. Have decided I am perhaps becoming an alcoholic. Some of you will laugh and say, of course you're not an alcoholic, you're just a social drinker. Others will laugh and say, of course you're an alcoholic, you've been one since that Houston trip your freshman year. Who can say whether one person is right and one person is wrong... Well, that was the sixteenth of December.

Nightmare

So, I've been sick since Sunday. I've been taking the Clariten-D, the NyQuill, and sometimes the DayQuill; but I haven't been feeling any better. I decided the NyQuill should be cut off because of the Nytmare that I had Monday night. I fell asleep on the couch watching tv and when Sean came home around 2:00am, I woke up. I realized that I had fallen asleep on the couch, which I HATE! and quickly washed my face, brushed my teeth, and ran to my bed.

I love my bed, so comfortable...focus Devon.

I quickly fell asleep and started having this dream. Erin and I were in an indoor swimming pool, swimming for some reason. It was like the lap pool connected to "the Q" and it had some glass doors that led to whatever was connected to the building. As we swam, the pool became more like an indoor lake. The water was dirty and murky and you couldn't see the bottom. Suddenly Erin and I stumble upon a simple wooden coffin in the shallow part of the "pool". The coffin sort of raised almost to the surface and the lid is off and we see a decomposed pile of bones, etc. with a shiny gold watch around the wrist. Unfazed, I calmly explain to Erin that people like to dig up coffins and take the valuables, not unlike grave robbers in Egypt. This doesn't explain why there is a coffin in this in-door pool, why we are stilling swimming in it, or why the coffin just rose to the surface.

All of a sudden these coffins start popping up out of the water, falling apart to reveal watches and jewelry, not to mention dead people. I'm okay, Erin's okay, we're still swimming around in the pool. Then this larger coffin pops up with a knight's chest armor covering two bodies - a man and a woman. The armor has a carving of a heart on it. The woman is laying on top of the man, his hands are holding her hands and her hands are on her stomach.

As I am looking at the two bodies, I realize, they are slowly becoming less decomposed. Like the mummy was in, well, "The Mummy". Then I realize that the woman's eyes are open and she's looking around. Then for some reason I decide to lift the armor up. As I lift the armor, the man and woman separate and they both stand up. I'm freaking out, because that's not right. I am sure I appear frightened, because the man and woman are looking at me funny. Then the man is like, "There's nothing wrong, don't try to leave." Ahhhhhh!

To which I replied, "I need go because, I've been at this pool for about three hours and you haven't breathed yet."

Then the man took a deep breath in and exhaled a bunch of water. I lunge for the side of the pool. The bodies are chasing us. Erin makes it out, I make it to the door, go outside, turn around, and close the door in time to see the woman's hand reaching through the door as if there was no pane of glass. Ahhhhh!!!!

Then I woke up. I was terrified. I don't remember a time that I was this scared of a bad dream or remember it so vividly. The time was 3:30am. It took me forever to go back to sleep. On Tuesday I tried to figure out what could possibly have happened on Monday for me to have this crazy dream. No mummies, no death, no graves, no dead people. It's madness.

Please, analyze my dream and let me know what you think.

Hazy winter break, my old friend...

Last winter break was, well, let's just say I don't remember much. Jacque and I did more than, well, more than we should have. So this Thursday, the night after my last final, we began the partying. We went to Thursday night Karaoke at Ben's with our friend Kristen who is leaving for Denver. We had so much fun, it was a little ridiculous. We got home late and I was really tired all Friday.

I had work at 9am at that realty place, then I went to the bookstore for a few hours. Then home. I had enough time to try but not succeed in taking a nap and then I had to get ready for Kristen's official going away party. I made it to Bedford by 8:30 and Kristen answers the door and goes, would you like a Leg-Splitter? Well, sure!!

I should tell you that Thursday night, Byron told us the recipe for a very nice drink called a leg-splitter and told us to try it. Kristen made everybody one while we waited for everyone to get there. Instead of 4 parts of inappropriate and finishing it off with Pineapple juice, she made the drink with 4 shots of inappropriate and a lil' bit of pineapple juice. Not a super idea. For a first drink anyway. Maybe number 3 or 4 though. By the way, really good drink.

We went to PF Chang's for dinner and had champagne and then we each had a Pool Side. It's a delightful tropical like drink with a little umbrella. PS, it's green. Then we went back to Kristen's and drank some more. I had one drink that involved all clear liquids. I'm not sure what it was, but it was very sweet. I fell asleep on the couch around 1am, because we all know if yours truly is stationary for too long, she's out like a light. Then around 2:15 I was woken up and so I drove home. I was surprisingly awake. But my contacts were really dry, so that made things difficult.

Saturday I woke up too damn early. I went with Jason to go Christmas shopping. Jason finished all his Christmas shopping and I barely began. We wrapped presents and started to watch Kissing Jessica Stein. But my phone had been dead all day and I hadn't talked to anyone and I wasn't sure but I might have made plans to do something Saturday night, so I decided to use the last of my battery juice to call Jacque.

I called her and she told me that she had been trying to reach me, and that she asked my mother where I was. Why would she call my mother you ask? Well, she didn't, she called the condo and of course Lynn was there! I asked her where she was and she said she was on her way to Dallas with a car full of people and Kristen was almost to my place. But I'm not at my place!! Damn. So I had Jason haul ass to the condo to find Lynn still there, waiting for Steve to get back from his work Christmas party.

I looked like crap, I hadn't done any laundry and I know there is no excuse, so I had to improvise. The jeans closest to the top of the pile were the ones I wore to Ben's on Thursday. So I febreezed those bad boys and threw them in the dryer with a dryer sheet. Then I stormed up to my room to find a shirt to wear. With only a bright blue bra, the white t-shirts were out of the question. The only colored t-shirts that were clean were the free Mothman Prophecies shirt I got from the band hall junior year or the Sex Pistols shirt I bought for 70s night. Guess. Just guess. So I go downstairs and Lynn and Steve are talking to Kristen and they start making fun of the damn Sex Pistols shirt. And the scarf/belt that I absolutely adore that I used to wear to the Village, when we used to go to the Village. I won't apologize for that belt!

So Kristen and I meet the car full of people at Two Rows. I go to sit down on the end and Jacque shrieks, "No Devon, sit next to me!" That wasn't obvious. So she doesn't want Kristen sitting next to the random guy sitting at the other end of the table. Kinda cute. But random. Okay, this is Mike, Austen's friend from work. Then this other guy sits down across from me. So this is Sam, Mike's friend from high school. Okay. I still have my jacket on at this point and he brings up the fact that you can't smoke in Dallas restaurants. Well, duh! I know this! Where has home-fry been? Not in Dallas apparently.

Then I take off my jacket and he goes, You're wearing a Sex Pistols shirt and you're judging my smoking?

Well, yeah!

Thus began the most interesting and bizarre outing of my college life.

Sam likes to make bad jokes. Not dirty, just BAAAD.

Like, "I guess people in Dallas like to go on dates at the airport..."
What? - we all think.
Then Mike notices a sign for Love Field. Get it? Love Field. Dates at the airport.
Ha. ha. ha. ahem.
Funny right? No.
Once at Two Rows I had to revoke his speaking priviledges. So bizarre. We went discussed going to Pete's or Ben's after that. Jacque and Kristen and I wanted to go to Pete's. Austen wanted to go to Ben's. So we went to Ben's. Can I just warn you that Ben's on a Saturday night, sucks! It always has. It always will. We got there and it was sooo quiet. But did we leave? No.

We get into conversations about whether or not Amish people have social security cards and how bad hazing is. Nobody is arguing with him, but he seems to take offense to the idea that when freshmen tell bad jokes, we make them go to the head. We aren't hurting them. He doesn't know the circumstances, but starts in on how at the school he went to, they used to throw people in to partially frozen lakes. Well, not the same, and I wasn't condoning that, but please keep lecturing me on how bad hazing is. Please. The group discussed more diverse topics than I have ever heard on a Saturday night. It was way heavy man!

We finally got to leave Ben's...at 1:30am. Then we went back to the condo to talk some more. They finally left around 3am. Good-Ness.

PS, Colorado Bulldog - very pleasant drink. A white russian with coke.
Anything plus Coke = Nice.

Hey Wanna Hear Something Funny?

I'm upstairs working on my Math and Science final on Sean's computer and Sean is downstairs. He had just taken a shower and I am assuming he went back downstairs to finish the 90 page script that was due last Thursday. Sean comes to the stairs and goes, "Hey, you wanna hear something funny?" And I said yes, because I'm always up for a laugh. Sean goes, "I closed my script at 73 pages before I went to take a shower and just now when I went back to finish it the file only has 58 pages".

Haha.

So I go downstairs and Sean is all, "I thought it was auto-saving and it didn't ask me to save when I closed it, it just closed". To which I replied, "the program does have auto-save" (it's movie script writing program that saves like every 10 minutes so you don't lose anything important). I tell him to look at the other files, maybe he saved it there. So he looks at all the files and one of them has 73 pages. It is similar to the one he thought he was working on, but different. So he didn't lose it. Everything is okay. He's just 18 pages from the cut-off and he's 4 days late. Sean goes, "if that was gone, I was going to kill myself". "Yeah", I replied.

Pretty funny huh?

The week before finals week...

I have spent the last week at my brother's computer, trying my darnedest to get everything done. Sean has spent the last week, about 18 hours a day, on the couch downstairs with my laptop trying to finish his script. We have spent the semester wasting time and now we are both paying for it. Sean is going to be sick for a while because his whole system is screwed up. I'm going to spend next week cleaning and organizing the condo, because right now it's a teenage wasteland. If you learn anything from me this semester, know that it is very important to NOT PROCRASTINATE!! Crap. So much to do. So tired. Good luck on finals kids. And Jason, hope you have fun going out on the town. I have slacked on my job to make sure you got out this semester. I'm glad you've taken the task upon yourself. Good night kids. Make sure you get your eight hours of sleep every night. Gotta fight those dark circles. Wait, that's just me...


P.S. My hair still smells like campfire when it gets wet. Damn I need a haircut.

Work

I started my new job on Wednesday. It was really exciting. I'm doing the same thing I did at my old job at the law school, which is looking stuff up, looking people up, creating databases, and trying to do stuff knowing full well that Microsoft hates me. Except before it was legal lawyer stuff and now it's real estate stuff. Gotta go to sleep early tonight; have to leave at 8:00am if I want to get there by 9:00am.

Excuse me, your neurosis is showing.

If you don't want to read about me indulging, then stop here.

For the most part I try to appear non-shallow, non-self-absorbed, utterly normal, but with an abnormally gifted insight into the feelings of others. Because I am a psychology major! Ha, but sometimes, I'm a little crazy. I am often reminded, that even though I don't spend a week analyzing one sentence from my conversation with a boy, to see if there is hidden meaning - that I am infact an insecure girl. Yikes! It shocks me every time, when the hidden ridiculousness that I try ever so hard to supress spews forth like lava. And I act like a girl when the boy I like talks to me. It's ridiculous. I used to think that the fact that I am aware of the depths to which my "ridiculous" goes is good because I am in tune with the inner me, but in actuality it's self-indulgent thinking. Sean says that people that are completely normal in everyday life try to be deep and philosophical in their blogs. I tried to say that perhaps not everyone can be shallow all the time like he is and they are using their blog as an outlet. I don't think I succeeded in convincing him or myself.

I talked to Austen and Jacque about how I ridiculous I was in high school and my facebook dilemma and Austen said that I should accept the friend invite, because "James is cool." We'll see. I rehashed this story about how my friends and I were sitting at a lunch table sophomore year and I had brought tuna fish to school. I mixed the stupid package of relish and mayonnaise with the tiny can of tuna. Then I spread a little on each wheat cracker that came in the box. After ward I put the can in the brown paper bag that I brought my lunch to school in. About 15 minutes before lunch was over, our half of the table had noticed that the bag had REALLY begun to smell. Like tuna fish, obviously. James and his friends were at the other side of the long cafeteria table. At this point James looked over with the weirdest expression on his face, sniffed the air a few times and goes "Ewww, what's that smell?" We found this to be the funniest thing in the world and we burst out laughing. That's the only memory I have of James, although he might have played clarinet in seventh grade, but I don't remember for sure. At this point Austen reminded me that he was in fact, sitting with James at this table and I realized as I often do, how much things change. I barely new Austen in 10th grade, even though I had gone to school with him for 3 years, been in band with him, and was friends with some of his friends. Austen said that his friends used to make fun of Lydia, because she was so loud. He said that they would talk about us. Jacque and I immediately wanted to know what they said about us. Who cares? It was seven years ago and it was the opinions of people that didn't even know us. We are such girls.

Remembering how things were before the fact, was weird. Isn't it hard to remember a time when you knew your close friends, but you weren't friends with them yet? Well, it's hard for me. I don't remember how I met Jacque. Or Jason. Or Lydia. Or Jennifer. I can't remember thinking about them any other way than as one of my dearest friends. Some people that I don't like so much, I remember when they used to not bother me. When their sheer presence in the room didn't offend me. When their voices didn't annoy me more than nails on a chalk board. Having those kinds of reactions to people is a waste of energy and I sincerely wish I didn't feel that way about people. I try hard to keep in mind the time when I didn't care where these people were in the room or what they were doing. I have had many of my friends tell me that they automatically loved me or hated me when they first met me. The people that loved me still do and the people that hated me realized that we actually fit perfectly together to form our little group. I wanted to know instantly why these people didn't like me at first and what made them change their mind? But when someone wants to know why I don't like them, I see them as shallow and tell them that not everybody has to like you! Double Standard!!! See how I keep bringing the subject back to me over and over again. Soooo self-absorbed.

I need to stop writing. I realize that one day I will get over myself completely, but it won't come soon enough.

No, thank YOU!

This Thanksgiving was nice. There were only 4 arguments between Wednesday and Sunday. I was only involved in two of them, but I started neither. We were all trying to be super nice, since Erin was home from the academy. We were supposed to have a mini-Thanksgiving of sorts Wednesday night so Erin could have the sweet potato casserole that my mother makes, but instead we went to the Olive Garden for lunch and Lynn and Sean and Erin went shopping while Steve and I went to Dallas, him to work, me to the condo to do some homework. Then instead of dinner, Erin and Sean went to a movie, while Steve and I worked until 9:00pm. It's almost like we're a real family.

But we made it to Bedford in time to watch "Holiday Inn" and eat bad pumpkin pie. Eww. If you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend it. Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, two random women and just enough cheese to make it enjoyable. Three cheers for fake snow and black-face. I have loved this movie since I was little. And it was a major plus, because Lynn had initially wanted to watch "A Christmas Story" which is too embarrassing for words. Stupid little kid. He'll shoot his eye out!

Anyway, overslept Thursday morning and we barely made it to Thanksgiving lunch at some restaurant (that used to be the Adam's Mark, but isn't now) in Tulsa. Brian Wright came with, after having a quick Thanksgiving breakfast with his parents. It's like I have two brothers. I saw"Tthe Incredibles" for the second time and we watched as many movies as we could fit into the day, because Erin doesn't get out much and she had to catch up. I got to pick out one of my Christmas presents from my mother, a hot red weekend bag from Bath and Body Works. Can we say excitement? OH, I can.

Big excitement of the weekend, Lynn was walking through the theater when I noticed a large napkin stuck to the bottom of her shoe - this sent the whole family including Gran-Jan, into fits of laughter. Then the next morning when we were out at breakfast, Gran-Jan was heading to the bathroom and Lynn noticed a small needle on her butt. That's pretty much it.

I actually went out with my whole family on a Friday night and didn't give a damn who saw me. It made things easier because we were in Tulsa. When I was in high school, I really wouldn't have been caught dead with them. Even in Tulsa. I have found hidden depths. Am perhaps slowly becoming mature. But have also discovered incredible urge to start a food fight somewhere. Look out!

When we got back to Bedford on Saturday afternoon we went to Spring Creek BBQ so Erin could eat their freshly baked rolls. Then we went to Don Pablos for dinner and I saw "The Incredibles" for the third time. I don't know, it just happened that way. Jacque, Ann, and Austen came along. The waiter spilled coke on poor Ann, so we didn't tip him. He didn't offer to comp anything, no dessert, no free meal. Poor Ann. She probably should have sulked more; like Sean did when the waiter spilled avocado all over him at Chili's. Perhaps it was the area, Don Pablos of Grapevine doesn't have as much class as the Chili's on Knox. Or is it McKinney. Whatever. Jerks.

We played "Shout About Movies!" until 2:30am. It was good times, but I hate when people get competitive, it really freaks me out. Especially when Erin called me a bitch and told me to hand over the remote. Is that entirely necessary? Freaking military - wait, I can't blame the Air Force, the bitch comment was all Erin. Jacque, Austen and I lost miserably in the first two rounds, but we owned in the last one. We were beating them by sooo much, that even if they bet the maximum, which is to say doubling their score - a la Jeopardy - they still wouldn't be able to win. Muahhahaha. Excellent.

I have so much homework. Erin left today and Sean and I returned to Dallas. I miss her already. I have so much homework. Wait, I already said that. But I would rather write a blog entry. I would like to think that nobody reads this, but I know that at least two people will get sooooo bored this week that they will check for an update. Never the less I will drop a little ramble in here, just so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Monologue has been deleted after further contemplation. Will now step down off soap box and return to homework.

Hope my three loyal fans had a happy Thanksgiving, and I'm glad Frank had fun in Mexico. With someone else's family. Whatever.

Facebook

I became concerned with "thefacebook" when people started talking about it during their real lives. Like AIM before, it is like a national (international?) network, where all you have to do is sign up. While specifically linking students, I find it to be more of an electronic junior high, perhaps high school, yearbook. Everybody desperately wants to belong to a group, sometimes forming their own just for the sake of it - ahem, you know who you are! - and desperately trying to prove to everyone else that they have friends. When I signed on I wasn't too worried about it; I'll join the band, because I'm doing basketball season darnit! and I'll ask Sean and Frank to be my friends and that'll be a day. I will have joined the darn facebook. Then I get invites from all these people! Good people mind you, but lots. I think wow, these people want me to be their facebook friend!! I haven't spoken to so-an-so in 6 months, but fine. Yay! Friends! After I confirm, I look at these people's friends and EVERYBODY else has more friends than me. So, not as many invites as I thought. Now I want 63 friends! Bah. It's too much work.

Then I have to get a picture and create a profile, not that I don't mind doing it again, for the tenth time; had to have one for classmates.com, one for this darn blog, and now facebook - it's hard enough keeping my profile on AIM current. But after a while I get it - facebook is the worldwideweb version of notches on a bedpost or signatures in a yearbook. The people that have invited me to be their friends and I have confirmed don't say anything, don't write on the wall, we don't use it as any form of communication. I poked Sean just to see what would happen - I chose Sean because some people will take that the wrong way if I "poke" them. Dirty! But then I get this random invite from someone I don't think I know. If I do, she sure wasn't important enough for me to remember. She lived near me, but goes to Texas Tech now. I don't know. I don't want to confirm that we are friends when I don't remember her, but I don't want to be rude on facebook. But she's one person closer to 105 friends. I thought, I just won't do anything and today she still sits, in that box, waiting to be confirmed or denied. I thought, well that's dealt with. In my passive aggressive kind of way.

Weeelll, then I get another invite from this guy from my high school. I might have talked to him once in junior high, but I don't really know for sure. Wait, he goes to Tech too! Now, I'm just getting weirded out. I look at his profile and find that he only has 4 friends listed. This random girl isn't one of them, they haven't been talking about a fiendish plot to get me to confirm two people that I don't know. His situation, that's just sad. He's been a member since October and I have only been a member since the beginning of November. I have more friends! Though, I feel bad for judging. But still, why the invite? And yet, it's not that big of a deal, it's just another signature to fill up the blank pages right of my empty shell of an internet life? I have low karma points on "moviequotes.com" and on "monster.com"; I have to make up for that somewhere. But maybe he just sent one out to everybody in our graduating class, wouldn't that be awkward? For me to be the only one that confirmed. So I searched everybody that graduated from Trinity High School, that's right, all 120 of them, and James and I are the ONLY ONES that graduated in the year 2000. One person is a grad student from '98, but everybody else is younger. Sean's friends, Brian's friends, Erin's friends. But no friends of Devon. That just makes me feel old. Could everyone that graduated in 2000 from Trinity have graduated from college in four years? Did they all graduate on time (save two - me and James)? Or perhaps we are the only two that are with it and down with what the kids are into. Maybe we're the only fifth-years that have computers. Or more likely, we are the only two fifth-years that were nerded into signing up for facebook.

Happy Thanksgiving break everybody!

This really could be written by me...

...if I wrote poetry, that is.

Really neat people
Tend to make me a little nervous.
I don't feel inferior around them-
Just uneasy.

Who wants or needs:
Every sock folded,
Every knife in the butcher block,
Every towel on the rack,
Every item tucked neatly into place,
Every single time-
No, and I mean no exceptions?

Because now and then:
The sock needs an adventure,
The knife longs to mingle,
The towel is desperate
For some down time
And our underwear needs to salsa,
With the towel
On the bathroom floor.

So you see-
I'm not really messy,
Just flexible and understanding.

-The Birdbath Poet

And it rained...

This weekend was so long...it was nice. I went with Jacque, Austen, and Kim to see "Bridget Jones 2". Yes, Austen thought he could convince us to see that Pierce Brosnan movie instead, but we could not be persuaded. I wanted Jason to come, but he decided he would rather watch season 1 of the O.C. with Frank and drink. Whatever! We went to a late movie even though I knew I had to be in Granbury by 8:30am!! I worked all day Friday and I deserved a late movie, right? So we got out of our movie and pulled up behind Jason on his way to deliver Frank back to the dorms and Kim was like "jump out and bang on the windows!" I was all, "yeah!!" But then the light turned green. We followed them to Mockingbird and Jacque started flashing her brights. We were again tempted to jump out of the car at the stop light, but timing and my wussy disposition forced us to wait until they stopped on the Boulevard. Then we jumped out and scared them. Jason and Frank wouldn't unlock the doors. Haha, we scared them good! Well, not so much, but we all had to get home so we got back in the car and went back to the condo.

I woke up at 6:30am on Saturday so that I could leave by 7:00am so I could be at camp by the butt-crack of early. I chatted with the camp host and got some hot chocolate, but my cohort in canoeing, the tall missionary student from Mississippi, had not arrived. So I went up to the canoe shed and started throwing lifejackets and paddles out of the shed, have I mentioned that the 4X6 shed also houses the 6 kayaks? It's fun, anyway, so just as I throw out the last paddle, homefry drives up in his truck. Then we start loading things in the bed of his truck and this dad comes up and is all, the set-up crew is ready and waiting for ya. Set-up crew? YES!!! What that means, children, is that Devon and Shane don't have to take down the heavy, heavy canoes. So there are some people that canoe for 45 minutes. Then I'm by myself, because Shane went to get his kayak and find a bathroom. Then the bell by the main lodge starts ringing. It's been ringing for about 15 minutes before Shane comes back and it continues to ring for another 20 minutes. No, this isn't annoying. It's also not unsettling, because at camp, a constantly ringing bell means, tornado or lost child. So I'm definitely not freaking out. Well, nobody is canoeing, so I make Shane drive us down to main lodge to see what the heck was going on. Heck, not hell, because he's a missionary student, after all. We get there and Shane's guess is correct, it is definitely 20 small children standing in line waiting to ring the bell, one after another. For the love...

But we go back up to the canoe docks and Shane decides it is a good idea to build a fire. I second that because it's freaking cold. So without a good poking stick, I start dropping wood on the fire. I lean over and a flame shoots up and burns the front part of my hair. I'm a little pissed. I take moment to mourn, but I put my hair in a ponytail and try to move on. We get the fire going pretty good, and then it rained. And it rained some more. And at 3:45pm the tear down crew came down. Victory, we wouldn't have to put the dirty rained-on canoes up either! But I didn't get to leave until 4:30pm, because I had to do some stuff. And by stuff, I mean steal extra Volunteer Day t-shirts left over from October. Don't judge me. I wanted to volunteer, but it was on Halloween weekend and I was in Austin.

I hauled butt to Dallas, falling asleep for brief seconds and swerving to stay on the road. Took the fastest shower ever to get the game before half time. I still smelled like campfire. I realized when I started to scream, yell, and sing, that I did in fact inhale a LOT of smoke today and I can barely breath. It's nice. Like asthma.

We WON!! Victory is ours. Well, there's. I try not to associate the winnings and losings with myself. I do nothing that affects the team one way or another. But I am all about the swaying and singing in post-game. I went to dinner with Jason at TGI Fridays after learning that he in fact is indulging his inner-geek and having a video game party on the same night as the last band party of the football season. Boo! And boo to Fridays for taking their sweet time with the food. I got back at 10:00pm and called Kim to find out when her party starts. She said the keg would arrive at 10:30pm, but to be fashionably late. Well, I decided 11:00pm might still be a little early, I'll watch tv until 11:15pm and then head over. I mixed some margaritas in my Nalgene bottle, ready for transport and it was only 10:05pm. I watched Saturday Night Live for a bit and went up to my room to take a nap. I remember Sean coming in for something video game oriented and leaving. I went downstairs to watch the end of SNL and I woke up at 4:20am. Nice. I lost the last party of the season to Sleep. But I went back to sleep and woke up at 10:00am on Sunday. It was the best sleep ever. Sunday, did nothing but watch movies. Yippy. On to real things.

P.S. I've taken two showers and I still smell like campfire.

Doom...

I think I have managed to screw up my entire semester and my plans for the future, based on the actions of one 24-hour period. I knew that I had homework due on Saturday after Pigskin. So on Friday instead of doing it, I worked. Then instead of going over all of my classes to see what else I had to like I had written on my To Do: list, I didn't. Because I'm not very bright. All of the assignments for another class were due by 5pm on Friday. She said no late assignments will be accepted. I am so fu#@ed. I have to have a B average in the Teaching Program to stay in - and I have just screwed myself. I will now commence in crying and begging for the next 22 minutes. Because then I have to go to class. Doom...

I miss Erin!

I miss Erin soooo much. I read her live journal and talk to her occasionally when I am on-line...it makes me soooo sad. Today she goes, I think I'm going to sleep at my desk. I'm not in my room, so it's not really my desk. I wish I could go to my room and take nap.

In the Air Force Academy, you can't nap or lay down during certain times, like during daylight hours, and then some evening hours too. I shit you not. No naps. She wakes up at 5am and doesn't go to sleep until 11pm. The same day that I wrote about wanting to be in Bedford or at camp, she wrote about wanting to be somewhere else too. Here's an excerpt:

I want hot cocoa, with marshmallows. I want to swing on a tire swing. I want to drive home on a closed weekend all alone listening to country. Do you ever wonder why your mind chooses your most vivid memories? I want to drive to Dallas at midnight with Jeff. I want to cuddle up in my orange t-shirt material sheets and scooby doo comforter and explain to Rachel once again why my bed is the best bed in the entire world. I want to be in awe of Jenny, flustered by Jeff, attempt to understand Hadley, and be hugged by Vilbig. I want to be suspiciously eyed by every RA, and awkwardly sit through a wing meeting, totally positive that everyone is staring at me. I want to go back to Valentine's Day last year, with my car in front of McConnell stock full of people on top of my scooby doo comforter, drive to Dallas, play in the snow with Devon's drunk friends, and study for a physics test.

It's the most depressing thing I've ever heard. She is unhappy and there is nothing I can do about it. I will tell anyone that asks, I surround myself with cool people and I don't put up with shit. Erin is like me so much and she is one of the coolest people I know. I don't know how she is making it in the Air Force Academy. And since Erin had this on her journal and I told her I would put it on mine, here is a nice little survey with my comments for my sister. Feel free to comment on me. Got enough to read now, Frnak??

1. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it. D.J. - Devon Junior, from camp.
2. Am I loveable? Yes.
3. How long have you known me? I remember the day Lynn brought you home.
4. When and how did we first meet? Well, you were born...
5. What was your first impression? You were in a Christmas stocking, because they brought you home on Christmas day, I thought you were small.
6. Do you still think that way about me now? No, you're much taller now.
7. What do you think my weakness is? Arguing with people.
8. Do you think I'll get married? Yeah.
9. What makes me happy? Your friends, your jersey sheets and a bath.
10. What makes me sad? Conflict, lack of communication, and i forget the third one.
11. What reminds you of me? the color orange, scooby doo, and camp, especially that time we went canoeing...
12. If you could give me anything what would it be? happiness
13. How well do you know me? soooo well.
14. When's the last time you saw me? Parents' weekend.
15. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't? No.
16. Do you think I could kill someone? you do have a large gun in your room...
17. Describe me in one word. brilliant.
18. Do you think our friendship is getting stronger, weaker, or staying the same? stronger
19. Do you feel that you could talk to me about anything and I would listen? yep.
20. Are you going to put this on your online journal and see what I say about you? done.

The rest of Austin (the city)

So Saturday night Jacque and I met the boys back at Brian and Jason's and Brian slowly cooked the largest hamburger patties in the world, hand made by him of course, and we watched the DVD. It was incredible to see what we were like when we were younger. We were all so immature, and I said so many stupid things! On camera! No alcohol necessary. I didn't have any illegal substances until my senior year of high school. But wow...I'm still embarrassed. We watched all the stuff that our friend Tom, a film student at BYU who recently returned from his mission, made when we were in high school. He made videos and premiered them at my birthday parties, and then someone taped the parties and they made movies of those. The videos were basically: look Tom and Brian know how to edit! and they really like Star Wars. But they got better with time. Brian and Jason even did commentary tracks for his Omnipuss series, I think there are 5 in all. I keep losing count. Don't ask about Omnipuss.

I had forgotten what good friends we were back then; it's sad how so many of us have grown apart. We have divided out our group into no more than two trios and spares have landed all over the world. Even our trios will soon break apart some more. Kristen will be leaving for Colorado in December and Austen wants to move to Louisville. It was sad to hear how much he missed those guys. It would be like me hanging leaving Jason and Frank in Dallas while they stayed here, only visiting them every once in a while. The bubble that we all had when we were in high school seemed so infinite and impenetrable. I thought I would be friends with all of those people forever. I would ditch them for camp every summer for two months, but when I came back, they were still there. And now... I have new friends that I like more than I ever liked some of those people. I am so glad to have dear friends that I will never let go of. I have seen other people who claim close friendships, but don't act like friends when they are together and don't talk about them like friends when they are apart. I can only hope that it's just that I don't see the real friendships that people have, because I'm not one of their friends, and not because these people are so intent on being the life of the party.

We had a good party and I fell asleep first, of course, and we got up the next morning and did the whole leaving thing: lunch, packing, driving home. I was almost surreal.

BUT THEN... We stopped at a gas station for glass bottle cokes, pop rocks, and magazines. Did we find any? No. But I insisted we stop again. We found magazines...thank you Exxon! I read Cosmopolitan to Austen and Jacque for the last hour and a half. I got into the list of sexual positions that you are supposed to try with your partner just as we drove into Dallas. There was a position for every room in the house. Jacque asked if there was one for the stairs, like in that Diane Lane movie. Yes, there is. We decided to go to Humperdink's for dinner, 'cause well...all that reading makes you hungry. It's Halloween and everybody is dressed up except for us and we sit in a booth in the bar, so Austen can watch the game. I don't know which game, some game was on, stop asking questions! Then our waitress with a blonde wig took our order. When she came back she goes, Oh, you're in the band?
I look down at my Mustang Band shirt and say, Yes.
She goes, Oh, well my brother is in the band.
And I say, oh really, who is your brother?
And she says, Frank Medrano.
Frank Medrano is your brother! I exclaim.
Yes.
I know Frank! It's nice to meet you, my name is Devon.
Oh, you're Devon? Frank is always talking about you; he's saying Oh, my friend Devon...

I knew it! You think I'm cool Frank! Stop trying to hide it!

So after dinner, I went over to Jason Hale's to watch the Ring, because I'm stupid. It wasn't that bad. After a year and half, I can watch the first part by myself, but once she gets all into it, I'm under the covers...Stupid scary movie. When I was finding scary movie clips for my Psychology Experiment, I couldn't use the Ring, because the short trailers SCARED ME TOO MUCH.

I'm such a sucker for movies.

Life's Little Lessons:

My psychology professor, Dr. Buck, for Psychology of the Family and Psychological Disorders of Children was a very good professor. His classes were interesting and he always imparted words of wisdom that every person needs to hear to be a successful human being. On the last day of class he gave everyone a handout entitled Life's Little Lessons. He said for us to read it later, we didn't have to read it now, but eventually, we needed to read it. Many of these things are common sense, but I just like the way this list has been worded.

Life's Little Lessons:
I've learned-

that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.

that no matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.

that it takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.

that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.

that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better know something.

you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do.

that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.

that it's going to take me a long time to become the person I want to be.

that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.

that you can keep going long after you can't.

that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.

that either you control your attitiude or it controls you.

that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place.

that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

that money is a lousy way of keeping score.

that my best friend and I can do anything and nothing and have the best time.

that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.

that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.

that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

that you should never tell a child their dreams are unlikely or outlandish. Few things are more humiliating, and what a tragedy it would be if they believed you.

that it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

that you shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.

that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

that no matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get hurt and you will hurt in the process.

that credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

that the people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.

that it's hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people's feelings and standing up for what you believe in.

*I might have retyped this whole thing to avoid doing my Conventional Literacy paper.

It's Hard Knock Life...

Man, journaling every day is hard. I just like making big updates to keep myself amused.

So this weekend Jacque, Austen (the guy), and I drove down to Austin (the city) for the release of Brian O'Neill's Special Edition DVD with everything he's done (read: we've ever been in) and lots of bonus features. Jacque tells Austen they will arrive at my place at 3:00pm and leave like, right after that. Well, Jacque and I know we're not leaving until 3:15 and I call her and tell her to push it to 3:30 because I'm always late and I didn't get everything done before I went to work. So when we actually do leave at 4:00pm, Austen is a little miffed. I haven't seen Austen really get mad over something stupid like that, just miffed.

Jacque and I have made it a tradition that I buy coke in glass bottles, she buys pop rocks, and we both get trashy magazines to read outloud during road trips. We stopped once on the way there and were so discouraged by the gas station with NO fun candy or beverages and NO magazines. Well, it's only 3 1/2 hours there, we mustn't get our panties in a twist. We listened to music and were there by 7:30pm. We go to Brian's first so we can drop off Austen for their little boys' night. The plan was for us to drop off Austen, then Jacque would drop me off at Ann's and she would go out with her friend Emily. So we go up, Brian and Jason Axe and Kristen have a really nice pad. Very swank. Kristen comes in and yells, "I got a job! $50,000!" This is very rude and inconsiderate - considering Jacque has graduated and is still looking for a job and considering the fact that we just don't like her. Then Brian offers us a tour, and Kristen apologizes for her messy room, citing that she didn't know anybody was coming down this weekend, or she would have cleaned. Brian and Jason had avoided the topic of the release with her, hoping that she wouldn't notice a party at their place all weekend long, but in fact, one month ago Kristen asked Austen flat out if he was going to Brian's thing. She knew people were going, she knew about it, she knew nobody was talking to her about it, so she wasn't invited and she knew that we ALL knew she knew and yet, our dysfunctional little group still played a little I-will-feign-ignorance-so-we-don't-have-a-massive-blowout-during-our-fun-time game. She's just another tiny kink in the the tricycle chain that is this trip.

So Jacque and I ditch Kristen and the boys and go to drop me off at Ann's. It is at this point that Jacque calls Emily to confirm that Emily does indeed have to baby-sit weird creepy buyer guy from New York who invited himself down for an unethical buyer/seller after hours hook-up. This is infact so unethical, that Julie and Emily will be fired if their company finds out this buyer came to visit them. So Jacque would stick with me. We meet Eric, the other person in Ann's life and I quickly discover that she probably loves him more because I forgot her birthday. If it's not on my calendar and I don't see you all the time, I'll FORGET!! I'M SORRY ANN!!! So we go out to dinner then back to their apartment. We spend an hour deciding that we won't go to sixth street, we'll stay in and play trivial pursuit. I shouldn't have to say who lost dreadfully to the freakishly smart quiet boy and his girl friend who play trivial pursuit all the time. Yeah, it was Jacque and me. But to be fair, the 20th Anniversary edition is HARD!

Eric left and we used the blow-up mattress that my grandmother gave me. A rude awakening at 2:00 in the morning - the mattress is not a full like the box says, it's a twin, so Jacque got the couch. The next day we went to brunch and decided to get my hair cut at the mall to kill time. [And can I just say, I love my hair cut. I know I shouldn't be obsessed with my hair, but I kind of am. In that I can't stand when it looks gross, which I think is most of the time, and I have to brush it all the time because my mother's voice is always in my head saying, "Devon, did you wash your hair? It looks all stringy." Yeah, I hear voices, what are you gonna do about it, punk?] Jacque called Emily and told her to bring weird creepy buyer guy to the mall, that way she wouldn't have to be alone with him. Apparently Emily's other seller friend Julie made out with him Friday night and today Julie was going to hang out with some guy so she dumped W.C.B.G. on Emily for a few hours.

But getting my hair cut on the day before Halloween was a treat. Small children were trick-or-treating at the mall and everybody had costumes. My hair dresser recommended taking weird creepy buyer guy to sixth street and then accidentally losing him. Heehee. I got out of the salon and Jacque introduces us and I meet Emily and W.C.B.G. and he goes, I love your hair cut it looks really good and won't let go of my hand. I forgot to mention that the picture he sent Emily and Julie is not what he looks like and he's thirty-something. These girls are 22-23. It's not right. Guhhh, I'm gettin chills just thinking about it. It was like watching a horror movie. When we were at Pottery Barn buying stuff (and by buying stuff, I mean Jacque bought six martini glasses and a shaker, PARTY!) Emily was at the counter and he comes up behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder and it was like I was watching The Ring all over again...I covered my eyes, squirmed, shook my hands at the screen (in their general direction), then realized where I was and that I could be seen so I had to turn and look somewhere else completely stunned, all the while thinking: "OH GOD! HE'S GOT HIS HAND ON HER SHOULDER AND IT JUST LOOKS SO WRONG. THE LOOK ON HER FACE! EWWW, AND ON HIS FACE! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF, MOVE YOUR HAND WEIRD CREEPY BUYER GUY!!And then Emily took a large step back and he had to move his hand and I could un-tense and form words again. To Williams-Sonoma!

We were at the mall for about 2 hours, including the hour for my hair cut, so in that hour walking around the mall, I realized what it would be like for one of those internet hook-ups. Awkward and wrong. Side bar: we bought Cosmo and Lemon Drop mix and used most of it Saturday night just between Jacque and me. Don't judge. You haven't seen Brian's movies...or Jacque and me acting. Guhhhh...

Well, I'm going to vote. I'll write more later.

Back Off

I know, I know, I'm supposed to journal everyday. How can I expect small children to journal when I can't even do it? Yeesh.

Bud Light Presents...

today we salute you, Mr. Constant Collar Putter Upper. you, bedecked in popped collar, teach us that we no longer have to live with a cold, bare back of the neck. sure, your pink alligator polo may look feminine to some, but not to the 17 other queer frat guys wearing the same thing at a party. where others may see thoughtless fashion conformity, you preach a higher gospel. you preach of a world where its okay for a man to go tanning. you ask "why can't we too use shampoo with lavender essecence?" so... crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, you fashion gladiator, because we all know, when we really need a piece of gum, you might have one...in your man purse.

David and me at counselor dress up. That's why I liked being Unit Coordinator...I can make the counselors dress up and I didn't have to. Hahahaha. 

So...the rest of the weekend

So, I went to sleep Saturday morning around 2:30am and woke up at 7am, so I could leave by 7:30am to get to the middle of nowhere by 8:30 in the freaking MORNING! So, I haul butt down 377 toward Granbury, after stopping at Sonic for my morning Route 44 Vanilla Coke and I pass this white truck with a Mississippi license plate and one of those cross fish things on the bumper. And I flashed back to Lydia's email, explaining who I would be lifeguarding at canoeing with: "oh, you'll like him. he's a missionary student from Mississippi and he's really tall." What part of tall missionary student from Mississippi says I will definitely like this person? So I think, as I speed by this tan yokel, I bet that's him. When I arrived at camp I got to pay myself a dollar and some change, because I was right. He had a Mississippi accent like I had never heard in real life. It's not often I meet a churchie from the sticks. No offense Jason. He was pleasant and funny and he drove his truck all the way down to the canoe docks, YES! No walking.

His idea of getting the canoes down was for the two of us to get them of the holders and then he would push them down the steep drop off onto the beach and towards the water. Loud, bad for the canoes, but it got the job done. He got a kayak for himself and as soon as the first group of people came down to canoe, he got in and paddle out. I could see him in the distance floating around with his fishing pole. His legs didn't fit in the kayak, so he had his legs out on the front, his arms stretched out behind him just chillin. He came back 2 1/2 hours later. And then we went to Subway for lunch.

So, when we finished canoeing at 3:30 after I sweet talked some of the dads to put the canoes up for us, I drove home and realized that I did indeed have a massive sunburn on the left side of my face, only. So I am currently, as in Wednesday afternoon at 1:34pm, still peeling, but only on the left side of my face. I would now like to take this opportunity to thank Austen and Jacque for making fun on my sunburn and laughing at me while I was at Jacque's house, completely exhausted and dirty from a day of canoeing. Thank you.

So begins an extra long one

When Kim called an asked if I wanted to go to Pete's on Thursday night I thought, well, I haven't been on a Thursday night before. I don't have any money and I'm kind of tired, but what the frick. We couldn't have paid anyone to go with us. Why is that? Pete's is a happening place? Just because they have "classes" and "a job" doesn't mean they can't start the weekend out right, on a Thursday. So we ended up at Ben's like we always do. It was me, Kim, Randy Ward, and Pat Gary. I don't know why I have to use their whole names. I even say their whole name when referring to them auditorally and when speaking to them. Oh well. Kim sang Waterfall by TLC and was the hit on by some guy in one of her classes.
He came up to the booth and was all, How you doin'?
And Kim was like, Fine.
And he was like, can I buy you a drink?
And she goes, sure Cosmopolitan.
Then I said I had to go to the bathroom and left her to be protected by Pat Gary and Randy Ward. Okay, next time, I'll just use their first names.
So when I came back he was in my spot and I tried to grab my drink and he was all, Hey wait a minute you're taking my drink and I was like, You're on crack, this is my drink.
Oh wait, I mean, you're drunk. So drunk. So funny.
Kim was like, Devon, I hate you for leaving me.
But then he was like, you pick a song out for us to do and come let me know and she goes, Yeah, sure.
No.
So then later he comes up and goes, I know you're not going to come over, so I'll just say good night.
And Kim goes, yeah. Night.
Nice. We did back up for Pat Gary on Love Shack and called it a night. That's good.

I worked all day Friday and then Jacque came to pick me up. We went back to my place and did absolutely nothing for 3 hours. Nice. Then we started organizing an exciting trip to the Cutting Edge, a haunted house in Ft. Worth. Jacque left to get a head start, Kim came over and then we caravan to Bedford. We left Kim's car at Jacque's parents' house and Austen met us there and I drove us all to the Ft. Worth. Good times all around. Not scary for me, but Kim and Jacque were screaming and Austen even jumped twice!! He's not so tough. So we got out of the foam room, tried to wipe off a bunch of foam and got in my car. After I turned the key in the ignition I heard a chainsaw near by. Jacque and Kim are in the back seat screaming, lock the doors, lock the doors. I didn't. I "forgot" how to. So the guy opened the door and put the chainsaw in the car and Jacque jumped into Kim's lap. Then he closed the door and left. It was funny. Except my car smelled like exhaust. So then we drove back to Jacque's house by way of Razoo's where we split a fishbowl and a crap load of water. I was just thirsty, that's all. Then I couldn't make it back to Dallas and I had to go to camp in the morning, so I stayed at my parents' house. A good end to a Friday night.

Oh man I kick butt

So today I woke up on time and still managed to wander into work 20 minutes late looking like I had just gotten out of the worst spinning class of my life (read: a little shaky, dishevelled, and wearing the ugliest outfit on the planet). I unpacked greek paraphernalia for four hours. Apparently some sorority has chosen the playboy bunny to be their mascot. I'm not really surprised though, are you? Wooden letters of all shapes and sizes, three different shapes and sizes of wooden paddles and greek koozies. I shit you not, we currently have way too much greek stuff. It's really like a slap to the proverbial faces of McCartney's and Flash.

When I got off work I walked home to finish all the posters and crap for my presentation at 5pm. Can we say pain in the ass? I made three posters in 2 hours to fulfill a half-ass presentation. I chickened out of turning on a random Spanish radio station in class to include musical/rhythmic intelligence, but I some how went into cool speaker/teacher mode when it was time for the presentation. I spoke up, I made sense, I had good ideas, I thought on my feet, I casually leaned against the chalkboard (note: don't actually do that, because then you end up all covered in chalk, which didn't really work for my BLACK SUIT!), and lead a super discussion. I was definitely the winner of the presentation if my partner and I were competing. My posters were cooler and I totally took over the class activity. When it was time for the second group to present, they made us play musical chairs reviving some long forgotten memories (read: fears) of musical chairs from my childhood. If you didn't find a chair, you had to say something you learned today. If I had been one of those poor saps, I would have said, "You can't fit 2,000 greek letters into three cubbies. It's definitely NOT possible." Okay, I didn't learn that, I could have told you that yesterday. I didn't learn a damn thing today.

Best news of the day: I received the Daily Show with Jon Stewart presents AMERICA. The best textbook I have ever purchased. Unfortunately, there really is full frontal nudity in the 50+ age group. Yikes!

First Blog Entry

Today, I have felt a little off all day. There wasn't the usual witty reparte with my co-worker and stealth revolutionary - Evan. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with him, but today - it was excruciating. I forgot that my class didn't start today, it starts next Monday. So I went to the law school office to work for a little. When I finished instead of doing all of the tons of homework I have due tomorrow at 9:30am, I have been vegitating in front of the television, only breaking to START A BLOG!
I am feeling ancy, as if my adrenaline has been turned on high for no reason at all. When I feel like this at my parents' house in Bedford, or during the summer while I'm at camp, there are places I can walk and be alone - to clear my mind. A brain-erasing meandering if you will. But here, there's people everywhere, and if I still feel like walking at 2:00am, I might get mugged. It's not a satisfying feeling. I'm going to walk, then go to the library and do some homework until 2:00am, but then I'll drive my car back to the condo. It's only safe that way. I wish for a path in the middle of the woods that I know like the back of my hand - so well that I don't need a flashlight even in the darkest spots on the trail or as I pass the "haunted cabin". I yern for this familiarity and safety. Or the bike trail in Bedford...where if I walk far enough I'll make it Jacque's parents' house. Where I could go 4 miles in either direction and I would only see a handful of cars. Sean has returned from Theta Tau and I need to get off his computer. But my silent protest to removing myself from his room has prompted him to plug in the router so that my computer will have internet as well. A wise choice, considering I have been paying for it for several months now.
I suppose I should comment that my Child Development professor said that as a teacher, I will not be able to require my students to journal everyday without journaling myself. And this girl was like, "You can do it online!" And the professor was all "Then do it online!" And the girl was like "It's called a BLOG!" Therefore I am journaling. Or blogging I suppose.