Friday, April 4, 2008

Bullet Points Times a Million

Hi there. I'm not even going to apologize. I warned you March was going to be a sparse month, posting-wise. Although even I thought I would do better than a pathetic five posts. Oops

Anyway, life is treating me pretty nicely these days, which means you now get to read an enormous list of bullet-pointed items, all of which boils down to, "March was a really awesome month and I'm glad it happened." So that's the summary, if you don't feel like reading the details. Incidentally, I'm beginning to think that maybe I should start giving March more credit for being a fun month, since March of last year was really good, too.

Now, on to the bullet points:
  • First, some health-related things that make me happy that you're probably not going to care about at all, but too bad, it's my blog. I made a tuna salad tonight from last month's Everyday With Rachael Ray and a serving of this salad is filling and gives me 1/3rd of my daily value of protein and yet is only 200 calories! I am in love with this salad. I am also in love with my local grocery store, which is doing a special during the month of April promoting healthy food. For every $30 you spend on food with a Healthy Living sticker, you get a coupon for $10 off the next time you shop. Since more than half of the stuff I buy regularly happens to be included in the promotion, I ended up with two $10 coupons today. $20 worth of free groceries for me! On a similar note, I was at TGI Friday's last night with some of my girlfriends and I noticed that they now have a menu page entitled Smaller Portions, Smaller Prices, or something to that effect. I didn't pay attention to the details since I had already decided to use all of my dinner calories on Oreo chocolate cake and a mudslide, but I am intrigued. I've been saying for YEARS that I would happily patronize a restaurant that offered smaller portions for less money, and now it looks like a national chain has finally done it. Hopefully now it will catch on elsewhere. Finally, I've been following my more-protein-less-fat-healthier-eating-in-general plan for two months now and I am really beginning to notice a difference in my body. I'm not perfect at hitting my totals every day and I don't even try to be, but it really has been eye-opening to learn what I SHOULD be eating, whether I choose to stay within my range every day or not. Here's how I know I've slimmed down a bit: when I started living alone, I got into the habit of coming home and taking off my jeans pretty much immediately. Partially I was just doing this because one of the joys of having my own apartment is that I don't have to wear pants, but I guess I must also have been doing it because the jeans were fitting tightly. Now I realize that I'll sometimes sit on my couch all night with my jeans still on and it's not uncomfortable at all. So obviously this plan is working and I've slimmed down a bit. It's not a big difference since in my entire adult life so far my weight has never fluctuated more than about 8 pounds, but I suspect that I'm now on the smaller end of my natural weight range. I'll still be walking around in my underwear a lot, though, just because I can.
  • In other health-related news, I had some medical tests done over spring break and the tests show that the health issue that was worrying me is fortunately proving to be not that big of a deal at the moment. My doctor has given me the okay to not undergo any treatment or do anymore testing right now and just reassess the situation in six months or so. Sigh of relief.
  • Now on to some things that might interest people other than me (although, frankly, I think to say that is probably flattering myself). My college roommate's wedding really was a lot of fun. My only complaint is that it all went by way too quickly, and now after getting to spend a weekend with her I miss her more than ever. We kept laughing throughout the weekend about how much both of us have changed since we met each other. I think the best way to illustrate this is superficially, by using our physical appearances. When I met her, her outward appearance was basically Sorority Barbie. (I realized pretty much immediately that her outward appearance wasn't in any way reflective of the sort of person she actually is, which is why we were able to get along well. I have very little patience for genuine Sorority Barbies.) In contrast, when she met me my wardrobe consisted primarily of tank tops from Old Navy, I wore a little makeup every day but didn't feel proficient at applying it, and my hair was pretty much perpetually in a pony tail. Almost seven years later (SEVEN YEARS?!), we have completely changed roles. Case in point: when I showed up at our B&B on the Friday before the wedding, I was wearing a pair of Paper, Denim, and Cloth jeans and a form-fitting scoop neck tee from Urban Outfitters. I was wearing sneakers, but only because I had been on the plane, and I was planning to change into boots. My hair was straightened and down, and I was wearing lipstick, eyeshadow, and a little bit of bronzer. She met me at the door in a t-shirt advertising a bicycle race and workout pants. Her hair was wet and she had no makeup on. This illustrates extremes, of course. She still does wear a bit of makeup, I'm still perfectly willing to go out without it. She definitely still has the fashion sense I envied when we were college freshmen, I still don't bother to style my hair half the time. But in general, I feel like we have both gravitated much more towards lifestyles in which we feel very comfortable and can be our natural selves, and our styles are a reflection of the overall change. I wish I could better articulate the changes we have both gone through, but it would take far too long, so you only get this superficial example. Basically, I can tell that she is much more confident now because she is willing to let herself be the low-maintenance, athletic woman that I think is her true self. I can tell that I am much more confident now because I have developed at least a little bit of my own fashion sense and no longer feel like I need someone to dress me when I go out at night, and I have unapologetically embraced the fact that, yeah, I am a girly girl and I do enjoy dressing up and hey, I am sort of high maintenance and I'm okay with that. It's wonderful to see how she has grown and changed since we were 18 and realize that the same thing has happened to me. I guess I just feel like we've both come into our own, in a sense. But if you had told me seven years ago that I'd be the one helping her fix her eye makeup prior to her rehearsal dinner, I would have laughed in your face at the improbability of it all.
  • The wedding itself was great. I had so much fun, and I really did do my best to be a helpful bridesmaid. I tried to keep stressful people away as we were getting dressed. I made sure that she didn't know how frantically one of the other bridesmaids and I had to run around during the last hour of the reception trying to find a halfway decent car and a person at the wedding who was still sober to drive the car so that she and her husband could make a proper getaway. I definitely didn't tell her at the time that I had to help one of the groomsman clean an entire garbage bag full of junk out of the back of the car they eventually left in. [Why nobody had planned all of this in advance is a looooong story, but the moral of it is: when planning your wedding, even if you think you don't really care how a particular thing happens, plan it anyway because otherwise nobody else will!] The reception included an open wine bar, but my dad, being the hardcore guy that he is, had a bottle of Stoli conveniently stashed in his car in the parking lot, so I made sure that the bride was "hydrated" throughout the night. But I also made sure that she didn't get so hydrated that she would forget the evening or end up lurching around on the dance floor [I used to bartend weddings in college, and I never failed to be amazed at how many of the brides got wasted...if I ever get married, don't let me do that]. Above all, I made sure that she and her husband had a proper wedding night. This is another story that is a blog entry in and of itself, but the basic summary is that the bride's mother thought the bride and groom should spend their first night as husband and wife at a different bed and breakfast than the one where the wedding party had been staying in the days leading up to the wedding. It was a sweet idea, I guess, letting them have their privacy and all that. Except that when I went to drop off the bride's car at the new B&B after the reception, I snuck into the kitchen planning to leave the car keys on the kitchen table and sneak back out without interrupting the marital bliss, and instead I found the bride crying in the bathroom and the bewildered groom giving me a look that distinctly said, "HELP!" Turns out the new B&B was absolute crap compared to the amazingly posh one we had been staying at for the past two days. There were dirty dishes in the sink and the bed wasn't even made. That's how crappy it was. Obviously there had been some sort of mix up, but in the moment all I could think about was how furious I was that one of my best friends was crying in disappointment in her honeymoon suite. And sure, the room was a large amount of the issue but part of it was also simply that a wedding day is really, really stressful and emotional, even if you love your new husband like crazy (especially if you love your new husband like crazy, I think) and I think she just needed a good cry. So I let her cry for a bit and then calmed her down and helped her get out of her beautiful, complicated wedding dress and helped her pick the sexiest sleepwear out of her suitcase to put on under her sweatsuit to be a wedding night surprise, and then I convinced her and her husband that it would be totally fine if they came back to the big house at the B&B where we had all stayed the night before. Since one of the other bridesmaids was still planning to stay in the house that night as well, I gave her a quick call and in the fifteen minutes that it took us to drive back to the original B&B she filled the hot tub, lit the fireplace in the bathroom (awesome!), and decorated the bedroom with candles. So in the end it was all okay, and I think overall everything worked out perfectly. I mean, I'm assuming it worked out perfectly. Since the other bridesmaid and I were staying in a bedroom on the other side of the house, I have no idea how things actually went for them, thank god. Anyway, I told her as I was drying her tears that this will all be a funny story in the future. By the next morning, I think it already was.
  • Las Vegas in a nutshell: So. Much. Fun. I won an entire paycheck's worth of money playing blackjack at The Venetian! I spent two days basking in the sun at the hotel pool and somehow managed to not get sunburned. I stayed out until 4 AM the first night, 6:30 AM the second night, and 2:30 AM the next night, and yet I woke up every morning completely hangover free. Mom, Maddi, my sister and I got to spend a fun afternoon at the spa at the Bellagio and I got an awesome massage and got to use my favorite showers on the planet. Dad treated us to really nice dinners and I pretty much ate my weight in things like smoked salmon pizza and hot donuts with chocolate and peanut butter dipping sauces. In short, I was getting to spend time with my family and my best friends in one of my favorite crazy cities, and I had a blast. Basically, I was living my fantasy life. See, I'm a multi-faceted person. I like the dive sports bar on the corner where nothing has been dusted since 1972 as much as I like $10 martinis on a terrace fifty stories above the Vegas strip. But I have to admit that given the choice between, say, camping with a cooler of beer or sleeping in a feather bed and sipping wine at a swanky restaurant, you know what I'm going to choose most of the time. I do have fun anywhere, I really do. But even though stuff like the Vegas trip is all just a huge splurge in my life and-on a professor's salary-always will be, few things are more fun to me than getting to live like a millionaire for a weekend. In a way I'm glad that stuff like that will always be a special treat, though. I never want that feeling to get old.
  • In Vegas, I witnessed the worst pick up line (if you can even call it that) that I have ever seen. Maddi, my brother, his best friend and I were at Light dancing late one night when this guy moved by me in the way that sleazy guys will at clubs, putting his hand on my waist to move me out of his way and leaving it there way longer than is appropriate. Annoying, but not a big enough deal for me to make a scene about it. But then he moved past me to where Maddi was dancing. He stood behind her for a moment, and then I watched as he deliberately slammed his head into hers. He head-butted her! On purpose! And then as she reacted in pain, he twisted his face into a startled expression as if it had been an accident and said, "Aw, babe, I'm sorry, are you okay? That guy pushed me and I bumped into you, I'm so sorry..." I didn't hear what else he was going to try to say because my brother, who had seen the whole thing as well, grabbed Maddi and said, "Let's get out of here." Once we were all outside he told her what we'd been able to see from our angle. She was really mad. We were all really pissed off. How fucking ridiculous is that?! She wanted to go back in there and knee him in the balls and then be like, "Aw, babe, I'm so sorry, the bar is just so crowded I couldn't help it..." but we convinced her it wasn't worth it. What an asshole. What the heck makes him think that that's a good way to meet women?!
  • I could tell you a lot more about my spring break, but I think you get the picture. If you want to literally get the pictures, you can go to my photobucket album and click on the Spring 2008 sub album. More details are on my AIM buddy profile, if you can't remember my photobucket name.
  • Remember that job I applied for weeks ago but that nobody had called me about? Well, I interviewed for it last week and ended up getting it! I ended up taking the other job that I mentioned as well, so I now have two jobs. Both involve doing work in my field. One of them is a very low-key volunteer gig that basically involves doing a bit of research and writing an article. The other is a much bigger deal. To give a gist of the job without blowing my lame attempt at anonymity, I'm helping to manage a project that has never been done before and I'm working with a lot of professionals who could potentially help me to make some important connections to people outside of the academic circles I usually run in. Best of all, the second job actually pays me! They don't pay me a ton of money; once the work starts I'll basically get paid what I'm getting paid to teach right now. Still, it's better than nothing. The first job started last week and the majority of my work on it will be done at the beginning of May. The second job starts the first week of May and lasts until the end of June. So basically, by July I'll have two new lines on the resume and still have two months of summer left to hopefully find a restaurant job. Which is exactly what I wanted! Thank you, universe!
  • Oh, school. School is going fine, by the way. Nothing really momentous to report, I'm just trudging through the coursework, generally feeling pretty decent about the work I have been doing lately. The last two weeks were super busy, but this week coming up should be relatively easy, hopefully. I need a little bit of a breather before we get into finals time, which is coming up much more quickly than I would like to admit.
  • I still haven't written the paper that I have to give at a conference in three weeks. Will I actually start it this weekend? Probably not.

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