A Meme Project and a Little Story Called "Someone Robbed Me"

Alright, so I'm not sure exactly how exactly this is working (because it's late at night and I'm tired and I basically just skimmed the project information) but apparently a graduate student is doing a project to figure out how quickly memes travel around the blog world. And since I came across the project on someone's blog today, I figure it would be skewing his results ever-so-slightly if I didn't acknowledge that I'd seen it. Plus he told readers to " Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply I'm one of them." And since about half the time that describes me as well (especially as Ph.D. application deadlines and the end of the semester loom) I figured the least I could do was link to his page and play along.

So here. Check this out. Contribute to the experiment.

And now I have a question for you: What do a digital camera, a set of five pound weights, and a package of rainbow-colored Sharpies have in common? If you answered, "Well, Ashley, they are all things that were stolen out of your apartment last week while you were out of town!" then you win the prize.
Yeah. Apparently someone came in here and took stuff while I was staying in Austin. It took me a while to realize it, and to convince myself that I'm not just crazy, but now I'm positive that someone broke in here. I know, I know. You're rolling your eyes and saying, "Come on, surely you just misplaced those random things." But hear me out.

Let me set this up by reminding you all that I am almost freakishly organized. I have a very little apartment, and it is a very neat and organized apartment. I'm a "place for everything and everything in its place" kinda girl. I straighten up as I go, or at the very least straighten up the apartment every night before going to bed. This is not an apartment where it is easy for stuff to go missing. Which is not to say I don't misplace things once in a while, but...

Monday night I used my digital camera here at the house to upload Cohen's Christmas card pictures and my pictures from Ohio. That was the last time I used/saw the camera. On Tuesday evening after work I drove up to Austin. From that point until last night (Monday), I was only in my apartment for five to ten minutes at a time every other day or so. I'd come in with my duffel bag, toss my dirty clothes into the hamper, grab some clean clothes, and then head back to Austin. To anyone watching my apartment, it would have been obvious I was out of town.
Saturday afternoon after work I stopped by the apartment to grab some clean clothes and get my camera to take it to the concert. That's when I discovered my camera wasn't in its usual drawer. I didn't think anything of it at the time, though. I just assumed I must have misplaced it somewhere else in the apartment or thrown it into one of my bags and taken it to Chelsea's house with me for some reason (maybe I wanted to take pictures of the dogs? I didn't know, but it was entirely possible it was already at Chelsea's). When I got back to Chelsea's I searched all my bags for my camera, but it wasn't there. Oh well, I thought, it has to be somewhere in the apartment because you used it on Monday night.
So last night I finally got home for good, and the first thing I did after unpacking was search for the digital camera, which was nowhere to be found. Still, I didn't look EVERYWHERE everywhere, so I figured I was just overlooking it somehow. I once misplaced a battery charger for several months, so it is possible. I wasn't worried. But then I went to get my Sharpies so that I could mark my calendar. [Pause for a moment and keep in mind that I am a huge dork before you continue reading. Ready? Okay.] I have this package of rainbow-colored Sharpies, and I use them for one thing and one thing only: putting a star on my wall calendar on the days I work out. I don't use these Sharpies for anything else. I don't take them anywhere, I don't do other projects with them, they stay in my desk drawer unless I'm using one to mark my calendar. So I was puzzled when I went to mark off the days I'd worked out in Austin on my calendar and my Sharpies were missing. Huh. I knew I wouldn't have taken those somewhere with me, but I thought maybe they'd gotten stuck in the back of the drawer or I'd grabbed them and carried them into the bathroom or kitchen and gotten distracted and put them down, blah, blah, blah. I searched around a bit but gave up and went to bed, sans camera and markers but not all that worried about it.
Then today after work I decided to search for my camera AGAIN. I couldn't shake the thought that I was just not looking carefully and missing it (I'm notorious for missing things right in front of my face, so I still figured it was just my own stupidity at this point). I began by thoroughly searching the camera drawer, and that's when it dawned on me for the first time that the cord I use to upload the pictures to my computer was missing. And that's when I got chills for the first time, because here's the thing: there is absolutely no reason in the world why I would have taken that cord anywhere. There's just not. The fact that the cord was missing, too, made me realize that someone must have taken the camera. So I called my dad, because I needed someone to tell me that I'm crazy and stupid and had obviously just misplaced the camera somewhere and was overreacting. But instead Dad said, "File a police report." And I said, "What if I file a police report and then find the camera somewhere totally random three weeks from now?" and Dad said, "That happens. Don't worry about it. File the report."
But I felt so stupid. I mean, the only things missing were a digital camera and a set of markers, I figured the police would just laugh and assume (probably rightly) that I'd just misplaced my own stuff and was an idiot. After all, there was absolutely no sign of a forced entry. There was no sign that any of my things had been rifled through. And why wouldn't the burglar have taken anything else from the house? (I still don't have a good explanation for this, other than the fact that thankfully every other small, valuable, easy to steal and conceal thing that I own--my mp3 player, my cell phone, my laptop, my nice rings--were in Austin with me, and I guess the burglar didn't like my taste in DVDs).
Anyway, I talked to Mike to get his opinion, and while I was talking to him about whether or not I should call the cops he triggered a memory and I realized that last night when I'd gotten home the drawer to my bedside table was lying on the floor. Now, it's a rickety drawer. It does fall out once in a while, and that's why I didn't really think anything of it last night. But it has never fallen out on its own, ever. It has only fallen out when I've been trying to open it. And it's sort of tricky to jimmy it back into place once it has fallen out, so I guess the person must have broken it and been unable to get it back and and just had to leave it lying there (because other than that, the entire apartment looked perfectly normal) So basically, the drawer alone wouldn't be suspicious, but the broken drawer along with the missing items was enough for me to call the police.
So I called the police and filed a report and talked to some people in the apartment office (although not the manager, since she was already gone for the day). I was still feeling like I could have been panicking about nothing, though, until I went to work out a couple of hours ago. I went in my closet to get my weights, and they're missing, too. And that was my 100% positive sign that someone broke into this apartment. Because as much as there's no reason that I would take the camera cord or the markers out of this apartment, there is absolutely ZERO reason at all whatsoever that those weights would be anywhere but their spot in my closet.

So yes. Someone broke in here and stole from me for sure. And the worst part is that there was no sign of a break in. I came home to an apartment that was as fully locked and burglar-barred as it had been when I left it. Which means that whoever came in here is someone that works here, someone with a key (I've never made a spare key, so the only people that have one are me and the apartment complex office). I just feel so betrayed, especially since this is a small apartment complex and I chat daily with both maintenance men and the women that work in the office. I'd hate to think that someone who loves on Cohen and chats with me every day stole from my apartment, but there's really no other explanation.

I'm going to talk to the apartment manager tomorrow, but I'm not sure she can do anything. I don't think I can legally change my locks and not let them have a copy of the key (can I?). I just want her to figure out which one of her employees broke in here. If she can't do that, she needs to figure out some way to make me feel safe in this apartment. I'm not big on the idea of breaking my lease and moving at this point, but I'm also not big on the idea of staying here as long as I know that someone untrustworthy has access to my key and can come in at any time.

Ugh.

I tried to make myself feel better by decorating my apartment for Christmas instead of the school-related stuff I should have been doing. And it mostly worked. My apartment kind of looks like Christmas threw up all over it, but it's very cheery. I'm happy that I'll be able to enjoy my decorations for the next two weeks. I love Christmas. I would take pictures and post them, except, hey, I don't have a camera anymore! My mom said that she'd get me a new camera for Christmas, which is wonderful because I'd started entertaining the thought of buying myself a new camera anyway, but this isn't the way I wanted to get one.

Finally, I'm getting a little annoyed with the whole PC, "Happy Holidays" thing. I get that not everyone celebrates Christmas and it's nice to ere on the safe side, but it's getting out of hand. This evening at Target I bought a mini Christmas tree, four new ornaments (one of which was an angel), and a box of candy canes, and as I finished checking out the cashier said, "Happy Holiday!" Happy holiday. Lady, there is a CHRISTMAS TREE, a BOX OF CANDY CANES, and an ANGEL ORNAMENT in my cart. I may be mistaken, but I think you can be safe in assuming that regardless of whether or not I am actually a Christian, I am planning to celebrate CHRISTMAS, and you can express appropriate wishes.

It's a crazy world.

Remember Pete and Pete?

I'm watching The Squid and the Whale right now, which I've been meaning to do since last spring but I just never got around to it. Tonight I found it sitting here on Chelsea's coffee table along with some other movies she borrowed from her neighbor, so I figured I'd see what all the hype was about. Anyway, it's very good so far (I'll have to see how it ends since I'm only an hour into it) but I can't stop thinking about how the oldest son in it reminds me of the older Pete from that old Nickelodeon show Pete and Pete. I know it's not him because the resemblance is not that exact and this guy wouldn't be the right age, but now I have a craving to watch an old episode of Pete and Pete. There should be a television channel that shows all those old Nickelodeon shows. Hey, Dude! was pretty awesome, after all.

I'm starting to feel pretty ready to move back to my own apartment. Staying at Chelsea's hasn't been bad. I hate her shower (no water pressure) and that she doesn't have a dishwasher (I'm lazy) and I've been having allergy attacks every day (because I'm allergic to all furry animals that I don't live with on a daily basis so all the Cedric/Morty hair is messing me up) and I've walked into the same oddly-placed dresser every single day at least once and now have a massive bruise on my right hip (because running into it once wasn't enough to teach me, apparently) but other than that I feel pretty settled in up here and I've had a good week. Plus I was able to do laundry for free and walking the dogs in her neighborhood is much more fun and exciting than walking them in mine, so there's that. Really, I've been having a nice time. However, Morty got out of the yard not once, not twice, but THREE times today and each time I had to chase him through the neighborhood wearing just my pajamas. His legs are about as long as a pony's so each time I had to rely on someone else to finally notice that I was running a block behind the dog shouting his name and tackle the dog for me and then hold him until I finally caught up. And of course Morty was absolutely gleeful and so proud of his antics. So yeah, thanks for the workout, Voldemort. You're a very sweet, crazy dog, but I'm glad your mom is coming home tomorrow.

Last night Amanda, Richie and I went to the Imogen Heap concert, and it was awesome. She put on a great show, once again. Her set was almost the exact same as the concert Matthew and I saw in May (almost all the same songs, different order), but that's not a problem considering she plays all my favorites. Her opening acts were great, too. There was Kid Beyond, this beat box guy that blew us away. I have no idea how one person can make so many sounds with his mouth, or how he discovered he had that talent in the first place. And the other opener, Levi Weaver, impressed me so much with his grace under pressure during some technical difficulties that I actually got all cheesy and sent him a myspace message telling him how much I'd enjoyed his set in spite of everything. I don't know what possessed me to do that since it's very unlike me to gush to total strangers, but oh well.

Anyway, catch an Imogen Heap concert if you can. She's a good performer and seems to be a genuinely nice person who cares about her fans. She actually recorded an outgoing voicemail message for Matthew when he waited for her after the Houston show. Who does that?! So cool. So yeah. All three of you that read this should check her out, and do it now before she disappears at the end of this tour to record a new album.

The Day After

The only thing bad about going to someone else's house for Thanksgiving is that I don't have all the leftovers to make my standard day-after-Thanksgiving sandwich. So instead I just ordered myself chicken and artichoke fettucine from a restaurant around the corner that I like and it is going to be delivered any minute now. An okay compromise, I suppose.

Thanksgiving ended up being a lot of fun. Everyone seemed to really like Richie and he liked everyone, my cousins and cousin-in-laws and Richie and I drank several bottles of red wine and had some entertaining conversations, Richie had his first ever experience with green bean casserole (you should have seen the jaws drop around the table when everyone realized the Canadian had never had green bean casserole...which admittedly was never a standard at my family's Thanksgiving dinners but even I know it's like, THE traditional sidedish), and I got some good laughs from the antics of my cousin's four year-old daughter. It was a really good day.

I have nothing else to say, really. Good movies are on Bravo tonight so I think I'm gonna stay in (I say, as if I wasn't planning on staying in anyway even if there hadn't been good movies on TV). Maybe I'll even work on some application. Maybe.

Time Goes By So Slowly

I can't wait to grow up and become Madonna.

I thought I'd be sad not being with my family for Thanksgiving, but honestly, I haven't minded nearly as much as I thought I would. It helps that I just saw them last weekend for my show. That was fun, by the way. Did I mention that the fire alarm went off in the middle of the show the night that my family came to watch? And that I was house managing that night and that the stage manager and I had to be in charge of evacuating the theater? And that we had never actually discussed an evacuation plan so Laura and I had to just kind of make it up as we went along? Oh, and that before all that even happened we had to delay the start of the show because one of the actresses got stuck behind a big wreck and was running incredibly late? It all went fine, and all the troubleshooting was even kind of exciting in a way although I had to make three or four announcements to the entire house which is a lot more work than I usually do for my salary on any given night.

Speaking of money, at the restaurant job I've already made $100 this week just from working lunch yesterday and today. Since this is the job I got stuck working over Thanksgiving weekend, it's nice that I'm actually making some money. It makes staying here feel somewhat worthwhile. Although technically I did sort of travel for Thanksgiving since I'm staying at Chelsea's house while she's in El Paso. I brought Cohen and Jose up here and I'm watching all four animals over the long weekend. At this exact moment, three out of four of them are on the couch (Chelsea's cat Cedric is shunning the rest of us for some reason).

Anyway, I'm gonna go do some reading or studying and try to be productive since I'm taking the whole day off tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be busy introducing Richie my Favorite Canadian to the joys of Thanksgiving, America-style. We're going down to San Antonio to hang out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, which should be fun. And then Saturday is my second Imogen Heap concert this year! This time I'm going with Richie and Amanda, which should be a lot of fun, too. So yes. Stuff to look foward to, which is better than stuff to stress about.

Alright, I'm boring myself. Good night.

It's That Time Again

Yes, it's that time again. That time that occurs every two months or so where I proceed to freak out about THE FUTURE and have an entire day where I feel on edge and uneasy before finally half-heartedly convincing myself that it's all going to be okay somehow.

And it will be. I know that. I'm a smart girl with a lot of marketable skills. Even if I don't get to do exactly what I want to do with my career right now I'm going to find some way to make a living and be somewhat successful and not starve to death. I guess I'm just a little freaked out right now because the first of the applications for PhD programs are due in three weeks and I honestly don't know what my chances are. But considering most of the programs I'm applying to take two people--TWO PEOPLE--the chances are probably not great. I don't know how many people apply, but if they're only taking two people each semester, statistically there's not a very good likelihood that I'll be one of them.

And that scares me a little, mostly just because I don't have a good plan B right now. And I feel like I really, really need to start making a Plan B, because spending the next year or two bartending in El Paso doesn't sound very appealing. But that's as far as my mind has gotten: PhD program, or back to El Paso to regroup. And I think I'd be able to regroup pretty quickly and not have to spend much time living in El Paso before I found something better to do, but ideally I'd like there to be a seamless transition from this step to the next step so that I don't have to spend time in El Paso at all.
(Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that going back to El Paso really isn't my only other option, but like I said, that's as far as my mind has gotten).
(Oh, and also, please don't interpret this as El Paso bashing. I actually like El Paso, I seriously do. It's just that there's not much theatre there so going back to El Paso automatically feels like quitting/giving up my dreams and that's why I'm against going back to El Paso. It has nothing...okay, very little...to do with the actual place or the people there)

So yeah. My plan is to work a little bit on my applications every day and get them all sent off before Christmas break is over. I'm freaking out, but I'm going to be okay. Everything will work out the way it's supposed to, even if it doesn't work out the way I hope it will. All in all I'm lucky. I need to remember that, always. And hey, maybe if this whole school thing falls through I'll at least get a boyfriend out of the deal. Because apparently I can have love or I can have career success but I can't manage to have both at the same time.

I was feeling bad because I feel like I didn't really do anything productive today, but then I realized I
A) Closed the box office down for the semester and compiled everyone's hours
B) Took down my lobby display
C) Took Cohen to his obedience class in Austin
D) Did laundry
E) Caught up on uploading all my pictures
F) Designed and ordered my Christmas cards*
G) Made a detailed list of what I need for each application and when they are due

And really, that's not bad for a Monday.

*If you'd like a Christmas card featuring an adorable basset hound, a somewhat pissed off tuxedo cat, and me, e-mail or myspace message me or leave me a comment if you're not paranoid about internet weirdos and I'll send you a card full of holiday cheer!

Everybody in the Club Rock On

It's only 43 degrees outside right now! Given, it's the middle of the night and earlier this afternoon the temperature was close to 70, but still. Cold(ish) weather! I'm wearing my favorite lounge-around-the-house sweater right now, this big blue cashmere thing I inherited from my brother several Christmases ago when he opened it and immediately decided the cable pattern makes it "too gay". I love it, though, it's so cozy. Definitely one of my top five favorite items of clothing. And Jose is curled up with his head on my chest. He likes the sweater, too.

Anyway, I have plenty to talk about, which is why I haven't been updating lately. Haven't you all realized yet that I only write when I have absolutely nothing of interest to say?

So, Rocky. I completed my lobby display on Tuesday afternoon about three hours before the show opened. It came out pretty good, if I do say so myself. My thesis committee members gave it their seal of approval and the director seems pretty thrilled by it, and that's all that really matters. Well, and the fact that I'm pleased with it. That matters, too. My parents are flying in to watch the show tomorrow night, and my siblings, my sister's boyfriend, and my Adopted Mexican Brother Gus are all coming to watch, too, so that should be fun. Since I'm still having a hell of a time describing exactly what I do as a dramaturg (I've now had about three conversations with my mother in which she says, "So you're the director?" and I have to say, "Um, no...") I'm glad there are at least tangible things like the lobby display and my name on the front page of the program to show everybody. I mean, there's a lot more to it than that, but if that's what people can understand about my job, well, at least that's something. And eventually in the spring there will be a thesis to read, but that's the beauty of my thesis topic: everyone can watch the show and go, "Oh, okay, cool" and then nobody has to feign interest in a 1oo-2oo page document. Haha.

Oh, and the show has been incredibly popular. We sold out every show but one last week, and by yesterday we'd sold out the entire rest of the run. Which is great and all, but last night was hell, though, because there somehow ended up being several double sold seats and no way for me to fix the problem since the show was sold out. It was frantic, people were angry, and there was nothing I could do about it. I hated everyone by the time last night was over. Luckily I was able to trouble shoot as much as possible and I decided on a few things I can do the rest of the week to hopefully avoid similar problems, so we'll see. Tonight went much, much smoother and I'm hoping Friday and Saturday will go okay as well. I'm supposed to watch the show with my family tomorrow night but I may not be able to actually go in and relax until intermission if front of house is as hectic as it has been the past couple of nights. I did already watch the show with a full audience on Tuesday night, though. Matthew came into town for the night and I watched with him, Claire, and Amanda. Afterwards we went to Applebees for drinks and dinner and because I was still dressed in my Rocky Horror outfit and telling anyone that asked, "Oh, I just came from my other job" I think half of my coworkers now think my other job is "prostitute". Awesome.

In other exciting news, Kymberli bought a plane ticket to Las Vegas today. YAY! Chelsea and I are supposed to go up there a couple of days before Christmas for our cousin's wedding (have I already talked about this?) and Chelsea decided to bring her boyfriend and since I'm not in a relationship (unless by "relationship" you mean "strange lingering undefinable thing with an ex that is almost certainly a bad idea because it's ultimately nothing and he's a bit of a man whore right now but at least I know exactly where I stand at the moment and we're actually getting along really well as friends right now so why quit?") I invited--okay, begged--Kymberli to come to Las Vegas to hang out with me. And she actually is!!! I'm so excited!! I didn't mind the idea of being there with just Chelsea and her Mike too badly (yes, her boyfriend is named Mike), especially since a lot of my relatives will be there. But having Kymberli there with me will be much, MUCH more fun, plus I don't have to be in a lonely hotel room by myself. Yes!

Finally, the Ohio trip went great. I had a good time hanging out with Amanda and Dr. C., Ohio/West Virginia is surprisingly beautiful (I don't know what I was expecting, exactly, but I didn't expect it to be as pretty as it was), I met several Canadians that have way stronger Canadian accents than my favorite Canadian, Richie, and my paper presentation went fine. Better than fine, actually. It was supposed to be a panel of three people but only two of us ended up actually being there, so I was a bit stressed when I realized our question and answer session would be longer than the norm since we had all the time that would have been taken up by the third paper. And then all three of the people Amanda and I had secretly been making fun of all weekend ended up being in my session. One of them was this guy Dr. C pointed out who had been staring at me in sort of a creepy manner during the conference luncheon, one of them was a guy who asked really difficult questions in each session seemingly in an attempt to throw presenters off on purpose and not because he was actually interested in the paper, and the third one was this senile old man. Fortunately Difficult Question Guy directed his difficult question to the other panelist and left me alone, Creepy Guy wasn't that bad after all, and Senile Man made such a stupid point that I was able to just reply, "Well, that's not within the scope of this paper, and at any rate I disagree with you" and that was that. My paper sparked some interesting discussion, and afterwards I had several people come up and tell me it was an "excellent" paper, so I feel pretty good about it. And Amanda and I were by far the most stylish people at the conference, which is of course the most important part. Ha.

Anyway, I'm gonna get some sleep so I can get up and go to the outlet mall tomorrow morning. I've pretty much exhausted my imagination making up slutty/sexy Rocky costumes from items already in my closet, so I've turned it into an excuse to use some birthday money at Victoria's Secret. And possibly Hot Topic, although I kind of hate Hot Topic. Yeah. Good night.

Round on the End, High in the Middle

Here are a few observations that I feel completely qualified to make about southeastern Ohio and the mid-Ohio valley region considering I have now spent two full days here:

• These Ohio Valleyans (?) love them some taco salad. There has been a taco salad on every menu I've seen since I arrived in West Virginia, including the menu for the pizza place where Amanda and I ordered dinner tonight. Odd.
• They also love those check-cashing places. I've seen at least five places with variations on the name "Cash Stop" since I got here, and this is not exactly a big, bustling town.
• It's exactly like most towns in Texas in the fact that the Super Walmart is one of the most happenin' places in town after 10:00 PM.
• Their local commercials are even more cringe-inducing than the ones in central Texas, which shouldn't be possible.

But I like it here. It's beautiful (actual autumn weather, complete with colorful leaves! What a concept!!) and the conference has gone surprisingly well. More on all that when I get back to Texas, though (maybe). Pizza just got here, so I'm outta here.

P.S.-Someone please explain this to me: The Comfort Inn offers free wireless internet, but the Four Seasons charges $10 a day. I get free internet in the hotel room we're paying $62 a night for, but the Four Seasons can't handle shelling out for free internet? Seriously?

24

Why yes, I did have a birthday today.
I'm 24 now. Do you realize that 24 is only SIX YEARS away from 30? I got my new drivers license in the mail and when I saw that it expires in 2012 and I realized that I'll be THIRTY in 2012, I had a moment. It's not that I'm worried about 30, exactly. Age is just a number, blah, blah, blah, and honestly, 30 doesn't sound too terribly old to me (not when I can look at my parents, who just turned 50 and are busy running off to Las Vegas five times a year and have greater drinking stamina than I do). It's just that I can so clearly and vividly remember getting my last drivers license six years ago. I was a senior in high school so I went to the DPS before school that morning. It was the day of the Celebrity Waiters Luncheon, this charity event I used to volunteer at every year to get an excused day off from school, and I remember standing with a group of my friends getting ready to carpool over to the luncheon and saying, "Wow, this doesn't expire until 2006! I'll be 24 then!!" And because I was 18, 24 was this impossibly old age, and I never imagined how quickly the time would pass.
But now I know better, and I know I'll be turning 30 like, tomorrow. And that's weird.

It's also weird because my parents got married at 24. Not that I ever imagined I would be married at 24, or even thought I wanted to be married at 24. In fact, I had a whole conversation with my dad today about how crazy he and mom were for getting married so young. But the honest truth is that I also didn't imagine that I'd still be completely single at 24. I want to get married eventually, and I want kids (I know, how many times do you all have to listen to me blab about this?). Because of the whole wanting kids thing, in an ideal world I'd like to get married before I'm 30. Especially because I want kids (plural) and I realize that kids plural is much less likely if you don't even start trying until you're in your mid thirties. I know I have a lot of options for becoming a mother even if I don't get married by 30. I also know that there's a good possibility I have nothing to worry about and when I'm 30 with a crying baby and a cheating husband and I hate my life, you'll all say "Remember how much you thought you wanted this, and how you thought it would never happen!? Haha!" But admit it, at some point in your life you daydreamed an ideal life for yourself. And my ideal daydream involved marriage by 26 or 27. And now that I'm 24 and still very much single, I don't see that happening. I don't see myself suddenly becoming the type of person that can meet a guy and progress to marriage all within the course of just a year or two, and since I'm not that kind of person, my little ideal life schedule is no longer a feasible daydream.

I guess that's what it all boils down to, ultimately. My little "professional career woman settling down to take a few years off and raise a family by thirty" daydream isn't really something that is likely to happen anymore, so I'm having to reconfigure a lot of my dreams.
And that reconfiguring isn't a bad thing, actually. I've spent a lot of time over the past several months imagining things I could do with myself if I do in fact end up Single For Life, and my ideal single life daydream can make me pretty happy, too. The hard thing is that I would like to believe that my ideal single life daydream can be the same thing as my ideal married life daydream if I happen upon the right person, so it's hard to feel like anything I imagine myself doing as a Single For Life isn't settling for second best, somehow. It feels like anything I can do by myself would be even better if I wasn't by myself, you know?

And I hate that I feel that way. I hate it for a lot of reasons. A number 1, I hate it because it's illogical. I look around me and can see that out of all of my friends who are coupled up (and that's the majority of them right now) there are maybe only 2 couples that have the really good, strong, happy relationship that I'd like to have for myself. So I know it's illogical to believe that any relationship in my future is going to make me perfectly happy when probably 90% of the couples I know do not have great relationships. What's the likelihood that any relationship I have would be any different? So why do I persist in feeling like having a committed relationship could make me any happier than I am right now? Statistically, it's more likely to just add a lot of complications, right?
B number 2, the feminist in me HATES IT. A lot of my thesis project has ended up focused on the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement, and while a lot of the more radical stuff just makes me want to say, "Whoa, chill," I read all these inspiring essays and articles and I'm left wondering what all that passion and rallying and revolution in the 60s was all about if 40 years later I'm sitting on my couch an intelligent, self-sufficient, creative, successful, sexually confident woman knowing exactly how strong and capable I am of being on my own but still whining about how I'm 24 with no prospects for marriage. I mean, what the fuck is that?
I get angry at myself for buying into the marriage hype. I can try to justify it by saying that the need I feel to be with someone and have a baby is a physical need, a primal need, so deep inside of me that I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't feel it. But that need didn't get there by itself. Do you think nature can really be that strong? Because I don't. I know that my "need" is at least half the fault of society, and if we all lived in Transsexual Transylvania or some such place I'd only be worrying about which guy I should sleep with tonight and whether or not I'd look hotter in the black corset or silver sparkly fishnets. That's a silly example, I know, but it's also true.
I guess I just can't shake the marriage dream because there's always the chance I could get lucky. That I could in fact somehow be one of the blessed people that finds someone on this planet that enhances my good points, accepts my bad points, and let's me do the same for him.

But I want to shake that dream. I do. I want to shed the part of me that thinks of marriage and family as the best option and instead I want to see it as just one of many equally terrific options, possibly not even as terrific an option as some of the others. I want to be cool enough to think like that. I'm going to keep working on it, anyway. Do a little mental and emotional deprogramming this year. Yeah. That sounds healthy. And I think it would be beneficial even if my future does end up containing marriage and family anyway.

Anyway. I'm looking forward to 24. I felt some trepidation about being 23. I remember telling Kymberli how 23 is one of my scary years. There's something about the 2 and 3 combination that I don't like. I tried to psych myself up last year but frankly, I was getting a bad vibe from 23 right from the start. And maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but this has been the first year of my life that wasn't better than or at least as good as the year before. Careerwise I've had a great year. I feel smart and successful right now and that's a good feeling (and a feeling I'm going to enjoy for the next six months because after that who the hell knows what is going to happen). Socially, it has been a pretty good year, too. It started out kind of slowly and for the majority of last winter and early spring I still felt like my best friends were elsewhere and Austin was just full of acquaintances for the most part (before you even say anything, Matthew, you were an exception!). But I finally got really close to some people here over the summer, and then this school year started and brought the new wave of grad students and now I once again feel like I have an awesome core group of friends, friends that know my favorite sex position and the meanest thing I've ever done in my life. You know, things all close friends should know about one another. Haha. So career and money=great, social life=good with a last minute upswing to awesome, but my love life has been pretty damn sucky for most of the year. It started out as confusing, was perfect for about a month (honestly, only about a month...that's all it was...funny how one perfect month can then proceed to screw up the entire rest of the damn year) and then it was just sort of a mess. I'm out of the messy part now, but obviously I'm still figuring things out and ready for a clean start. Here's hoping 24 has that in store.

I feel better about 24 than I did about 23, anyway. Now it just needs to be 2007 because I don't know about you guys, but it seems like 2006 has been a rough year for the majority of people I know. Lots of transitions, lots of sad things. It's gettin' to be clean slate time, don't you think?

So yeah! 24 in 2007! 24/7! Hey, look at that! That's promising. My life is about to take on the characteristics of a convenience store!

And no, my birthday did not totally get lost in all the business this weekend. Rocky opens on Tuesday so I did have to spend the majority of my actual birthday working on my lobby display and watching the dress rehearsal (and oh. my. god. The costumes for this show! They are incredible. We had a guest costume designer and he did some beautiful, crazy things. I was drooling over practically every costume on that stage tonight. I feel inspired to try to make something crazy/gorgeous/slutty and wear it for box office managing on opening night, although in actuality I'll probably chicken out and draw the line at fishnets and hooker boots). But on Friday night Mandi threw a birthday party for me and her boyfriend Jason (we share a birthday). We went barhopping and then back to her house where Richie and I attempted to consume our weight in Jello shots, and Debbie and Mandi did some booty dancing, amongst other things. It was a fun party, and Chelsea and Shane are taking me out for dinner sometime this week, which is very nice of them. So there have been fun birthday celebrations. And the happy birthday phone calls today were interesting, mainly because a couple of people I was positive would remember it was my birthday seemingly almost forgot it, and people I never expected to hear from and hadn't actually heard from in a long time called to say happy birthday. Go figure. In the end I did in fact hear from everyone I feel I "should have", though, plus a few others. So that's fun. I feel loved!

Also, I keep forgetting this fact, but I'm going to Ohio on Thursday for that conference. I won't be back until Sunday and even though I'll have my computer with me I'm kind of doubting I'll have the time or inclination to update this thing. And there's no way I'm updating before Ohio because with Rocky opening this week I don't even think I'll be sleeping, let alone writing.

So expect an update next week, probably something about how this Texan froze her ass off and totally botched her conference panel.

Peace.

More Teasing, Still No Posting

So I was going to sit down tonight to write about everything that has been going on in my life lately but then I realized I'm just way too tired. That and I somehow just killed three hours of my life catching up on e-mail and posting pictures and while that was stuff I needed to do, I can't believe how long it took me to catch up on all of it and I just can't justify spending any more time on the internet tonight. Not when I have actual homework to do. I mean, it's not like I'm going to actually do homework on a Saturday night, either, but I could at least go to sleep a couple of hours earlier than normal so that I can stay up later and do more homework tomorrow without needing a nap.

Rocky opens a week from Tuesday and I'm absolutely nowhere near where I need to be for that project, surprise surprise. Procrastinating has served me well my entire life, why start making things easier on myself now? My work on Kelly's show is over, but it doesn't matter because I really need to start working on school applications NOW so one project has just replaced another, and I think I bombed a test on Thursday night because I rushed the last of the three essays so that I could finish the test in time to go see a show and drink margaritas with some of the other grads. At the time I didn't care, but now that a couple of days have gone by I'm thinking that, hmmm, maybe sacrificing twenty points of my test score for a margarita wasn't the wisest idea. I can only hope that it's more like ten points instead of twenty and that the fact that everyone else except for two people had already finished the test before me (which is why I was rushing in the first place) means that they didn't write fabulously detailed answers, either.

So, uh, school is...yeah.

I went out three nights in a row this week and was drinking on two of them, which is not my standard operating mode anymore, so I think that's maybe why I'm feeling extra tired tonight. The fact that I even consider two nights in a row of drinking as a big deal is kind of sad to me. Or maybe I'm supposed to be proud of myself that I'm not boozing four or five nights a week anymore? The fact of the matter is that my overall level of productivity seems to be about the same whether I'm drinking four nights a week or half that much, so I don't know what that says about me. It was a fun week, and I'm glad everyone in my life has a little more time to hang out these days outside of the academic setting, but next week I'm putting myself under house arrest. For real this time.

I still have so many other things I'd really like to get around to talking about eventually. Here's a preview of some things I may or may not ever actually write about:
-The party and the Stones concert in El Paso that I still haven't talked about but really should because that's actually something somewhat exciting and out of the ordinary and surely that would be more interesting than another I'm So Busy entry
-Cohen's painting skills at our trip to Pet Fest today
-My current stand on the Mike situation (incidentally, don't even get me started on why after eight months there's still even something I think about as the "Mike situation" in the first place because Jesus, shouldn't we have a handle on this by now?!), or the sort-of-flattering-sort-of-sad text messages I'm once again getting from The Ex Who Shall Not Be Named, or the confusing mixed messages I am occasionally getting from a friend, or all the 18 year olds that have crushes on me (why?!), or something, ANYTHING remotely interesting involving a guy
-Thanksgiving plans, as this is the first year of my life that I'm not going home for Thanksgiving and I can't decide what to do with myself
-Thoughts on my upcoming 24th birthday (soon, too soon)

The Not-an-Update Update

So, I have a whole lot to say about my trip to El Paso. I have too much to say, in fact, and I have no idea when I'm going to get the chance to do a real bloggity update.

The basic summary is the Rolling Stones were incredibly awesome, the party was incredibly ridiculous and fun, I got to see Cassie and can't wait for her wedding,and things with Mike continue to be complicated in both good and bad ways.

I might be hiding out until Rocky starts on November 7th because I need to focus on all my dramaturgy work, so if I'm not around much until next month, well, I'm sure you don't actually care all that much. And if you do, you'll live.

Also, you should be jealous right now because I have the world's best tuxedo cat snuggled up on my lap and the world's best basset hound curled up beside me with his head on the cat. Said basset hound almost passed his Canine Good Citizen test today. He didn't quite pass because he still needs some work on proper leash walking, but I'm trying to get into another CGC class so we can try again in December. I'm very proud of him for coming so close to passing, anyway.

Possibilities and Off to El Paso

Guess what I'm doing the rest of today, and for most of the day tomorrow?

Absolutely nothing!!

It feels incredibly weird to have nothing to do right now, after weeks of always doing something or taking breaks to be a bum but feeling vaguely guilty for doing so because all the stuff I needed to be working on was still at the back of my mind.
Today, though, there's literally nothing I need to be doing. Everything is temporarily under control in the box office (and the department secretary is out of town this week and since she's really the person I work with most directly, there's no one around to actually pay attention to whether or not I'm doing my job anyway). Shockingly, everything is temporarily under control with my thesis project as well. I turned in my official proposal last week and it's being reviewed right now. I should hear back on it by the end of the week but I have no reason to believe it won't be approved. As for actually working on the show, I'm feeling good about everything. I wrote the press release over the weekend and helped the director with the program notes, which are two of my most important, these-two-items-are-absolute-necessities jobs. I have a whole bunch of ideas for my lobby display, and while I do need to start putting that together, there's no reason it can't wait until after my trip to El Paso. And this morning I gave my lecture in the Dramatic Theory class. I thought it went...okay. It wasn't fabulous, mainly because I was still prepping my lecture right up until 9:00 this morning, so there wasn't really time to practice the lecture and I just sort of went in and winged it. All things considered, though, it was good. The class actually answered questions and participated in discussion, I felt at-ease for the most part, and I got quite a few laughs. Considering the fact that I don't actually think I'm a very funny person, it's amazing how much stock I place in the ability to make my students laugh. Maybe it's because my favorite professors were always the ones that could make me laugh. My second-favorite professors have always been the ones that made me feel like an equal and kept a conversational style in their lectures, and thankfully I think that's one of my strengths (and also one of the reasons I'm better suited to teaching college than high school, I'll admit--high school teaching doesn't always lend itself very well to seminar-style teaching, although I really wish it did). So anyway, the lecture went well, and the important thing is IT'S OVER! That means the whole stupid TA class is over. Now that Mandi's show is over, too, I just have my thesis and my Thursday night class to focus on, so that's good.

The other really productive thing I've done is narrow down the doctoral program search. I've decided to fill out applications for five or six schools. None of them are in Texas. I don't know why I keep getting hung up on that because while I do enjoy Texas I never intended to spend my entire life living here anyway. Plus it's not like I didn't already leave home in a very big way and have some sense of culture shock when I moved from El Paso to east/central Texas in the first place. That's certainly equivalent to an out-of-state move. A full day's drive from home is definitely out-of-state in most parts of the country. But yeah. If any of these options work out, I won't be a Texas resident by this time next year. It's a weird thought. Of course, this is assuming any of these options end up working out in my favor, and that's a pretty big assumption.
So what have I narrowed it down to? Well, there are the major, major long shots. One of them is an Ivy League school with an extremely prestigious and competitive theatre department (and it's not Harvard, so hmmm, what could I possibly be talking about?). When I say "long shot", that's pretty much the understatement of the year. I just got a pep talk from a friend about how I shouldn't be negative about my chances but as far as this particular school is concerned, I'm not being negative, I'm just being realistic. This is maybe for the best, though, as I think my grandfather would have a heart attack if I did get accepted at this particular school. He keeps forgetting that his beloved Princeton doesn't have much of a theatre option. Anyway, the same thing goes for long shot number two, an almost-equally-prestigious school in northern California. It'd be nice, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. Plus I don't know how I'd afford it.
I think I'm heading into this application process with a decent resume. My grades couldn't be better (3.9 as an undergrad and a perfect 4.0 in my current program that I don't plan to lose between now and January). Although I think I could get a better GRE score if I took it again today, the GRE score I earned my senior year of college is acceptable and meets the minimum required for all of the programs I've researched. (I have a verbal score that I think is pretty impressive and a math score that I think is average at best, but since when do theatre people do intensive math?) I haven't done much (read: any) professional theatre work, but I've done a lot of college theatre work both at TCU and here. And my work is varied. I have experience directing and ADing, stage managing, and I think I'll have more dramaturgy work on my resume than most people. I've even done some acting. I've done two study abroad programs, one of which has given me the opportunity to name-drop some pretty high caliber names on my resume. I'll have presented a paper at a national conference (a small one, but national nonetheless). I have a minor in secondary education and have teaching experience, which should be a big plus. And my work has a lot of variety. The fact that I've dramaturged both The Rover and The Rocky Horror Show should be kind of intriguing, I think.
So yeah, I am going into this with some good things. I'm also going into this with some pretty notable deficits. The lack of "real world" experience is a big one. The fact that I'm only (almost) 24 is another. And there's the whole foreign language thing. I think I can honestly say that I have a "working knowledge" of Spanish, but I'm not sure what exactly "working knowledge" means. Plus Spanish isn't really the language of choice for theatre studies. French or German would have been the smart choices, but I picked Spanish when I was 12 years old and hey, it seemed like a good decision at the time.
So yes, I'm going to apply to the longshot schools. I mean, why not? The fact that my advisors don't think it would be a total waste of time to fill out the applications makes me proud. And I feel like I owe it to them to at least try. The worst case scenario is that I'm out the super-expensive application fee and they tell me, "Sorry, not this year." But if I don't try I'll never know and yeah, I'll probably always wonder. Plus I'd rather apply to as many schools as possible in one go. Once you've filled out one application you've pretty much filled out them all, so it would be stupid not to give myself as many chances as possible, even the not-really-a-chance chances.

So now you probably want to know where I think I do have a chance. Well, to be perfectly honest I'm scared that right now I don't have a chance anywhere and I'm going to have to get more experience somewhere and try again in a few years. And that's not the end of the world, I know. But there are four other schools I will be applying to this winter that might actually consider my application. I don't want to get too detailed because...I don't really know. I just don't. On the off-chance that I do get into one of these schools and move in the next year, I'd like to be able to retain some degree of online anonymity. Paranoid much? But yeah. Anyway. One is in Ohio (not the college I'll be speaking at next month, but maybe I'll at least be able to get a small feel for that part of the country), one is in Minnesota, one is in Maryland, and the other is another California school, this one in southern California (waaaay southern California).

So there are my options. I may still add one or two more, depending on if I turn up anything else interesting and to up my odds. But for now it seems as though before the end of next year, if I get lucky, I'll be in California, New England, Maryland, Ohio, or Minnesota. Talk about variety. Of course, I probably won't actually have to choose. I'll be lucky to just get one of those options, ya know? Still, I suppose I could be happy in any of those places. I can't really envision myself living in any of those places, but I can't envision myself staying here, either. I like the Austin area, I like it more than any other place I've ever lived, but there's just not much else I can do here for now. The truth is, I can't think much further than January. But I'll see what happens.

Or, you know, I'll still be here in Texas, bartending and wondering what the heck I'm going to do with my life.

The possibilities are endless!!

Oh, by the way, I'm off to El Paso tomorrow for Drunken Craziness With Everyone I've Ever Known in El Paso, Including Old High School Teachers and Probably the Mailman. This event is also known as My Parents' Huge Birthday Bash. My parents both turn 50 this month (Dad already had his birthday and Mom's is at the end of the month) so tomorrow they're shutting down my dad's bar for the night and throwing themselves a big party. I think it's going to be ridiculous. People are flying in from out of town, and I think my parents invited every single person they've ever met in El Paso. It's going to be open bar all night long. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a live band, and probably karaoke (my mom and her girlfriends love to get everyone drunk and make them do karaoke; the last time I went to karaoke with my mom I got so drunk I kissed my mom's best friend's son whom I've known since I was six weeks old,and while it was totally his idea and our mothers were thrilled, I'm not planning a repeat performance). My dad has rented a limo for the sole purpose of chauffering drunk people home. Oh, and for picking my siblings and I up at the airport tomorrow evening since we don't get home until 5:30 and my parents will apparently be too busy primping by that point to pick us up at the airport. The El Paso airport is not the sort of airport where people generally get picked up by limo services, so we get to be those pretentious assholes. Grand. Still, I'm excited. At the very least I'm bound to get a good story or two out of the evening, if I can remember much of it. Because hey, it's open bar and there's a limo to drive me home, you'd better believe I'm going to drink a stupid amount of alcohol! You should probably call me tomorrow night, I bet I'll be amusing.
And then on Friday we're seeing Dave Matthews Band and THE ROLLING STONES. Eeeeee! So exciting!!!
And one of the best parts is that when I told one of my professors today that I was going out of town, instead of being concerned she just said, "It's probably a very good idea for you to take a few days off right now. You know, step back and assess everything from a distance so you don't get overwhelmed." And the department chair said, "Have fun! Don't worry about anything, we've got it under control!" So not only do I get to skip class and work for the rest of the week, I'm doing it with the blessing of the department. Sweet.

Anyway, I'm off to waste the rest of the afternoon. A friend suggested eating cookies and masturbating, but I think I'm leaning towards more Grey's Anatomy and a nap. At least for now...Ha.

Ricky Bobby, Ricky Bobby

Last night I was on 6th Street with Mandi and her friends Amy, Becky, and Brenna, who had come up from her hometown to see the show this weekend. The show went really well, by the way. We had decent-sized crowds both nights and everyone seemed to enjoy it. As much as I liked working on the show and as happy as I am to have more stage management experience on my resume, I'm glad it's over. That's 12+ hours a week that will be free now that weren't free before and I can do a lot with 12 hours. Even if what I choose to do with said hours is bake cookies and watch reruns of Grey's.

Anyway, last night we went up to 6th Street. I didn't get there until 12:30, but then I rapidly made up for lost time and had a couple of Jager bomb-esque shots (they weren't Jager bombs, I don't know what they were, but they were big stupid shots of the Jager bomb variety) and then I had a couple of beers and then I wanted a rum and Coke but someone ordered another beer for me accidentally so I ended up with the beer plus the rum and Coke, and then I had the presence of mind to stop drinking so I could actually drive home. Sometimes I'm reasonable. Sometimes...Anyway, we had a great time dancing and drinking at Darwin's (which you may remember as the bar where Jenny once infamously tried to shove a dollar coin into the quarter slot on a video game and then berated the poor bartender for having a broken game) and then we went to some bar in a basement that played great music and had cool lighting and served reasonably priced drinks, which is really all you need in a 6th Street bar, and then we went back to Darwin's.
By the time we left Darwin's for the second time, everyone was in various stages of drunk. I was my favorite sort of buzzed: drunk enough that I can enjoy being around other drunk people and laugh at drunken antics, but sober enough that I'm still perfectly capable of believably pretending that I haven't had a drink all evening, should such a need arise. Mandi was dancing in the street with her boyfriend, Brenna was drunk-dialing an ex, and Amy was supporting herself on the light post. So Becky and I, who were the most sober ones by far, were chatting when up strolled this strange little blonde guy. He sidled up to Becky and said, "So can I go inside?" and gestured to the bar. Becky just shrugged and said, "You can try, but it's closed," and then we ignored him. Imagine our surprise when, five minutes later, we realized he was still standing there, just awkwardly staring at us. By that time we were trying to get our group organized so we could head home, so we were talking about who was riding in which car. And creepy blonde guy took it upon himself to say to Becky-and this is a direct quote-"Do you have room for me in your car, Ricky Bobby, Ricky Bobby?" And he said it in a weird accent that I think was supposed to sound British but I'm really not sure. Becky, without skipping a beat, responded, "No, my car is full, Ricky Bobby, Ricky Bobby." I died. I'm still laughing about it almost 24 hours later. I suppose you really had to be there to understand why it was so funny, but it was hysterical. Why Ricky Bobby? What could he possibly have meant by that?

Then we went back to Mandi's apartment and Brenna collapsed on the living room floor, and we left Amy sleeping in the truck because it was just easier, and Mandi prayed very intently about the state of her bathroom plumbing, and I lost my ring in the couch cushions and while unearthing it I found a remote control that Mandi and Jason have never seen before in their lives, a Lion King Gameboy cartridge circa 1995, and a pair of panties that Mandi swears can't possibly be hers. We were fascinated and horrified all at once.

All in all it was a fun-albeit ridiculous-night. And now I suppose I should go to bed or work on lecture planning for the class I'm teaching on Tuesday or something else productive.

This Weekend...

This Weekend I:
-Fell down a flight of stairs at the show I was working Friday night. Of course I landed at the feet of the show's director, who had been a jerk to me and the house manager all week long. And of course I was wearing a dress.
-Fell down AGAIN while walking to the bar three hours later.
-Decided I'm permanently retiring the shoes I was wearing on Friday night, because that's fucking ridiculous.
-Spent all day Friday helping Mandi get set pieces for her show. It was an ordeal that involved picking up major kitchen appliances found at the side of the road, backing a giant U-Haul up onto a laughably narrow loading dock, and hauling a washing machine up and down stairs on a dolly, amongst other things (Have you ever moved a washing machine? I don't recommend it unless you want to increase your chance of ending up in the ER tenfold.)
-Was in rehearsal today for six hours.
-Chose cleaning my apartment over going on a date, because I've realized that I was feeling like the new guy was just using a date as a means to an end, the "end" in this case being sex. And I hate feeling like that. I want the physical stuff to be the icing on the cake, not the entire point. Even though we were having a pretty good time together, I realized the thing that was making me uneasy was that I felt like he was only taking me out and feeding me and buying me drinks so that he could hopefully get me into bed. And I know that's often the point of dating, but I don't want it to be the point. I want to be with someone who loves talking to me as much as making out with me, and while he seemed to truly enjoy talking to me he was also often like, "When are we going to kiss again?" and...NO.
-Fought with a customer at the box office. If I tell the whole story here I'll probably get so angry I'll give myself a stroke, but I'll just say that it's probably the worst exchange I've ever had with a customer and I have been waiting tables, bartending, parking people's cars, or selling people show tickets for seven years now. Words cannot express how much of an asshole this guy was. But I kept my cool. I wanted to punch his stupid face, but I argued as politely as possible and then despite the fact that I was appalled by his behavior, I finally let him into the theater. But only after finishing the conversation with, "I just want you to know that you're an incredibly irresponsible person. And stop lying to my face. It's insulting, and even more so in this case because you are a really terrible liar." So he went upstairs to the show--ten minutes late and without paying--and then guess what I found out from one of my ushers at intermission?
During the entire first act of the show, he sat there as his girlfriend gave him a handjob. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?!?!?!?! I wanted to report him for lewd behavior so badly, but I knew that since it was after the fact there was no way I could prove anything had been going on. Still, the usher said it was unmistakable. Even if there hadn't been enough light coming from the stage to see exactly what was happening, his girlfriend apparently doesn't know how to be discreet with a zipper.
I'm sure he'll end up being a politician.
I was looking forward to having more words with him this morning when he showed up to actually pay for his tickets, but unfortunately by the time he showed up I'd already left for the afternoon. I guess that's probably for the best, because had I actually gotten a chance to "talk" to him again I'd probably be unemployed right now.

But Also:
-When I took that spectacular fall in front of the director, he shouted, "Oh my God, Ashley!!", proving for the first time that he does in fact know my name. He was also really friendly to both Mandi and I for the rest of the weekend, so apparently to get on his good side you just have to do something humiliating in front of him.
-I didn't seriously injure myself in either fall. I have a rug burn running all the way up the side of my right shin and knee, but that just makes me look tough.
-My dog still hasn't been thrown out of his Canine Good Citizen training class, and when he actually focuses in class he looks so serious and determined that it makes my heart hurt in a good way.
-Everything is finally pretty much ready to go for the show I'm stage managing, which is good because it goes up this weekend.
-Right now I'm actually feeling totally okay with the fact that I'll choose cleaning my apartment over going on a date. When the right guy comes along I'll let my apartment fall to pieces if it means I can spend more time with him. In the meantime I can tell myself I'm too busy for a relationship right now and know that I'm only somewhat rationalizing.
-I went out with a group of the grad students on Friday night and it was great. We all drank margaritas until last call and then were having so much fun that a few people ended up coming back to my apartment to keep the fun going. At 3:30 in the morning I had an apartment full of people drinking Bacardi and Coke and laughing about everything as Grey's Anatomy played on the TV and Cohen happily wrestled with Amanda's dog Penny in the middle of the living room, and I thought, "This is awesome! Why don't we do this every night? Or at least every week?" Our schedules are why, of course. Every group that hangs out together and parties all the time needs an instigator to get things going, and none of us is regularly the instigator of that sort of thing. Which is how we ended up as nerdy grad students in the first place. Still, the big problem is that we're all working on shows and we all have different rehearsal schedules, so to have a night when we're all actually free at the same time is rare. I'm glad we took advantage this weekend. It was well worth being hungover for the first couple of hours I was waiting tables on Saturday morning.

I can't wait for next weekend!

Today Has Been Okay

I know I'm not the busiest person in the world. Not even close. I'm not even the busiest person around here. But sometimes, like this week, I have a hard time remembering that a lot of people actually have it harder than I do.
So I try to put things in perspective. I'm not directing a show right now, and the one I'm stage managing is over in two weeks. I'm only taking nine hours of classes instead of the twelve I took last year. I'm working two jobs, but I do realize that one of them is still totally optional and could be quit at any time. And I'm not pregnant. One of my fellow grad students is in her first trimester right now and I can't even imagine how she does everything I do while coping with morning sickness. Compared to that, I have it easy.
Still, I'll be damn happy when it's mid-November and the hardest part of the semester is behind me. There's still that whole applying to doctoral programs thing to worry about, but I also keep trying to remind myself that in the worst case scenario, there's no REAL reason why that needs to be done this year. I mean, it would be good and obviously it's in my best interest to apply if I can. But if I can't and it's just too much or it's just not possible this year, it's not the end of the world.

Oh, and I went out with that guy again on Saturday and I'm pretty much just feeling ambivalent. We definitely have a good time when we're together, but when he's not around I'm not thinking about him or thinking, "Wow, I can't wait until I can get home to talk to him." Honestly, it's just something to do, and right now when I'm so busy it just feels like one more thing on top of my already crazy schedule. I think I'll keep seeing him occasionally for now just because well, like I said, it's something to do (not "do" in that sense, sickos). But I'm not sure how fair that is to him, considering he's clearly pretty into me. I don't mean to brag but really, he is.

There's something wrong with me, I think. Why can't I get excited about a perfectly nice, attractive, fun guy? I say I don't want to be alone, but then the minute I have the chance to really be with someone in a meaningful way I decide that actually, I would rather just be alone and not worry about it. Can I possibly be that apathetic about my love life? Apparently, the answer is YES.

Second Date

So, I hung out with that guy again last night. He didn't call me until almost 11:30, which annoyed me at first. I had thought based on previous conversation that we were going to go out on some sort of actual date, so I was really surprised that I hadn't heard from him by 7, then by 8, and then by 9ish I made the decision that if he called me I wasn't going to do anything with him. It was just a matter of principle. If this is going to be anything at all I really, really don't want it to be just late-night phone calls when one of us wants some action. I've done enough of that for the time being. For now I'd like something more...real. You know, something that involves going out to dinner and spending time together while the sun is still up. So I decided that if he called me late at night and wanted to do something I would say no and tell him that if he wants to see me he can't assume that he can call me in the middle of the night and I'll actually be a) awake, b) not already out with someone else, c) willing to hang out. I was going to put my foot down and demand some respect, damn it.
But then he called and when I started to tell him no, that he can't be calling me that late and inviting me out, he said, "Oh, I thought your rehearsal went until 11 so I wanted to wait until you got out." Apparently I forgot to make it clear that I only rehearse Monday through Thursday. So since it was my fault and not his, I decided he could come over for a while. We hung out and had a couple of beers and just talked for a few hours. He met my animals, both of whom loved him and immediately crawled onto his lap and stayed there for most of the night (or maybe they didn't actually like him and were just feeling jealous and doing everything in their power to keep him from touching me, I don't know).
It went well. We're going to see each other again, possibly today.
I just don't like the beginning of relationships. Some people thrive on that-the nervous excited butterflies when a new guy calls, being around someone and realizing you still have so much to learn about him, watching him flatter you and think of cute little romantic things to woo you. But that's not my thing. Sure, there's something exciting about it. But ideally, I would skip the first six months of the relationship. I like the part where everything is set, and I know a guy's quirks and we sort of have a routine and I know his friends and he knows my friends and he doesn't feel like he has to impress me.
I keep reminding myself that the comfort zone I've loved about the relationships I've been in so far wasn't there right at the beginning. A connection was there at the beginning, but it takes time to get into the comfort zone. I just wish I could be there already, you know?
Oh, and I'm not good at this whole pacing-myself-physically thing. We end up making out for a while and then I put a stop to things (because I don't want this to just be about sex, remember?) and I feel like I'm in high school all over again. So far, Mike has been the only guy in my life that I've actually dated in the "proper" way. You know, start out just kissing, move on to other things gradually. But that was back in high school, and I was a virgin, and something tells me that now that I'm older the standard waiting time before gettin' it on for the first time is NOT six months. I don't even know if it's six dates. I have no idea, because with every other guy that I've dated we always fooled around excessively first (I've never had sex the first time I've gotten into bed with somebody, but there was always more involved than just kissing, let's put it that way) and then kept fooling around excessively, and then started having sex, and THEN started dating (or just skipped the "dating" bit altogether, lalala). So now I know that I want this to be about hanging out and getting to know each other and spending time together out of bed, but as a result of my not letting him get with me I feel like he's sort of obsessed with the idea of getting me into bed. Which is flattering, but...I just don't know if I should just do it--probably not EVERYTHING, but at least get into an actual bed and take some clothes off--so that whole anticipation-of-the-first-time bit will be over and we can move on to other things, or whether letting it get that far right away will be counterproductive to it becoming an actual relationship.
I know what I'd tell someone asking me that question. I'd say, "If he really likes you and you like him and it's going to be a real relationship, it's going to become one whether or not you sleep with him on the very first date." But I also just don't want to sleep with another guy and have it ultimately turn out to be nothing. Thisreal dating stuff is too complicated for me.

Oh, and Mike is being weird and jealous about all this. Of course. Who didn't see that one coming from a mile away? However, am I wrong for thinking that he is just not allowed to act upset about it because HE is the one that left ME? Oy.

Slow News Day

Remember this, the El Paso Times article I bitched about back in May when I was visiting my parents? Remember how I mentioned that the El Paso Times is probably the very worst newspaper of any reasonably-sized city in the nation?

Well, the paper has reached a new low with this ridiculous article that Chelsea alerted me to today. This was considered breaking news on the main page of their website this morning:

Cat stuck in pipe amuses schoolchildren (11:13 a.m.)
A cat, “probably chasing a mouse,” became trapped inside a pipe this morning at Houston Elementary, school clerk Sylvia Trujillo said.
Children discovered the immobilized animal and notified school officials, who in turn called the city's office of Animal Regulation and Disease Control, Trujillo said. Animal control arrived at about 7:30 a.m. to pull the feline from where it was stuck inside a drainage pipe, officials said.
Trujillo said the cat hissed when it was freed from the pipe.
She said no children were traumatized by the incident.
“To them I think it was funny,” Trujillo said.
The cat is being held at animal control offices, located at 5001 Fred Wilson, officials said. It will remain there for three days or until its owner comes to retrieve it. If no owner arrives within three days, the cat will be adopted or put down, officials said.
The fate of the mouse was unknown.

How is this possibly considered a news story?!?! It's not even a good human interest story! Mainly I wonder who the heck decided "Hey, there's a cat stuck in a pipe out in the schoolyard. Now that's a story I need to report to the newspaper!" My favorite part is that no children were traumatized by the incident. Oh, THANK GOD. Because hissing cats in pipes are really, really scary and might in fact cause permanent psychological scarring for these poor children! Oh, and "the fate of the mouse was unknown". That last sentence makes me want to believe that the whole article is meant to be tongue-in-cheek and the reporter knew it was stupid and was trying to be funny on purpose, but sadly I'm pretty sure the article is meant to be dead serious.

It must be an incredibly slow news day in El Paso. But even that is no excuse. Oh well, at least it was good for a laugh.

Weekend!

It has been a busy week around here. Surprise, surprise. I've been busy stage managing Mandi's show and doing some research for Kelly's show and studying for the test I had in my evening class tonight (which I think went okay; I'm absolutely positive I didn't answer anything wrong, I think the worst thing the prof can say is that I didn't provide enough detail in a couple of the essays...four "well-developed" essays in two hours and forty-five minutes...remind me again why I love being a student so much?) and answering the phone at least four to six times a day to answer questions for the people working in the box office and waiting tables and somehow I still haven't managed to get much done on my thesis other than working on the official proposal which I sort of need to rework part of anyway. I keep telling myself I'll have a lot more time to focus on it once Mandi's show closes and I'm no longer stage managing from 8 until 11 every night, so I hope that that's actually true.

Needless to say, I'm so ready for this weekend. I work tomorrow from 11:00 until 4ish and I have Cohen's training class from 1 until 4 on Sunday. My dog is in a really cool training class right now (well, he is at this exact moment, we'll see if he gets thrown out on Sunday) and I'll have to tell you about his training when I get the chance because my dog is being trained at the state psychiatric hospital and it's interesting, especially since I can say things like "I have to go to the mental hospital tomorrow" and actually mean it. But anyway, other than those two things I actually have the entire weekend free. There is nothing in my planner for Saturday! That NEVER happens.

The only other thing that is sort of on the agenda for this weekend is a date with that guy. We've been talking all week, not in an excessive, overwhelming way, but just a couple text messages each day and a few e-mails back and forth over the course of the week. I'm still feeling pretty good about it. He's not talking to me so much that it's freaking me out (and it's very easy to freak me out), but he's also not doing stupid things like saying, "I'll talk to you later" and then waiting three days to talk to me again. He told me he'd call me tomorrow and we'll go out this weekend, and there's no doubt in my mind that it will actually happen. I'm nervous, though. Now that I haven't actually seen him in four days I'm starting to worry that I made Sunday night out to be better than it was and I'm afraid I'll be disappointed this weekend. I've been on a few good first dates in my life but I've never really had a good second date. See, normally I don't even date. I usually--and by usually I mean ALWAYS--begin relationships by flirting extensively with and then kissing someone who was previously "just a friend" and then suddenly, oops, I guess maybe we're not just friends anymore! That's how I've ended up in every one of my previous relationships. It's pretty much unheard of for me to go on actual dates for the purpose of getting to know someone who is pretty much a stranger. In that circumstance no guy has ever gotten beyond a second date.

So yeah. I'm not hopeful, but I'm kind of excited anyway. At the very least it's something to do during my free weekend. I also have the urge to drink too much and make out with someone, but I'm pretty sure this is not the weekend to do that.

Bah to Titles

#1-I have a full thesis committee!! And in the affirmative reply from my department chair, he spelled believe "beleive", which makes me kinda happy just because.

#2-I met a guy last night. This is a pretty big deal, since the last time I met a truly intriguing new guy was, um, about a year and a half ago. And that fizzled extremely fast. I know the exact same thing could happen now, and this feeling could be totally gone by next week. But right now I can honestly say that I feel excited about this in a way I haven't felt excited about a guy in a really, really, really long time. I'm a fickle bitch and I could be totally off this guy 24 hours from now. I know that. But I hung out one-on-one with him tonight and we spent two hours sitting on his patio talking and he made it clear that he's very, very into me but didn't remotely try to talk me into bed. All in all it was the best first date I've had in years. Even if it doesn't go anywhere else, at least there's that.

My Aching Back

Most of the time I love living alone. I love living alone so much that I can't really imagine ever wanting to share a place with someone else again unless there was going to be a lot of sex involved.
That's not to say that I wouldn't have a roommate again if it became financially necessary, because I know I could handle it. After all, Katy and I spent a great four years living together and I've enjoyed all the other short-term roommates I've had in my life, too. It's just that now that I've spent a year living on my own, I've realized how wonderful it really is to have MY space. I love it.

However, there are a few times that living alone is kind of a pain. Like when I'm trying to get dressed and there's something to be tied or zipped up in the back that I can't reach, or when I throw food away month after month because everything seems to come in portions too big for a single person to finish before it goes bad, or when there's a giant bug chillin' in my shower and I have to kill it myself (I pretty much always have to call someone for moral support when I'm on a bug-killing mission. I'm not sure why, since I don't think anyone really appreciates listening to me shriek over the phone). The biggest pain about living alone is the literal pain, though. Right now my back and shoulders are aching so badly. I can't figure out why. I don't think it's from my workouts since it isn't sore in a good way, and I would say it's just stress tension except that I'm not particularly stressed out right now. Busy, sure, but not actually stressed. Maybe I'm just sleeping weird? At any rate, my back hurts and all I really need is a back massage. It doesn't even have to be a good massage. But it's the middle of the night and I live alone, so that's not going to happen. I just spent an entire Lost episode stretching and doing every relaxation, tension-releasing move I've ever learned in a dance or acting class, and it helped for a while but I guess it wasn't good enough because I can feel the ache coming back. Bah.

I think I'm gonna go see if the basset hound feels like being a cooperative heating pad. He's really good at that, sometimes.

That Can Crack the Darkest Sky Wide Open

Have you seen the new Liberty Mutual ad where everyone is being nice to each other and it's kind of a pay-it-forward type thing and it has the beautiful, haunting music in the background? Yeah, you've seen it. Even if it's not ringing a bell, I'm sure you've seen it. I'm sure I could find a link to the ad and post it here, but I'm lazy about linking stuff.

I recently got sorta obsessed with this ad. I saw it for the first time at work last week when some of my coworkers and I were watching the big screen TV and killing time while we were waiting to actually have some tables and something to do (I'll sometimes spend a whole hour at the restaurant just killing time, which is a big pet peeve of mine, but whatever. The restaurant is always either really dead or really busy, there's no in-between. But that's every restaurant in the world, isn't it?) Anyway, my friend was like, "I love this ad!" and we turned the sound up and watched it, and the song stayed with me for days. I kept wanting to find the song and download it, but I kept remembering it at weird times, like in the car or in class, so I didn't actually get around to it until just now when I saw the ad while I was actually here at the house sitting at my computer.

The song is by a group called Hem, and I loved it initially just for the tune and the singer's voice, but then I found the lyrics, and now I'm more in love than ever:
I am holding half an acre
torn from the map of Michigan
and folded in this scrap of paper
is a land I grew in

Think of every town you've lived in
every room you lay your head
and what is it that you remember?

Do you carry every sadness with you
every hour your heart was broken
every night the fear and darkness
lay down with you

A man is walking on the highway
A woman stares out at the sea
and light is only now just breaking

So we carry every sadness with us
every hour our hearts were broken
every night the fear and darkness
lay down with us

But I am holding half an acre
torn from the map of Michigan
I am carrying this scrap of paper
that can crack the darkest sky wide open
every burden taken from me
every night my heart unfolding
my home

We can't escape the heartbreak or the fear or the darkness. That's always there and it's not going to go away. But home makes it okay. If you're lucky, the same past that hurt you is the very thing that can save you and make you happy. That's what I took from the song, anyway.

In the sake of full disclosure, I will say that after I downloaded this song I listened to it about six times in a row until eventually I made myself cry. But it's been one of those rough emotional weeks and I needed that release. And it was crying in a good way, not a bad way. It's kind of like the time I got obsessed with Finley Quaye, or "Into Dust" by Mazzy Star, or "Landed" by Ben Folds or any number of highly melodic and vaguely melancholy songs. My latest kick prior to this one was when I discovered Carrie Rodriguez a couple of weeks ago and bought an entire album based off one song, which is something I haven't done since I was about eighteen. The album is Seven Angels on a Bicycle and I bought it based off the title track and then realized afterwards that I already knew about half the album because the public radio station here plays a lot of her stuff. I like it a lot. My mp3 player insists that it's "country" and I suppose it is, but it's a very mellow album and overall has more of a blue grass feel, if anything. And I bet that's something you never knew about me: I am not a fan of country music, especially country ballads. It's very rare that I like a country song enough to actually want to listen to it over and over again, and the only country songs I do like are more dancing, get-wild songs than anything else. But deep down inside I sort of love bluegrass. The more banjo, fiddle, and general twang, the better.

I was in the car with my brother recently, complaining about his choice of music. I don't know how to describe Shane's choice of music other than "high school rock that's sort of indie but not indie enough to ACTUALLY be indie". I realize that makes no sense as a genre, and I have no real reason for disliking many of the songs Shane likes, especially since there's a very fine, blurry line separating a lot of the music he likes from the music I like. For example, for me, Panic! at the Disco is generally a yes and Fallout Boy is generally a no, even though I'm aware that they're both pretty much the same thing. Shane is the opposite. I recently decided I'm okay with liking Snow Patrol, even though I was wary at first. My Chemical Romance is still a big, fat no, etc., etc. Don't ask me how I decide these things, I just get a feeling for songs and I know what I like and what I don't like, even though I can't usually articulate why, for example, I like my "indie but not indie enough to ACTUALLY be indie" music but not Shane's. Part of it is that I don't want to do anything that can remotely be construed as "indie" or "hipster" or "emo" because I just don't get the scene and I don't want to fit the scene. The problem is, I still to this day can't figure out what exactly makes something indie or makes a person a hipster so I'm trying to keep myself from falling into a category that I don't particularly know how to classify. It's confusing being in my head sometimes. Whew.
The point is, Shane and I can very rarely agree on music. Chelsea and I agree much more easily, mostly because the music she legitimately likes is my "guilty pleasure" music (think Pussycat Dolls, gangsta rap, cheesy 90s pop, etc.).
So lately I've been wondering how the heck someone would classify my listening habits. Maybe you all should decide for me, because so far all I have to go by is Shane's description of me, which was "So basically you like music that is good but fucking depressing." And while it's actually kind of true that the majority of my favorite songs in the world are at least vaguely sad, I think a lot of my music is cheerful and uplifting. I think...
So how should I classify myself, anyone-who-knows-more-about-music-than-I-do?

Here are the facts:
1) Probably 20% of the space on my mp3 player is devoted to show tunes, but I also have to be in a particular mood to want to listen to said show tunes and I wouldn't claim that as my favorite type of music. I also tend to prefer sexy/sultry or very dramatic/depressing musicals to cheesy pop musical love stories. I don't know why it's important for you to know that, except to say that I know I wouldn't classify myself as a show tunes girl.
2) I spend most of my driving time listening to the public radio station here. Here's a link to their weekly Top 60. It really is a mix of everything, so maybe that doesn't help.
3) If I do change the station, it's because I'm in the mood for rap and dance/pop music. This is kinda rare, but pretty much always happens when I'm on my way to a party or a night of drinking and bar hopping and I need to be in an upbeat mood.
4) I put my mp3 player on random and listed the first 25 artists that came up, not counting show tunes since, as I've already declared, I like show tunes but I'm not a show tunes girl. Here they are:
1. Talking Heads
2. Sufjan Stevens
3. Belle and Sebastian
4. Eva Cassidy
5. Robert Plant
6. The Shins
7. Fiona Apple
8. Neil Young
9. 10,000 Maniacs
10. Tool
11. Dave Matthews Band
12. The Kinks
13. Imogen Heap
14. Old 97s
15. Rod Stewart
16. Madonna
17. Fatboy Slim
18. Kanye West
19. Johnny Cash
20. Simon and Garfunkel
21. Chamillionaire
22. Frank Sinatra
23. Michael Jackson
24. Journey
25. James Blunt

So, what kind of music DO I like?