What da Bloodclot?!

I went out for drinks with two friends in Center City. One rode in my car and the other met us there. At the end of the night we dropped her off at her car because she ended up parking kind of far from the spot and it was late. She gets out of the car and I since I don't pull off until I see you get inside your house or car, I wait. This 1980's Astro van pulls up behind me and immediately starts beeping. They didn't even wait the requisite 5 seconds! It was a little one way street but I was holding up traffic for the amount of time it takes someone to hop out of one car and into another - keys already in hand.

The friend gets into her car and I start driving. I reach a stop sign and the van starts beeping again. As I'm making a left onto another little one way street the van pulls up on my right and is making a left beside me...on a tiny one way street...at an intersection. They try to cut in front of me but I guess their dumb ass wasn't quick enough which must've made them mad. A couple of blocks away the street opened up to two lanes and they finally got around me. They stopped the van and jumped out all Billy Bad Ass. It was a big old man and some crackish looking broad talking about "what da bloodclot" and we're like oh hell no we're not about to fight Jamaicans! My instinct was to mash the gas and they backed the hell up...still talking shit mind you LOL. They got back in the van and peeled off. I was so relieved that I didn't have to run anybody over that night.

Stalker Free Zone

Yesterday I found an envelope in my mailbox with a return address that I didn't recognize and no name. My first thought was who's getting married? When I opened it sure enough it was an invitation but not to a wedding. It read, "The honor of your presence is requested to share an evening of fine cuisine & stimulating conversation with Mr. _____." There was a part at the end that read, "release your heart & feelings too just as I will do for you." This is after I already told Mr. ____ that I don't have feelings for him and do not want to pursue a relationship. I could tell that he even sprayed the invite with his cologne.

After our last "feelings" conversation he had asked for my address because he was "saving all his contacts' addresses in his new phone." I thought what the hell does he need my address for and ignored the text. He's been to my apartment before so it wasn't that hard to figure it out but still...I already told you I wasn't interested in taking things further so wtf are you doing? I called him and clarified in case I wasn't clear enough and he said he finally got the point. This morning he sends me a 6 part heart felt text message...and I'm thinking what do you want me to say? We dated for a month and some change...you would think we just ended a 3 year relationship or something! He made me feel like I really crushed his soul or something.

Hopefully this is the end of it.

R.I.P. MJ

Honor Among Thieves?

Leah gets engaged and her fiance, Brandon, moves into her apartment. They make an agreement that he would pay the rent and she would pay the other bills. Things are going well for the first 6 months or so and they begin to plan their wedding. Several months later Leah gets a call from her landlord asking for back rent as it's been 2 months since she was last paid. Leah asks Brandon about it and he says that his money has been funny due to some other issues but never really defines those "issues." He hasn't lost his job, the rent hasn't gone up, and he doesn't appear to be on crack so she doesn't understand why he stopped paying the rent. Leah ponies up the back rent and Brandon was charged with delivering it to the landlord. About a week later the landlord calls Leah again and asks why she wasn't paid what they agreed upon...instead of two months' rent she only received one. Leah asks Brandon and he says that the landlord is a liar and he doesn't know what happened to the rest of the money. Leah lived in the same apartment for 2-3 years before Brandon moved in and never had any of these issues. Essentially Leah has taken in a roommate who she has to clean up after but doesn't pay his share of the bills. Leah wonders why the hell he's even there.

The next logical step would be to kick Brandon's ass to the curb - literally. But Leah isn't logical so she decides to cheat on him instead. Leah begins a 'relationship' with another guy, Jason. Jason also lives with his significant other which is okay with Leah because hell, she's in the same position. They 'kick it' for a few months and when Brandon comes up short financially Jason is right there to pick up the slack. Leah is a little slickster as she manages to see Jason several times a week without Brandon even suspecting a thing. Everything is going smoothly for a while until Jason mentions that he's taking a 'friend' on a trip. Leah asks who this 'friend' is if it isn't the SO that he lives with. Jason doesn't feel that he has to answer to a jump-off. Leah is PISSED. Obviously he's taking another woman on a romantic getaway that isn't her...or his girlfriend. She tells everyone who will listen how shady Jason is...how could he be so deceitful? Apparently there are rules...you're only allowed to have one side piece at a time.

*Filed under: Dysfunction is the new black*

Just...Random

I had my interview last week for the grad program I'm applying to. I was all nervous and took some time to prepare as I would for a job interview. It ended up being more like a conversation than an interview and it solidified my interest in the program. Hopefully I'll be receiving some good news come August and be sitting in somebody's classroom come September!

My stepfather was in the hospital for a few days and didn't tell anybody b/c he didn't want to 'bother.' WTH???

So the braces are off and I now have to wear these invisalign retainers for a year and they are ruling my life! I have to brush my teeth and reinsert them after every meal, snack, and non-water beverage. It was still worth it though.

I've been dating someone for the past month or so...I like him but have realized that the 'spark' just isn't there. I spent some time trying to rationalize it. I said 'spark' is overrated and that sometimes what you need isn't what you want -whatever- I'm just not feeling it and am not looking forward to telling him so. But it must be done b/c I'm not into leading people on.

I was telling my friend about how when I was 9 and my sister was an infant my mother & her ex both worked night jobs that left us home alone from around 11p-3a or 4a. My sis was still in that waking-up-at-the-buttcrack-of-dawn stage so I would have to give her a bottle, birp, and changer her diaper or whatever she required to go back to sleep. I did what my mom taught me - if the bottle doesn't work, change her, or then give her the teething ring and don't forget to birp her. I used to always forget that part. My friend said that was child abuse. If I read a story like that in the news I would've said the same exact thing.

For the first time in my life I'm beginning wonder what kind of mother I'll be. I really admire some of my mother-friends. They amount of attention & nurturing they give their kids amazes me. Sometimes I feel like I barely have the energy to keep up w/ my cat let alone children! But I know that I will do just fine.

My sister is graduating from high school on Friday...she's all grown up and it just blows my mind.

20lbs R.I.P.

After the [minor] knee injury I had to cut back on my workouts. And then I got sick of counting calories and slacked a bit on what I was eating. This led to me feeling like I had hit a wall w/ this weight loss thing. I thought maybe I’d try a low-carb diet to kick things back into high gear and avoid counting so I picked up the South Beach Diet book. It’s pretty good and has made me want to learn more about nutrition overall but the low-carb thing is just not for me. I tried it for like half a day and felt physically weak. Don’t laugh. I truly commend people that can stick to those kinds of diets.

The book HAS made me more conscious of the amount of sugar & carbs I eat which is a good thing. But overall I still feel that for healthy and non-diabetic people, most of the low-carb diets out there are a bit extreme. Focusing on eating good carbs – fruit, whole grain pasta (I actually cook w/ it now and it’s pretty darn good), whole wheat breads, eating less sweets etc., is good enough.

It doesn’t seem like doctors learn about diet & nutrition in med school. So many people visit their doctors for a check-up and receive some generic “oh you need to watch what you eat” advice – even when they are significantly overweight. For most people that kind of advice isn’t really helpful. HOW do you watch what you eat? WHAT should you eat? I’m the type of person who needs specifics and some sort of plan. Sure a person could research it but if they are significantly overweight then it’s obvious that they need help to get going in the right direction. I still don’t know what to eat in terms of nutrition…just have general ideas. Am I eating enough protein? Getting enough vitamins/minerals? I dunno. I’m sure I probably eat too much sodium, carbs, and foods w/ added sugar. Think I’m gonna pick up Nutrition for Dummies next.

After following the Dr’s orders and plopping down $100 for the correct running sneakers for my gait, the knee feels like it’s at 90%. I’m still taking it easy on the running but I’ve been able to do other stuff consistently w/o pain. When I stood on the scale this morning I learned that I’m down a full 20 lbs yeaaaah! I’m still not going back to counting calories unless I get severely off track…that shyt was just annoying after a while. I’ll admit it is a good way to start a weight loss journey though. Since I wrote down everything I ate, measured etc., for a couple of months I’m still very conscious of what I’m eating which helps a lot. At this point I have learned that you don’t have to eat a perfect diet to lose weight…those weekly margaritas and the occasional [4-6oz] glass of wine w/ dinner don’t seem to be hindering my progress at all. I COULD lose weight faster if I cut all that out but 20lbs since mid-Jan (when I started counting calories) is fine with me.

Cheers!

I had fun on Saturday...aside from that slight alcohol poisoning thing...*sigh.* People kept putting drinks in my hand...



...and I just kept drinking them.



I'm not touching any alcohol for the next two weeks...I'm sure my liver will thank me.

Do You Know What Today is?

*singing* it's our anniversary...

I have no boo so it's not my anniversary but that song has been in my head since yesterday which was my birthday.

I decided to take off from work Weds, Thurs, Fri and just relax. But of course I haven't done much in the way of relaxing LOL. Yesterday I had a lunch date...was supposed to have a dinner date but that guy cancelled so I ended up getting margaritas w/ friends. Today I had to drive to Harleysville PA to get the back parts of my braces taken off (I'll be braces free June 4 thank.God) b/c that's the office they were in today and I didn't want to wait til next week. I've never even heard of Harleysville until today. I'm a city girl...just driving out there was depressing. I wonder what those folks do for fun? Drive 40 mins each way to get to the city? Crazy.

I wonder why the guy checking IDs @ the door last night noticed that my ID was going to expire today but didn't notice that it was my birthday?

Tonite I'm going to dinner w/ friends. Tomorrow is dinner w/ the fam. I'm going to happy hour tomorrow w/ E. Knight or we're having drinks later in the evening...I can't remember what we discussed.

On Saturday...



And...

Butterfly

I had to ask myself what I'm doing and where am I going. It seems that I tend to think about my future in far away terms but in reality I'm not 19 anymore. For a while I've just been sort of coasting along and it's time for some serious evaluation and planning. Some things I've asked myself are, am I on track to reach my career goals? Are the things that I spend lots of time doing helping me reach my goals? What steps do I need to take to realize my goals? Am I taking advantage of all the opportunities available to me right now? The answers to all of these questions is no, not really.

I'm in the process of applying to grad school (part-time) for the Fall. I've wanted to do this for a while but somehow managed to make the process more complicated than it needed to be, in my head at least. I'm nervous.

To this day I'm the only person in my family who ever attended-let alone graduated-from college. When I began undergrad I was so very lost. I finished my first year with a very mediocre GPA. My sophomore year, I was THIS close to being put on academic probation...and then THIS close to just dropping out. By the end of junior year I had improved a lot but still had some sore spots. It wasn't until my senior and subsequent 5th year (yup, I was a super-senior) that I did consistently well and felt like I'd found my way. But because of previous blemishes my GPA only increased by so much--not terrible but nothing to write home about either.

I reviewed a copy of my transcript and to be honest it's not pretty. I wish I could say "gee college was so fun that I partied hard and that's why I didn't do as well." That would make some sort of sense. Thankfully I wrote in my journal pretty regularly from the summer before college until almost the end. I read through some of those journals today, especially the ones that corresponded to the semesters that I struggled. I went through a LOT and did it on my own. I was depressed a lot...to the point that I often didn't have enough energy to get out of bed, I wrote about how much I cried, the unsavory people in my life that I considered friends, the awful men I dealt with, hell I wasn't even getting along w/ my mom/stepdad despite living 300 miles away from home. It's just not the journal of the carefree 18-20 year old that I should have been. Reading the journals made me very sad for that girl. Like my eyes welled up reading it all. She spent some of the best years of her life not enjoying it, worrying too much, keeping bad people around, and not utilizing the resources available to her to make things better. The times when my grades were the worst corresponded to the journal entries where I wrote that I didn't want to die but didn't want to live.

Those journals are almost 10 years old but thank God I still have them b/c I've learned a LOT and can clearly see how much I've grown. The journals that I wrote around the beginning of senior year were about how I'd fallen out w/ certain 'friends,' gotten rid of a certain asshole, and began sessions @ the student counseling center...I was beginning to figure out who I was. I'm going to start journaling regularly again...I look forward to reading about my 26/27 year old self in a few years.

Note to Self

You're determined to find a dress today. So off to TJ Maxx you go and you pick out several lovely dresses to try on. Some fit perfectly but you're not too thrilled about the style & fabric. With some of the others the styles are gourgeous but the fit? Eh. You decide to pick the best one from the bunch and roll with that. Wait. You don't HAVE to buy a dress today or even from this store. There's nothing wrong with putting them ALL back on the rack and not buying a dress until you find one you absolutely adore.

 

Same goes for men.