The Napkin Diaries

so its about that time in our lives that we are getting engaged and married or at least planning for it all. some of my friends have gorgeous rings and bridal magazines from floor to ceiling. and i have to admit that i'm definitely guilty of daydreaming about the idea of marriage and having a wedding.
my oldest friend, sheena, got married last night. (yay and congrats!) i've known her for 18 years. we grew up together. even though we went to rival colleges (ewww, usc, gross. ha) we still managed to stay friends. our mothers consider one another to be sisters, and our families get along so well. sheena looked so beautiful, and gah, it made me cry to watch her walk down the isle. i'm so happy for you, sheena.
the reception was so much damn fun! i never realize how much i miss my old high school friends until i see them again. we're so lucky that we still get to see each other and that when we do see each other, its for wonderful occasions, like sheena and luke's wedding. i mean, yay! way way yay.
the most eventful moment of the night was the bouquet toss... because i caught it! YES! while dave did not catch the garter, i will still giddy about my fabulous flower catching skills. matt mullinax actually caught the garter, so we danced together. reminded me of prom. definitely fun.
so yeah, wow. the girls are starting to get married and i just find that to be extremely exciting. so now, i'm gonna go float around the pool and continue my daydreaming...

obviously, all of us have our ways of dealing with stress, life, morons, etc. we all definitely have signs that these types of things are headed our way, too. recently, i have been having terrible dreams that people are trying to kidnap me, hurt me, or vandalize my car. and i've also been encountering debilitating migraines for days in a row.
you may be thinking that i would be crawled up in the fetal position in the corner by this point, but i have chosen an amusing array of alleviating tactics to combat my horrid stress. first, there is the champagn spritzer that i was so kindly introduced to via megan at the pool yesterday. thank god for $4 champange and fresca. who knew? this reliever helped me not feel fat in my bikini, allowed me to dismiss the fact that i have no income or money in general, and conclude that apartment leases and managers are crooked and lawyers can be a real good thing.
GSN can be accredited for stress relieving tactic #2. i mean, how can i possibly worry about idiots that go into the esso looking for me still or if my loan is being approved when classic shows like family feud and whammy are on tv? i'm way too involved in helping players chant for big money to be concerned about my own ishures. not issues.
lastly, i've always been aware that i'm weird. i'm okay with that. the way i chose to forget about pending problems completely validates my weirdness. instead of studying or crying or drinking, today i chose to groom my eyebrows. with scissors. now, for those of you who know me well, you understand that i cannot cut a straight line and that most of the time i cannot cut anything at all due to my left-handedness. i also have a tendency to get angry and attempt to cut my hair and end up with missing chunks. however, i mananged to successfully leave most of my eyebrows in tact and well-positioned. but i mean really, who honestly puts scissors to their own face when in their right frame of mind.
at least i realize that i'm seriously on edge and stressed out. but i appreciate myself for not being a basketcase about it all. however, i have found it challenging to be your own counselor... i'm thinking i might buy some coloring books or paint the apartment next.

So a few days ago, Erin went to check the mail. Pretty normal event. Well, this time, she heard this crazy cat screaming at her from the bushes around the corner. She kinda called the cat to come toward her, and low and behold, guess who came back from the dead?? Twister! The crazy ass cat is still alive. I mean. she stunk like hell and was horribly disheveled, but the littlest beast was okay!

The Return of Twister did a number on Tucker. He got all stressed out when she came back because I think that he thought that she had died. That, or he caught something sketchy from her. Either way, Tucker got sick in a hurry. He's been hacking and experiencing eye ooze for a few days, so we figured it was time to call the vet. Oh, and he lost his voice. Sad.

This morning when I was getting ready, he came into the bathroom with me and jumped into the tub. He actually does this a lot; but this time, he just sat in there and stared at the faucet. Dave and I shrugged at each other and figured we'd turn it on to see what he did. Well, he coughed a little, then stuck his face under the water to get rid of the eye ooze. Smart cat.

Dave and I took the beast to the vet this afternoon. What a freakin' ordeal. Gah. First, we had to fight Tucker to get him into his cage. The bastard absolutely would not go in! So, I put on the collar and leash and decided to carry the brat downstairs. Ugh. I now have bloody shoulders from that idea... So we finally get him and us into the car and he freaks out, which is weird because he is usually good in cars. So there was white cat fur all over my black interior. Awesome. Well, about half way to the vet, I realize that I am riding on empty. Shit. The next time I looked at the gas gauge, there were no bars left! Way shit. The last thing I needed to do was run out of gas on Highway 123 when its 100 degrees outside and I have a very panicked, sick spaz of a cat with me. Luckily I made it to the vet. Now we had to get Tucker inside. We finally shoved him in the cage... by taking the top off... and went inside where we were greeted by Hobbles, the 3-legged cat. I find it wildly hysterical that the vet owns a tripod cat named Hobbles.

So Tucker has some upper respiratory infection that costs me $60. Blah. We leave. We think all is well and we can calm down. Nope. We forgot to lock the door to Tuck's cage and he came bouncing out into the parking lot. Ahhh! Luckily, he didn't run and just got real low... get low get low get low... We scooped him up, encountered more bloody shoulders and got the fuck in the car.

Now, the question was: can we make it to the gas station across the street?? Yes, we can and yes, we did. All the while, Tucker was trying to scream and panting. I was bleeding and sweating and coughing from the Tucker fur I'd ingested. Dave was well enough to get out of the damn car to pump gas. We made it back in one piece, surprisingly, and now both my boys are taking a nap on the bed from their rough ass vet visit. What a disaster...

Life has been a little on the crazy side lately. The craziness accounts for my lack of blogs, which I apologize for. I made a huge decision that will pretty much effect the rest of my life as I know it. And I'm actually very okay with this decision...

I'm moving to Charleston with Dave.

Man, I love how that sounds. I'm not sure what I will do about my Master's degree. I'm not sure what kind of job I'm going to get. I'm not sure about a lot of things. The one and only thing that I know I am sure of is Dave. So we will pack up and leave in the middle of May. And I'm not going to look back. We are both so excited to be making such a huge step in our relationship. I cannot wait!

I haven't decided if I am going to keep the blog or not once I move. That decision is still pending. I feel like I'm finally growing up -- which means I don't really have all the funny drunk stories anymore. Either way, yay! Really really big YAY!

No, I didn't fall off the face of the planet or simply forget that I used to keep up with this blog thing. I've been insanely busy with work and school that I honestly haven't had a chance to sit here and humor you. And sadly enough, funny stuff really hasn't happened lately. Bad stuff hasn't happened either. Just stuff.

Spring Break was so amazing. Dave and I had such a wonderful time together - it was really nice that just the two of us decided to do something low-key. As you may or may not have known, Dave and I went to Madiera Beach, FL with his parents (they paid for everything. way sweet). We had decided we were going to drive down Friday night, stay at a hotel and finish the drive on Saturday since it was a 609 mile drive. Eww. Well, we hit Gainsville, FL around midnight and decided to call it quits. Little did we know that it was the biggest damn Hot Rod car show collaboration in the Southeast that weekend. Crap. We had to drive another 80 miles before we could find a vacant, unsketchy hotel. By that time we were already in Tampa and it was like 3 am. We stopped at just about every exit that had hotels and all of the bastards were full. Way blah. We ended up in this sweet Sharaton suite for the night. We couldn't really enjoy it though because we were both so delirious and exhausted that all we did was pass out on our humongous California King squishy pillow-covered bed. Eh well, at least there were inside hallways and English speaking people there... So we laid on the beach, ate fabulous food and goofed off for an entire week. Awesome

In the past 14 days, I've been at the Esso for 10 of them... some with as little as 6 hours in between shifts. Gross. So needless to say, I'm exhausted and quite sick of drunk men. Well, I'm always sick of drunk men, but I'm exceptionally sick of them, currently.

Yesterday was my official first day of summer (i.e. I drank beer at the pool for hours on end...) Yay, summer! There was a whole slew of awesome people out there too -- Erin, Leah, Joe, Shawn, Stephanie and Kristen. We basically all just made fun of each other and got sunburn. Believe me, there were grounds for making fun too -- examples include the following: Leah brought a Mason jar to house her wine that she drank out of a Budweiser cup; Shawn compared me to Humpty Dumpty because I had to sit on the ledge to get down, rather than just stepping down like he did; Joe hooked up with a slightly random girl, who proceeded to tell me, and of course I had to tell him that she told... and I told everyone else, too. Oops. Then I got a cooler of freezing ass cold water dumped on me. Thanks, a-hole; Leah brought ghetto ass speakers to hook up to her i-pod for all to enjoy; and Erin burnt the piss out of her boobies. Good day, man.

I promise that I will try to keep up with this things better. Interesting stuff should be happening tonight, actually -- Asian Jayson and Forty Friend Zach are both in town. And later this week the following will occur: Dave's birthday, a visit from Emily and a trip to Charleston. Prepare for storytime people. Prepare.