(no subject)
Aaaahh.. I feel infinitely better than the last time I posted. Maybe it's because I FINALLY have a real day off (haven't had one since the 26th) and I got most of my bills paid today AND my apartment is clean AND I have dinner in the oven. Whatever it is, I'm just.. calm. And Zen. Yes, Zen.
WELL. Lots has happened since I last wrote. I went down the Oregon coast to see my family and the weather was such a refreshing change from the stupid inland. The day I left, it was about twenty degrees here with freezing fog and compact snow and ice on the roadways, which, actually, is somewhat of a rarity for the region I'm in. Still, it sucked, and I was happy to get to the coast, where it was pouring down rain BUT sitting pretty at sixty degrees. Even though I was sleeping on a horribly uncomfortable pull-out sofa hide-a-bed thing, I fell asleep every single night listening to the rain beating down on the tin roof and the Pacific ocean whooshing against the shore a few blocks away. For someone who grew up nowhere near the coast, it was just very.. calming. Even though I really missed Luke, who couldn't come with because he had to work. And in spite of the fact that my family was all morose about my sister not being there. My mom kept her cell phone on her at every second, hoping she'd call, but.. she didn't.
Anyway. I turned nineteen the day after I got there (wheee) and my brother and I drove fifteen miles to the bayfront and went to a bunch of cool little hippie shops. Some of them were way too touristy, but there was this one that was right on the dock looking straight out onto the ocean, and we heard a lot of noise coming from there. So we walked over there and, lo and behold, there were about thirty seals jujst splashing around and barking and playing with each other. I enjoyed it a lot. I've seen seals at the zoo and stuff, but I've never been that close to them.
Christmas was nice, even though money was tight. I got a lot of things I really needed. I got a suitcase and luggage bag (which I badly needed, since I packed all of my stuff coming down in backpacks), a new DVD player (my old one crapped out four months after I got it), a new, bigger TV (I love my old one but it only has a 13-inch screen), a brand-new, really nice blender, and a coffee grinder. The best gift, though, was from Luke, and he gave it to me the day before I left: a three-stone necklace with three princess-cut diamonds on a white-gold chain. It's the nicest gift I've ever gotten from someone I'm dating.
The week flew by and I drove back on the 27th. I worked clear through the first, and on New Years Day, I got a phone call while I was at work. It was my mom, telling me that my sister had called her, was ready to go home, and that I needed to pick her up in Milton-Freewater. She was going to be calling my cell phone from a payphone telling me where I needed to go pick her up. So I was making arrangements with my boss about how to do this, since I was only an hour into my shift, when all of the sudden, my sister walked in. I hadn't seen her in over seven weeks, and she looked really tired and a little thinner. I made her wait for me at my apartment till I got off work, and then the next day, I drove her three and a half hours to meet my mom and everyone else.
So, she's back home now and everyone's happy. I'm still pissed off at her, and I don't know if I'll ever get over that.
Mrm. Anyway, so everything is pretty much back to normal. In about ten minutes, I'm going to go put carrots in the roast. Go me. I'm learning how to cook. I never thought I would.
But it's been in the oven for almost three hours and it smells good.
OKAY. SO. Let me take this moment to make some official announcements:
RACHYL: congratulations. I'm so happy that you and Geoff finally got married, and when you go to Alaska, you goddamned well better stop here and see me and stay for a few days. We're still lame and underage, but we can go to Canada and go to the bars there.
BRIAN: Congratulations to you too. I'm glad that you're getting married, although I must say, what the crap is it with everyone getting married all of the sudden? This isn't even wedding season. But. All of that aside, your girlfriend is very cute and I hope you two are very, very happy. Also, I expect wedding pictures.
Andddd even though I'm very happy for all of you little boys and girls who are getting hitched, I'm very, very happy that I didn't get engaged this Christmas. Soooo not ready. Was worried that it might happen, but it didn't, so pheww.
I'm going to go finish dinner now, so.. I'll probably update again within the next.. oh, four or five weeks. Adios.
PS: *cough* someone should send me fifty dollars so I can turn in my application to the University of Oregon. :) Think of it as a subliminal message or.. a late birthday present? Christmas? Chanukah? Kwanzaa? Oh hell.. I'm just broke.