Just a Few Random Things

None of these ideas remotely flow together, so you're getting bullet points today.

• Have you seen the commercial for Preparation H with the man on the seesaw? Is anyone else completely horrified by this commercial? 'Cause I sure am.
• When I checked my box today my Dramaturgy stuff was back. I got a 95 on the paper and a 98 on the final exam, so that class will be an A for sure. So far it's 3 As and the only class I don't know about yet is Playwriting. We got our portfolios back at our "final" today, but he didn't write any grades or comments on them, which annoys me. I write a full one-act play and you can't bother to write a few comments on it? I'm going to be pretty pissed off if I don't get an A in that class, since I'm one of only six people (out of 25) that actually bothered to turn in every single assignment more or less on time. Surely actually completing all of the coursework should count for something right? Plus it's an undergrad/graduate tiered class, and I am going to kick myself if I can get an A in something as intense and complicated as graduate-level dramatic theory but only get a B in Playwriting.
• Yesterday evening I decided that I'd swim laps for my workout and when I was lying on a lounge chair reading afterwards I had the very happy realization that my body is definitely in better shape than it was last summer. I hadn't really noticed the last time I was wearing my swim suits because I was standing up all the time (in Padre), but now that I was actually lying down in my bathing suit I noticed that yup, I'm definitely in better shape. That made me happy. I think it's because of a combination of things. Last year I sprained my ankle and couldn't really work out for about seven weeks in the winter, and so by summer I still wasn't in the kind of shaped I'd have liked to be in. So part of it is just that I've been exercising more this year in general. I think I'm also eating a tiny bit better. Not MUCH better, but I do eat less fast food. The biggest lifestyle difference, honestly, is that I drink a lot less now than I did at this time last year. I hate to admit that so much of my little belly was a beer gut, but, well...
• They've been renovating the exterior of my apartment complex since spring break. Last week they finally got to the painting portion of the project. They decided on a color that I can't quite describe. It's green. Kinda...moss green? Avocado green? I don't know. The brick portion of the buildings is reddish brown, so the red and green work okay together. Plus it's better than the peach color that they initially tried on one of the buildings. The peach was god-awful, especially after Matthew began describing it as "the color of a vagina" (like he would even know!) so I'm glad the powers that be decided against that. But they painted the trim white, and this color of green really, really needs off-white trim. Don't ask me why, it just DOES. Plus they haven't painted the iron on the stairwells and patio and balcony fences yet, and I'm not sure what color they're going to do those. Right now they're still the old pine green color, which is clashing terribly with the new green color and the whole thing is just conspiring to subtly drive me crazy. Why do I even care about this? I don't know. I'll just be glad when all the renovating is over, especially since I can't put my patio furniture back out until they finish all the painting, and so every time I open my patio storage closet to get my cleaning supplies out my table and chairs come crashing out, too.
• My sister and I are making a trip to El Paso next week. My brother will already be home, so the whole family will be together for the first time since Christmas. Honestly, I have no real desire to go to El Paso. The only real reason I'm going is because I'm supposed to be in my friend Cassie's wedding in December and she kept asking when I was going to be home so that I could get fitted for my bridesmaid's dress. Honestly, in an ideal world, I wouldn't have to be in El Paso at all until Thanksgiving (by which time all the Mike drama will be a distant memory and El Paso won't be an emotionally painful place to be). But I realize Thanksgiving is too late to get measured for a dress that needs to be finished by December, so I decided I needed to make a summer trip to El Paso. I'm also rationalizing this trip by telling myself it's necessary to see my parents before I leave the country for three weeks. Actually, I do miss my parents. It will be good to see them. And since now I have to go to El Paso, Chelsea and I have decided to take our dogs with us and actually spend the majority of our time in Ruidoso. I love Ruidoso. It's not El Paso, so no negative Mike associations, I haven't been to the cabin in ages (the last time I remember being there was with Katy, which was spring break of last year), and I know Cohen is going to have a blast with all the new stuff to sniff. Plus no place relaxes me like the mountains, so that should be good. And I guess El Paso itself won't be too bad. It's just weird going there and literally having nobody to visit but my parents. There used to be a time when I could go to El Paso and get a whole group of friends together, now the only person that I'd really go out of my way to contact and see while I'm in town is Cassie. If I were to randomly run into other people (which always seems to be the case at holidays although probably won't be the case this time) that would be fine, fun even, but there's only one person I'd bother calling to say "Hey, I'm in town." All of my other friends from El Paso a) live elsewhere full time and if our trips to El Paso overlap it's just a coincidence, b) have basically lost touch with me, or c) have girlfriends and are no longer allowed to spend time hanging out with me.
  It's crazy what a difference five years makes.
  My sister was making me laugh, because she's pretty much in the same position of not having many friends in El Paso anymore and not particularly caring one way or another whether or not she finds the time to see the people who are there. She says the only reason she's going to El Paso is to get some real Mexican food. And I can second that! We were talking the other day about how we'd like to watch the first season of Grey's Anatomy, since neither of us started watching it until midway through this season. (The first episode I ever saw was the train wreck episode...what an episode to come in on!) I told Chelsea that I think we can probably rent the first season, and she said, "We can rent it and watch it while we're in El Paso! While we eat Mexican food!" So now we keep joking with each other that we're driving the 9 hours to El Paso solely to watch Grey's Anatomy and eat Mexican food which, no, you CANNOT do in Austin because there is no Julio's or L&J in Austin. So yeah, I'll be in El Paso/Ruidoso next week.
• But first I'm going to Galveston with Mandi for the weekend! That should be fun.
• Yeah, that's all I got. I'm off to read magazines and watch more TV.