pinkshoes24's Xanga

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:27:19 GMT

yeah, i'm in italy. . .

Friday, September 26, 2008

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:58:54 GMT

so a few news items:

* i have one week left at my job. next friday, october 3rd is my last day here at the law firm. incidentally, that makes 2 years and one day i have worked here. the current economic crisis is making me a little nervous. conventional wisdom says that i should probably stay in a stable working position, but . . . i'm just done. i've been saving money, plus i have no debt, except for $50 which i owe to my grandmother, but she's not charging me any interest. so we'll see how this all pans out. but if we do have a second great depression, i've decided i'll be playing the part of the railroad hobo. a lifelong dream.

* i leave for italy on october 7th for 2 weeks to visit my friend emilia. i'm super excited, although the nervousness of all of these life transitions seems to be overshadowing it a little. i think once i'm completely done with this job, i'll be able to concentrate on it a bit more. i'm also trying to be determined not so slip up on the no smoking thing. i'm almost at 9 months, but when i think about being in italy it's hard to imagine it smoke free. but that would just be too ironic right? since this trip is a reward to myself for quitting. . .

* i'm about to be an aunt again. my brother christian and his wife amber are having a little boy next month. unless he comes early, he'll be born while i'm in italy.

* not much else to tell except i have get lots of things figured out. the lease on my apartment ends on december 1st. i'm pretty sure it goes month to month after that, but the landlord may be raising the rent, so we'll just have to see. . .

hope everyone is enjoying fall. it's been kind of blustery lately.

ps check out this band in my currently listening. good stuff.

maybe i'm just an old soul. . .

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:07:13 GMT

check out this link: http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2002.php

beloit college puts out something called a mindset list every year for students who are just entering college. this year's students are considered the class of 2012, born in 1990. the list includes things that they have never lived without, i.e. the internet, things they can't remember or didn't realize had never existed at some point in time. you can look up the years all the way back to 2002, which would have been my class -- those of us born in 1980 -- had i not transferred schools and had a double major causing me to graduate in 2003. to be honest, i was kind of insulted. take a look at the link above and you'll see what i mean. are you kidding me? you think i never had a black and white tv? that i always had cable? that i don't remember the cold war? some of them are legit. you're right i didn't realize there used to be beige colored m&m's. i don't know. obviously, this is supposed to be a generalization. i guess i just don't like being put into stock categories. at any rate, these lists are kind of interesting.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:39:38 GMT

so here i am. back again, trying to keep the blog thing afloat.

went to the beach this weekend with my good friend lee, who just moved to dc. hadn't seen her in about 4 years. we had a great time -- a perfect day for the beach. although getting there started off a little rough as the first exit we were supposed to take ended up being closed and there wasn't any visible way to get to the highway we needed to get on. so we basically turned around and went into a circle about 3 times before realizing that we were clearly going to have to find an alternate route. thanks to my trusty map and the fact that like to drive around just for fun which leads to learning lots of back roads and alternate routes for just such occasions, we were able to figure our way out of the what seemed like an endless mess. the waves at the beach were pretty big -- bigger than normal. it may have been some offshoot of hurricane/tropical storm fay. anyway, they were big enough to knock me down over and over again and i finally just got tired of fighting them and went back to the blanket. hopefully, i'm going to make it back to the beach once more before it gets too cold.

my little backyard patio has been getting lots of action lately. my neighbor shane, his best friend josh, josh's girlfriend marsha, occasionally marsha's roommate laura (who all go to my church) and i have been hanging out there alot on nights when it's not too hot, just hanging out, drinking and listening to music. it's nice.

i have 5 weeks left at my job -- 24 days and counting. i'm so ready to be done. and so scared at the same time. people keep asking me what's next and while i have a few things up my sleeve, the short answer is that i just don't know. and that's thrilling and frightening at the same time.

italy is coming up soon, and that's exciting. as well as my nephew who, unless he comes a few days early, will probably be born while i'm italy.

so that's my news for now. i'll keep you posted.

ps have you heard that song by the killers? "all these things that i've done". i don't think it's new, but i'd never heard it until recently on a commercial during the olympics. i can't stop listening to it. such a great song.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:33:52 GMT

ok fine, dave, i'm posting something. i've been ordered to post something soon or my friend dave is going to cut me off forever. ok, not really, but he wants me to post something. anything. i guess that means he reads this thing.

anyway, to be honest, not a whole lot to talk about other than the continual family drama. this summer has felt kind of boring and i'm looking forward to autumn. i guess there are a few things to talk about.

* i'm well on my way to quitting smoking -- 7 months as of yesterday

* i have a new beautiful niece -- adalae marie (pictures on facebook)

* the biggest thing in my life right now that some of you may not know about is that i'm quitting my job at the end of september. what am i doing next you ask? don't know yet. and while that's kind of scary and unsettling, it feels really good. i have sat in front of a computer for way too long, and i just can't do it anymore. i made this decision back in march and have been saving money ever since. so at least i'll have a bit of a cushion while i'm figuring out what i'm supposed to be doing.

* in the meantime, i'm going to italy for 2 weeks in october to see emilia. this is my reward for quitting smoking. i needed some serious motivation to force myself to quit, so i told myself that if i could go for 6 months without a cigarette, i could go to italy. cold turkey, i might add. i'm pretty excited about this trip.

that's really about it, i think. hoping to make it out to the beach once or twice more before the summer is over. and probably going to the county fair this weekend. i'm pretty excited about that. i haven't been to a fair in ages. i want to eat lots of cotton candy and funnel cake and snow cones. actually i don't really like cotton candy, but it's the principle of the thing.

hope everyone is well. here's to a good end to the summer.

has it really been 10 years. . .

Sat, 17 May 2008 23:09:53 GMT

i'm feeling a little nostalgic tonight. my high school class (of 12) is having their 10 year reunion tonight. i'm not there obviously, and when i first heard that they were having it, i was like absolutely i'm not going. #1 i can't afford it and #2 why would i want to go to that? high school for me wasn't all bad, but i wouldn't say it was that great either. it wasn't until i got out that i realized how much bigger and better the world could be. maybe that's how it is for all of us. there's one other reason i didn't want to go. . . (warning, this is about to get petty) i felt like if i wasn't there, it might look like i was too cool to care. like i had way more important things to do than go to some dumb reunion. i guess not going for that reason is the equivalent of actually going to the reunion and doing your best to impress your classmates with whatever job/trophy wife/successful life you have. anyway, now that today is the day, i'm wishing a tiny bit that i was there. as small as my class was, there are a few people i either haven't seen since graduation or only once or twice shortly thereafter. i'm curious to see how and what they are up to. i get the occasional update from my mom or other friends. i think i may be only 1 of 2 who actually moved away. or maybe i mostly just want to see the first boy i ever kissed, the boy who i had an eternal crush on from about 2nd grade until we graduated. he's led an interesting life to say the least, from what i've heard -- a little jail time and is now married with 5 kids i think. weird. i wonder what these people will say about me tonight. of the 12, 4 of us, myself included, went to school together from the time we were 3 years old until graduation. i knew them well, but it seems like a different life time. high school is not a time i would ever want to revisit and yet tonight i guess i'm wishing i could maybe a little bit.

incidentally, at our 5 year reunion, which i did actually go to, we all made preditions about what we'd be doing by the time our 10 year reunion came around. i doubt anyone even remembers this, but my prediction about myself was that i'd be in dc working in theatre. . .

5 years ago this month, i was graduating from college. i remember coming back to my apartment after the ceremony and laying on my bed and bursting into tears. i was like what now? i guess maybe i've figured a few things out.

like i said, nostalgic. seems like people from my past seem to be coming back into my life. probably thanks to facebook. it's not bad, it just feels weird. things that are stuffed into an old trunk that i haven't looked at in years are suddenly poking their way back into my memories. and i guess i'm ok with that, at least for tonight.

my birthday and beth's visit

Fri, 09 May 2008 02:48:06 GMT

so my birthday was last week, and it was actually a really good one. my mom sent me a birthday package and it arrived the day before, but i waited until the morning of my actual birthday to open it. i am such a kid about my birthday. i have to suppress the urge to tell strangers on the train. anyway, i gave my mom permission to buy me clothes for my birthday, and i was pleasantly surprised to see that i liked what she chose. i guess after the bathing suit thing, i shouldn't worry since we seem to have the same taste now. . . anyway, work was really busy and i would have rather been somewhere else, but my attorneys got me a $200 gift card to barnes and noble. i know. anyway, dan and jen took me out to dinner to georgia brown's which is a really nice southern restaurant -- the kind of food your (or my) grandma makes at about 3 times what it costs her to make it. but it was really good. then we went to a record store and dan bought me some records. back to my apartment for some cake that jen made and even though it was kind of falling apart, it was really good. the boys from downstairs came up to eat cake and we sat around talking and listening to my new otis redding record. so a good birthday in all.

beth came the next day -- wednesday and stayed til monday. we had such a great time. i made her walk all over town though, but really that's how you get the dc experience. i also got us lost trying to get to georgetown. look i don't go to the snooty parts of town very often. i have my own snooty neighborhood. but in getting us lost, we stumbled upon embassy row, and that was pretty cool. we went to an eddie izzard show -- a little disappointing honestly. we did all the monuments and the national art gallery -- well, not all the monuments. i kept trying to extol her on the awesomeness of the jefferson memorial and the tidal basin, but i think she was pretty walked out by then. we discovered that my definition of "not that far" and her definition are a little different. church and eastern market on sunday and a frou frou bar with live jazz. it was so much fun hanging out with no responsibilities -- no kids for her and no work for me. and no one around to ask our id numbers. she left on monday after i had gone to work. and i came home to a beautifully clean apartment. beth, i hope you know how much i love you! ask my if my apartment is still clean 3 days later. . .

i'm hoping to go see herb alpert next week. so that's exciting. and then a prairie home companion is coming to wolf trap in vienna, viriginia. i was hoping to see the live broadcast show, but i think i'm going to have to see the one the day before that's not on the radio because my aunt called and invited me to spend that weekend (memorial day) with her and her friends at virginia beach. if you know me at all, you know that i'm already there sitting on the front porch with my beach towel in my hand waiting impatiently. i. love. the. beach.

anyway, that's what i've been up to lately. oh, going to see "antony and cleopatra" tomorrow night at the shakespeare theatre. this is the time of year that my social calendar starts to fill up. winter is finally, completely 200% over and i couldn't be happier.

hope everyone is well.

some tidbits

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:21:02 GMT

* last week, i went bathing suit shopping at j.c. penney. not my favorite thing to do, but i ended up finding one that looked decent on me and was on sale. so score. on my way home, i called my mom and asked what she was doing. she was like i'm shopping for bathing suits at penney's. (in arkansas, mind you). i was like i was just there doing the same thing. i told her about the one i bought and she was like "that's the one i'm trying on right now." i couldn't believe it. i guess that means i'm getting old if i'm randomly picking out the same clothes as my 51 year old mother. i told her she could go ahead and buy it since we don't live in the same state. side note: they were having a dress sale as well, so i got this super cute dress. granted, it looks better on this girl than it does on me, but it's still really pretty. i love shopping in springtime.

* the weather this weekend was beautiful -- well, friday and saturday anyway. i made myself some brunch on saturday morning and sat outside on my little patio. then my neighbor jason joined me and we had a nice little chat.

* i got an overpriced pedicure on saturday. while i was waiting, i noticed a woman also waiting for a pedicure. she was reading a book and drinking a beer. in the salon. can you do that? it was heineken from a bottle. maybe it was nonalcholic beer. i couldn't tell. i'm going to assume it was the real stuff. and no one seemed to notice or care. i just thought that was kind of odd. can you do that?

* my federal tax return came in on friday and i promptly spent it on saturday -- on a plane ticket to rome! i'm very excited. i'm going in october for two weeks to visit my friend emilia, who was on tour with me. she actually lives in florence, but i figured flying into rome was cheaper. anyway, i can't wait.

* saturday before last, i bought some fresh flowers from eastern market for my apartment -- just to make things kind of pleasant and fresh. just a simple bunch of yellow daisies for $6. a week and a half later, they are still blooming quite nicely. i'm impressed with your flowers, mr. outdoor flower vendor man.

* beth is coming to visit me next week and i can't wait to see her and show her around my city. i guess this means i need to clean my apartment. . .

* i'm going to see feist in charlottesville, va on saturday with dan and jen. i've wanted to see her for a long time. and charlottesville is a really great place.

*awkward moment of the week: on saturday, at my brother's girlfriend's baby shower, my mom and my stepmother (who has been my stepmother for less than a month) met each other for the first time. my mother and apparently my stepmother (whom i've not met) are both gracious people, so the awkwardness was at a minimum. i was probably more nervous about it than anyone, and i wasn't even there. (side note: i'm not sure if i've kept everyone up to speed on my family, but in the last 4 months or so, it has grown exponentially. both of my parents remarried within 3 months to the day of each other, giving me and my 3 siblings 7 new step-siblings on both sides [5 of which are all younger than me and my own brothers and sisters]. plus my brother and his girlfriend jessica are about to have a baby next month and my brother christian and his wife amber are having a baby in october! it's been kind of crazy. i love my family very much, and i am very glad to live in dc. . .)

and i guess that's about it for now. happy earth day.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:33:16 GMT

so. . . the pope is in town. and he is riding around in, i kid you not, "the popemobile". i'm sorry, but i find that hysterically funny.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:22:14 GMT

i guess it's time for a cool ten.

10. the sporadic spring weather we've had (now if it would just stay that way. . . )

9. saturday evening, i walked down the tidal basin/jefferson memorial to enjoy the cherry blossoms before they are all gone. while i was there, i happened upon a shabbat service on the steps of the jefferson memorial. at first, i thought it was communion, but then i realized, it was a jewish service. there were maybe 100-200 people sitting with lit candles singing while tourists milled about. i watched for a few minutes, and then felt like i shouldn't gawk. i walked the circumference of the basin and then walked home, a total of 6 miles.

8. i've lost a few pounds and tried on a dress that i've been keeping at the back of my closet, and it fits! i'm so excited. hopefully, it will warm up enough this week so that i can wear it.

7. my taxes are done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6. as of friday of last week, i haven't had a cigarette in 3 months!

5. some fun concerts/shows coming up that i'm definitely going to -- feist, eddie izzard, prairie home companion, and possibly death cab for cutie, plus lots more

4. after a long hiatus from the theatre, i'm finally starting to get back into it.

3. looking forward to my niece, adalae, being born in less than 2 months and my other niece or nephew in october (i will be spoiling them and then letting their parents deal with the aftermath)

2. feeling a little more in control of my life and my decisions

1. i had a membership interview last week at the church i've been attending for the past year. i really like this church, and it will be nice to have a church home again.

hope everyone is well. ciao.