back on the train

Yes yes yes.

The eatin'-tacos-for-dinner-while-drinking-cafe-au-lait-made-with-chocolate-milk-out-of-a-latte-bowl train.

The pad-thai-&-beaujolais-for-breakfast train.

The making-dinner-every-night-because-it-zens-me-out-&-I'm-pretty-damn-good-at-it train.

The forget-this-job-because-it's-not-forever train.

The I-can-be-whatever-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up train.

The much-too-young-to-feel-this-old-&-sad-exhausted train.

The I-am-so-young train.

I am back on this freaking train.

gollywoggles

The flu is a total downer.

the dij'

I want to go back home.

la vie maladroite

Do you like reading about the awkward dating experiences of others?

Would you be friends with a girl who buys a $300 pair of shoes, only to carry them around in a bag whilst walking on cobblestone streets?

Do you want to hear about the not-so-fabulous dating life of one of the most fabulous girls I know?

Then go check out http://maviemaladroite.blogspot.com/ and hear all about Shannon's love life in progress. She is my fave and because I am essentially her editor/manager, you should go read how she's doing.

dollar dollar bill, y'all

All the money I'm saving by cooking at home instead of eating out is going straight to my iTunes account.

In other news, made suprêmes de volaille à brun with tomates à la provençale, both via Julia Child. The tomates were a rousing success. The chicken? A challenge to figure out how the hell to cook with clarified butter.

criss-crossed toes

I know I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch. And I know that getting my hopes up only leads to disappointment. But I feel really, really good about this.

Please, please, PLEASE let this one work out.

catch 22

Upsides of vacation:

- vacation

- no work

- no having to walk the dog when you're tired

- sleeping in

- spontaneity & romance & family & fun

Downsides of vacation:

- making up the hours you missed at work

- being thrown off all week because you played hooky on Monday

- wanting to go BACK on vacation as soon as you get home.

First weekend of October, can't wait for you to get here. Denver, here we come!

um, yum

The fact that TOP CHEF: JUST DESSERTS is premiering tonight is enough to make me pry myself from the couch and attempt making Chinese food for my tiny little family.

home again, home again

I had a really great weekend full of my boyfriend's family, a beautiful wedding, and sweet sweet sweeeeet vacation.

Not to brag, but all I did this weekend was eat eat eat, walk on the beach and read a book about Paul Newman.

And now that I'm back in the real world, I'm taking the day to pretend like I'm still on a mini vacation. I skipped the gym this morning, picked my girl Vegas up from the kennel, took her to Chik-fil-A for breakfast, and now we're sitting around on the couch.

Oh, and we're considering adopting this little guy:

It was good to get out of the heat and away from work for a little bit. The rest of the day is going to be filled with job apps and planning for hosting Thanksgiving this year. Any ideas on either?

get your antioxidants here

I was supposed to go to hip hop class tonight.

Instead, I stayed home with Russell, had a good cry, and am currently drinking a big glass of wine.

Hey, I'm heart healthy either way.

"i'll pray for you, but not in a bad way"

I love having friends who know me so well that they can say ridiculous things to me that absolutely warm my heart.

I miss my Broken Glass girls.

keep your fingers and toes crossed for me...

Is an ingrown toenail lucky?

Let's hope so. Because I would really appreciate a whole lot of luck and crossed fingers right now.

:/

It's been a "hey, I made really great chocolate chip cookies, but they fell flat" kind of week.

Examples: I'm officially a REGISTERED NURSE (with a BSN, thankyouverymuch) and kind of have a job, but there's no one to train me. So I'm catching up on lots of HGTV reruns and eating lots of leftovers.

Also, we moved into our new place, but two people have a whoooole lot of junk and this place has a lot less closets than my last apartment. So the beaaaaaautiful townhouse that I had conceptualized is filled with boxes of things we're not going to use but can't quite bear to part with.

I'll be back at you soon, minus all the pouting.

insert the theme from "jaws" here

NCLEX.

June 23rd.

done being a downer

my love

I want to call you "my love" like I used to, when I used to lie about everything. What we had wasn't love; it was humiliation. It was possession. It was letting you get close to me and allowing you to tear away tiny bits of my heart.

I want to convince myself that, in some sick way, we were right for each other. I want to lie and lie and lie, to myself and to you. I want to go back to being that girl who just kept running.

I want to stay up all night and drink too much and sleep in the next day. I want to go back to cheap and easy, because now...now everything hurts. And time moves slowly.

I never slept because I wanted to avoid the nightmares, the ones that seem to find me every night lately.

I want to lash out at everyone who loves me best because...

I don't know why.

Loving someone is so absurdly easy. But letting someone love you? That is hard.

heartsick

This world is so breathtaking and so vile all at once.

last day on main campus

Five years ago, I was seventeen and on top of the world. I had everything planned out. I was going to go to Point Loma, study nursing, sing my heart out, fall in love, get married. I knew where I was headed. I knew exactly what my life was going to look like.

And then I moved to Arizona.

And I met some of the most amazing people. And I lived with someone who would become my very best friend. And I skipped class and slept in and fell in love and got my heart broken into a million pieces and I cried and I prayed and I laughed and I never slept and somewhere along the way, I was twenty-two years old and a week and a half away from graduation.

I don't have any regrets. Well, that's not exactly true. I have very few regrets. I regret that I spent so much time loving someone who didn't love or respect me. I regret that I was unkind to several people when I was living in Dijon. And I regret that I wanted all of this to end so soon.

If I could do it over again, I would have gone to class more and studied harder, at least in my first two years. I would have laughed more. I would have traveled more. I would have spent more time outside. I would have spent less time caring about what people thought about me and more time caring about who I really was. I would have spent a year in France, though I probably wouldn't have made it out alive. I would have lived with Mariam all four years, because if it ain't broke, why would I bother trying to fix it? I would have taken more dance classes, even if they make my transcript look weak. I would have spent more time singing. I would have learned to say "no" much earlier.

But in the end, I'm glad the only time I ever spent in the SRC was that one morning that I tried to train on the elliptical and ending up throwing up in the Best C5 shower; working out wouldn't have helped my Chick-fil-A and Starbucks addictions. I'm glad I ran away to France to escape somewhere that was too full of memories I didn't want to keep. I'm glad that I adopted a wild dog who makes it nearly impossible for me to find a cheap apartment. And even though I would have loved studying English or music or French or theatre, I'm glad I picked something that made me pull all-nighters and go into stress comas; I'm glad that the people who love me most never let me underestimate myself.

For now, graduating feels like bungee jumping. I'm not sure that the rope can hold my weight. I'm scared I won't find a job. I'm even more terrified that I'll have to take a job that I hate. I'm worried I'll have to move home.

I'm worried that I'll fail...

...which is funny coming from a girl who failed BIO 202 and went on to graduate from nursing school.

I've failed and I've made mistakes and I've done things that embarrass me. But the most important thing I learned was how to get back up and fight it out. And I am so proud of that. I'm glad I learned how to fail and how to fight.

Graduation? Unemployment? Possible failure and humiliation? Sure, bring it on.

P.S. Mom, you were right. I shouldn't have given away my pink beach cruiser. How come you know everything?

Just applied for graduation...

Let's kick this pig.

i am ugly today

I don't want to write my capstone paper. I don't want to get my Arizona driver's license so that I can apply to take my NCLEX. I don't want to graduate.

I want to pout. I want to cry. I want to eat cupcakes. I want to adopt a puppy that I really shouldn't. I want to run away.

I am ugly ugly ugly ugly today. But they tell me that all of this is important, so I have to do it.

P.S. I want to pick lots of fights today. And I want a keyboard because I really want to play piano.

meet the suegros

Okay, so I'm not their nuera (yet). And I've already met them. But Saturday will mark the first time I'm flying out to stay with them. And I'm nervous.

I feel like Ben Stiller in "Meet the Parents", like I'll always be living in the shadow of Owen Wilson. I'm worried that I'll come off as if I'm aloof, rude, thoughtless. I feel like I need to live up to some prior version of someone else.

And not to take the blame from myself (because my reactions are ultimately my responsibility), but most of it is cultural and the rest of it is situational.

Cultural: Any time something happens that suggests that he has ever even smiled at someone else, I turn into some caricature of a woman in a novela and I'm all like, "Noooo, me mataaaaaaaas". And I panic and I cry and I react in a completely irrational manner. Oops. Sorry.

Situational: On the other hand, I've dated people where the above things wouldn't even phase me. Oh, you're still in love with your ex? Okay. You think we should take a step back and see other people? Cool. What I'm trying to say is I'm serious about this, in a way that I don't quite understand.

At the end of the day, the people who love me the most know me the best. And if they can love me when I'm cranky and stressed out and out of line, I can be on my best behavior for a week and charm the pants off these folks (not literally...keep your clothes on).

P.S. Thing I'm most excited about: Potentially going on a White House tour. Odds of me seeing Bo Obama? Unlikely, but I'll still keep hoping. First runner up: Tea at the National Cathedral. Second runner up: "Little Shop of Horrors" at Ford's Theatre.

I cried last night about something that is too serious and too frivolous.

I cried when I left your apartment. You kissed me gently, the way you kiss me when you don't know what to say and you want to make me feel better. You kissed me awkwardly, admitting that you didn't know what to do to make me feel better. I cried while I was driving home. I cried when I walked into my apartment and realized that my favorite sheets were still in the washing machine. I cried when I pulled out an old set of floral sheets and threw them over my mattress.

I washed my face and cried. I turned out the light and rushed to my bed, because I'm still afraid of the dark and the monster under the bed. I made sure that my toes weren't hanging out from under the covers and I curled up next to Vegas, who had already settled into her normal donut shape in the very center of my bed. And I cried myself to sleep, because I'm not even sure what I could do to make myself feel better.

I really want to be a good girl who makes her own food and doesn't go out to eat. But I happen to spend a lot of days doing 12-hour clinicals at the hospital. And that leaves me all alone with my friend the crockpot. And she makes everything look gray and mushy. Yuck.

missing...

This photo, courtesy of not martha, made me start missing France...

...which made me miss all this:

I could deal with going on a vacation that sounds exactly like this right about now...

it's finally happened

K: "We're going to sleep in this weekend."

R: "No way. We're going to the gym."

Oh, rats...

The Wonder Dog, although expensive, is most likely going to live. There's something both oddly satisfying and frustrating about the vet telling you how healthy your dog looks.

I. Miss. Charles. de. Gaulle. And the noise that SNCF trains make. Take me back now. That whole "graduation" thing sounds lame, anyway.

Russell and I are making chicken & waffles tonight. And watching Modern Family. Sounds like a pretty successful evening to me.

my new jam

one sick puppy

Please send out some good thoughts for Vegas the Wonder Dog, who is feeling seriously under the weather and has to go visit the vet tomorrow.

I mean, really, how could you resist a face like this?

In other news, Russell and I have decided to explore all that the world of thriftiness has to offer. That means we're bidding farewell to sweet potato fries and burgers at Fez and welcoming PB&J and baked potatoes for dinner. Goodbye, movies and sodas and popcorn and candy (I'm not really missing the popcorn, due to an unfortunate case of food poisoning combined with a huge bag of kettle corn). Hello, free movies under the stars at Biltmore Fashion Park.

I think that in a couple months, we'll look back and realize that doing things on the cheap will have led to us being much more interesting people. At least that's what I'm hoping :)

I've got the -itis

Senioritis. And I've got it bad.

All I want to do is go home and listen to some Willie Nelson and drive around too fast in my old Jeep and take naps outside.

And it's not that I don't appreciate my Civic. It's always been good to me. But it just doesn't feel...cool. And it has killer airbags.

In my latest bout with senioritis, I've been watching a lot of the Olympics. After the closing ceremonies last night, I was lucky enough to catch The Marriage Ref, which made me nearly laugh myself to death in my post-studying stupor.

Silly? Definitely. Did I almost pee my pants after the dog got stuffed and it was even creepier looking than before? Definitely.

Sweetest Thing I've Ever Heard

"If I didn't already have a present for you, I was going to make a donation to Haiti in your name."

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. xoxo

Oh, you know...just torturing myself...

Nostalgia

Whatever happened to wall-mounted manual pencil sharpeners?

I want to scrub today from my skin.

I want to wash away all the conflict, the pain, the fears I can't assuage. I want to cleanse myself into someone who is strong and competent, someone who can chase away death, someone who can shepherd in life. I want to pray away infection. I want to repeat mantras to bring health. I want to fix what is innately broken.

I want to leave all the hurt where it belongs.

I want to learn how to not to bring my work home. I want to know how to shut down the part of me that takes up twelve hours a day. I want to understand how not to let your teasing comments break me into sobs, because it doesn't have anything at all to do with you.

I want to figure out what the hell I'm doing and why I'm working so hard to do it. Because right now, I can't for the life of me figure it out.

I'm graduating way too soon. I feel like Rip Van Winkle's daughter, who took a nap while she was packing to move away to college and woke up four (oops, five) years later. All of a sudden, I want to rewind to when I had semesters' worth of classes ahead of me, because I don't feel quite ready to be a non-student yet. What are you if you're not a student? An adult? A grown-up? A member of the working class? When I walk across the stage on May 14th at 9 a.m., I'll be a graduate of ASU's College of Nursing and Health Innovation. And a month or two later, when I take my NCLEX, I'm planning on being a registered nurse. And even at twenty-two, I don't feel ready for it quite yet.

I'm scared that I won't get my dream job, or won't get a job at all. I'm scared that now that I've decided I want to give Arizona another shot, I won't be able to find a job here. I'm scared that I'll have to move to the middle of nowhere and I won't know anyone other than Vegas and I'll crash my car into a snowbank and no one will ever find me. Mostly, I'm scared that I won't make it until May. And if I do, I'm scared that it will have been a waste because then I'll be an unemployed loser who has to move back in with her parents and work retail after studying her brains out for the past four (oops, five) years.

I'm scared to even make wishes about my future for fear that they won't come true.

Even when life is scary and wants me to be older than I'm ready for, I've got you. The "you" that I've got varies from day to day, sometimes from minute to minute. I've got the "you" that I can call in the middle of the night, the "you" that bankrolls me, the "you" that sits with me while I pretend to study, the "you" that kisses me on the forehead when I'm stressed out, and most importantly, the "you" who takes up my whole bed at night, digs me out from the covers in the morning, and wags her tail when I get home from a 13-hour day.

And even if I have to live in a tent in my dad's backyard and work at McDonald's to pay my rent, I've got you. And really, truly, that's all I need. I'm happy with that.