Movin’ on up… er, out

We finally did it.

This past Saturday, the boy and I loaded up his truck with everything I own and closed the door on my perfect, little one bedroom house. He had been working for weeks to clear space for my clothes in the closet, for my excessive anti-frizz hair products in the bathroom and for my many wine glasses in the cupboards. We spent the weekend unpacking and getting key copies made. And now it’s official: we live together.

There’s going be a lot of adjusting as we settle into our days together, but nothing dramatic so far. Except for the towels. The fucking towels.

One of the conditions of moving in together was that we got new linens. The bedding and towels were decidedly only-a-boy-lives-here linens, and I’d rather have my bedding color-coordinated with the candles on the dresser, a bathroom where every piece is tied to every other piece, even subtly. Sunday night after the unpacking had settled down, we headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick out new towels. I fondled every single thing in the store, from the Shake Weights to the shiny pots and pans, and made mental lists of all the things I want to make our place feel like home. I’m a whore for home goods–what can I say?

Eventually we made it to the towels and decided on gray and green. I was nervous he’d try to pick out brown and burnt siena, so these felt like huge wins. Gray! Green! I love those! We are obviously excellent at living together. WINNER. And then came the bath mats, shit shit shit. They only had ugly colors (read: burnt siena) and white, which was just the least worst option. I saw it clearly in my head: a bathroom with gray bathrooms, and green and white hand towels, to tie the bath mats in perfectly. The boy, apparently, did not see the same thing.

We had a five minute stand-off. Sort of. Do you guys ever have a fight with the boy, but he doesn’t know that you’re in the fight? This was EXACTLY LIKE THAT. I kept trying to make the case for the green and white hand towels, because it would look nicer and put together if people ever come over. He just kept saying, “But why would we need two sets of towels?” BECAUSE IT WOULD LOOK NICER AND I WANT THEM. THAT’S THE REASON.

I lost. And I’m a sore loser, so I’m still bitching about it days later. That’s okay, though. I’m plotting to come home with surprise white towels in the next couple of weeks. And maybe mysteriously, I will have misplaced the the tags and the receipts. Oh no, you mean we can’t return them? WHAT A SHAME.

Matching bathrooms for the win.

image/realsimple

The Public Picker

Again with the not writing. I know, I know.

I was just thinking the other day, that there aren’t as much funny stories lately. Not that life isn’t hilarious, but I am understandably low on the tragically amazing/tragic first date stories. But the universe has a funny way of telling me to fuck off, doesn’t it?

On the freeway home from work today, I randomly pulled up next to a big white Tahoe just when traffic slowed. I looked over to see the driver knuckle-deep, looking for a booger. Now for the record, I am not against booger-picking in your own car. I just try to time my digs for that perfect window when there aren’t any cars that can see my nose. Common courtesy, amiright?

Anyway, I’m gawking at this epic knuckle picker when he turns his head and notices me. He’s caught, which is tragic for him and hilarious for me.

Here’s where the universe comes in: I recognize this guy. I know the picker. Do you know why? Because we used to date. We dated. I DATED THE PICKER.

The universe said, “Oh, you’re low on embarrassing date stories? Let me HELP YOU OUT.” Mission accomplished friend. You win.

Tick tock.

I wonder when I will stop feeling not quite grown up enough for the life I am living…

BNV

I’ve had this bookmarked to watch since August 17th, and I finally got around to it just now. And it made me heart swell a little bit.

“The way bodies move geniuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting…”

 

 

This makes me wish I had HBO, or all the Russell Simmon’s Brave New Voices on DVD at all times. Or that I had nothing to do at work all day and could just watch YouTube videos constantly. Man, poetry–you are kind of the shit.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand one of my clients at work got me a gift certificate for a massage (#4) as a thank you.

That’s another one off the List List–yay!

False starts

There are a bunch of half-posts, almost-there ideas sitting in my Drafts folder. And since I am the queen of starting a new project when I am knee-deep in a bunch halfway-finished things, instead of getting through the end of one of those, I will just start a new one.

I’m pretty sure this idea can’t fail. Right?

My fingers always get stuck here because I start writing about all of my first dates, and how most of them were such epic tragedies or exercises in measured drunkeness. (Apparently sometimes those uncomfortably good looks aren’t enough to make dinner bearable… ah, well.) And now I’m not going on as many first dates. Instead I’m looking up recipes and brainstorming new projects for my house. I’m trying to figure out I can be a part-time wedding guest this summer (five on the calendar so far for 2011, I KNOW), visit my little sister in New Orleans, through a Vegas bachelorette  party and hit southeast Asia with the boy for his world-tour 30th birthday.

So for now, I am making lists of Martha Stewart projects I want to recreate, and add things to the list of Lovely Things. I’m wrapping presents and planning to knock a little something off the Life List over the holiday break. Grand Canyon, I’m (soon going to be) looking at you!

This place is evolving, friends. I just need to get comfortable with what that means, and get back to normal. 2011, I cannot wait to see your face.

Couch potato.

I hate the lulls in writing. Life gets busy and I get too tired lazy to write. I mean, it’s just so much easier to eat leftovers for dinner, and then have ice cream in bed.

Which is ridiculous, because I am so much happier when I’m writing. But there are late nights at work, and summer parties weddings, and visiting family, and spending a whole Sunday at the beach when there are a million other things to do (like laundry, or getting groceries). But man, I am less crazy when I write–and that’s huge, because I am still pretending not to be crazy at all in front of this boy. Whoops.

And I’m not even busy being cool. I’m busy being OLD. I am bookmarking articles about DIY home projects and books I want to read and artwork for my bedroom. What the shit is that about?

I spent the last year living like a college student. I had a living room with no furniture. A “full length mirror” only showed your full length if you held it in the air to see the top half of your outfit. My framed art (and you know it’s Ikea, don’t talk shit about my finely tuned artistic eye) leaning up against the same spot in the wall that I laid it when I moved in. It was not the hip apartment of a hip and tipsy-when-appropriate twenty-something with a job.

So after 8 months of walking through a weird, non-living room to get to my bed… I bit the bullet. I bought a couch. And it wasn’t on sale.

I’ve been trying to pay off my credit cards (so that I can cross that “get out of debt” thing off my life list), but on a Friday last month, I left work and headed straight to Ikea, my other boyfriend, and decided I NEEDED A COUCH AT THAT MOMENT. So I spent $600 on the cutest little number ever.  Hello, pretty.

Isn’t she the best?! It just occurred to me as I was writing this that she probably needs a name. I’ll start working on that.

In the end, I was debating between the chocolate brown and the white. The white feels super hip (and therefore counteracts the sad-college-student theme I’ve got going) but I’m also more likely to spill salsa con queso on the cushions. And I’m not giving up salsa con queso. That shit is gooooooood.

The debate was solved by my trusty Ikea couch consultant. I’m not sure that was his title, but he was near the couches, and he was the one who listened to me squeal, “Sir! This is my FIRST COUCH. This is the biggest thing I have ever bought! Aren’t you so excited?!”

He was decidely un-excited. Or just not at excited as me.

So this is me, old. O-L-D. Daydreaming about couches and coordinating throw pillows to wall art. I buy new kitchen towels and and plotting to make my own rug. I am spending more time looking for things to add to the list of Lovely Things than I spend drinking champagne. My budget gets updated every paycheck, along with all of my balances, interest rates and payments. I CANNOT SLEEP IN ANYMORE. WHAT THE SHIT.

Now I have to crawl into bed, watch the evening news and do some knitting. Since I am a grandma and all.

Tags: decor, house, i'm old

Aaaaaaaaand…

I’m back.

Lake side hot tub.

The first time you meet your new boyfriend’s oldest friends can be kind of draining. You’ve got to be “on” for the whole evening, balancing the adoring and shit-talking comments to/about the boiyfriend. That damned balance between cheeky girlfriend and starry-eyed girlfriend is a tough one to strike.

What if that first meeting is 3 days with his 10 closest friends in a lakehouse where the bedrooms doors don’t lock? I know. It’s a recipe for distaster.

It’s almost 11:00 and I’m sitting out on the deck, listening to the loons out on the lake (WTF?! I thought those were just in that Tom Green song…) and imagining what creepy merpeople are living below the algae. This is the first time I’ve been completely alone all weekend, and the quiet is almost unnerving. What do I do with myself now? Write, I guess.

I haven’t written really in weeks. And for no real reason, except that my life is feeling so full lately. There’s the standard work excuse (and this is the beginning of my hellish busy season, so that’s a legit one), and the madness that is summer social calendars. Three weddings (plus one I’m skipping), two bachelorette parties, a birthday weekend with the boy and one weekend volunteering with a teen organization I work with. Which is a lot anyway, but all of a sudden I am building these things with someone else in mind. My financial planning (I swear that I’m going to PAY OFF those credit cards this year) gets a lot harder when eating scraps from the cupboards for weeks at a time isn’t an option. I mean, I guess it is but it means I couldn’t spend my weekends with the boy. Ugh, stupid compromises ruin everything.

But we’re working out the wrinkles because I think he is going to be around for a while.

This weekend, we finally did the “I love you”. It was cheesy and perfect, and we’ve been repeating it to each other for the last two days. I think he was waiting until I met the friends, and after a wildly successful Friday night with them, he felt confident enough to throw it down. (In this scenario, wildly sucessful means that I lost at cards games, was forced for take shots of both tequila and Wild Turkey EW, and they still loved me. Winner!)Saturday afternoon, we were napping (where napping=talking) when he started to get all stressed out and weird. And then he kind of just blurted it out. “I’m falling in love with you.”

And tomorrow, I start my online graphic design class for the summer. My plan is to be a wildly successful wedding invitation maker by the end of the class. Side hustle that’s creative and fun, and might allow me a little extra cash? I vote yes.

So yeah. Life has been full lately. But not in any ways that I expected. Once I decompress from this trip, I will find time for writing again. I miss the way my fingers cramp while I’m typing posts out on the Blackberry.

Aminal style fries, and a hangover please.

It’s been a month since I last found time to write. And there’s not even really a good excuse. I’ve just been a teeny bit overwhelmed.

But there’s been some fun, between the list-making and sweating and panicking.

Last weekend, my littlest sister graduated from college. The whole family made the road trip out to watch her cross the stage and get her diploma, with what may have been the worst hangover of her life. My mom and dad got roped into helping her pack up all of her crap–too many tube tops, costumes for party themes that will probably never happen again, and the beach cruiser I’m inheriting–while I headed back to the hotel with the other sister for a nap.

My mom, my sisters and I all reunited for dinner that night, where I introduced the girls to the glory (and tragedy?) of hot sake. Over dinner, my sisters and I somehow decided that we were getting mom drunk before the night was out. My two-glasses-of-wine-is-pleeeenty-thank-you mom was going to get a little wastie, and I was going to make it happen.

I mean, it was the first night where all her kids were officially grown up and out of college. She should be able to let loose and celebrate, right. I know. Exactly.

She was yawning when we got to the bar, so we started with a classic: red bull & vodka. And it snowballed from there. The bar owner sat down next two us and bought us a couple of rounds of shots. (Sidenote: the face my mom makes when approaching the shot is the most nervous face everm. I live for that face now. Tequila every day, mom!)

To say that the night was a success may be the greatest understatement I have ever made.

We ended the night in a taxi, riding back to the hotel squished together in the backseat. But not before we made the cab driver take us through the In-n-Out drive thru. Watching my mom try to manage her cheeseburger and (first ever) aminal style french fries with such low motor skills was the stuff of dreams.

I guess it’s odd to find such hilarity in a drunk parent, but my mom’s never been a real drinker. She probably won’t ever be one. At one point, she said she hadn’t been that drunk since before she had kids. (That’s about 27 years, people. Holy shit.) But we had one night with all of the girls together, and all of the stressful parts were over. Mom left her hair down. Way, way, way down. And we all laughed harder than we have together in months.

Maybe when her hangover hit, she wasn’t remembering the night as fondly. But that happens to the best of us, right? Hangovers are just a mental block–you have to drink through it. Champagne helps. Egg McMuffins too. She’ll learn eventually.