all the things

On having curly hair:
I firmly believe that when you've got a full head of curly, Mexican hair, hair salons are a total scam. No, I do not want golden highlights. No, I do not want short layers. No, I do not want a style that needs to be straightened to look its very best and while I appreciate that you took all of this time to blow it out and straighten it, it's never going to look like this again. It's like the episode of Sex and the City based on The Way We Were:

Miranda: "Robert Redford is madly in love with Barbara Streisand, but he can't be with her because she's too complicated and she has wild, curly hair. So he leaves her and marries this simple girl with straight hair."
Carrie: "Ladies, I am having an epiphany. The world is made up of two types of women: the simple girls and the Katie girls."

I am a curly girl. And a Katy girl. And I am desperately seeking a great (maybe Middle Eastern?) hair salon in the Houston area.



On crying in the supply room at work:
I'm a little over a month from being 25 and I'm finally finding my stride as an RN. I'm getting a lot of experience orienting new RNs to the adult and pediatric sides of our floor. I'm comfortable taking on six patients. I'm fine with blood draws and IVs and NG tubes and straight caths and all kinds of other unpleasant procedures on tiny little people. I can handle parents and family members who are upset. But sometimes, I'm still overwhelmed and frustrated. And every once in a while, I cry in the supply room for a couple minutes until I can regain my footing. I'm learning a lot. I'm teaching a lot. I might be ready to move into a new job sooner than I expected, but this has been a positive experience overall.



On being a single girl with a boyfriend:
I am certain that my dad has been my biggest fan since the first moment he laid eyes on me. When I am lonely and depressed and homesick, he always tells me, "You are living on your own, far from home. Not everyone can do what you're doing." I miss Phoenix. And I miss California. And I miss lunch dates and happy hours and favorite restaurants. I'm still not ready to go to the movies alone and I don't like only seeing my boyfriend a few days a month. I am so happy that I have a sweet, little (sometimes tick-infested) dog who is always happy to see me and never lets me sleep alone.

A few disjoint thoughts

I forgot about birds. Because of school (and the heat, yuck), I'm rarely outside during the day. Yesterday, I was walking Vegas and I heard birdies chirping in the tree outside of my house. How could I forget about birds? I had a similar experience last fall in which I forgot that, in other parts of the world, summer smells like fresh-cut grass. Boo, Arizona. We're only buddies until May 2010 and then I am out of here.

Speaking of getting out of here...any ideas? I'm looking for a moderately large city without pretention. With nice people. With farmers' markets and theaters and a good music scene and many outdoor cultural events. With a rockin' public transportation system. With many delicious cafes and quiet coffee shops and few chain restaurants. With good weather. And having a sizeable Hispanic population wouldn't hurt.

I love school. I thought I might hate school, because I hadn't been in real college for 8-ish months, and I hadn't really taken legit classes for a semester or two before that. But I love school.

That said, I kind of wish I hadn't gotten into nursing school. Nursing school is great and everything, but now I have a career. A life path. I feel like I was more interesting before, when I was threatening to hitchhike to Seattle and trick Rick Steves into hiring me. Or run away from real life and go back to theater. Or become a translator. Or just move back to France and be an au pair. But now, I'm a nursing student, and in four short semesters, I'm going to be a nurse, and then I'm going to move away to somewhere fantastic and be a real adult. I guess that's pretty nice.

If I could live at the library, I would. Libraries are my favorite places in the whole world. Do you think there's an easy way to convert my RN/BSN to whatever sort of degree a librarian needs?