i'll get around to doing wednesday wonders again soon

Tonight though, I just wanted to say I really love K. I don't know what it was about today that was particularly different than any other day, but every time I looked at him, I thought "Man, I love him."

the weather

The other day was a perfect October day. It was cool but not cold and it was kind of misty outside too. I loved it. Today I believe it is about 94 degrees. Hopefully things cool down and turn into autumn soon.

Fall and Winter are my favorite seasons. I like it cool outside. I love wearing sweaters and sweatshirts, or even just long sleeves. You'd think I'd like hot weather more than I do on account of all that growing up in California, but I don't. Being sweaty makes me feel icky and no matter how much it happens I can't figure out how to avoid the icky feeling.

I like snuggling down into my bed at night and curling up into the blankets to go to sleep. I love the rain and don't ever get tired of it. Even during this past summer with the record breaking downpours in San Antonio, I loved it. I don't love that my truck freaks out a little when there's a lot of water, but I can survive that alright.

The first time I remember getting four seasons a year was when we moved to Japan. I remember I told my mom I thought spring and fall were dumb because we should just get to the real weather. The inbetweens are lame. As I've gotten older though, I've come to appreciate the inbetweens more.

I should probable move someplace with more distinct seasons. After all, I currently live further down south than I did in Southern California.

my niece makes me laugh a lot

I spent some time with the babies this weekend.

My niece told me she wants to come over to my house to make cupcakes.

I asked her what kind she would like to make.

"Auntie, I want pink and purple ones."
"Hmm, I'm not sure if I know how to make purple ones, sweetie."
"It's easy! You mix them and color them and put them in the oven for fifteen minutes!" That's it! So I want to make pink ones and purple ones. It just takes fifteen minutes."

I have a few days to figure out how to make purple ones. It might take longer to figure out how a three year old knows it takes fifteen minutes in the oven to make cupcakes.

sometimes i feel like a big whiny baby but i can't always help it

Last weekend my boyfriend and I went and hung out with another couple. I like to do stuff as a couple with other couples because it barely ever happens. My very favorite other couple now lives in El Paso and another couple we had dinner with is very cool but I don't know them very well and feel odd about inviting them over to my place or something at this point. Maybe in another week. And after I finish hardcore cleaning up my apartment.

This particular other couple that we spent time with last weekend presents a unique and awkard situation for me that I don't feel comfortable writing too many details about here. I ended up drinking way too much and then puking even more and that is why I am going to stick to a two drink limit (with three on special occassions, MAYBE) from now on. I always hear about other people getting drunk and being all zany and the life of the party but I just get sick. This was the third time in my life and I really feel like three times is enough to fully learn the lesson.

The thing about the night that has stuck with me the most though through the week was the fact I don't really have any friends in San Antonio besides my boyfriend. K is completely fantastic, but no one can survive with their significant other alone and be healthy. We played video games, drank tequila, and watched part of a kung-fu movie. These are not awful things by any means, but they are not thing I would put on a list of a fun weekend activity. I tried, really hard, to have a good time and be a fun part of the evening but it was difficult. And the thing that was most difficult was that I can't say "Well, that was cool. Next weekend can we go hang out with some of my friends?" I don't have any. Not in San Antonio anyway.

I don't know how to fix it. I feel so unsure of myself these days and there are times when I don't want to talk about those kind of things with my boyfriend. I can talk to my parents because they are fantastic, but sometimes when things are tougher than I would like them to be, I want a good female friend I can go to La Cantera with and walk around while we pretend we are rich and decide what to spend our fake money on. Or go sit at a coffee shop and talk about everything and nothing. Or get cocktails and dessert. Or have a Sex and the City marathon complete with cosmopolitans and pizza rolls.

I don't know how to do this. I met K and started dating him so soon after moving here that I uninentionally skipped over really getting to know the city and meeting a bunch of random people. I don't regret the timeline because K is a really wonderful man and I love him tremendously. I'm just now at a point where I don't know how to spend as much time with him as I would like, still work, go to school and get good grades, and spend time with my family. I feel a little lost and maybe the most difficult piece of that is not even knowing how to find my way again.

I guess that's about it. I haven't had much time to sit and write things for other people to read lately, but I'm working on getting back into the regular posting game. It's time to go put some more hydrocortisone cream on various ant bites. Stupid bugs!

i have ant bites on my butt

Bugs in Texas suck. They're all bigger than bugs are supposed to be and they all apparently bite. Why would an ant bite you? Obviously you are bigger and a threat to its existance. GO AROUND.

I have ants in my BEDROOM. At first I thought it was because of my neighbors leaving trash outside their door all the time and the fact I get the newspaper delivered. I figured some of those ants crawled into my newspaper bag and then snuck out into my room. But after I vacuumed all those suckers up, later I noticed DIFFERENT ants crawling around. Why in my room, I don't know. I very rarely have food in there and it doesn't really stay in there anyway. Sometimes I have a glass of juice, but the same thing, I take it out. I might have random piles of things everywhere in my apartment but I don't really have garbage lying about. I guess they're looking for water, but they should really hang out in at least the bathroom in that case. Not around and in my bed. I don't ever see them in my bed, but when I wake up with welts on my arms (and now my butt), I figure they've made it up there somehow.

The apartment complex people are coming to spray on Tuesday, so I've got two more nights of vacuuming up little annoying biting bugs before I go to sleep. There's an ant hill right outside one of my windows. I saw a pile of dirt and kicked it just to see what would happen and it was like a horror movie. A million ants swarmed out of it. I was kind of afraid that when I went inside it was going to look like that on my carpet, but luckily it didn't.

Last year around this time, it was a scorpion on my pillow. This year it's ants. I guess the good thing though is that since I live in apartment complex I just call the office and schedule someone to come and spray and that's that. I'm not sure I'm ready to own a house. Pretending I could afford it and whatnot, I still would be a little wary of taking on yardwork and pest control at this point in my life. Right now it seems to be a very fair trade to be annoyed by the mysterious sounds coming from upstairs on occassion to be able to call the office to fix whatever it ailing my home.

five lovely things about today

1. I got an A on my first essay for my history class.
2. I got a nice paycheck, courtesy to my working my ass off. Yay! It was worth it!
3. The newspaper was waiting right outside my door when I went to leave this morning.
4. Grocery store sushi. Mmmm...
5. Very early this morning I had a fantastic texting session with K. I really love him and he really love me.

And that is that!

a list of what has been happening in the life of melissa

...work: a ridiculous number of hours. My friend Tina has been working 12 hour days five days a week for months now. I can only handle two 12 hour shifts a week mixed in with the other days. My last paycheck had about 20 extra hours though which is fantastic.
...school: two classes, one government and one history. I like them. I like the government one better than the history solely because of the teacher. He's rapidly moving into my list of favorite teachers ever.
...boyfriend: he's fantastic. Occasionally he is not, but I believe that to be true with everyone. And the few fights we've had get resolved pretty quickly for which I am grateful.
...severe lack of money: hence the extra hours. Ugh. I wish I knew how to make more money and still be able to go to school to get a job that I really actually want to do every day. My current job is fine, but nothing I want to do for the fifty more years I'll be working.

Hmm... I guess that's it. It just manages to take up a LOT of time.

the jena 6

Jena 6 Protesters Rally at Lousiana Town

I have to read the newspaper daily for one of my classes. The point really is to get us into the habit of knowing what's going on in our city, state, country, and the world and to be able to have intelligent conversations about current events with other people. There was a big fat article in the newspaper the other day about how college graduates don't know anything about fairly recent national events which irritated me because instead of implying we should do something about it, the article said that we're all in good company. I don't want to be in ignorant/naive company.

Anyway.

This story really got my attention today and I was glad we spent a good amount of time talking about it in class. About a year ago, six black high schoolers made sure they had school permission to choose to hang out under a particular tree. The school officials said they could hang out wherever they wanted to. Before that, a group of white high school boys had been hanging out there before and after class. The day after the black students congregrated under the tree, they came back to school to see three nooses hanging from the branches. I'm not sure on the timeline, but a few months later the six black students were arraigned for battery because one of the white students had been beaten. The student who was beaten went to a school function later that night and to another party the next night, so although it was serious, it wasn't life threatening enough to keep him from his social life. Yes, I'm biased here.

Today, 50,000 people descended on the town of Jena (population 3,000) to march in protest of the final student still being in jail. The other five had been released on bail. Some of the charges have been dropped or lowered in their severity for all six students.

I grew up in Nothern California and then moved to Southern California for college. I didn't grow up in this kind of environment. I remember being horrified when I learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and what he died doing. I thought it was ridiculous that such a movement was needed. The Bay Area is a pretty diverse population and my parents were really good about raising my sister and I with open minds and an appreciativeness for diversity.

Watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina showed me how little has been actually done as far as civil rights go. Racism, discrimination, and the like are alive and well. I'm glad that 50,000 people descended on a small town to protest this fact and to help some real people. The black boys weren't in the right and should probably be punished, but to be tried as adults after some white boys hung nooses where they had been hanging out the day before seems ridiculous.

My teacher asked us today what we think we'll have to face from Iraq in about fifteen or twenty years. The reason racism is so alive and well after all the progress we've made in the law books is because although it's illegal to act on the hatred, parents still pass their mindsets on to their children. So what will the little children in Iraq grow up thinking about Americans? Will their parents share the vision that has been touted in the media about it being Operation Freedom or will they remember all of the bombs and social structures being destroyed? Will they think it was better when Saddam Hussein was in power or when the Americans swooped in and things changed so radically?

It's a lot to think about. And it makes me want to take about ten more classes that have something, anything to do with political science and history.

wednesday whats

what i've been watching:

The Aristocrats. It's a documentary about this digusting joke that has been around for hundreds of years. It's really a joke that comics tell each other because although everyone knows the punchline, it's an opportunity to display your set-up ability. It really is a foul joke because the point is to juxtapose the set up with the punchline, but towards the end of the documentary they talked about how what is offensive has changed over the years. It was also interesting to see the difference between younger comics and older ones and to hear how that joke has appeared in situations through the years. Fascinating but gross all at the same time.

House: Season 3. Absolutely fantastic show. I borrowed the first two seasons on dvd from my friend Mike and was really excited to realize the third one was coming out with theoretically enough time to watch it before the fourth season starts on tv. There is something cool about just watching a show on dvd, but I'm sure my curiousity will win out as this season will inevitably end on another cliffhanger. I am fascinated by the display of two different ways of approaching things (pragmatic vs. emotional) conflicting and working together in the same episode. But I have to say, I enjoyed it a tiny bit more when I wasn't so familiar with diagnostic bloodwork.

Fracture. I love movies that make you think as you watch them. Anthony Hopkins kills his wife and then plays an elaborate game with the police and prosecution. Shocking, I know, but no one plays the evil mastermind like Anthony Hopkins so I think we should just let him keep doing it. Ryan Gosling was great and I really enjoyed the movie overall. If you like whodunits, definitely rent it immediately.


what i've been reading:

What's Eating Gilbet Grape by Peter Hedges. It's good. Kinda weird. I saw the movie a million years ago, and K and I were talking about it a little bit ago because it's one of his favorite books and movies. I'm trying a new thing where I don't finish the book in two point five seconds. I'm trying to read it slowly and think about it inbetween reading and not miss anything. I read really fast and when I read books sometimes I think I kind of miss things because of it. It usually drives K crazy that I can start and finish a book so quickly but now that I'm actually trying to take longer, that's annoying him a little bit I think. I'll probably finish it tomorrow.

what i'm checking out on the internet:

www.apple.com
Brand new iPods, new deals on iPhones, and fabulous additions to iTunes. Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my chin.

www.msnbc.com
My current favorite news and celebrity gossip site. I read most of the site every day because I am a nerd. Also, because one of my teachers expects us to read the news every day so we can talk about it in class, but mostly because I'm just a nerd. I like it a little better than cnn.com because there's not as many stories that are exclusively video feeds.

www.realsimple.com
My favorite non-girlie magazine. I mean, like non-Cosmo/Glamour/etc. It's a lovely web site full of a gazillion tips for housekeeping and recipes and organzing time and the like. My mom has had a Good Housekeeping subscription my whole life, and I feel like this will be my standby subscription at some point. Actually, probably as of my next paycheck. :)

www.twentyonepictures.com/gallery/shoeproject/index.html
Just because it's fantastic.

what is making me happy these days:
a fantastic birthday!
more birthday celebrations still to come!
i started going to school again!
work is going well
i get to spend practically every weekend with my boyfriend and it is rarely not the highlight of my week
new recipes
leftovers
curly hair

email

My main email address is my first initial and my last name. It's simple, it's professional if I need it to be, it's easy. I've had it for a few years. I decided when I got this email address that I would try to just use it for a long time so I can be moderately accesible on the internet. I've moved a lot and maybe someone from the past will try to contact me. Changing my email address every so often kind of deters that.

I'm sure everyone occassionaly gets emails that weren't meant for them. But lately, I think there are people whose names fit the criteria I used to create my email address that just wish they had done it first so they tell people that's what their email address is. I'm on a list that gets minutes about a homeowner's association. I'm on someone's work email list that gets me tons of work forwards. And now? Some genius thinks they are emailing themselves little handy notes about things but instead is emailing me.

I'm on the verge of just changing my address again. The thing keeping me from it is I shouldn't have to adapt because other people can't remember their own email address.