she was a water sign

something apropos, i don’t know

2008-01-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

It’s a new year and I couldn’t be happier about that. With my wedding as the one notable exception, 2007 was a rough year. No disasters or life-threatening crises, just day after day of getting kicked in the shins. 2008 has to be better.

I really miss blogging. I’d think about posting but then the time would get away from me and the longer I went without writing the more I felt like I’d never be able to catch up on everything that had been going on and so on. But it’s a new year and the important thing is for me to write. Often. Even if some of it is crap, I just need to get it out there. Going without writing takes its toll on me and I’ve been inspired by the joyful, heartfelt writing of others and how much it can move and comfort me.

Having said that, I’m actively looking for a new space to call my own. It’s taken me too long to accept that I’ve been languishing in this spot. Many reasons for that but one example is that when I checked my site meter for the first time in months, I saw that even during weeks of no new posts, the same old unwelcome visitor still comes by. Every single day. I find it incredibly odd that they still care enough to check up on me. Blogstalker much? And I’m tired of the small stupid voice in my head that thinks “I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing when I had a bad day.” So onward ho.

If you love your hosting site/blogging platform, please leave a recommendation!

In the meantime, even as I look for new digs, I’m still here, easing back into writing for the sake of writing. Writing about finding joy in limbo, how my theme song went from "Dancing in the Dark" to "Mushaboom", how big shot MDs are a bit like my former students, and more.

you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both

2007-10-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

It’s a rainy Saturday morning, a rare occurrence here. It’s the kind of day where we have no choice but to go to an Indian buffet for lunch and then go museum hopping. We have a movie gift card from the Husband’s parents (We have yet to pay for a movie here, which is good, because it’s a ridiculous $8-10 for tix) but there is not a single thing out we want to see.

The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster. We hit a pretty bad low two Mondays ago. Our beloved little kitten got suddenly very sick and short of spending hundreds of dollars on invasive tests that would more likely than not reveal he had something untreatable, we had no choice but to put him to sleep. That was incredibly heartbreaking. He was so sweet and loving and adorable and pretty much perfect and it made me so happy to finally have a two cat household. Losing him after only one short month of happiness felt incredibly cruel. It’s still hard to talk about.

The pain of losing him, on top of our frustration and anxiety about our lack of jobs, seemed to be the last straw. What the hell were we doing here? I decided to give notice at my crappy temp job and that’s when things got better. Last Friday was my last day and yesterday I started at a new job. How awesome is that? I had a phone interview Wednesday, a face to face interview Thursday, and then Friday was my first day. Just like that.

Fed up with my job, at the end of September I had sent out my resume to a few places, finally overcoming my irrational aversion to sending out resumes in the absence of advertised openings. Last Thursday I got an email asking if I was interested in a position that they were just now advertising and we set up a phone interview. It is pretty damn lucky that I sent them my resume because had I seen the job ad, I would never have applied since it asked for 4 years of previous experience.

And even better, not five minutes after I got done with the phone interview, the Husband’s phone rang and now he has an interview for Monday. I love serendipity.

As if finding out on Thursday that I got the job (they even asked me if I wanted to start as soon as the interview was over!) wasn’t good enough, I then finally went out and bought myself a guitar. It was a very good day.

we pause for station identification

2007-09-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

I continue to be not dead, just with scarce time and inclination to write. Weekdays are pretty much entirely sucked up by work, approximately 10 hours a day down the drain. Soon after I’ve eaten dinner on a work day, I’m half asleep.

I hate the job and the commute and the ceaseless sameness of every day, I’m job hunting with renewed vigor and also considering the possibility that SD may not work out for us and we may have to pick up and go somewhere else. Not a fun thought for lots of reasons but we knew that was a risk before we moved out here.

Considering taking a blog hiatus, since I post so infrequently and unsatisfactorily as it is. I’ve been dissatisfied with the output here for quite a while and though I know one of the big reasons for it (it could be a whole post in and of itself), time is also an issue. My next big project is starting a psychology blog and looking for other outlets for my psych writing so I can start building a portfolio. Doing the research for my writing and getting such a blog up and running is going to take up a lot of time and between that and work and church activities and going to the gym and our weekend outings and daytrips and the guitar lessons I hope to take in the very near future, something’s gotta give. I’ll update here with whatever I decide to do with the blog (resume here or have a personal blog attached to the psych blog or something else) and when/if I come back, so that ya’ll (all five or so of ya’ll!) will know what’s going on. If you’re interested in whatever new blogs I start up or what’s going on with me, feel free to email me . Gmail knows me as awatersign.

I can’t see myself quitting personal blogging cold turkey but a break might be good for me and my writing. And who knows, maybe in a nice bit of reverse psychology, by announcing that I’m not going to write for a while, I might be inspired to write more often.

i need a job and i wanna be a paperback writer

2007-09-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

Not dead. Have been alternately bored, blocked, or busy. Unemployment sucked, but working a mindlessly boring job is no great shakes either. I found a spot as a data entry monkey and started today. Slowest day ever. Tomorrow I go back dressed for comfort and with a fully loaded iPod (I'm light-years behind on the whole podcast thing but I'm trying to fix that, so if you have any faves, let me know. Right now I mostly have tons of NPR.) and things should be better. My professional life is obligated to get better, right? Because it can’t get much worse.

Good things have included going to the beach on an absolutely perfect evening , having a picnic and watching the sun set. Reminds me why I’m here. Went to a hip little tapas place Friday night. Sittingon a sunny patio and sipping Bellinis and eating duck confit and poached oysters with truffle butter is something a girl could get used to. Followed by a glass of sangria on the quiet bamboo decorated patio of a tucked away little bar and then on to the best chocolate cake in the history of chocolate cakes at Extraordinary Desserts. Orgasmically good.

We’ve joined a Unitarian church, which is interesting, due to the whole lack of creed thing and a mix of people that includes Christians, pagans (cue Dar Williams song here), and atheists. After service on Sundays we go to the farmer’s market in Hillcrest (a lot of my favorite activities tend to take me to Hillcrest) and snatch up fresh veggies and fruit for the following week’s meals and then enjoy a really tasty lunch, like a feta, corn, and jalapeno tamale, a squash blossom quesadilla, and a pineapple agua fresco. Yum! And laying out on a blanket in Balboa Park reading, listening to Andrew Bird, and eating plums is a perfect way to while away an afternoon.

So a crappy job seems like a small trade-off for all the fun I am and will be having off the clock, but I’m not going to be fully happy until I find something I can do uniquely well and feel fulfilled by. And I refuse to believe that that’s asking too much.

pilots call me starbuck, you may refer to me as god

2007-08-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

The newest addition to our family. He doesn't have a name set yet (but Starbuck's a contender) so for now he's the Nugget.

lonely, baby i'm not, i've got my imaginary friends

2007-08-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Being unemployed means I have lots of time to spend uploading old pix to Flickr (which in turn makes me miss our friends something fierce) and doing silly things on Facebook. I joined Facebook only recently and was never on it until we moved and now I needle people into joining so we can chat and stay in touch. I don’t really know why but My Space skeeves me out and Facebook doesn’t. Maybe because it started out as only being available to the academic community and because I’ve seen so many silly pages on My Space (grown women with pictures of sparkly pink ponies and shit). Not that there aren’t skeevy groups on Facebook (apparently enough guys agree that handjobs suck to form a group).

And I’ve joined San Diego groups and even started a group for other newbies but so far I’ve only met 18 and 20-year-old girls. I’m too old to make friends with 18-year-olds, dude. I can’t even comprehend their language. One girl wrote “I’m the real FFG” in her description and I have no idea what that means. Even Google couldn’t enlighten me. Another girl wrote for her favorite music – “nething I can move too”. Ug. And when I look at the pages of random people in San Diego, I always find something that makes go “Next!” I tell myself I’m not being a snob, just realistic. If someone’s politically very conservative, is into Nascar, and loves country, we’re probably not going to click.

(I am a snob about spelling mistakes though. And I don’t mean typos, I make typos all the time. But if someone talks about something that “peeks” their interest, I roll my eyes and move on. Today I found a food blog where someone talked about their “pallet”. For the love of God, if you’re going to write about food, use the correct word!)

Nor do I have any illusions about how quickly someone could rule me out based on my info. If I was a 20-year-old girl who liked to party and listen to Incubus, why in God’s name would I want to make friends with someone who’s almost 30, watches sci-fi, and when it comes to music is clearly an indie tool? As if!

It’s not very rational for me to be so pessimistic about making friends online, considering, you know, how I met the Husband. But I still think of that as one of those amazing, odds defying lucky things. And if I saw someone online who was in my age range and loved Alton Brown and John Cusack movies and geeky shows and could quote the Big Lebowski, well then let’s talk.

But when I think about all the qualities I value in the friends I left behind, their humor, their warmth, their quirkiness and massive brains and the rare and perfect combination of someone who’s a good companion and fun to pal around with but also a good person who’s true of heart and would do anything for you, it gets hard to imagine finding all that on a computer screen (Again, not very rational. If I can meet the love of my life online, why not just a friend?). But I hope someone proves me wrong.

sail away with me

2007-08-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

We’ve been married two months today. I realized I never got around to writing about our blissful honeymoon, which I should do soon.

One of the highlights was the Baths on Virgin Gorda. Among these amazing boulder formations scattered around, there’s this very cool trail that you can take that the signs warn you is “challenging”, which made me nervous. I felt vulnerable climbing rocks in a bikini and flip flops and I’m just naturally a wuss about a lot of things.

But I let the Husband lead the way and put my hand in his. And climb we did, in between, over and under the boulders, up wooden ladders and scaling walls with some old rope to guide us. We saw the loveliest little pools and grottoes and at the very end of the trail was our prize – Devil’s Bay Beach. A less fitting name I cannot think of. The water was so calm and clear it was unreal. It was heavenly.

Although my feminist streak occasionally makes a showing, in some things I am all too willing to let the Husband take the lead. When I think of our trek through the rocks, it is impossible for me not to feel the symbolism of following my husband up and over obstacles, through the dark, and up into the light. I gave him my hand and my complete trust and just having him to guide me helped me be brave.

I can only imagine that difficulties we’ll encounter in the future will be a lot more challenging than a little beachside obstacle course but knowing that I have the Husband as my partner and my guide in both the rocky parts and the blissful parts means that I have no fear.

Do as I say, not as I do?

2007-08-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

I submitted my resume for a free "resume critique" online and here's one of their generic suggestions:

"After you re-write your resume, don’t forget to check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation before using it to apply for a position. More often than naught, people overlook their own spelling and grammatical errors."

You have got to be kidding me. (Maybe it's a cheesy joke but I didn't see a smiley or anything else to indicate a "wink, wink".)

the sound of settling

2007-08-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe we’ve already been here for a week. The days have flown by in a blur of unpacking, shopping, and more shopping. The constant purchasing of things, in the face of our current unemployment, is amusing in a painful way. But it’s the trade-off of all the minimizing of stuff we did before we moved.

The weather’s been gorgeous every single day and we’re still happy with our choice of neighborhood. We’ve gotten lost a couple of times, which was pretty stressful (we spent an hour and a half driving when we were trying to go to a Ren Fest in Balboa Park). And cooking in our tiny new kitchen will take some getting used to. But we’ve got bank accounts, new phone numbers, the Husband’s been getting calls from job recruiters, and we are slowly learning our way around.

Went to Crate and Barrel yesterday to get some of the plates we registered for (pretty pretty!). It was in Fashion Valley, which is a shopper’s paradise. If only I weren't broke.

I got super excited when looking at concert listings in the Reader. New Pornographers! Wilco! Tegan & Sara! White Stripes! How to choose among so many possibilities? Well, ticket prices, for one, which are insane! New Pornographer tix were well over 100 bucks, but then I found out I could get tickets for cheap at Ducat King. Score!

So life is good, although it will be exponentially better once I’m employed. Openings in publishing are scarce right now so I’m pretty sure I’ll suck it up and find a temp job. Let me tell you how thrilled I’ll be to put my Master’s to such good use doing data entry. Ugh.

some new town

2007-08-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

We’re here (we’re queer, we don’t want any more bears!). All in one piece, the cat behaved amazingly well, and our furniture gets here tomorrow. Not too shabby.

It was a long damn drive. Saw some beautiful parts of the country, ate at a Texas steakhouse in Nebraska, a Sonic in Colorado, at the Bellagio in Vegas (best buffet ever), and managed to survive the traffic getting in.

The apartment wasn’t exactly spotlessly clean when we got here, which was disheartening, but they sent someone over to clean today and once our furniture’s in place, it’ll feel a lot more like home. Our first dinner here was pizza eaten sitting on the floor and it was just a classic newlywed moment. Someday we’ll have a nicer and more permanent home, we just gotta work our way up. Things only gets bigger and better from here.

Saying goodbye to friends was hard. But my friend A’s wedding was simply the most perfect send-off we could have had. A perfect series finale where all the main characters come together for a night of celebration before going their separate ways. The day we left we had breakfast at our favorite little diner with our two best friends, who sent us off with hugs, a bottle of champagne, and two bags of Miss A’s unbeatable chocolate chip cookies, made with love and hugely enjoyed on the road.

We drove around today and I got excited about all the stores we now have access to (Trader Joe’s! Costco! Macy’s!) and had lunch at Schlotzsky’s, which made me very happy. I now have a San Diego county library card, because that is what big fat nerds/bookworms do to feel more at home in a new place.

Had dinner at a pretty good Thai place and then popped into a Big Lots across the street. Something about palm trees against a sunset sky makes even a Big Lots parking lot kind of a nice place to be.

I am pretty damn happy to be here.

time to move on, time to get going

2007-07-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

what lies ahead I have no way of knowing

It's our last day here and I wish we could just take it easy but there are still lots of little things to take care of and then tonight we can let our hair down and relax with all our friends, as one of my dear friends is getting married.

Some quick, scattered last thoughts:

It's funny because when "Time to Move On" was chosen as my class song senior year of high school, I didn't much care for it (my vote was for "End of the World as We Know It"). But now it's the theme song playing in my head and it'll be on my playlist as we're driving away. There'll also be some Calexico when we hit the dustier parts of our trip and perhaps the entire Old 97s catalog. Lots of songs about California (I always knew there were a lot, but didn't realize how many until I saw this on Wikipedia.) Also, "Some New Town" by Slobberbone, one of my favorite songs, and this Dar Williams song that should tell you which fair state it is I'm leaving.

Scouting trip was good and we found a place to live, albeit not where we thought it would be. We did a few touristy things while we were there (Gaslamp District, Seaport Village) but mostly frantically hunted apartments.

Very cool: Sonic locator that lets me find Sonics on the way to Cali.
Very uncool: For more than five years I was without a local Sonic and then a matter of months ago they build one 20 minutes away, which is a bittersweet pleasure, because really, they couldn't have had one sooner? And now, literally, just as we're leaving, they're building a motherf*cking Sonic right here. Bastards.

We had a nice reception in the Husband's hometown and enjoyed spending some time with his parents, who I know are sad to see us go but also excited for us and they have been endlessly supportive and helpful. I will miss having them nearby.

Then some non-stop packing and on Thursday, due a to a snag in our plan of having a trailer dropped off in front of our place (stupid local police and their stupid rules), we had to load all our stuff into a Uhaul and drive 30 miles out and then load up the moving trailer that will be driven to California. A tiring day, but made a lot easier with the help of parents and friends. I have friends who have helped me move just about every single year for 6 years and for that
they deserve medals.

I'm tired, excited, and sad in different measures. We're ready to move on and I know it's very much time, but I have always had such a hard time cutting ties and leaving people behind. And it's not like leaving my hometown and knowing I'd see people every Christmas when I come back. Everyone else here will scatter as they move on and there's no reason for any of us to come back here.

In the midst of packing I found some old emails I'd printed out, emails I'd written my first few weeks here to friends telling them about how I was adjusting to the new city. I can't believe how quickly six years have flown by.

Last week after lunch with the officemates, we bumped into a grad student I hadn't seen in a long time. She was the very first person I met here since she picked me up at the airport when I came to visit, so it seemed to come full circle to see her again before leaving.

Although I joke that it's made me soft living here, there's a lot to be said for the safe, sheltered environment of a small Midwestern city. For all my misgivings about moving here and all the jokes I've had to hear, there are far worse places to live. Little traffic, little crime, friendly people, and a nice sense of community. I will miss those things, just as I will miss the really wonderful people who helped me survive grad school and made life here worth living.

you're such a wonder that i think i'll stay in bed

2007-07-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

Back from San Diego. Have a place to live. Need to keep packing. Very, very tired.

basement blogging

2007-07-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

I was feeling sad this morning about leaving.

But you know what I won't miss?

Tornado warnings.

enough for you to break down and call this town yours

2007-07-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

We leave in two weeks. Christ on a cracker. Life is chaos right now. Moving into our so-called Halfway House was hard, not only because it was exhausting and because it was infuriating to know how soon we’d be moving again, but also because of how much I loved our old apartment. Because of travel delays, we didn’t even get to spend our first night back in the States in our familiar home. It was a little heartbreaking to have to sleep in a strange place after so many nights of being away, made worse by knowing that we wouldn’t be in the Halfway House long enough to ever feel at home here, not to mention that the HH is a bit of a downgrade from our last home.

And what sucks is that whatever apartment we move into in California is going to be just another pit stop on the way to Putting Down Roots. And oh, how I want to put down roots. I’ve been house-crazy for a long time and it just gets worse every day. I’m thrilled not to be boy-crazy anymore, as I’m now a considerably less annoying version of myself, but now it’s houses. And then it’ll be a puppy. And then babies. Boy, house, puppy, baby. This is what I consider a natural progression.

The house lust is not helped by the fact that we currently live in a really awesome neighborhood, just around the corner from gorgeous old houses with wraparound porches and beautiful ancient trees curved overhead. There are so many adorable places to covet. And there’s this sweet, tiny, old-fashioned bakery down the street, tucked among the houses. I love walking down there and taking away tarts and cookies in tiny pink boxes.

So there are some nice things about this current place. But it’s so temporary. I just want to feel at home somewhere.

We’re flying out to San Diego on Wednesday to check things out and as soon as we get back we’re driving to the Husband’s hometown for the reception his parents are hosting (2 wedding ceremonies and 3 receptions. We really know how to celebrate this marriage.) Two days after we get back from that, we'll have a trailer dropped off to fill. The day after we have it picked up, we have two days of a friend’s wedding festivities and the day after that, we leave.

Being in limbo sucks. I’m such a jumble of emotions – excited to be going somewhere new, anxious about not having a job and the million things we have to get done, and sad about leaving behind some really fantastic friends.

Yesterday we had our civil ceremony and made things legal, not that we really care about some silly paperwork. June 18 is when we considered ourselves married. We had our ceremony in the park and then grilled and ate and drank and played bocce with friends on a perfect summer evening and it was really lovely.

Saying goodbye to a life built over the past six years is going to be tough.

got no trouble today

2007-07-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Where to start? St. Thomas was incredibly gorgeous. The steep hills (and narrow roads) made for some nerve-wracking driving but also amazing cliff side views. We decided to stay at this B&B instead of a big resort and that was completely the right decision. It was such a charming and peaceful place, with yummy breakfasts and we had the sweetest little room and we got so much help from our hostess. Four of our friends were staying next door, which was great. We flew in a few days before the wedding and we took care of wedding related business but also hung out with guests and ended the night before the wedding with our feet in the pool next door, drinking rum and smoking cigars, with stars twinkling o’erhead.

The Husband had a little too much to drink and felt a little urpy the next morning. And we discovered that he had forgotten to bring the shirt for his suit. But he eventually stopped feeling sick and we walked downtown to a Tommy Hilfiger outlet (thank you, rampant commercialism) and got him a replacement shirt. And after that, everything truly went without a single hitch. They always say something or things will go wrong on your wedding day and you just have to roll with it, but after a tiny hiccup, things were perfect.

It was tremendously hot on the beach but I was happy to have sunshine and blue skies and a minimal amount of people around. And some people have said their ceremonies went by in a blur and they hardly remember anything about it but it was so easy to be in the moment and my memories – of the sun on my face, the sand and petals beneath my feet, and the sound of the Husband’s voice – are very vivid. Our wonderful officiant and dear friend Miss A did such a great job with the ceremony. She worked with us painstakingly to perfect and personalize the ceremony. It was romantic and emotional and periodically broken up with laughter, which is how it should be.

The photographer, videographer, officiant, and hair/makeup stylist were all friends, meaning we had an absolute minimum of strangers involved in our day, which was wonderful.

The reception villa was beautiful beyond our dreams. We had our cocktail hour by the pool, which had a breathtaking view of the harbor and the villa is surrounded by lush gardens, complete with singing frogs and hermit crabs creeping across the sidewalk. The food was delicious, the guests enjoyed themselves, and it was an evening of perfect happiness.

Pictures are up here. The pictures turned out wonderfully, as we knew they would when we asked our friend Sam to be our photog - warm and natural and perfectly capturing the spirit of the day.

held up like a loofah by the foreman of the night

2007-07-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

An oldie but a goodie. I was inspired to watch this again because the Husband and I had the classic "Those are not the lyrics" conversation just the other day.

let joy be unconfined

2007-07-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Many pictures and stories to come, and I am chugging away at putting pix up on Flickr. Life has simply been insanely busy since we got back. After a hellish day of travel, we had to move across town the instant we got back, which took two full days. And our current lease is up on the 29th so we've finally decided where in California we're going - San Diego. We're going to fly out there in a couple of weeks to check things out and find a place to live. It's all happening very quickly.

But first, another picture. This is us walking back up the aisle for a second time, since the first time not everyone was sufficiently prepared to toss petals. Being carried off by waves of laughter is certainly not a bad way to start a marriage.

oh heavenly day

2007-06-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

Reader, I married him.

And it was perfect.

here is the golden close of love

2007-06-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

I was woken up by a stomachache this morning before the alarm went off and at first I spent a few minutes stressing out about everything we have to get done today before driving off (we have to finish our playlists and make CDs and our ceremony isn’t done being written!) and freaking out because it’s really hard to believe we’re leaving today. But as I drifted back off to sleep, I had this slideshow running through my mind of all these sweet moments of our relationship from the beginning until now. Those early emails we sent each other and how he would knock me off my feet with his words. How I used to come home from our early dates and be so excited to call my girlfriends and talk about it that I’d grab my phone and throw myself on my bed with one shoe on and one shoe off and lay there grinning like an idiot.

The first few moments of half fear, half wonder when I realized just how seriously in danger I was, that this was something big. The first time Husband to Be told me he loved me, out in a field under a starry summer sky. The first time HtB heard me say I loved him – he was hunched over a toilet in a friend’s bathroom, sick from drinking too much and several drunken friends were outside the door, advising me to help him throw up by sticking my finger down his throat.

The drunken friend who kept loudly proclaiming at a party how much I’d “blossomed” since meeting HtB and the random woman who came up to us at a concert last summer and asked us if we were married and told us what a cute couple we were.

Raiding a friend’s fridge while they were out of town and HtB asking me if I was his girlfriend as we polished off the rest of a strawberry pie. All the weekends we spent doing a whole lot of nothing, making lounging around in the grass an art form. Our whole amazing week in Maui. HtB continuing to ask me to marry him every time we’ve been in a different state or country.

We were getting ready for bed one night and he said “I wish I could marry you and then get hit over the head and forget who you were and meet you and fall in love with you and marry you all over again.” Totally goofy and utterly sweet, and so quintessentially him.

Just the other morning, HtB snuggled up to me and reminded me that “Soon, you’ll be waking up as my wife.”

There’s been so much more sweetness in the past 2 years and 3 months than one post could ever contain and there’s a thousand times more than that to come. There were so many heartaches over the course of planning this wedding but none of those matter anymore. In the lottery of love, I won so big.

This is the end of one long journey and the beginning of another and I can’t wait to see what happens.

This next week and a half is going to be simply amazing.

See you on the other side, Ray.

let's go crazy, let's get nuts

2007-06-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

Still here, but just barely. Scatterbrained and tired. We leave on Thursday. Thursday! We're running around, calling the caterer, taking stuff over to the new place, buying more damn cardstock (if I never have to buy cardstock again, I'll be a happy woman), trying to arrange wedding transportation, cutting the Jesus saturated cards off the Jesus cookies, designing menus, tying gifts tags (Husband to Be does all the ribbon tying in this household. Really. He's just so much better at it.), and a million other silly, silly things. I cannot believe how frenetically busy we're going to be right up until the last second.

We simply cannot wait to leave all this behind. We are so ready to be married. But it doesn't feel real yet. Afer all these months of anticipation and planning and stress, with so much focus on the process and the journey that the real weight of the event itself hasn't touched down yet.

The other night I was wondering when the next quiet moment will be. As soon as we get back, we move temporarily and continue looking for jobs and preparing for the Big Move and July will be filled with parties and wedding receptions and weddings and saying goodbye and then we have one long drive to parts unknown and a new city and new home and new jobs. When will I have a moment to catch my breath? Part of me longs for that quiet moment but I'm doing my best to enjoy being a little out of breath for now.

We've had a few quiet moments to enjoy normal summer pleasures of arts festivals and the free Friday night concerts downtown, hanging out at the pool and getting tacos. Summers here are so idyllic, the town is at its best and for all that I rail about getting out of the Midwest, there are many great things about living here that will be sorely missed.

And there are some wedding planning moments I'll want to remember. Working together with Husband to Be to help make our wedding dreams reality has a good dose of sweetness to it amidst the insanity. The other night we worked on our ceremony and talked about what marriage means to us. And then went and got pie, because I was craving it. And Husband to Be is signing on for a lifetime of catering to my food cravings. For the past week or so, every time one of us has done something quirky or annoying, we've reminded each other that we have to put up with it "For the REST of your life!"

There are so many things about HtB that I look forward to putting up with for the rest of my life. Before my bachelorette party (which was a lot of fun, what I remember of it. Lots of martinis and champagne and dancing.) I went and got my hair done at a salon down the street. I sat down in the chair and watched the storm clouds gather outside and wished I had brought an umbrella with me, fearing the imminent ruin of my hair. Five minutes later, unbidden, HtB comes through the door with an umbrella in hand. This is why I'm marrying this man.

where is my mind

2007-06-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

I never, ever, ever have to do this again. This is what I keep telling myself. If we have a kid and they want to get married, I will be hard pressed not to tell them to just elope. Because Christ on a cracker, wedding planning is the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever experienced.

I’ve had some moments of being uber-stressed about dumb crap like chairs (and some moments of legitimate annoyance with our erstwhile wedding planner) and other moments of being so excited about getting married and of all this crap being done with that I don’t give a crap about what to do with the centerpieces.

And then our annoying wedding planner writes a dumb email and I’m forced to reassure her about some nonsense and our caterer fails to get back to us at all and I get stressed out again.

But in a moment of quiet the other morning, I thought, I’m young and kid-free, at the very start of a career (of some kind), I’ll be moving somewhere completely new, I get to marry an amazing man who is unbelievably perfect for me, and I’m in the best shape of my life. There are going to be some stresses that go along with these things, but that’s just part and parcel of being at a pretty cool point in my life.

So self, suck it up just a little bit longer. And enjoy the hell out of the honeymoon.

pressure's gonna drop on you

2007-05-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

We're leaving in two weeks. No time to blog or sit or not be doing a dozen things at once. We're hunting down songs for the playlists (I'm taking recommendations for songs that get you on the dance floor every time. And how come no one has the Muppets song "Sombody's Getting Married"?), packing up stuff to move to the Halfway House, running an endless array of errands, and continuing to look for jobs. We're really lucky that we get to move stuff over gradually to our next place, leaving hopefully just furniture to move when we get back from the honeymoon, but it makes me a little sad to start packing already. I am going to miss our apartment so much.

I know that any place that was the first to be shared with Husband to Be would be special, but it's also just really nice digs. I love our big kitchen, the view of the sunset from our balcony, where birds flock to our feeder, providing endless entertainment for the cat, the generous amount of sunlight that pours into the living room, and the fact that both gelato and two of our closest friends are each a short walk away. Boo to leaving all that behind. I know it'll be nice in the new place to have a yard and a basement and hardwood floors and being a lot closer to the best taco place in town, but it's hard to imagine getting very attached to someplace we'll be occupying for only a month. It's just a stepping stone.

Everything is going to change so quickly, with the wedding being the first domino in a long line to fall. I guess I should just embrace being swept away into the unknown and enjoy the ride.

that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise*

2007-05-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

Husband to Be is out of town again, because he won a Geek Dream Vacation - going here (I'm slightly jealous that he may get to meet Seth Green and Kristen Bell) and also getting his head digitally scanned and then getting his very own action figure. I have a hunch he's going to have just a little bit of fun. I'm 99.99% happy for him with just a teeny bit of "sucks that I have to miss him again this close to the wedding when it seems like just yesterday he was gone for-bloody-ever and oh how inconvenient that he's gone this close to the wedding because my god we have so much to do and cripes we're leaving in exactly three weeks. "

Ahem. Anyway. So in one of the rare delightfully absurd moments of the whole wedding planning ordeal the other day, we experienced what can only be described as The Jesus Cookie Caper. We ordered these cookies to go in gift bags for our wedding guests and got them individually packaged and paid extra to have our names put on the card that bears the "Legend of the Sand Dollar", which isn't anywhere on the website but I presumed it was something heartwarming along the lines of a little boy who finds a sand dollar and it cures his mother's cancer or something like that. We get the cookies and find the legend to be this ridiculously rhyming bit about Jesus! All down the front of the cards glued to the package. Because we refuse to proselytize to our guests via baked goods, we're cutting off all of the card except for the very top which says "Thanks for sharing our wedding day."

And in case you're wondering what Jesus tastes like - good, albeit diabetes-inducingly sweet.

A friend of mine entertained himself today with coming up with other religiously named treats - Baptist burritos, Methodist mojitos and Messiah Mixers among them. I smell a theme dinner party in the making.

*If you're able to name the Billy Wilder movie that's from, you rock.

don't stop 'til you get enough

2007-05-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

The chances of me having anything interesting and non-wedding related to say in the coming weeks are very, very small. We are just wedding preparation machines. I’m a bit of a housewife these days, since I no longer have school commitments. I’m not a big fan of all this unstructured time, it’s very easy to goof off and watch What Not to Wear and eat brownies instead of doing work.

Bought a very simple, inexpensive white gold band for me to wear when traveling post-wedding, as my wedding set will be a bit too blingy to be sensible to wear in far-off destinations. Finally ended up dropping off our wedding bands with our old jeweler who can hand engrave them for a very small fee. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find someone willing to engave the pi symbol, much less for a decent price.

After a lot of planning and headscratching about the logistics of hanging paper lanterns at our reception, we finally ordered some. Have started acquirings little things here and there to go into guest gift bags. Bought a Polaroid camera and a scrapbook to use as a photo guestbook.

Wedding planner continues to be disappointing. We still have no musician for the ceremony.

Have started writing/planning our ceremony in earnest, need to meet with the Honorable Miss A to start getting things set.

In one of the more absurd episodes of the past year, we drove to a total of FOUR Walmarts, two here and two in the next city over, to get green napkins for the reception. Colored linens are apparently difficult to come by on St. Thomas and I really wanted some more color on the table, so we decided to bring our own and actually found the perfect ones at the Walmart down the street, but they didn’t have enough, hence the driving all over tarnation to get the rest. Weddings make you do the wacky, yo. Our quest came to an end Saturday night and Husband to Be threw my hand in the air and started singing “We are the Champions” right there in the Walmart aisle. Loudly.

Got a new computer, which is very exciting. An upgrade from the cheap, crappy, lumbering Compaq desktop that I bought my first year here was long overdue. The warning graphic on the bag cracked me up.

In perhaps the only case of racial profiling in my life I find acceptable, when we were at the farmer’s market on Saturday, as we walked by a guy selling meat, a genial cowboy sort, he sort of points at me and tells us that he’s got a bunch of Korean cut ribs. Serendipitous, because they weren’t listed on his sign and Korean cut ribs are rather hard to come by in a small city. We bought a few pounds, bought some galbi marinade and grilled them Sunday night. So incredibly yummy.

Saturday and Sunday both started out with some breakdowns on our part but after some venting and wigging out, we went on to have an incredibly productive weekend, while also treating ourselves to little things like a nice dinner and a cup full of happiness from Sonic. My Sonic love knows no bounds.

Man, I can't wait to have my sanity back after the wedding, as well as the valuable cerebral real estate currently being squatted on by all things nuptial-related. I know it'll all be worth it but I wouldn't wish wedding planning on my worst enemy.

it’s enough for me, baby

2007-05-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was an angry day. It should have been a good day, because it was the absolute end of my teaching duties, I am done with it all. But an email from my bitchy former advisor and an email from our irritating wedding planner resulted in just a bit of rage. Sometimes I feel bloated with all the anger I’ve swallowed at my advisor and at the same time deflated with disappointment every time something wedding related falls through.

Things that helped – getting our asses kicked in an abs class at the gym. Oh my God. Most strenuous 30 minutes of my life. Husband to Be and I just giggled with exhaustion afterwards, his response being “What did you get me into?? I would beat you…if I could move.” I felt like a limp rag afterwards but in a really good way. We went out for our customary Tuesday dollar slices and my sweet, icy cold cider and being able to laugh with friends at the lunacy of my advisor went a long way towards dialing down the anger. I’m getting to the point where I just feel sorry for her and won’t take anything she says personally. If the negative emails continue, I’ll delete them sight unseen.

I made the mistake of telling HtB after the abs class yesterday that my session today with my personal trainer couldn’t be that bad after yesterday’s pain-fest. That was a stupid thing to say. My trainer decided it was time to ramp things up. I’m exhausted and sore all over. But he said my “body looked good” and I looked “skinny” and “ripped” (okay, ripped is an overstatement, but I’ll take it). Woot!!

I think I could get used to being a fitness buff, all the exertion of yesterday and today has helped drain a lot of anger and stress away. I appreciate that, just as I appreciate my stellar circle of friends. I’ve read blogs of other grad students who talk about not having any friends within their departments and I just can’t imagine how hard that would be. I got very lucky to find a core group of truly excellent peeps. There are people in my life who have let me down at a crucial time, but I recognize and am grateful for the others who have been true and steady all along.

Being engaged has been an endurance test and it has stretched us to our limits. I am damn ready for this liminal state to be done. And yet, as stress and grief and anger have raged around us, our relationship has been in a protective bubble and the maelstrom around us has never caused us to start sniping at each other or taken away the simple joy of being with each other and knowing we’re going to be married and knowing how right it feels to be together. As we’re taking walks together, going out for sushi, playing with the cat, I am always suffused with quiet happiness and everything else just falls away.

I could really do without all the crap that’s been thrown our way the past year but just as we’ve been pushing ourselves at the gym, I think all this stress has helped our relationship tone up and build up core strength and well, that’s worth something.

And every time I listen to Patty Griffin’s “Heavenly Day”, I feel so calm and am able to imagine so clearly what it’s going to feel like to stand on that beach. The song is my future joy, perfectly encapsulated. I love listening to the song but I can’t wait until I get to live it.

all things go, all things go

2007-05-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

In exactly one month, we leave for the wedding. Eep! We’re driving to Chicago, spending the night, and then flying out the next morning. I’m happy that it’s so soon but also freaking out because of how much we need to do. The hecticity (I know that’s not a word but it should be) of our lives is not letting up any time soon. We’ve been gathering ideas for the ceremony, looking for things to go into out-of-town gift bags, we need to get our rings engraved, we need to arrange transportation and set our schedule for the big day, we need to make our playlists, buy presents for the parents, and a million other things. After some running around from place to place, I finally dropped off my dress for alterations and am now very nervous that I’m picking it up two days before we leave. I’ve got a sexy white dress for our day after pictures and actually found a bikini I don’t look awful in (how’s that for resounding body confidence?). Come June we need to start packing so we can take some boxes over to our home for a month, already dubbed the Halfway House. And oh yeah, we still don’t know where we’re moving. Jane, get me off this crazy thing.

puzzle pieces from the clay

2007-05-07T22:50:00.000-07:00

I proctored my last exam (ever!) today and then got drinks with the officemates. Damn, but I am going to miss the ability to have happy hour any time of the day. There have been countless summer afternoons where we whiled away the time drinkin’ and shootin’ the shit. It is one big, big perk of being in school. It’s hard to believe it’s been six years and now we spend a lot of time talking about the big stuff – job interviews, house hunting, weddings, the slightly scary prospect of kids. The times they are a-changin.

I really miss Husband to Be, he really needs to be home already. Even though he’s tired and working long hours, I envy him because he’s so busy that the time is flying by for him and dragging for me. Only 42 days until the wedding, folks! I’m equal parts incredibly excited and incredibly impatient.

But hey, it’s good to have time to miss someone, right? To really appreciate how much better life is when they’re with you, to know that homesickness has nothing to do with geography. I’m sure I’ve said it before but I never quite get over it – to have a relationship that is so easy and so right makes it really hard to remember a time when love meant work and pain and struggle and self-doubt. It’s hard to remember what it was like to be with guys who loved me when things were easy or who grew to be contemptuous of the very qualities they fell in love with or who felt the need to try and shape me into a more manageable version of myself. I can tell you that knowing now what I do about how love can be, I would never again fucking settle for someone who feels the need to be my handler.

In the relationship literature, there are somewhat competing theories about people's needs to be seen as they see themselves and the need to be seen in a more positive light. Do I want someone who really gets me or do I want someone who thinks I'm a superhero? They’re not mutually exclusive of course but how amazing is it when you find someone who sees you with crystal clear accuracy, all your flaws, all the chinks in the armor, and yet can still see you as the best possible version of yourself? It defies logic and yet that's the way I feel with HtB.

Being with someone who’s absolutely wrong for you makes it horribly easy to think the worst of yourself – that clearly you must be difficult and unlovable and have so many issues that no one could ever put up with you. But maybe the transitive property of love says that if someone amazing, sane, and well-adjusted loves me, then I must be, as I’ve always deep down known, all of those things too.

are you saying there's a party in your pants?

2007-05-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a pair of red vinyl pants bought by a girl in college. They were a little on the outrageous side for her but she caved to friends’ persuasion and bought them. And they were hella fun and made this rollerskate skinny girl look like she actually had a booty. And she wore them clubbing, way back in the day when she actually did these sorts of things. And then she graduated and went to grad school and wore the pants just once her first year and enjoyed having her butt admired by Woody Allen-esque friend. And then stress, lack of exercise, an overly youthful and carefree diet, and a metabolism that came to a screeching halt all combined to make her unable to fit in her party pants. And she sadly put them away, resigning herself to never wearing them again but unable to throw them away.

Breaking from annoying third person, cut to my last year of grad school. My future in-laws buy me a gym membership and I splurge on a few personal training sessions and start going to the gym almost every day. It’s addictive, in a good way. Beforehand, if someone were to tell me they go to the gym almost every day, I’d think they need to get a life. But it’s such a great way to relieve stress and it just feels good, even when it kicks my ass. I’ve been feeling stronger and getting more toned.

I’m on my way to being obsessed with eating better - more fruit and veggies and whole wheat pasta and cutting way back on soda, watching my portion sizes and eating more frequently. Nothing draconian, I love food too much to ever diet. Just doing simple, reasonable things and enjoying everything in moderation and wondering why the hell it took me so long to pay attention to these things. I’ve never made it a goal to try and go back to my college size, because I thought that was unrealistic and unproductive, plus while I was thinner in college, I was not fit at all.

I do not have washboard abs yet and trying on bikinis at Target was dreadfully unfun. I’m convinced that the only women who really look great in bikinis are those with 0% body fat and that’s just not me. But I’m shaping up and slimming down and the other weekend I bought this cute green mini-dress and thought “Hey, there are my legs! They look pretty good!” And I went jeans shopping and kept grabbing sizes that were too big but wondering what the hell was wrong with the universe because I thought, I am not the size X I ended up with. It happened again when I went to the outlet mall and 95% of the things I tried on were way too big, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. Gradual weight loss (and gain for that matter, I’ve been down both roads) is a funny thing in that even as your body changes, your perception of it doesn’t keep up.

But the final test was trying on the party pants. I tried on a couple of other things from college first, just testing the waters. And I was still convinced that there was no way the party pants could fit but that that was okay.

I slipped them on this morning and they fit like a glove. Huzzah!

The irony, of course, is that they look a little silly and disco-y now. Where the hell would I wear these? Not really big into the clubbing thing now, as I am old and like to go to bed at a decent hour. Maybe I should wear them to proctor my last exam?

But dammit, if I wanted to wear them I could. And that feels really frakkin’ good.

no news, no new regrets

2007-05-03T17:38:00.000-07:00

Husband to Be left town on Tuesday for a work trip and will be gone until next Thursday. Big thumbs down to that. I miss him but it hasn’t gotten bad yet. Give it a few days.

In the meantime, I am the guy of the relationship. When I’m gone, HtB would probably keep the place even neater and cleaner than otherwise, while when I’m the one at home, the clutter will accumulate and then be tidied up but quick right before he gets back.

I had my shower this past weekend and it was a good girly time. I got tons o’kitchen loot and had fun judging our very own little Iron Chef competition (secret ingredient hummus). The cutest entry was Miss A’s radish boats with scallion masts and cracker sails, which made her giggle every time she made them. And I had Dr. Pepper cupcakes. Yum.

We capped it off by going downtown and getting mojitos and then martinis and sushi at my favorite sushi restaurant (where my personal trainer also works as a sushi chef. Random!) and the girls made me wear a wee green tiara.

The semester is almost over and after a couple more stacks of grading, I’ll be free. But I’m swamped with things to do. I have to find plane tickets to St. Thomas for my mom, finish writing my gorram cover letter so I can send out job applications, and do about a million things for the wedding, like order the cake and flowers and work on our iPod playlists and gather ideas for the ceremony, and finalize where I’m getting my dress altered. It’s just nuts.

time, time, time, see what's become of me

2007-04-26T22:25:00.000-07:00

Not dead, just monumentally busy. We went out of town for the weekend and had a fun couple of days of shopping, relaxing, and watching Mamma Mia, courtesy of Husband to Be’s awesome parents. We hit the same big mall I was at the weekend before for a fun day of much needed girliness with a road trip and tons of shopping, book-ended by meals at the Cheesecake Factory.

I showed HtB this awesome dress I was coveting at White House Black Market and later, in front of his parents, he was all “Why don’t you show my mom that dress you liked?” I showed her the dress, she insisted I try it on and then bought it for me. His parents spoil me like nobody’s business. I think it’ll be the dress I wear for our civil ceremony/local reception.

Mamma Mia was a fun show although as feared, it’s caused a regular rotation of Abba songs to get stuck in my head.

It was nice to get away for the weekend but as soon as we got back, our unrelenting schedule resumed. It’s just been crazy. Between school/work, appointments, errands, ballroom lessons, going to the gym, and going out with friends, there just isn’t time to think, much less write, work on wedding stuff, send out my resume, or just be. In theory I should have all this spare time because I’m no longer working on a dissertation but that’s not the case. I think if I were still working on school stuff, I would have totally snapped by now.

I've been a slave to my schedule, knowing exactly what is going to occupy each time slot, and the whole time wondering when the hell I'll have time to clean the litter box and do laundry and oh yeah, time for naked activities would be great too. We're too young and unmarried to need to schedule sex, dammit! And as I was slogging my way through the rain and to the apartment building today, weighed down with groceries and exhausted from running errands and already thinking ahead to having to go to the gym, come home, eat dinner, and then go right back out for dance lessons, like a broken record, all I could think was "This is madness. We don't even have kids yet!"

We tell ourselves that things will just have to be less crazy when we're not trying to find jobs and plan a move and a wedding on top of all the responsibilities of everyday life. I can't remember the last time I had no deeds to do, no promises to keep. Sometimes it's a privilege to be idle.

you could say i do at least

2007-04-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

It’s been exactly one year since Husband to Be proposed in Maui. I still remember how cold it was on top of Haleakala, the amazing colors of the sunrise, and the sweet surprise of HtB on one knee as the blanket we had wrapped around us flapped madly in the breeze and he put his grandmother’s ring on my finger. We had talked about the future and always spoke in terms of “when we do this” and “when we have kids” but the actual M word had never once come up (by design on HtB’s part, because he wanted to surprise me) and I am eternally grateful to have had a romantic proposal with absolutely no nagging or cajoling on my part and minimal time spent wondering when/if he would propose. It unfolded as smoothly and naturally as every other stage of our courtship.

I remember sitting on a beach that afternoon, our last day there, watching kite surfers and not wanting to leave our little paradise and go back to the real world. And I remember staring at my ring late into the night on the plane and looking at the man sleeping next to me and being unable to stop smiling.

It’s been a tough year in many ways, after the glow of being engaged wore off and the stresses and heartaches of wedding planning have come barreling at us non-stop. But all the bumps in the road have only made us stronger and more secure as a unit and for that I am so grateful.

I was reading the wedding vow repository on Indie Bride the other night looking for ideas and got all teary-eyed thinking about the vows we'll exchange and it reminded me that the stresses of planning the wedding, the disappointment in people not coming, none of those things matter. I won't be thinking of any of those things when I'm walking down that aisle, walking towards the future and walking towards home.

Even more intensely than a year ago, I cannot wait to marry this man.

(Photo taken by our good friend and very talented photographer. He's not a big shot yet, but it's only a matter of time. )

shiny is good

2007-04-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

In wedding news, after a lot of work, invitations are out. We got our first wedding gift, a stock pot. It was especially exciting for me because I'd gotten envious of the numerous Crate & Barrel and Bed Bath & Beyond packages for another woman in the building that are periodically stacked up by the mailboxes, taunting me. She’s still winning, but at least we're in the game now.

I have a shower coming up so last night I added some things to our BBB registry and had to chuckle at the insane array of silly gadgets. However did we eat fruits and veggies before we had plantain presses, cherry pitters, apple corers, mango splitters, avocado slicers, strawberry hullers, bean peelers, pickle pickers, and chile twisters?

After a rather obsessive search, I finally found a pair of earrings for the big day. I knew that I was unhealthily preoccupied with finding the perfect pair, but what can you do? I even started working on designing a custom pair with someone on Etsy, after falling in love with some earrings in a Chanel ad, but it was just too complicated and expensive. I couldn’t decide if I wanted a touch of green in my earrings or not and I didn’t want anything too cheap and disposable or something I’d never wear again. Ideally, I wanted earrings nice enough to pass down as an heirloom, but real gems, they cost the big bucks.

“Bridal jewelry”, like anything else wedding related, is quite the racket. In my exhaustive search, I frequently saw the exact same pair of earrings on multiple sites at widely varying prices. But finally I found a very pretty pair that have the right amount of sparkle and a vintage look. Yay!

And on a final note, I thank my lucky stars that Husband to Be is fully involved in wedding planning, as apparently this is a rather rare occurrence. Many women online talk about how little their fiancés care or do to help out and how they either just sign the checks, or even worse, how the women try to downplay or hide just how much money is being spent. It just boggles my mind that this is still considered solely the woman’s domain and how some men just want to show up and not have any input in what kind of food they’re having or music that’s playing or anything else.

HtB doesn’t have any opinion on what kind of flowers we have but just about everything else is a joint decision. How can it not be? This celebration is supposed to be a reflection of who we both are, not just whatever princess fantasies I may have been harboring since a tender age. I resent the larger implications that getting married and throwing this one big party is a woman’s peak experience in life, the ultimate validation of our existence, whereas for men, meh. They could take it or leave it.

Off of soapbox now. I think all the estrogen of online bridal communities can make me a little tetchy sometimes.

just the smell on the summer

2007-04-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Last Easter was celebrated with a volcano top sunrise and a proposal. I don’t think there’s any way to top that. But we did have a very yummy brunch at one of our favorite restaurants and a nice quiet day.

I’ve been busy and sometimes sad and the leitmotif of people in my life letting me down continues unabated. But the resume is getting closer to being sent out and we think we’ve found a way to stick around town for another month instead of moving across the country two days after our honeymoon. In what can only been seen as yet more serendipity, someone we know is subletting their place and we can have it for just the month of July, plus move some stuff over in June before we leave for St. Thomas.

We’ll have to move across town but this way we get to be here for birthdays and parties and hanging out in the park and all the pleasures of summer and a little more time with friends. We get to have a more relaxed first month of marriage and we won’t have to fly back for a good friend’s wedding, which will be the final hurrah of our merry little band of friends. I can't think of a nicer way to wrap up my time here than to watch one of the very first friends I made here get married.

Plus I just can't wait to see what their first dance will be, when his tastes run to Tom Waits and Mars Volta and her song suggestions draw from the oeuvres of Lionel Richie and Celine Dion. Hilarity is bound to ensue.

And best of all, after we get back from the honeymoon, we’re going to have a local reception where we invite everyone we know to watch us have our actual legal wedding ceremony and then party like nobody’s business. The prospect of this makes me very, very happy, especially because I’ve been feeling pretty crappy about how low the attendance for the wedding has dropped, including some important people.

On top of that, Husband to Be’s parents want to throw us an informal reception in HtB’s hometown. There’s been much more heartache in wedding planning than I could ever have imagined, so it only seems right and inclusive and not at all excessive to celebrate the occasion three times over.

sweet nothings

2007-03-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

From an email from Husband to Be:

"And I've never wished you were a lesbian. I've wished you were a bi-curious zombie-killing stripper race car driver from another dimension, but that's it. Big difference."

(This should make for some interesting Google hits. Speaking of which, I really should post a picture of Jamie Bamber instead of just writing about one, because I've gotten some what I imagine are disappointed fans land here in search of such things.)

some of the time the future comes right 'round to haunt me

2007-03-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

some of the time the future
comes round just to see
that all is as it should be
like it’s there to remind me
we’ve got to wait and see
-beth orton

I've officially been breaking the rule about posting regularly. I hate that but I feel like every time I blink, another week has gone by. I don't know where the time goes.

I should change my about paragraph in the sidebar because I've decided to hell with the Ph.D. My erratic, absentee advisor said I could finish up if I stayed another semester or even part of a semester, but there is no way in hell I can bear to stay longer. Not to mention that there is a very real chance that my advisor will have left before then. Not that she's told me anything. Seriously, she has issues.

The parallels between ending an unhappy, longstanding relationship and breaking up with grad school continue. I did some soul searching and agonizing and have wasted time fretting about wasted time (Why be in a relationship for 5 years when it's doomed? Why be stuck in the cold Midwest for 6 years if I'm just getting a Master's?) and I definitely stuck with both relationship longer than I should have, out of sheer stubbornness. But pretty early in my decision to stop in the program, I was eerily calm about it. It just felt right. And there's the same feeling of relief to be free of something that was just holding me back.

It's easy to shut myself up about wasted time because if my last relationship had ended sooner and/or I'd quit school sooner, I wouldn't have met a certain rather important person in my life and I'd never wish for that. Neither Husband to Be or I subscribe to the fatalistic "There's one person out there for you and if you don't meet them, you're screwed" philosophy and in theory, I'm sure we would have met other people and been just fine and dandy. In practice, though, I will say it's nearly impossible for me to imagine finding someone else who fits me so well.

So now the job search is on. After some dithering about where to move, HtB and I have decided it's California or bust. We'll narrow our job searches to there and worst case scenario, even if we don't have jobs, we'll still move. It may indeed be too expensive there and we'll move or we may love it and settle down or we may hop around before we find our spot. I'd prefer to put down roots and buy a house soon but we still have a few more pre-kid years and the freedom to hop around.

I figure I can go in one of two directions - publishing or relationship/dating services. Recently I've been looking at editorial assistant job ads. It's pretty low down on the ladder but I have no problem with that, because I have no job experience and I've gotta pay my dues. I have too much pride to be a coffee fetcher but I'll do everything else. I thank my stars on a regular basis that I have a friend in publishing who's been an invaluable source of advice. She was the grad student I worked for in college as a research assistant and wrote me an absolutely glowing recommendation letter for grad school. She got her Ph.D and then shifted from academia to a big shot job in publishing.

She bumped into one of my friends at a conference last summer and after all these years, remembered which university I was at and asked about me and now she's a huge help to me in my job search. I don't think is a coincidence, more like the confluence of fate and grace.

Everything is still up in the air but I'm just as excited as I am nervous.

on a golden sea, you don't need no memory

2007-03-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

(Hip, hip). And we're back. We were only gone for a few blissful, relaxing days and as soon as we got back, life resumed its hectic pace. But the vacation was worth every penny. We got into Nassau late and our hotel was full so we got upgraded to an oceanview room at the Wyndham instead. Awesome. Ocean and palm trees in full sight first thing in the morning and falling asleep to the sound of the surf at night - nothing beats that.

The weather was perfect – warm but not hot. The water was a little chilly so we mostly admired the unbelievable turquoise of it from the beach. We went on a half day sail and snorkel and although I didn’t do much snorkeling, because of the huge waves, I enjoyed every minute of being on the catamaran.

We split our beach time between Cable Beach, where the hotel was, and Cabbage Beach on Paradise Island. We explored downtown Nassua with its pink buildings and went shopping at the Straw Market, where I got a hat. We experienced some local color on the jitney buses, as well as a singing Scotsman on the ferry. It was perfect.

The trip was our anniversary gift to ourselves. March 14 marked two years since we met. (It’s also Pi Day of course, and the randomly chosen day when our married friends J and M celebrate their relationship, and according to our Polish Friend, there’s a movement to make it “Steak and BJ Day”, a Valentine’s Day of sorts, only for guys. We’ll see if that takes off.)

To say that on that night, when I walked into a coffee shop to meet the guy I’d been emailing, I had no idea that two years from that time I’d be in the Bahamas with that very same guy and only a few months out from marrying him, is the understatement of the century. (Yes, that’s a terribly constructed sentence, but what can you do?)

We celebrated St. Pat's the way it should be celebrated, with friends and corned beef and cabbage and green drinks. We also spent some time with family friends at a birthday party run amok with cute children. Husband to Be' s parents loaded us up with pretty much enough food for the week, because they're awesome that way. Much love, so I feel bad taking issue with what is either peculiar to the Midwest or peculiar to HtB's hometown, namely the practice of putting peas and potatoes in enchiladas. What's a Texan to do?

Less than 3 months until the wedding, folks. Yikes. On Sunday HtB and I spent time researching different places to move to. Talk about information overload. Where would we go if money were no object? California. I need sunshine and warmth and the ocean. But affordability is a very real issue, so we’re also looking around at Oregon and Washington and the Carolinas (although I’ve been advised away from South Carolina).

Weather and a good arts scene are very high on our list but so is ethnic diversity. It’s really important to me to not have kids in a city that’s overwhelmingly white. That was part of the reason a friend suggested I not consider SC, as it might not be easy being an interracial couple in the deep South.

Where will life take us? The suspense is killing me.

how did you know fine living makes you slow

2007-03-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

I’ve been feeling like life’s punching bag for a while now, disappointed by many people and walked all over by others. And I know I can’t change other people, only how I react to them. I’ve learned to be more explicit in telling family and friends what I need from them. That it hasn’t gotten me what I want is disheartening but at least I know that there’s no ambiguity to blame.

I don’t know what has always held me back in the past from speaking up about what I need or when something wasn’t okay. Fear of a negative reaction, too much pride to want to ask someone for what I wish would be freely given, maybe a lack of belief that my needs were important enough to trouble someone with and a lack of belief that speaking up would do me any good.

I fear confrontation like nobody’s business and I know a large part of that is because life with my dad taught me that confrontations mean bad things for me. No matter how much I cried or how much I hurt, my dad would still drink. There’s been no precedent for conflicts that can be a give and take and can actually resolve problems.

But lately I’ve been thinking about if I don’t err a little more to the side of being a little pushy and getting in people’s faces, then of course it’s really easy to forget about me. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

A recent tussle with my advisor left me upset but then just righteously angry in a “We’re Not Gonna Take it Anymore” kind of way. I refuse to let her personal shit intrude into my life. I’m tired of being her whipping boy and I’m tired in general of being the fucking stereotypical passive Asian female. Screw that.

I know I come by the passivity honestly. My mom was talking about whether or not she would come to the wedding if my dad doesn’t. She wants to, but going against my dad and stepping out on her own would be a huge deal. She asked my aunt (on my dad’s side) if she would come with her and my aunt said the decision should be left to my dad. These are my female role models.

But I don’t have to be that way. I was pretty pissed at my advisor but I made the decision, not for the first time, that I wasn’t going to waste time and energy being upset by her. Having the control not to get bogged down by negative emotions is another hard won new skill for me. When I was younger I would get washed away by whatever torrent of emotion was currently passing through and everything was either a crisis or the best thing ever. I don’t have time for that shit anymore.

It’s been a hard, bleak winter but I’m emerging from it with a thicker skin and a louder voice. And that’s worth something.

bermuda, bahama, come on pretty mama

2007-02-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

Well I spoke too damn soon about the coming of spring. Last weekend we got hit with a really nasty ice storm that knocked out our power Saturday night. The view outside our balcony was unbelievably bleak and depressing. Lounging around by candlelight and firelight is awfully nice, but still. Worst. Winter. Ever.

Also, Last. Winter. Ever. I will never force myself to endure another Midwestern winter.

My advisor continues to drive me crazy. Life continues to smack me around. But I don’t care. Because Husband to Be and I are going to the Bahamas over Spring Break. We found a really cheap deal online, which means a cheap hotel (that’s scheduled to be demolished soon in order to make way for bigger and better resorts, whee!) and I have no doubt Nassau will be swarming with college nuggets, but I don’t care. I don't know if I've ever needed a little R 'n R more than I do now. For two full days I will sit on beautiful beaches, soak up sun, drink fruity drinks, and forget that winter and grad school exist. It’s going to rock my face off.

fuck it, fight it, it's all the same

2007-02-21T20:48:00.000-08:00

As a psychology nerd, one of my favorite concepts is regression to the mean, used when talking about statistics and also used to describe sports slumps. If you apply it to life, it just reiterates the idea that nothing stays very good or very bad for long. Everything eventually returns to baseline. That’s a no-brainer but I find it immensely comforting that this is a quantitative phenomenon. It’s science. (Uttered in my best Will Ferrell voice. Which is terrible.)

Lately, with the exception of Husband to Be, nearly every area of my life has sucked and nearly every important person in my life has been letting me down. It’s been craptastic.

I’ve been down too far to care for too long and even though a lot of the things that have been bringing me down haven’t changed, at least I’m less mopey about them.

Sadly enough, an upswing in the temperature has a lot to do with that. It’s been a brutally cold February, with below zero temps for days at a time so when it hits the 40s and 50s, it’s reason to celebrate. The White Witch’s power is waning and everything is melting.

I hate the heaviness of winter – eating heavier foods, the weight of being covered from head to toe for almost every minute of the day, sleeping under several layers of blankets, the grey and the dark all drag me down.

It’s really warped that a 40 degree day back home in Texas would feel painfully cold but here it feels like 60 and as the temp approaches 50, I drive with my window down and seriously contemplate busting out the flip flops. A little sunshine on my face, actually breathing in fresh air and not having to run from car to building for fear of frostbite and other painful things, these little things make me feel more like me and less like a zombie.

Other good things:

Really excellent tacos at a bodega downtown. Good Mexican food is a very rare commodity in these parts, so that’s a happy. After dinner I had to restrain myself from buying a piñata and contented myself with some 89 cent chocolate wafer cookies and a bottle of Mexicoke. Yum.

Another drunken, fun filled mass screening of the Big Lebowski, complete with White Russians and the most amazing flourless chocolate cake. Drool.

Sonic and skeeball. ‘Nuff said.

Splurging on a facial. When I was sitting in the spa waiting room, painted in soothing colors and with tinkly Zen state inducing music playing, I had to laugh when I noticed the view through the window - the psych building, my primary source of stress.

Despite my fear of baking and a failed first attempt where my meringue wouldn’t meringue, I successfully made these yummy meringue chocolate chip cookies, recipe courtesy of my fave food blog.

valentine the destroyer

2007-02-14T16:31:00.000-08:00

You know, one of these days I will figure out to install an mp3 player here because I’d love to share “Valentine”, one of my favorite Old 97s songs.

I know I keep going too long without posting but I’ve been adhering to a “If I can’t write anything more nuanced than just simple moping/complaining about how kicked in the shins I feel these days, than don’t write” rule.

I’ve been mostly mopey (i.e., life sucks) but today a little grumpy (i.e., people suck), which is a change for me, but still not ideal. I am not pro-people today of all days. A cupcake is one of the few things that could have de-grumpified me and I was denied even that. It’s ungodly cold here for half the year AND I don’t have a reliable cupcake supplier. So ready to be somewhere else!

Husband to Be and I already used V-day as an excuse to have a really nice dinner last Saturday. We went to this tiny little tapas place downtown and enjoyed candlelight, sangria, baked chevre, bacon wrapped dates, and paella. It had been far too long since we went out for a romantic dinner.

And tonight, after the gym, we’ll reward ourselves with these beauties.

dancin' shoes

2007-02-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

And we have a contender! I don't care if it makes me a walking stereotype, I am ridiculously excited about finding these shoes on Zappo's. After months of scouring all the shoe sites and ordering and returning things, I'd just about given up hope on finding cute green sandals for the wedding. I bought some cute, dyeable flip flops and was sort of resigned to wearing them, but in a stroke of luck, after reading a post on Weddingbee about shoes, I did the umpteenth search on Zappo's and these were the first pair to pop up. I know I should contain my enthusiasm until I get them and try them on, but they're so me! And so green!

I've been feeling so down, so I will take happiness in whatever shape and size it comes, including a cute pair of shoes!

Update: I frackin' love Zappo's. It took me five seconds to find the shoes and two seconds to order them last night, and they're already here. And I love them! They're cute and sassy and vintage looking and ridiculously, gloriously Technicolor green and cause "Dancin' Queen" to get stuck in my head. Huzzah!

knowing when to fold 'em

2007-02-06T21:45:00.000-08:00

Man, this blog could really use some fun and frivolity about now. It’s not as if I’ve been doing nothing but stressing out 24/7, although there’s been a lot of that. There’s also been
going to see Second City and drinking and board games and pigging out in front of the Super Bowl and friends walking over and having brunch, with yummy waffles and bacon and quiche, courtesy of AB’s easiest quiche recipe ever.

Except for wishing that the big day was already here and pining for beautiful beaches, I have nothing to complain about in regards to wedding planning and will not complain, because I get to marry the love of my life in a tropical paradise, boo-fucking-hoo. However glacially, we’re making progress with our caterer and he seems to be able to deliver everything we want. Sushi! Gelato! Huzzah!

But on the angst front, for the umpteenth and final time, I am considering quitting. It’s one month into my last semester of my sixth year and I still don’t have an approved prospectus. In layman terms, I’m screwed. It wouldn’t be impossible to finish up this summer, but it’s beginning to feel pretty close to it. Part of me very much wants to get the degree and part of me is ready to lay down my burdens and get off the hamster wheel, to stop pretending that I’m Ph.D material.

What is it anyway, three letters after my name? They’re not the key to happiness. Would I be disappointed at walking away with only a Master’s after six years of work and misery and debt? Yea. But I might also feel really free to get on with life.

Honestly, it feels a lot like when I made the decision to end my last relationship. I stuck with it longer than I should have because I kept thinking things would get better and that I shouldn’t give up, shouldn’t be a quitter. It took time to realize that it wasn’t being a quitter, it was making the choice to do what was best for me and extricate myself from something unhappy. And after some grieving, there was an immense feeling of liberation and relief.

Whatever decision I make, I know that Husband to Be is behind me completely (squeezing my butt, as he always says). I wish I could say the same of my dad, who I know will go ballistic if I don't finish, but what can I do? Life and family are never perfect.

Will she or won’t she? Stay tuned.

top douche is more like it

2007-02-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

After my last post, I felt behooved to stop bitching about life for a while, hence the silence. I still believe that wedding stuff will all work itself out and that even if I don't finish getting the Ph.D, life will go on and I'll be fine, but I've still been strung out with stress. I'm just at a very sharp point in my life and Husband to Be and I are both feeling the strain of being so busy and having so much converging in our lives in a short period of time.

More later, but man, I can't believe that Ilan is Top Chef. He's such an asshat (My favorite snippet ever from Urban Dictionary is "An assclown may wear an asshat". Genius.) And I totally want to go back to Hawaii. Maui was amazing and I'd love to explore the other islands. I need a vacation in the worst way.

perspective lines converge

2007-01-24T16:08:00.000-08:00

The wedding countdown, courtesy of the ticker above, has been a source of stress, rather than excitement. It is a continual reminder of everything that must be done in the coming months for the future, rather than “Yay, it’s that much sooner that I get to marry this man!” And that’s just wrong.

What I sometimes forget is just how big a deal this whole getting married thing is to me. I grew up with a strict, domineering, alcoholic, verging on bipolar father and a loving but passive mother. I grew to fear and hate the banging sound of the cupboard door behind which he kept his beer. Some memories are so ugly that I think they’ve been quietly forgotten, out of sheer self-preservation.

The hurt, the anger, the embarrassment of such a dysfunctional home all left their mark on me. And even worse was the fear of how much I took after him, not even so much the drinking part, although for years I wouldn’t touch alcohol, but in temperament. How emotional and moody I can be, just like him. With no model of a functional family, would I ever be able to have one myself?

My most serious relationship started out great and then deteriorated ever so slowly and almost imperceptibly at first. I blinded myself to how bad it got and stuck with it even when it became dysfunctional. It’s hard to separate reality from perception, but according to how I was perceived, treated, and sometimes even felt, I was moody, overly emotional and “difficult.” I really fucking hate that word, by the way. I’ve promised myself to never tell someone they’re being difficult, because it’s just so belittling.

I took pride in dating guys who were nothing like my dad, who were affectionate and sweet, and yet to one day find myself curled up on the floor in my bathroom with a boyfriend pounding on the door yelling for me to come out and talk to him, and only later realizing how disturbingly it recalled very similar experiences with my dad, was unsettling to say the least.

And you know, it’s not as if I’m a fundamentally different person now or have multiple personalities, but with Husband to Be I have never once felt or been treated as a difficult person. I’m just me. The best me possible and one who is loved and wholly accepted, warts and all. We disagree sometimes but we almost never fight and there’s no screaming and no door slamming. Even in the midst of wedding stress, home is an oasis of calm. And when HTB tells me, unprompted and apropos of nothing, that I’m so easy to live with, he has no idea just how much that means to me.

Being with HTB helps to heal old hurts but you know, it’s not that I was broken and he fixed me. I fixed myself and by the time he came along, I was ready for him. To some degree, my last ex may comfort himself by thinking of me as an overemotional bitch, but this bitch, this drama queen, has taken everything she’s learned and let it lead her to happily ever after.

The love that I have is both a blessing and an accomplishment. I got damn lucky but I also worked my ass off for it.

Perspective is everything. I’m still hella stressed about school and wedding. But there is a hell of a difference between wondering if it’s safe to go home and where I’ll sleep if it’s not and wondering if I’ll leave with “just” a master’s instead of a Ph.D or wondering whether to go with a DJ or use an iPod. I should be so lucky to have these be my problems.

In 4 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days I will be burying my toes in the sand on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and HTB will take my hand and we will sail away into the mystic. And it will be amazing.

when you can't find the hours

2007-01-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

days keep on slipping through
avenues under construction
blocking out your sky blues…

oh these days, seem dark
darkest i've seen
darling you send me through the hours
days keep on sifting through
-calexico

Maybe I need a blog macro along the lines of “Busy and stressed” because it seems like that covers just about most of my life these days. I was telling Husband to Be the other day that it surprises me how high the divorce rate is when you would think the wedding planning process would weed out anyone who’s not really serious about getting married.

Even though I should be inured to it by now, I still feel shock at expensive every tiny thing is. Worrying about our budget, worrying about logistics and if various important people will be able to make it, dealing with vendors who all operate on “island time”, and doing and worry about everything from such a great distance – it’s enough to drive anyone bonkers.

If it were just wedding planning going on, I might bitch about it but we could deal with it. But combined with the stress of dealing with school and wondering how the hell I’m going to graduate and how we’re both needing to find jobs and be ready to move by the end of June (two days after we get back from our honeymoon), when our lease is up, I feel a nearly intolerable weight pushing down on me. We’d really like to have more time here but because we were so impatient to move in together last summer, we unknowingly screwed our future selves.

I feel like I’m swimming in glue. I keep hoping the stress will get dialed down a bit and I’ll just suck it up and deal, but it’s really damn hard. I know how incredibly happy we’ll be when we get married and when I graduate and when we take off for parts unknown for new adventures, but somehow it feels unfair to have this several month long trial by fire first. How about a damn happy medium?

In the meantime, HTB and I make sure to keep our senses of humor intact and to appreciate the occasional things that go smoothly, like finding HTB’s suit for the wedding at a really great price at a Banana Republic outlet store. I take every bit of pleasure I can in good times with friends, because I am going to miss the absurdist humor, the shared jokes, and the stories I’ve heard so many times.

And lunch from the new Sonic (chicken club toaster sandwich, cheese tots, and a large lemon berry slush)? Good for the soul.

nothing in my head but cats and rocking chairs

2007-01-15T21:12:00.000-08:00

My first session with our personal trainer did indeed kick my ass, but in a really satisfying way. I worked some muscles I didn’t even know I had.

We were planning on getting the hell outta town for a daytrip this weekend but snow put the kibosh on that. We holed up at home, made a big yummy pot of chili, and managed to watch all eleven episodes of Heroes. We’re totally hooked.

Not a big fan of winter. Before the snow hit, it was just day after day of grey and cold, which brings me down like hearing the same damn minor chord over and over again.

Between school and wedding and the uncertainty of the future and people disappointing me, I feel stretched too tight and spread too thin. I stayed home all day and watched the snow fall and listened to a lot of Aimee Mann. (If you haven’t listened to The Forgotten Arm, I highly recommend it. It’s solidly good from start to finish.)

I’m now seriously considering finally buying a guitar. It’s been one of a million things on my list to do “in the future” and “when I have time” and “when school’s over”, along with learning to play the drums and taking back up the piano and buying a really good camera. I played piano for twelve years and violin for seven and then stopped and I really miss having music in my life. I think about how much listening to music heals me and how much more so making music did and out of drums, piano, and guitar, the guitar is the best choice for these Few Remaining Months of Doom.

anyone can learn to play guitar
and they won’t be a nothing anymore
-radiohead

my better self

2007-01-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

I don’t really make resolutions, but if I were to make some I’d want to:

Take more pictures. And find the time to organize them and upload them to my completely neglected Flickr account.

Improve my cooking skills. Husband to Be and I are pretty good about trying lots of new recipes, but I’d like to be even more adventurous still. Would you believe that the other day was the first time I’d made bulgogi? What kind of Korean am I? We also made some bean sprouts to go with and it just wasn’t quite right, I guess we need practice. My mom always said I should pay more attention in the kitchen, which I always blew off, and of course she was right. Moms are annoying that way. I want to be able to make Korean food with HTB and with future kids and sometimes I just crave it. It’s the taste of home.

Get into the best shape I’ve ever been in. HTB and I had been working out at a university gym because it’s dirt cheap, but always crowded with undergrads. We finally, happily upgraded to a Gold’s Gym, thanks to HTB’s awesome parents buying us memberships. So much more room, less intrusive music, and a women’s room which is often empty or near empty so it’s like having my own personal workout room. We’ve been going three times a week, which is great, but we’ve definitely been in a rut and needed to kick things up a notch. So yesterday we signed up for personal training! *Cue Rocky music*

Even beyond the goal of looking great at the wedding and wanting to wear a bikini for the first time in a decade, I really do want to feel fit and strong and healthy for the long term. But I also want to finally feel really great about my body, instead of just being okay with it. I really admire and envy women, who regardless of weight or shape, really strut their stuff because they feel good about themselves. I am not a strutter.

HTB and I have been joking about how he should bring our trainer a picture of Jamie Bamber and tell him he wants Bamceps. (Props to fangirl Miss A for introducing this term into our vocabulary.)

My first session is on Saturday and I’m nervous, I think it promises to kick my ass.

sweetness follows

2007-01-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I clicked over to Sarcasmo’s Corner because I hadn’t visited it in quite a while, even though I’m a big fan of mooching fun/geeky links from there. And then I found out Star Foster, aka Sarcasmo, had passed away suddenly last month. I spent a good half hour tracking down more information because it seemed so unreal.

How is it that the death of a complete stranger can affect me as much as it did? I don’t know, but I didn’t have to know her in person to be shocked at the loss of someone young, funny, talented, and vibrant, who clearly had lived a fun, interesting, colorful life and was missed by many. It was incredibly sobering news.

Her blog was one of the first I started reading about the time I started blogging. I think I had googled something like “breakup blog” and found her personal blog (which isn’t there anymore) detailing her experiences of her divorce. Reading it made me realize that of course, people all over the world were going through similar experience of sadness and loss after the death of a relationship, and that they can do it with grace and humor. It inspired me to start my old blog.

After I felt sadness and sympathy for her family and friends, the pretty normal process kicked in and it became all about me and that universal, jolting awareness of the fragility of life and one of those “am I living my life to the fullest” conversations that went on inside my head for the rest of the day. I think of all the new and fun things I want to do but feel I have to wait until I’m done serving my time in school first and how it’s hard to put up with school dominating my life when I know there’s so much to life and so much I’d rather be doing.

But I realized that I can still make the most out of every day even as I toil away at school. Life is too precious to just feel like I’m killing some time until life gets more interesting.

And I thought of how unbearably awful it would be to lose Husband to Be or a family member or friend. I had a crazy impulse to call/email everyone I love just to say “Just in case something were to happen to either one of us, I want you to know how important you are to me!” Why does it always take something terrible happening for us to feel that impulse?

It's the beginning of a new year and I aspire to live my life a little more like Star did, with a little more zaniness and color, and to live and write more meaningfully.

so this is the new year

2007-01-01T22:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

New Year’s Eve was perhaps a little too much fun this year. I got housed, had a blast, kissed a girl, and then got spectacularly sick and have been trying to recover all day. Oog.

Every year I repeat to myself that I’m getting too old for this drinking and debauchery thing. Why do we do this to ourselves? I don’t like starting off a new year hung over, so I think next year for a change, Husband to Be and I should ring in the new year quietly and cosily at home and not have to pay for it the next day.

2007 is going to be one hell of a year with big changes ahead – new job, new city, new role as someone’s wife. I can’t wait to see it unfold.

one small year

2006-12-31T18:00:00.000-08:00

The very beginning of 2006 found me a little angsty and sad. Amidst some Sturm and Drang, I deleted my old blog and two people I had been fond of, a friend and my ex-boyfriend, turned on me in the most juvenile, classless way possible. I was angry, hurt, and incredibly disappointed in both them and my poor judgment of character. I felt stupid for having thought highly of a friend who was unable to follow one of the simplest of the cardinal rules of friendship – don’t talk shit about friends and don’t egg others on when they are. The fact that she couldn’t acknowledge that she had been a crappy friend and instead, spun it as me being a drama queen, further highlights her complete lack of character.

Same goes for the ex, who’s like a handsome face with a too soft chin – not a bad guy, just a weak one. Either to friends or on the blog, I had never had a bad word to say about him. He was a nice guy, we just didn’t work out, and the breakup was for the best. End of story.

He told me he wanted to be friends, we occasionally emailed on polite and even cordial terms, and yet suddenly, well over a year after a fairly non-ugly breakup, there’s an online hate-fest going on in his website’s forums and ugly traffic gushing into the blog. He wasn’t actively partaking but he wasn’t doing anything to tamp it down either. Seriously textbook passive-aggressive shit.

It was only after some time and space that I stopped being angry at him and started feeling sorry for him, because it was crystal clear that he was not over me. Had he fully moved on with his life, were his new relationship with my bitch of an ex-friend good enough, neither he nor his cadre of flying monkeys would have given a shit about my blog or what was going on in my life.

Even though the attention was negative, it was still attention. It made me significant, when by all rights I should have been no longer on anyone’s radar. And then on this blog, when some of the old traffic came trickling in, I wondered again, why were they here?

Even now, when I see the hometown hits, like clockwork, with a dark sense of satisfaction, I think, “Guess who still gives a damn.”

Aside from that, I was feeling some growing pains in the relationship with Husband to Be, as I negotiated closeness-distance issues and started feeling the pang of wishing we came home to the same place every night and friends first started asking me if this was It and if and when he might propose.

Which he did, three months later. Two months after that we moved in together and then a little after that, started planning our wedding.

And now I can laugh at the little worries and insecurities of last year and still feel amazed and grateful for the rock-solid security I feel with him and in our life together.

I think about how far we’ve all come. One friend got engaged yesterday and another of my favorite people, well, I won’t be surprised if hers is coming in the very near future. The three of us all came into school dating the one before the One and it makes me smile to see how things have changed and how our futures are shaping up the way they have.

For all its ups and downs, it was a good year.

a long december

2006-12-31T11:15:00.000-08:00

Whew, it’s already the last day of 2006. We had a really lovely Christmas with Husband to Be’s family, a very Norman Rockwell holiday, in the nicest way possible. Lots of food, lots of kids, lots of loot. His parents totally spoil us. Mild weather, instead of snow, which was a little disappointing, but it was nice not to be freezing.

Lemon-berry slush and cheesy tater tots at Sonic on the way home, and then our private gift exchange.

Except for one tiring trip to the crowded mall to return gifts and check out a few post-Christmas sales, it’s been a very relaxing end of the year, with more eating, drinks with friends, watching football (where one of my alma maters beat the other), starting off the day right with some Animaniacs, and trying out friend M’s latest obsession, Guitar Hero. One friend’s gotten his post-school job all lined up, and another just got engaged, so good news all around.

The holidays and being sick have taken a little toll on my energy level, so I’m summoning together all my energy for tonight’s party, which promises to be big and boisterous. We’re throwing sleeping bags in our car in case we need to spend the night, and that’s always a good sign.

Some end of year thoughts later.

and away we go

2006-12-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Being sick has really just sucked up the entire week, laying me low, which meant no work and no exercise and never getting a chance to meet with my advisor. Mostly I’ve been resting, dragging myself out of the house to run Christmas errands, and then crashing, and eating ravenously. Haven’t had any chicken soup yet, but a big steaming bowl of pho the other night was just as good. Spaghetti and meatballs (I couldn’t believe my ears when Husband to Be told me he had never read or heard of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Sacrilege.) and lots of roasted garlic on bread and last night, at HTB’s office holiday party, we had Ethiopian food and gelato. Yum.

I’ve decided that maybe instead of boring old wedding cake, we should have cupcakes and gelato. Fun and tasty.

It’s been a wet, foggy, feverish week, but I don’t care, because in about an hour we’re taking off, with a car packed full of gifts and wine and books and knitting needles, and headed for some serious rest and relaxation. We are both badly in need of a vacation and I know we’re in for a good time with HTB’s family.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas.

christmas giving

2006-12-19T10:30:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie, wanted to plug a charity I just heard about from Alton the other day, Heifer International. No, he didn't tell me personally, he was on TV, and yes, I'd do just about anything Alton suggested (latest lessons - plastic cookie cutters are better than metal. Lift the cookie dough still with cutter attached onto cookie sheet before removing cutter.) I really like that you get to buy something specific with your donation, like sheep or bunnies or trees, rather than not knowing where your money goes. And that the point is you're helping people to help themselves. Besides, how often do you get to tell people you gave someone a llama for Christmas?

Also, via Kimchi Mamas, whenever you search for anything red on thefind.com, they donate a buck to Doctors without Borders. At Kimchi Mamas there's also a donation opportunity for the Asian Pacific Women's Center, a shelter for Asian women and children. You could say that hits a little close to home for me.

And finally, my daily favorites (they're free!) are the Hunger Site and the related literacy, animal shelter, breast cancer, and rainforest sites. One click a day and the ad sponsors donate money.

Ok, back to nursing my cold.

hearth and home

2006-12-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

My body is definitely giving me a talking-to about working full steam. I’m feeling seriously run down and coming down with a cold and there are still a million things that need to be done for school and for the holidays. Husband to Be’s stocking stuffers aren’t going to buy and wrap themselves, nor is the prospectus going to revise itself. And I had this wacky idea that I’ll have time to make cookies and/or peanut brittle before we leave town. This will only happen if I can be well enough to do more than sit on the couch, watch bad TV, and snack a lot.

Today’s T-minus six months to the wedding, which is a magically stressful number for me. I feel like as soon as we’re through the holidays, we really gotta get crackin’ on all things wedding related. Six months, people!

I’ve discovered that nothing is better on a sore throat than a chocolate milkshake from Steak N’ Shake. I’ve started drinking more hot tea. And I’m going to take up knitting over Christmas. Clearly, I’m getting old.

We took a day trip to the German colonies nearby and acquired lots of good things, like cute ornaments, dessert wines to drink and gift, homemade fudge, and the best gingerbread men I’ve ever had.

I am too sickly to be scintillating so it’s time to watch either Good Eats or pop in Love Actually and wrap presents and later curl up with some cocoa and gingerbread.

tropical contact high

2006-12-14T16:45:00.000-08:00

I'm tired and buried in grading but I don't care. Our honeymoon is booked! Squee!! Three nights here and four nights here. I CANNOT wait. It is going to be amazing.

not enough swearin' and screwin'*

2006-12-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

No time to blog, Dr. Jones. It's end of semester crunch time and I'm busy, exhausted, and spread thin. Today was a long, hectic day but I perked up as soon as I pulled into the parking lot because I could see the glow of the white twinkle lights on our deck and the sparkle of our tree. Stress and sadness be damned, the love that awaits me at home is all that matters.

Excited that our honeymoon is soon to be booked.

Horrified that "simotaniously" is what passes for "simultaneously" according to one student.

This is hawesome (via Malnurtured Snay).

Rosie O'Donnell sucks.

*To explain this title would involve multiple levels of geekiness, but I will if pressed.

marsh the darsh!

2006-12-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

Mmm, brownies (Mmm’Fashnik.) Snacks are good for me, really. It’s never a good idea to go to happy hour with an empty stomach ‘cause those strawberry margaritas are hella potent.

Our tree has been rescued from the tree lot and is happily bedecked, although getting it into the tree stand took a lot of cursing and some tree trunk mutilation. Husband to Be has shown great restraint in not putting all fifty (I probably exaggerate, but not by much) of his Star Wars ornaments on the tree.

I got a phone call today from someone informing me that HTB and I had won a cruise to the Bahamas. All we have to do is come to a one-hour presentation. Hmm, this sounds familiar somehow... Lol. I was totally having flashbacks while the woman was yakking away at me.

Off to an evening of booze, buffalo wings, and board games.

chop wood and carry water

2006-12-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

It is motherscratchin' cold out today. A warm cup of chai makes it barely tolerable. I'm holed up in my office listening to the Damnwells and sorting through heaps of class related paperwork. Only one more semester of teaching. Ever. I keep reminding myself of that.

It was a good weekend. We drove to the next city over and got some fairly decent BBQ and had a registerpalooza at Bed Bath and Beyond. Fun but exhausting. Someone totally monopolized the scanner. Bowling and pizza with friends, then home to make brownies and mulled wine and curl up on the couch listening to Ben Folds and Ray LaMontagne on Austin City Limits and enjoying the glow of Christmas lights. We holed up for most of Sunday because when weather.com tells me the "feels like" temperature outside is 6, I'm not going anywhere.

Wedding related nonsense - why is it so damn hard to find the perfect pair of wedding shoes? I haven't been able to decide on whether or not to get glorified flip flops or a peeptoe D'orsay pump, which I love the look of. I tried on some dyeable ones at David's Bridal because I love the idea of getting them in emerald green. But not too surprisingly, the shoes were flimsy as all get out, they felt like they were made out of cardboard. Both pairs of silver sandals I ordered were no-goes, I just bought a pair of cute green flip flops, hope those will be It.

Husband to Be and I are trying to figure out how and what we want to eat at the reception. Trying to balance what we would want most versus pleasing the masses is not easy. Family style or buffet would be more fun and informal but I've had a lot of mediocre buffet and family style wedding food. Plus, how do we incorporate tater tots into the meal? No chance of getting a funnel cake machine, is there?

Contemplating getting a DJ instead of hooking up our iPod. Shopping around for petals for the aisle and for tossing. Freeze dried or fresh? Color? Type? I continue to be bemused by the endless stream of minutiae that have to be dealt with.

Can't wait to go get our tree tonight!

redefine you now for only me

2006-11-29T22:25:00.000-08:00

you should know by now
that someone's always been there
long before you
you're never going to be the only one

From the first Mason Jennings song I ever heard, it’s a good one. I’m a bit of a schmoop and an inveterate believer in and user of romantic clichés. But there’s one particular schmaltzy line I have no use for. The whole idea of “I loved you before I met you.” I didn’t love Husband to Be before I met him. I loved other guys, I loved being single, I loved the idea of the "him" I’d end up with.

Once comfortably ensconced in a new love, it does become pretty easy to forget life pre-them. HTB has become an integral part of my life and my identity but it doesn’t mean that the lives we led before meeting each other aren’t relevant. The past is always relevant.

I’m still friends with my first boyfriend. Unlike my other ex, my regard for him hasn’t declined over time. He’s a good guy, happily married, we keep in touch sporadically and I’ve met his wife and liked her. They were invited to our wedding. I wasn’t expecting them to make the expensive trek down to St. Thomas but it was a matter of courtesy and my fondness for him. Did HTB care? No. But the reason I’ve heard for them not coming isn’t time or money, it’s the fact that I’m an ex-girlfriend. On what level someone he dated a decade ago getting married to someone else is threatening, I am completely unclear.

The other week I read a woman’s post about how while in the process of moving, she and her FI came across his old pictures and memorabilia from past relationships and how she totally lost it and got hysterical and without being asked, her FI just threw everything away. The best part is that the woman confessed to keeping all of her past relationship detritus for no particular reason.

honey I’m sure
that you’ve been in love before
plenty of men have held high places in your eyes
jealousy has got no use for me
the past is beautiful like the darkness between fireflies

I guess I just don’t get it. I’m not immune to jealousy, I understand it, and it’s not that I would want to spend hours thinking about or picturing HTB head over heels in love with other women, but what’s the point of being threatened by the fact that he has been? The cliché is true, neither of us would be the people we are and fell in love with without the people we’ve loved and lost.

HTB moved to Europe because he fell in love with someone he met while traveling, which is a perfect example of the passionate and adventurous spirit that makes him so attractive and so him. And I’ve learned so much about myself from every mistake I’ve ever made, from every failure that existed in my last relationship and I know HTB is the same way. How glad am I that if things had to be royally fucked up, it was with some other guy instead of this guy and that I got to bring my best self to the table this time around?

I know some people happily end up with their first and only loves, but I’m glad that HTB and I got kicked around a little before we met, it’s all our little dents and dings that help us to fit as well as we do.

i took you shopping all the time!

2006-11-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

Why does it have to be Monday already? I got a super awesome parking spot and it's mild enough to wear flip flops, but still.

We had a nice, relaxing holiday week filled with eating and just hanging out. The only damper on things is Husband to Be's persnickety cold.

Yesterday we bought his wedding band! Huzzah! It's shiny.

And we started our registries. Board games, tools, and cookbooks at Amazon, towels and kitchen appliances at Bed, Bath &Beyond, and pretty things at Crate and Barrel. It's definitely a lot of fun to pick things out, but also a lot of work. My eyes started glazing over trying to discern the differences between one type of flatware and the next, picking among 20 varieties of wineglasses and trying to figure out how to mix and match cute plates. Too many choices!! Decision fatigue!

Stockings are up, loot is being bought, we should be picking up a tree soon, woohoo!

days of pie and turkey

2006-11-22T14:55:00.000-08:00

Our bags are packed and we’re about to get the hell outta Dodge for a few days, so just a quick early Happy Thanksgiving. As I am every year, I am thankful for my family and friends for their love and generosity and their humor and wackiness. I am thankful for the pleasures of good food, good music, and all the things that make me laugh. And every day I give thanks for the happy home I have with Husband to Be and our loud, needy cat.

gobble, gobble

2006-11-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

Our sitcom Thanksgiving was lovely. Husband to Be and I made a tasty turkey, I must say. We stuffed it with onion, garlic, bay leaves, sage, rosemary, and thyme and it was yummy. Everything tasted wonderful, we bought cute new martini glasses for the occasion, lots of wine was consumed, and I laughed until my cheeks hurt. It doesn’t get much better than good food and good company.

And now we have more turkey than we know what to do with.

I’ve been doing lots of shopping (I’m such a sucker for the Christmas section) and having to hear Christmas music in the stores drives me batty. For God’s sake, have a sense of decency and wait until after Thanksgiving!

I have my wedding ring! Happy happy joy joy! Soon I will have to give both it and my e-ring up to the jeweler’s but for a few more days it’ll be so nice to have it at home where I can take it out and try it on and pet it and love it and call it George.

We’re trying to figure out where to register and hope to book our honeymoon very soon. Just looking at pictures of the resorts we’re interested in makes me jump up and down. I’ve ordered two pairs of silver sandals and hope one of them will work out.

Progress!

the one with all the thanksgivings

2006-11-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

On Sunday Husband to Be and I are having some of our favorite people over for an early Thanksgiving dinner. I compared it to that classic sitcom scenario where all the main characters can’t quite make it out of town to join their families so they all have a humorous and heartwarming dinner together (see Felicity, Friends, etc.)

Only this is deliberate, no deus ex machina involved. It’ll be four friends who all came into school the same year with me and their respective significant others. It’s half of our entering class, with two friends who couldn’t make it and two folks we’re not really friends with, including HTB’s high school girlfriend. (Discovering this was truly odd. Small-ass world. Also, small state.)

It’s our last year together and sentimental fool I am, I'm really looking forward to sharing this holiday with everyone who's been in the trenches together. But now I’m nervous. We have to clean like crazy. We don’t have a dining room table, although that’s true of most of our gang. More embarrassingly, we don’t have martini or wine glasses. Clearly, we are not serious enough boozehounds. But gosh darn it, over Thanksgiving break, we’re registering! Loot!

HTB and I are in charge of the turkey (and cranberry martinis, yum!) and that is quite the responsibility. I don’t want ruin Thanksgiving with a subpar turkey.

I trust Alton completely so I could go the brine route, which Miss A has done in past years with great success. She makes a damn fine turkey. But we are not as skilled as Miss A and also, the brine recipe is a lot of work. So we’ll do something simpler.

And then on turkey day itself, we'll have dinner with HTB's family. What’s not to love about getting to do Thanksgiving dinner twice?

waitin' on the day

2006-11-13T10:28:00.000-08:00

The other night when Husband to Be and I were flipping through the channels, there was a pie bake-off on Food Network. I told him to change the channel because if we started watching, inevitably I’d want pie. But it was too late, the damage had been done. So off we went into the cold night in search of pie.

How can I not love a man who takes me to get pie when I want pie, no cajoling necessary?

As were leaving the restaurant, bellies full of pie (pecan pie and apple, respectively, á la mode of course), the song “Love Fool” came on.

It’s a silly song, but one strongly associated with senior year of high school. I was a classic late bloomer. Shy and awkward, I didn’t date until college. I was simply invisible to boys. The romance in my life consisted of a long series of intense crushes on boys who didn’t know my name. I didn’t have the first idea of how to interact with guys or what love was really like, in all its messy glory. All I had was fantasy, with only wishing, waiting, and hoping to sustain me. The hope that someday someone would see me.

So to hear that song now, and think of how far I’ve come since then, driving home next to the man I’m going to marry, someone sexy and loving and amazing, who sees me, who gets me, who delights in me…well it feels pretty damn good.

just an ordinary girl
with an ordinary life that you have chosen
but you’re the fire in the snow
though i believe that i’m the only one who knows it
-jayhawks

how you can have any pudding if you don't eat your meat

2006-11-09T13:30:00.000-08:00

Damn it feels good to be a Democrat. Boo and yah.

It is so gorgeous outside, unseasonably warm and sunny. I'm not sure how long I can stomach being stuck in my office.

Had a nice lunch with Husband to Be and his parents. Ethiopian food is yumm-o (Somwhere, Rachael Ray is cackling). What is it about bread in all its many forms that is so satisfying? Injera, naan, tortillas, a nice focaccia - I could eat them all forever.

And we're going out for sushi tonight. Cheers for sushi happy hours!

With only a few relapses, I've been pretty good about eating more healthfully. Part of that is certainly motivated by the wedding but more to the point, I can't eat like a teenager anymore. Eating more fruit and veggies, drinking more water, and exerting more portion control haven't been all that challenging. I had thought that drinking less soda and eating less fast food would feel like deprivation but most of the time is hasn't, and this is from someone who loves her some Cherry Coke, Dr. P, and big fat bacon cheeseburgers.

Whenever I really want something fatty/sugary/otherwise unhealthy, I have it. I just can't get behind strict diets, whether it be South Beach or the "eat two bowls of cereal a day" route. Life's too short too eat that restrictively forever and sure, I'd probably lose weight if I ate mostly cereal (no thanks) but then I'd gain it right back when I resumed eating normally.

But, it is definitely easier to eat light during the summer. Leafy green salads, sushi, raw veggies and pasta salad are all very appealing when it's hot. But as soon as it gets darker and chillier, most of the time I want warm, cheesy, heavy comfort food. And sometimes you just gotta break down and get some damn potato oles. Damn you Taco John and your wee beady eyes and that smug look on your face. "Ohh, you're going to buy my potato oles!" Bastard.

At least we go to the gym regularly. I think I'm just gonna have to kick my workout into higher gear during the winter. Next semester I'm dead set on taking a kickboxing class. Sport of the future, you know.

It's taken me a while to be less self-conscious at the gym. I realize that with the occasional exception, since it is a student gym, that most people are pretty focused on their own workouts and not judging me for my number of reps or the puny amount I lift. And if someone were to notice I was doing my tricep extensions wrong, wouldn't that be good to know? Still, I could do without the scantily clad dance class chicks who come in periodically to use the water fountain.

Damn, I am now jonesin' for an Almond Joy. Maybe I'll do 5 more minutes on the elliptical today.

it’s your fire, it’s your soul

2006-11-07T21:40:00.000-08:00

My father is not an easy man to live with. I’ve had 27 years to get used to that and it’s still challenging. You can’t choose your family but I still haven’t outgrown my deep, childhood desire for a normal, happy-go-lucky family, preferably one that just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Being Asian, being an introvert, and having a dysfunctional family – these are the three strikes that have me perpetually feeling in the minority.

Our family has always been a casualty in my dad’s struggles with his personal demons, including cancer, depression, anger management issues, and alcoholism. Our relationship had improved quite a bit since I came to grad school; he appeared to have mellowed as a result of reflecting on his life and wanting to find a measure of peace.

But now with my wedding coming up, he’s fallen back into his angry, controlling ways. The psychologist in me assumes that he’s threatened by all the autonomy implied by my getting married. So he continues to treat me like a child rather than respecting me as an adult. I’ve let him play the domineering father role all my life but I’m not letting him do it anymore. I refuse to let him call the shots on how and when I’m getting married.

Is there a chance my parents won’t be at my wedding? Yes and I’m trying to prepare for that possibility now. Will I be angry and hurt that they missed out on it and that they’re impinging upon my happiness? Yes, but I can guarantee that my dad will feel worse, because he will have chosen to miss out on one of the most important days in my life.

And sometimes I think cutting him out of my life, as hard that would be, would be preferable to having to deal with parental tantrums every time I make some major life decision without consulting him. Moving, getting a job, buying a house, having kids – I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave me grief anytime those decisions weren’t in line for what he wants me to do.

Whether or not I actually break from my parents, I will break from them in spirit. I’ll be starting my own family and as much as possible, I refuse to bring ghosts of past sadness into it.

i close my eyes and the seasons pass

2006-11-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

Husband to Be and I partied pretty hard on Saturday and after the party on Tuesday we were planning on attending was canceled, we decided to have a nice quiet evening at home. We ordered a pizza, watched Veronica Mars, and took a bubble bath, which we agree will be much nicer when we someday have a Jacuzzi tub.

And we talked about how we’ve gotten too comfortable in our routines. We go to school/work, go to the gym, spend what seems like forever making dinner, watch a little TV, talk about wedding stuff, work on our computers, and all too soon, it’s time for bed. Socially, we do the same regular things with the same peeps.

The same drive to school, walking the same hallways I’ve haunted for 5 and half years. It’s like living life in stop-motion and fast forward at the same time.

Not that routine is always bad. Familiar friends and familiar rituals are comforting and necessary touchstones to have. But we could definitely use a little adventure from time to time, a break from the everyday.

My ongoing challenge, besides not going crazy trying to finish my degree, is to find meaning and happiness in the present, which is hard to do when my entire body is reverberating with the mantras of “I can’t wait to be married” and “I can’t wait to be done with school!”

The summer I spent in Germany, we’d ride our bikes a long way down to the Rhine to get ice cream and eat it while looking at the faint blue hills of France off in the distance. And to me, it was always the long trip that made the ice cream so satisfying. Long walk, part of gift, that sort of thing. For the first time, I’m so fixated on ice cream, I’m only tolerating the ride.

(Although in this case, it’d be pistachio gelato. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that it’s the greatest thing ever? On another tangent, ice cream is inextricably linked with my memories of Germany. I swear an ice cream cart was around every corner we turned. A maple walnut cone I ate in a light rain on the road up to Neuschwanstein ranks as some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had.)

Big changes are ahead of me and it’s easy to look forward to them (Moving someplace new and terrific! Maybe buying a house! Getting a dog! A real job! Income! A modicum of respect!) so much that today just becomes a chore, a means to an end. And I don’t want to spent even a small chunk of my life that way.

Time to shake things up.

happy halloween

2006-10-31T14:07:00.000-08:00

I've had Danse Macabre stuck in my head all day. I blame elementary school music classes.

On Saturday we hit the first two of our All Hallows Eve parties, after watching Shaun of the Dead to set the mood. Husband to Be ordered a pretty spiffy BSG uniform online and I served as his accessory by going as Boomer. My Korean-ness seems to have made that inevitable. What can I say, we are the King and Queen of the Geeks.

Other notable costumes included Maude and the Dude and a hilarious rendition of Kim Jong Il. Fun parties. Thanks to Miss A's potent White Russians, HTB and I both got housed. I have a disturbing number of pix of him in snuggly and/or compromising positions with other guys at the party!

Actually, now I have La Isla Bonita stuck in my head. Office mate Miss A mentioned her husband M and that's his favorite Madonna song (yes, apparently straight men can have favorite Madonna songs, or so they tell me. HTB's is Into the Groove.) How's that for random neural network firing?

And I leave you with an appropriate geeky cartoon.

no more dress shenanigans

2006-10-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Is what I've promised Husband to Be. Well, let's hope that got the crazies out of my system. Although, really, if driving to Minneapolis on a whim is the craziest thing I do before the wedding, that's not so bad. HTB's craziest thing may very well be jumping out of a plane with groomsman and ne'er do well friend M. (I blame you for this, M) And if HTB decides that that will be his engagement gift, I'll be paying for him to risk life and limb. Great.

The weather forecast for the drive on Saturday was grim so we almost didn't go but luckily the weather report was wrong as usual. After about half an hour at the sample sale, I knew I wasn't going to find anything. But I stuck around for another 15 minutes, because dammit, we'd come a long way, and maybe one of the women randomly undressing by the windows was trying on my dress. Nope.

Lots of the usual - strapless and poofy. I walked by a woman trying on a strapless number that was body-hugging to about halfway down her legs and then exploded in a burst of tulle. The friend who was with her was all "That is SO you!" and I bit my cheek to not burst out laughing.

I know I've made this rant before, and I confessed to trying on some big strapless ballgowns and admitting they were pretty. And I really do understand that for many women, the Cinderella fantasies of our childhoods stick with us and these days, chances to go to costume balls are pretty few and far between. But at the end of the day, I don't want to look like a pretty pretty princess and I don't want my wedding day to be the greatest game of dress-up ever. I want to look like a great version of myself and be able to move and dance.

So like a lover who's strayed and regrets it, I have renewed appreciation for my dress. It doesn't look like every other dress out there, and more importantly, it suits me.

Wespent the rest of the day exploring downtown Minneapolis. The network of skyways is very convenient for chilly days, but I would actually rather walk around outside, because eventually it starts to feel like being in a mall that NEVER dies or ends. We hit "Eat Street" for dinner and that was a complete disappointment. 17 blocks of culinary options, my ass.

Speaking of playing dress-up, although I tease HTB for asking me in July "What are we doing for Halloween?", I've now ended up trying to put together a costume at the very last minute, with four possible parties looming in the very near future.

if i found my way to minnesoter...again

2006-10-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

Nobody ever really tells you that when the ring gets put on your finger, you have, in essence, signed over rights to your brain for the foreseeable future. Maybe when the 2nd ring gets put on my finger, everything will be put back to rights again.

As you may know, I have bought the Dress. It's a very nice dress. But I think Husband to Be and I are driving five hours to Minneapolis tomorrow because there's a huge sample sale at the convention center, with the promise of hundreds of designer gowns all on sale for $249.

Have I mentioned that I already have a dress? Yes, quite. But being in a small city, I never got to try on the fancy schmancy, expensive ass dresses that I loved the look of. Would I have bought one? Of course not. But the possibility of getting a dress made with real lace and silk for $249 is terribly tempting. That's a lot less than I paid for rayon related fabrics at David's.

Either I find a dream dress at a rock bottom price and then have to worry about selling the 1st dress or I find nothing and can rest easy knowing my dress is It. Not a life or death scenario.

I love Husband to Be for so many reasons, not the least of which is that he totally caters to my lunacy and never makes me feel crazy while he's doing it. After finding out about the sale, I was just griping about living in Small Town USA and he uttered the fatal words "Do you want to go?"

Our friends who live in Minneapolis are out of town this weekend. I don't know if I should take this as a sign. But all the lovely ladies on my wedding board think I should go! Have I become unhinged? Quite possibly.

Weddings make you do the wacky.

whatever happened to my translyvania twist?

2006-10-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Looking forward to Halloween. I will neither confirm nor deny that Husband to Be has roped me into joining him in wearing the geekiest Halloween costumes ever. Last night we made our first jack o'lantern. Ok, HTB was the one who wielded the knife, but I provided moral support and toasted the pumpkin seeds. Have we become hopelessly domesticated? Yes. And that's just fine by me.

let's call the whole thing off

2006-10-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

I would like to think that almost every single bride has a moment where she is really, really tempted to just elope. I wouldn't wish wedding planning stress on my worst enemy.

My advisor has chosen this crucial time to disappear for a week. Between having a baby and then having her computer die, the wedding coordinator has understandably but frustratingly been in only sporadic contact. And not as helpful as she used to be. And in some random searching online I found some venues of the type I really wanted and that she completely failed to mention.

I just had someone email me who's also using the same WC, expressing her concerns and asking me about my experiences with her. Guess I'm not the only one having second thoughts.

We're taking my e-ring back for a re-design, after finally admitting that what we wanted got lost in translation and that our jeweler tended to forget or ignore what we asked for.

I hate the feeling of getting yanked around by these various folks who alternately disappoint me, make me wait forever, or flake out on me.

Who needs a drink?

tell me your name, tell me your story

2006-10-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

There’s a whole lot of estrogen involved in wedding planning. Not to say that the future grooms aren’t important and relevant or ever involved. They are. But there’s a lot more of women discussing and sharing their plans online and IRL. And it’s almost impossible for there to be no cattiness or judging. Even as I chide myself for it, I am not immune.

I have this thing about butt bows. I find them hideous. Also not big on large, gaudy fabric flowers. So when a fellow bride to be excitedly posts a picture of her wedding dress and it has not only the butt bow but big fabric flowers on TOP of the butt bow, I just bite my tongue and wonder how many of the women who tell her the dress is beautiful are lying through their teeth to be nice.

The main board I spent time on is actually amazingly free of cattiness. The women there are genuinely nice and supportive and there is not a lot of conflict. But taste is so subjective that there’s no way that no one has ever silently been thinking “ugly, ugly, ugly” about someone else’s choice.

And on any of the websites I frequent, whenever the name change issue comes up, I inevitably find myself mildly irritated.

For one thing, as a name-keeper, I am vastly in the minority, which still surprises me. All of the female faculty members in the department have kept their names and every female married grad student I know has changed their name. This seems counterintuitive to me.

Sure, everyone likes to feel they’re making the right decision and I know we all fall prey to feeling the need to defend our choices. Which to me, is about as anti-feminism as you can get. Shouldn’t we feel free to be confidently doing whatever the hell we please?

But no, whether it’s the relatively trivial name change issue or the issue of working vs. stay at home moms, we just can’t leave each other be.

It doesn’t bother me just to hear someone say they’re changing their name or that it feels right to them. It’s a personal decision, everyone does what they want. What does bug me is when someone feels the need to throw in something along the lines of “it’s the ultimate sign of my commitment and dedication to him” or “I really love my FI so I’m changing mine” or “I really don’t like his name, but I want us to feel like a unit” or “I’m ambivalent, but I really want to have the same name as our future kids” or "I just can't wait to be Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName!" or my favorite “I read this study that showed that marriages where the woman kept or hyphenated her name were more likely to end in divorce.”

Bite me. Rant number one. Is this a backhanded way of saying that women who keep their names don’t “love their FIs” and aren’t really committed to them? How is changing a name the “ultimate” sign of commitment? It’s just a name. (I’m aware of the irony here. Go with it.)

The thing is, I've yet to hear a name-keeper say "I'm keeping my name, down with the patriarchy!" Do some name-changers feel the need to justify their decisions with exclamations of love and commitment? If some of them feel any feminist guilt or cognitive dissonance, that's honestly a shame. Because my rants notwithstanding, in a perfect world women should be able to change their names just because they damn well want to without someone (not unlike me) asking them "How can you just give up your identity? Don't you think it's a completely archaic tradition?" etc.

Rant number two. Heaven forbid kids don’t automatically and exclusively take their dad’s last name. If we were to arbitrarily assign kids only one parent’s surname, wouldn’t it just be crazy to give them the surname of the person who endures all the joys and pains of pregnancy and labor?

But this is my bias and my justifications. I know this. I guess I’m a snob in the sense that I can't help but wish that more women would present relatively coherent, well-thought out reasons for what is, for many women, a pretty big decision.

Not just “I love my FI”. Well I love mine too and not taking his name doesn’t mean I’m going to feel any less married to him.

Will it sometimes be a pain in the ass to have kids who either have his name or mine? No doubt. But we’ll manage and we’ll be in the not insignificant minority of families who are in some way or another doing things nontraditionally. And not to go all Pollyanna on you, but someday there’ll be enough variety in the arrangement and nomenclatures of “typical” families that it’ll all seem normal.

a dream deferred

2006-10-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Some rare mornings I start the day in a calm, Zen-like state. This was not one of those mornings. Running an hour late, mind buzzing with the million things I needed to get done, this morning made me wonder how the hell I’ll possibly be able to handle having kids.

Yesterday we drove to Husband to Be’s hometown for the day. Played bocce and had a nice lunch with his parents and then went to a birthday party for two of HTB’s friends’ kids. His friends have a lovely home and it was filled with very cute, very well-behaved kids. Is it bad to be surprised when kids are well-behaved? Their newest baby may have caused someone’s clock to tick a little louder than normal. HTB’s friends joked that “this’ll be you in a couple of years”. Eep. More than a couple.

For now, it’s really nice to drive home to just an apartment and a cat. To be able to go on trips and to concerts without having to worry about babysitters or even to go out at all, and to make our late night gelato runs. (Pistachio gelato is the best thing ever.) I told HTB we should really enjoy the remaining years where we don’t have to be selfless.

Some nights when we get home after hitting the grocery store or farmer’s market and/or gym and after fixing dinner and watching a tiny bit of TV, we’re absolutely pooped. Add in a little bit of time for wedding-related nonsense or going out for drinks with friends and the entire evening is eaten up. If we’re this tired and busy now, how can we handle the exponential increase in chaos that comes with kids, the likes of which we can only imagine, based on the horror stories of parent friends.

The prof I TA for has two kids and came to a meeting exhausted from too little sleep and talked about how you just make time wherever you can find it, which can mean running to the grocery store at 10 PM and then getting up at 5 the next morning to put away laundry. I am not a morning person but I guess I’ll probably become one, right?

Our cat’s a bit of a meowy pants and cleaning her litter box is not one of my favorite things, but that’s not even on the same scale as changing diapers and endless crying. No yard to mow or a mortgage to pay. I want to revel in all these things as much as I can, because while I really, really do want the house, the kids, the whole nine yards someday, there’s no going back. For now I am happy to have only the pitter patter of cat paws running around the house.

Oh and on the way home HTB surprised me by taking us a little out of our way and surprising me with a Sonic, a fine establishment sorely and unfathomably lacking in our city! We got tater tots and my beloved lemonberry slush. Best. Boy. Ever.

Save the dates have been sent out. Woot!

V Mars was okay, after a strong opening, Lost was weak, and BSG kicked so much ass! That’s how a season premiere is done. Damn.

words will lose their fear

2006-10-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

After a big yummy sushi dinner on Friday, a bunch of us saw Calexico play at the cool restored theater downtown. They totally rocked our faces off. As predicted, they didn't have a full mariachi band with them, but oh well, the trumpets were still in full and glorious force. Man, that show kicked ass.

New Decemberists album out tomorrow, looking forward to that.

And Veronica Mars, Lost, and BSG all start up this week. Yay!!

and I am a material girl

2006-09-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

Not dead yet. Been busy with school. Enjoying the gorgeous, crisp fall weather, took a fun day trip on Sunday with Husband to Be, M, and Miss A, pix to follow.

I can't wait until wedding planning is over. My brain is consumed by school and wedding and I'd really like to re-claim some of that cerebral real estate. I've realized that part of the problem is decision fatigue. As I've mentioned before, sometimes shopping decisions take me forever and wedding planning is nothing if not making one shopping decision after another.

It's really hard for me to turn off the voice in my head with its "Maybe we should have gone with the other envelopes?" and "What font should we use for our monogram?" and "What if I find a dress I like better?"

And the fact that this is all such superficial shit is what really drives me bonkers. I shouldn't care so much about this crap. Marrying my best friend and favorite person in the whole world? Important. The details? Not important. And yet I get sucked into the vortex of materialism and social comparison (Ooh, she used an embosser on her envelopes. Maybe I should get an embosser...) and ensuing dissatisfaction. It's retarded.

More later.

it had to be you

2006-09-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

A few of the countless reasons I know why I want to marry this man:

He caters to my late night chocolate cravings, whether it’s going down the street for a malt or downtown for gelato.

When I was going crazy because of some bug bites I had an allergic reaction to, he ran to the store to get me calamine lotion and then later, Benadryl, fed me grapes, and put aloe on me in the middle of the night.

There is no one else in the world I’d rather have next to me when driving on a summer night with the windows down and “California Stars” playing.

The cat unabashedly adores him.

He uncomplainingly lets me take him shopping. I rarely do it, but there was a massive sale at Kohl’s and he made out like a sexy bandit with two dress shirts, two polos, and three ties for 90 bucks.

It sometimes takes me forever to make shopping decisions. He never, ever gets impatient even if it takes me half an hour to decide on what color towels to get, because I’m simultaneously shopping for the bathroom we have now and the bathroom we might have in the future. Likewise, he never complains about how long it takes me to get dolled up for the evening. He is endlessly patient.

When other women complain about how their men leave their dirty clothes on the floor or don’t help out around the house, I can’t chime in.

He participates in every aspect of wedding planning, even when I know he can’t possibly care about what color envelopes we get for save-the-dates.

I’ll be sitting around the house in my pjs with my hair in a sloppy ponytail and he tells me I’m hot.

He's always up for an adventure, whether it's the idea of moving to Korea or jumping in the car and getting the hell outta Dodge for a day.

All of this makes it easy to overlook the following music-related sins:

He’s the only person I’ve ever met who actually likes the song “Roxanne” and speaking of the Police, he thinks “Wrapped Around Your Finger” is a better song than “King of Pain”. I know, I know, “how can it be wrong if it’s a preference?”, but it can.

He tells me Tom Jones does a cover of “Never Tear Us Apart” and it’s not bad.

He raves about William Shatner’s latest album.

On one of our first dates he referred to Rod Stewart as a musical legend. Not that he likes Rod Stewart, but that Rod’s popularity qualifies him as a musical legend. This from the man who has referred to no fewer than a dozen movies as “Best Movie Ever.”

I’m not saying Husband To Be has bad taste in music. Not at all and we like a lot of the same stuff. He just has lower standards. But I love him still.

wasting away again in mojito-ville

2006-09-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

Grading is made considerably more tolerable when done on the patio on a perfectly gorgeous day with mojito in hand. Yum. My mojito infatuation has only been inflamed by the mojito serving set Husband to Be's parents gave me for my b-day and by the convenience of growing our own mint.

In wedding news, we've booked our room in an adorable B&B in St. Thomas. Yay! Now we just need to figure out how we want to divvy up the honeymoon among St. Croix and St. John, with daytrips to the BVI. Can't wait!!

to hold onto these moments as they pass

2006-09-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

It was a good weekend. Made sushi in honor of J's birthday on Friday and on Saturday I had 8 lovely ladies over to my place for a night of fantastic food and drinks and painting each other's nails while the menfolk watched football down the street. Miss A made a killer basteeya and my mojitos were a big hit.

After a lot of cursing and frustration, Husband to Be and I finished designing and ordering our save-the-date magnets and customized St. Thomas postcards. Yay, progress!

And oh yea, yesterday, I bought the Dress, (if HTB values his life, he will not click on that link nor open the garment bag in the closet), aka the most expensive piece of clothing I will ever buy.

The girls and I first hit this boutique out in the middle of nowhere that was housed in a big pink barn. Very cute and quintessentially Midwestern. Tried on several nice dresses, including this one (Bottom row, 2nd from the left), and then let the girls persuade me to swing by DB and try on the dress I'd liked the first time out. It was on sale for even more off than the last time and I loved it even more, so I handed over my credit card and took that baby home.

After enduring no small amount of frustration over the past several months, I seem to have my advisor's attention, which means I really need to put my nose to the grindstone and finish prospectus revisions, so posting may remain sporadic. But I realized that no matter how trivial or inane the details may sometimes be, I want to document all the little ups and downs of my last year of school and of Wedding Planning 2007.

nothing to say but that's okay

2006-09-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering if I should take a break from blogging. For a while now I just haven't had much to say and superficial posts are just not doing it for me. School is stressful, wedding planning is both fun and stressful, rinse and repeat. Happy, sad, stressed, introspective, I've been feeling all of those things but unable to capture them on paper.

Writing has always been a release for me but when I read over scribblings from college, I am still surprised by the passion and emotion that jumps out at me from the pages and in contrast, my current writing is a lot more tepid. Drama, pain, heartbreak, they all fuel my creative fires but a combination of stress and contentment leaves me stymied and blocked.

I'll just keep on keepin' on and try to find my voice again.

What I'm really wanting
A brand new machine
One for converting
Plastic to dreams…

Come on, come on, get up
I wanna take you
Away from all of this
And what has got you
Lost and feeling down
54-40

the bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide

2006-08-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

It's almost ridiculous how much I miss HTB after a few days apart. He's been out of town since Sunday for a conference and I really wish he was back already, if only so I could get a decent night's sleep.

It's not all bad. A little space is always good for a relationship, I enjoyed having some quiet time to myself, and it's nice to have a chance to miss and appreciate him. Living together denies you of that bittersweet feeling.

And it's not as if I've been sitting alone in the dark. Went out for dollar slices last night and then to a birthday party. Going to try and drag travel weary J out for drinks tonight.

But at the end of the day home is too quiet, the cat misses her favorite warm lap, and the bed feels strange. I sleep with my arm across his pillow as if trying to conjure up the missing warmth.

Why isn't it tomorrow night already? And would it be bad to make out with HTB in front of his boss?

the drinky drinky motion

2006-08-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

Hugs from HTB and a chocolate malt helped to de-mope me a bit and a weekend of cuttin' loose and kickin' back carried me the rest of the way. Last week's Girl Night was a resounding success, with a heap of tasty food and drink - bellinis, mojitos (try topping them off with Mt. Dew, yum!), tiramisu, hazelnut gelato, Nutella cake, yum! The guys got together and had beer and pizza. It pays to be a girl. I'm looking forward to hosting the next Girl Night while the menfolk do their red-blooded American male thing down the street, watching football and drinking beer, boy howdy.

We had our first happy hour back at our favorite bar and it was good! With new furniture on the patio, martinis on special and a balmy evening breeze blowing, it was damn good to be back. Afterwards HTB and I got cart food and listened to a salsa band and watched people dancing in the square. It's usually only the eccentrics and the kids dancing at these shows, but that night everyone was getting groovy. A perfect summer evening.

Saturday there was an all day and night blowout party with what seemed like every student in the department in attendance. Good times. HTB missed out on the chance to pick up a couple of young clinical chicks who struck up a conversation with him and asked him who he was. After he pointed me out to them, they suddenly lost interest and walked away. Lol.

Drunk grad students are so much fun to watch. Friend E professed her love for everyone there and was all "You guys are such a great couple" and "HTB, you are a lucky man. She is such a catch. You are living the American dream!"

A while back a woman who was sitting behind us at one of those Friday night concerts came up to us at the end of the night and asked us if we were married and said we seemed like such a happy couple and having such a good time with each other. If strangers and drunk friends think we're a great couple, it must be true!

Truly, without healthy doses of liquor in good company, there's no way we could have all managed to survive school this long.

it's the little things that can pull you under

2006-08-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

This morning it was parking. Now that students are back in, the halcyon days of parking only a few blocks away are over. Yesterday I had to pass up on 3 spots because my parallel parking skills leave a lot to be desired and the spots were small. Today I parked further away than I ever have and it made me grumpy in a "this is not really about parking" sort of way.

It's a pleasant walk past lots of cute old houses that I want to photograph, but I couldn't help but think ahead to how awful the walk becomes in the winter. Instead of thinking "yay, my last year here and my last Midwestern winter" it was "I can't believe I have to do this (school) for another year" and "I can't believe I have to go through another one of these hellish winters."

Why is it so much easier to tell yourself to suck it up and do whatever needs to be done, whether it's walking to school or finishing my damn prospectus so I can actually graduate this year than to actually do it, with maturity and grace, or failing that, just with a minimum of bitching?

It's hard to stay rooted in the present when I spend so much time planning for the future. We've booked the reception villa and wedding planner and are working on designing a monogram and making save-the-dates, and need to start thinking about florists and caterers and on and on. I enjoy it but it's always a reminder of things to come - graduating, getting married, and moving - and it's hard not to be impatient.

The negatives in my life are far outweighed by the positives and I'm very satisfied with our homey apartment and our good friends and the simple pleasures of pre-kid years with HTB. But I'm also really tired of the rut that is grad school and the feeling that a more satisfying life is still on hold. I've looked at a lot of travel magazines over the past few months and it just intensifies the itch to be out there, somewhere. Adventure is calling to me and I'm pouting and kicking my heels because I can't answer the call yet.

Mopiness is so unbecoming. I need to snap out of it and just do what I need to do. Yea, I'll get right on that.

hoch soll sie leben

2006-08-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

More later, but just had to wish a Happy Birthday to J, one of my favorite Leos! J is a fabulous, brainy, funny, caring, sweet and sexy chica and a crackin' good friend and maid of honor. I am lucky to know her.

Get back into town so we can party!

we have liftoff!

2006-08-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Well, okay, now it's exactly 10 months until the wedding. We finally found a venue for the reception that looked really good but they were booked for June 16. Cue bridal meltdown. Finally occurred to us to try and change our date. After a lot of debating which direction to move it in and second guessing (we liked the idea of the 14th, because we met on a 14th, but there was a strong chance that his aunt and uncle wouldn't be able to make it then. Then we debated the merits of a Friday vs. Sunday and finally ended up on a Monday.) and checking in with our photographer friend, who was flexible, bless his soul, we changed the date and are penciled in to have our reception here. It looks gorgeous, with over 5 acres of gardens, and lots of patios and outdoor space.

This is their new pavilion that might well be the spot. I'm hoping that the rafters offer lots of decorative possibilities like paper lanterns and draping some fabric to make it tent-like.

We have a reception venue! Keeping our fingers crossed that the wedding planner we've been talking to is available so we can officially hire her. And then we start writing really big checks...

After months of being closed for reconstruction, our favorite bar is opening back up! Yay! Girls' Night Out tomorrow! Yay! It's been a stressful and literally headache-y week, but things are definitely looking up.

time to get going, what lies ahead i have no way of knowing

2006-08-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

Shortly after my last post, Miss A called to congratulate me on not being unemployed. I'll be teaching the same class I have been for the past 3 years, and I am just fine with that!

Went to Chicago for a wedding, which was very nice, snarky comments about the universality of strapless ballgowns and reading from Corinthians aside. Being creatures of habit, HTB and I hit the Loop for shopping and had lunch at FoodLife. I was amazed at the sheer volume of ugly clothes at H&M and ogled huge diamonds at Tiffany's. Went to the Korean festival, there wasn't
much there but we got some tasty kalbi. Got some yummy pizza at Gino's.

Tried on a couple of dresses at Saeyoung Vu and was sorely disappointed. Up close the dresses did not impress.

As always, our friends S and L were fabulous hosts and talented photographer S took our engagement pix, which turned out wonderfully. And we have booked S for our wedding and set the date! Huzzah!

In 10 months and one day, we're getting married. Let the freaking out commence.

Not freaking out about getting married or married life, never that. I am however freaking out about having a countdown and getting everything done in 10 months. We still don’t have a venue booked. There are superficial things, like getting in shape and growing out my hair. But above all else, I'm wiggin' out about having less than 10 months to oh, get my Ph.D, find a job, and enter the real world. Those little things.

Must breathe.

Summer's just about over and my 6th, and knock on wood, final, year of school is starting. As much as I am ready to cast off the burden of school, the unknowns of the future are a little nerve-wracking. Sure I long for a job and house and new city, but wanting to leave the nest and actually doing it are entirely different things. Something about the devil you know…

I'm just going to have turn this panic into fuel for fire and get my ass in gear. Because the clock is really ticking now.

every other day is a kick in the shins

2006-08-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

There are some days when I just want to throw in the towel and say screw it to school. Today is one of them. It's a week and a half until the semester starts and TA assignments still aren't out, a professor I talked to who saw a preliminary draft says he didn't see my name. It may be that a just a few days before the semester starts I find myself unemployed.

At the beginning of the summer my advisor said she would be in town pretty much all summer. She then disappeared for a month. When she got back, she said now she was available and then periodically left town for several days at a time, something I would always find out about after the fact. Just last week she said she didn't foresee leaving town anytime soon but that she would let me know. She then promptly, you guessed it, left town.

What am I doing here?

seoul searching

2006-08-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

A while back HTB asked me what I thought of the idea of moving to Korea for a year after I'm done with school. He knew someone who really enjoyed his stint in Japan teaching English and made pretty good money. Being HTB, he knew I'd rather do something like that in Korea. I have to say the idea intrigues me, but I’m torn. It would be a great adventure and what better way to get in touch with my roots than to be immersed in Korean culture for a year? I think it'd be a fun, challenging, and incredibly interesting year.

HTB knows that it's really important to me that when we have kids that we nurture their biracial identity, which means at the very least I need to learn how to speak Korean fluently and how to cook Korean food. Plus, taking off for a year is also the kind of adventure I feel is most possible pre-kids.

On the flip side, the thing I most look forward to doing after school is putting down roots. I want a house and a yard and a dog and a job and a great city to call home. Putting that off for another year wouldn't be impossible, just hard.

We talked about it for a while yesterday and then when HTB was looking around online for possible things to do when we're in Chicago this weekend, he found that there'll be a Korean festival going on. Coincidence?

Whatever we end up doing, the fact that HTB can suggest such an adventure is one of the many reasons why I know he is so perfectly suited to me.

weddings are whack

2006-08-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

I wonder if there’s any research that shows an association between wedding planning and loss of brain cells. Because I’m at a loss for anything interesting to say. Because me trying to figure out what the hell to wear for engagement pix we’re getting taken next week or whether or not to buy a dress before the David’s Bridal sale ends or when we’re going to nail down specific locations in St. Thomas or should I be scared by Miss A’s piece of wisdom that when it comes to wedding expenses, numbers start to lose all meaning or wow that Milena on Bridezillas is a bitch from hell or sheesh, composing our first email to potential wedding guests is exhausting…these are not interesting things. Sigh.

On a tangent, I think the term bridezilla is quite annoying. On the one hand, it demonizes perfectly nice women who understandably might get a little frazzled and on the other, some women will use it as license to be as self-absorbed and diva-like as they want. I think someone on Bridezillas (which I watched for the first time the other night) actually uttered the words “I’m the bride, therefore I should get whatever I want.” Sweet holy Moses on buttered toast, get over yourself. As if the mere act of a woman getting married gives her free reign to demand things. Is this a woman’s reward for snagging a man? Disturbing on so many levels.

I know that there are some (mythical?) women who are totally laidback about their wedding and don’t obsess over the truly unimportant things like color of the tablerunners or what kind of ribbon to wrap around favors, but I have yet to meet them. The thing is, even if you are laidback at first and don’t care about the trivial details, you’re required to make decisions about place settings and centerpieces and bouquet wraps and oh should we have sea glass or petals strewn down the aisle and the act of having to make these decisions and pay money for them accordingly causes you to care. Probably a bit too much.

And I think a lot of men get a bum rap for not helping out enough or being interested enough. But it’s not that they don’t care, it’s just that they generally don’t care about the minutiae. All many man care about is that they will be there, their future wife will be there and at the end of the day they’ll be married. That’s all they need to know to be happy. Whereas many women, while they care most about that as well, have had it ingrained in them from birth that this day has to be not just beautiful and special, which it would be anyway, but pure perfection of fairy-tale proportions. That kind of pressure is the wedding industry’s bread and butter.

No one is immune. As much as I might shake my fist at this insidious affliction, I’m simply as vulnerable as the next bride-to-be. Asshattery.

On an up note, did you KNOW there are blogs all about cupcakes? Hawesome.

excelsior

2006-07-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Caught the tail end of Who Wants To Be A Superhero last night. Geekiest. Reality show. Ever.

But I really found their first challenge interesting, since it's just a modern day version of this study, where seminary students were told they needed to get to another building and they were either late or they had enough time. On the way they passed someone slumped over in an alley. People who were hurrying to get to the building were less likely to stop and try to help the person. And these were seminary students, half of whom had the story of the Good Samaritan made salient to them by being told they needed to tell the story when they got to the next building.

In last night's challenge, people were told to get to their destination as quickly as possible and most of them ran right past a little girl crying for help. Really quite interesting. If you're a psychology nerd.

turn on the boob tube, i'm in the mood to oeby

2006-07-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

This morning was the first weekday in a very long time that I didn't have to be at school at a certain time, so I was watching TV while eating breakfast and got sucked into an episode of Project Runway, which I'd never seen before (although I could swear some guy we know recently recommended it. A real guy's guy you could never picture watching it.)

Dammit. It was really entertaining and I know I'm going to continue to watch it. I like the rampant bitchiness and watching the designs unfold. I went through a phase as a kid where I wanted to be a fashion designer. I drew pages and pages of headless bodies modeling my creations. I still wish I could design my own clothes. I'm still on a student budget so I'm not exactly buying designer clothes and typical mall offerings tend to be stupefyingly boring or ugly. Sigh.

Heidi Klum is gorgeous but something about her accent just cracks me up. She sounds like a little girl.

For any Alton Brown fans, this Saturday there's going to be a Good Eats Marathon followed by a behind the scenes show and then finally, the premiere of Feasting on Asphalt. So excited! I think we're going to have M and Miss A over to watch and eat yummy things all day.

Last night I commented on how good AB looked, he was wearing a surprisingly hip BDS (button down shirt - let's be annoying like Rachael Ray and spell out our abbreviations!), and got the evil eye from HTB. I guess I'm allowed to love AB for his brains and not his looks!

head for the city lights

2006-07-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

Minneapolis was fun. It's always great to get out of town for a little bit and get a change of scenery. Had a nice time with HTB's friends, got good ribs, went to the sculpture garden, MIA, and saw Body Worlds. Body Worlds was pretty interesting, although I think it went on a bit too long and occasionally I took issue with their use of props and poses, but it was worth seeing. We had hoped to catch a show, maybe Tapes N'Tapes but after a full day of museum hopping, we were beat. Every time I go to Chicago I feel a little like the country mouse visiting the city mouse and I got the same feeling in Minneapolis. I really miss living in a big city. Beth Orton, Pete Yorn, and Golden Smog were among the other shows over the weekend that I would have loved to go to, and Calexico, M. Ward, Eels, and Snow Patrol will all be swinging by there soon. Sigh.

Now that we've narrowed down our wedding destination to St. Thomas, it's just a matter of finding the perfect location. Villa? Resort? On the beach, overlooking the beach? Nothing has jumped out at us as being just right. I hope we don't end up going back to the drawing board and choosing a different island.

if i found my way to minnesoter

2006-07-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

HTB got me this shirt, mainly I suspect, for his own amusement. With the coupon that came with it, I might finally get around to getting this shirt.

And for a good geeky laugh, watch this (via Sarcasmo).

HTB, M, Miss A, and I are off to Minneapolis. Doo doo doo doo...on the road again.

news of the weird

2006-07-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

Two random bits sent to me by friends this morning.

Most ridiculous wedding dress ever.

John has a stalker.
And it's not me! (Friend B emailed the link to me along with the message "Stop it!")

food for thought

2006-07-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

I always have to force myself to wait until noon to eat lunch, but I always start getting hungry before then. I'm craving pesto, so I'm gonna go get a bowl of bow tie pasta with a cream and pesto sauce. Yum! I just have to eat up some time by writing about food. I have to break my addiction to the Knot boards somehow.

I was a picky eater as a child, with most veggies on my do-not-touch list. In recent years my tastebuds have become a lot more open-minded, whether because I'm more mature or more likely, because my body is so in need of veggies that it's forcing me to change my tastes. Since coming to grad school, I've developed lots of new food loves.

I am now a huge fan of hummus. I only had it once in college, a bite from a boyfriend's sandwich. It was meh. Clearly I had never had the good stuff and now I crave it periodically. The store bought stuff is okay, but the best is at my favorite Middle Eastern joint, followed closely by the awesome batch HTB's Lebanese friend brought to our engagement party, the recipe for which HTB finagled in time to give me on my birthday.

I am always the slightly annoying customer who asks for extra rice, no refried beans with her chimichanga or enchiladas. But lately I've been sneaking bites off of HTB's plates and am less stridently anti-bean. Plus, when Miss A makes her divine chili, the beans just melt in my mouth.

I am sad to report that I had never eaten a Reuben until the past year. The mere idea of sauerkraut on a sandwich turned me off. But then I started being tempted, because if so many people love them, how bad could it be? I had a bite of one of HTB's (Boys are so useful for expanding culinary horizons!) and I can't believe what I've been missing out on.

Snowpeas? I don't know why I always picked those out from stir-frys. I was crazy.

I will always be a Dr. Pepper girl at heart, blame Texas for that, but I started drinking Cherry Coke here and love it no end.

I went through a Pop Tart and Sunny D for breakfast phase a few years back and a short lived nostalgia Capri Sun fix. But now I look for healthy cereals because I know I can't eat Corn Pops forever. Stupid health food. This week's Kashi offering is made more acceptable with the addition of blueberries, which turns out, I'm not all that crazy about by themselves. Good on cereal, love 'em in muffins, and they were great in the blueberry pancakes we made on Sunday.

Trying to eat more healthfully is a battle. I'm still feeling the effects of the foot long hot dog and Cracker Jacks from a baseball game last week. But it's a baseball game, what else can you do? At least my footlong didn't have chili and cheese and onions and peppers on it, like HTB's. Guilty pleasures inevitably result in remorse, so I felt a helluva lot better sitting down to a meal of pasta salad, pita and hummus, and some awesome fresh sweet corn from HTB's folks. Light, healthy, and delicious! I think if only I shopped at the whole foods store more often, I'd eat a lot better. Right now it's just easier and cheaper to go to the mega-marts instead of carefully
selecting organic produce. Someday, though.

I try to watch what I eat and I think it's worth the effort. But honestly, I'm just going to have always make exercise a priority because I love food way too much to deny myself.

Ok, who's hungry? Time to eat.

hot town, summer in the city

2006-07-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's been beastly hot, forcing us to find new ways of keeping cool. On Saturday we took refuge at the lake, renting a boat and partying the afternoon away and then had a fun dinner at a little down home eatery boasting the biggest and best pork tenderloin in the state. I don't know about best, but those suckers were huge. And on Sunday we joined the crowds at the blissfully cool mall and saw Pirates.

Yesterday was the hottest day we've seen here in a long time. I was sweaty and disgruntled when I got home and wanted nothing more than to camp out on the couch with the shades drawn and fan on and drink ice tea and be able to read my long-awaited first issue of Modern Bride, courtesy of a gift subscription from J. And it was there in the mailbox, when I needed it most! Yay to pages and pages of girl porn and some of the ugliest dresses ever!

After almost two months of waiting, we got the e-ring back from the jeweler's. Yay! I love it and I love having all the diamonds from Husband to Be's grandmother's ring in it. I hope that someday we'll have a grandson or great-grandson who proposes to someone with it and be able to tell her about its family history and that it will continue to get passed down generation after generation. And I love that we were both involved in the design process and that it wasn't just picked out of a case by just him or just me. In the first iteration of the ring mold, the stones the jeweler had picked out for the the band just seemed huge on my hand, leading me to wonder if I'm the first woman to ever utter the words "Could I have smaller diamonds?"

More later.

but now I’m old, yea I’m well past twenty-five

2006-07-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a really nice birthday dinner with some of my favorite people. Good food and some damn good martinis – so smooth and sweet you don’t realize how strong they are. Dangerous. The mojito martini I had is now one of my favorite drinks ever. And when we got home, Husband to Be made me cupcakes! If there’s anything sexier than a good-looking man in a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled back making me cupcakes because he knows how much I love them, I don’t know what it is.

I turned 27 yesterday. When I was a kid, 27 was the randomly selected magical age at which I would be a successful, sophisticated woman, fresh out of grad school and in a great job, married to someone I’d met in school. Yes, even when I was a kid, grad school was part of my future, thanks to the path laid out by my dad years before I could even comprehend what a Ph.D was. I thought it was what everyone did.

They told me when I started that the program average was 5 years. I’ve known one student who got out of here in 5. So I’m one year behind “schedule.” I’m not married yet, but I’m pretty close, which I still find amazing.

Am I everything I ever wanted to be in a person yet? Not even close, but I’m getting there. The hellishness of school and the identity issues of being a twenty-something aside, I’m happy with where the tides have swept me so far.

Maybe I gush too much about the joy I’ve found with Husband to Be. But honestly, it’s not from a sense of smugness or complacency. I know how lucky I am to have found him. He’s brought something rare and special and holy into my life and I don’t ever, ever want to take that or him for granted. If I gush, it’s to remind myself that love like this doesn’t come around every day and to keep the fires of awe and gratitude burning brightly.

And because I haven’t forgotten what it took to get me here. Aside from some serious good luck, I think I’ve paid my dues in heartbreak, stupidity, mistakes, loneliness and unrequited love. And the pain of middle school dances, at which all the other things can be found.

I haven’t had a hard knock life by any means but it hasn’t been all smooth sailing through a turbulent and often painful home life as a child and teen, which makes me cherish all the more the bliss and contentment of the home I have now. It buffers me from hurts big and small, the stress of school, and the ups and downs of a still complicated relationship with my parents. The noise of past pain has faded and I am happy to be in the quiet.

in life I know there is lots of grief
but your love is my relief

chantilly lace

2006-07-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today was delightful, the perfect day before my birthday. Had a big yummy breakfast with HTB and then headed off with J and Miss A for my first ever Wedding Dress Extravaganza. We went to a little local boutique and then David's Bridal, and oh what a day. It was like being enveloped in a cloud of satin and lace and tulle and seed pearls and bugle beads.

Although there were meringue nightmares and poufy monstrosities galore, I am no longer allowed to look down my nose at all things strapless because I tried on several and some of them were quite lovely. When I tried on this one (Click on Collection and search for "Celeste"), I finally understood the appeal. It was all wrong for the kind of wedding we're going to have, but it did make me feel like a princess. Some of those suckers are heavy, though. I didn't think I'd want a train, but I saw some truly gorgeous ones, including one that made me feel like a screen siren. There needs to be more glamour in my everyday life. Who says trains and opera length gloves should only be worn at costume parties?

I didn't think there was a chance I'd find anything I 'd like at DB, because so many of their dresses are of the strapless persuasion, but they had some nice things. The strongest contender was the very first dress I tried on there. HTB, you are expressly forbidden from looking at it, in case I buy it. I had printed out a picture of it when browsing online, because it was the only thing they had that was even remotely close to what I had been picturing, things like this (Carmen) and this (go to "Collection", it's the last dress on the first page). And it just looked amazing, the picture online doesn't do it justice. J and Miss A are big fans.

Trying on dresses for the first time was a little surreal. It is indeed the ultimate game of dress-up. As I was pulling on the first dress, it really hit me that I'm getting married. That realization is almost more tangible in that moment than any other previous moment, as odd as that seems. Sure we've been looking at wedding and travel stuff online, but I'd browsed the Knot before we were engaged. My ring is still at the jeweler's, so the dresses were the only material reminders of what's happening.

And even then, I still didn't feel completely bride-like until Miss A plopped a veil on my head. That pushed me over the edge. I had assumed I wouldn't wear a veil, just a flower in my hair. But as the girls reminded me, this is my one and only chance to wear one. Funny how important that simple, overpriced piece of tulle is to feeling like a bride.

It was good clean girly fun. J and Miss A were the perfect companions for the expedition. They were like a well-oiled machine, with one of them fluffing my train while the other took pictures and notes and both remembering which ones I'd tried on, offering advice and opinions and sharing in my excitement. They are the creme de la creme of girlfriends.

Took a jaunt to Bed Bath and Beyond and then we all got celebratory margaritas with HTB. When we got home, I got to go on a scavenger hunt for the birthday loot that HTB is letting me open today since tomorrow night we'll be busy with festivities. We're having lunch with his parents and then dinner and drinks with friends.

If I were any happier, I'd burst.

summer turns to high

2006-07-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

Had a lovely long holiday weekend, starting with our engagement party last Friday. We were busy all day getting the apartment festive and it looked great when we were done. We had a great turnout, lots of food, good sangria and mojitos, and some profound late night debate about which is a better Styx song, "Mr. Roboto" or "Come Sail Away." HTB and I ended up receiving enough wine to last us a good 2 years.

The bulk of the weekend was spent at the downtown jazz festival, one of my favorite things about summer. Each day we'd stake out a good shady place in the grass and stretch out on our blanket and listen to music for hours, getting up only to get food (the festival standbys of meat on a stick and funnel cakes). Good times.

HTB took Monday off and we went and saw Superman Returns and had a yummy sushi dinner and then saw some pre-4th fireworks. The celebration continued the next day with good friends and the yummiest brisket in the history of briskets and then the furtive lighting of firecrackers in a dark field across the street. We had sparklers and ladybugs and Roman candles and something called "Mucho Grande" which lived up to its name. Smoke and color and shouts of "look out" and the primal delights of fire.

The summer is just packed and there are yet more fun times yet to come. In between school and stress and social doings, there just aren't enough hours in the day.

the hours they go in front of me

2006-06-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Summer is just flying by. HTB and I are having a housewarming/engagement party on Friday and are busy getting the place ready. We bought a cute chair (on clearance!) and are busy keeping Willow's claws away from it. This weekend is jazz festival time and two friends have birthdays, then the 4th, and then my birthday, then a trip to Minnesota to see Body Worlds, and plenty of other things on top of that.

I'm still obsessively researching wedding locations and addicted to the Knot boards, but trying to cut back and will try to keep wedding spew from overtaking the blog. But aren't some of these villas gorgeous?

Had the first of what I'm sure will be many wedding meltdowns yesterday. Got that over with, at least. It wasn't even directly related to the wedding, but just that for the 3rd time in the space of a week, I felt let down by someone important, each time a different person. I hate feeling disappointed in people and I have a habit of turning the spotlight on myself and wondering if I'm justified in being disappointed or if I'm just holding people to an unfair standard. I am lucky that HTB always knows how to make me feel better and I trust in his ability to be the voice of reason if I am being unreasonable.

Still haven't been in all that much of a mood to write. A little bit of the summer doldrums, I guess, but I know it'll pass.