Monday, July 14, 2008

I'm Being Yelled at By a Hound Dog

You know that mind-numbingly stupid MTV show Engaged and Underage? I really wish they would also make 22 And Divorced! Don't you think that would be much more interesting? Follow up with the young couples and see how many of them are still happily married three years later. My guess is 0%.

Not much interesting is going on around here today. I had a coupon for a free Chipotle burrito to use tonight and my car is doing this really annoying new thing where it doesn't want to actually stay parked when I put it in park, so unless I also put the emergency brake on it goes rolling around. That's really safe. I can't get it fixed until next week, though, since the auto shop is only open from 9 until 5 and I'm still working camp every day this week (seriously, how do people with normal jobs ever get any errands done? Do people just save all of their errands for Saturdays? Doesn't that suck?). So, yeah, that's the extent of the excitement around here today.

I had a really nice weekend, though. Penn came down here this weekend and on Friday night we went up to City B and had dinner with my cousin and her husband. She has a sweet roof deck, so we grilled steak and drank a bottle of wine on the roof. And then we went downstairs and let Rock Band take over our lives for a few hours. I got 100 percent singing Red Hot Chili Pepper's Dani California, because I'm awesome like that. (Admittedly, there were a couple of moments when I had to sing things like "Black bandana, sweet Louisiana, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah-blah blah blah blah...," but did you know Rock Band doesn't care whether or not you sing actual words? As long as you get the rhythm and the pitch, you're good to go.) Anyway, it was fun hanging out with Rae and her husband, but I'm a little wary of making Penn do too much "couple stuff" with me. I don't want to overwhelm the guy. Most of my friends here are already in relationships, so now that I'm dating someone too everyone is like, "Oh, yay, we can double date!" And I'm excited about that, don't get me wrong. Since I have so many couple friends it's nice not to have to be the third wheel for a change (although actually my coupled up friends have always been great at never making me feel like a third wheel anyway). But I'm a little worried that he's going to think I'm trying to domesticate him, which is not actually my intention at all. It's weird having so many married couples to hang out with. Remember that episode of Sex and the City where Charlotte wants to have a baby with Trey so she invites her friends with kids over so they can see what it's like? Sometimes I sort of feel like that. Doing stuff like having dinner with Rae and her husband or planning this trip to visit my high school friend and her husband in Chicago makes me feel like I'm taking us on this tour of Married Couple Land to see how we fit. Which may not be freaking him out yet (at least, not that he has indicated to me), but it's kind of freaking ME out. I mean, I like the guy a whole lot but we haven't even known each other for four months yet! Good thing a lot of his friends are single beer-swilling guys who are still racking up the one-night-only conquests. It balances out the domestic couple-ness of the majority of my good friends around here.
Anyway, Saturday was a perfect lazy summer day. We didn't even get out of bed until 1:00, and the only time we drove the car all day was to go to the frozen custard stand when it started getting too hot in the afternoon. We killed pretty much the whole rest of the day after that watching movies on the couch and drinking beer. There's this massive liquor store near my apartment that lets you build your own six packs. They have dozens, maybe even hundreds, of beers and you can mix and match to make whatever six packs you want. It's a great way to taste new varieties without the commitment of buying an entire six pack. On that note, this beer was particularly awesome. I have no idea if they distribute it nationally, but if you can get it, it's really worth trying. It's a bit pricey, but it's the only chocolate stout I've ever tried that really did taste chocolate-y. Eventually we got hungry so we left the house to walk over to this Italian restaurant near my apartment for dinner and after stuffing ourselves with pasta we went home to continue our movies-and-beer party. It was great.
It's so nice not to always have school work hanging over my head. I keep pretending life can continue like this forever. I haven't yet wanted to acknowledge the fact that pretty soon our fun weekends are going to have to occur under the cloud of coursework (me) and thesis writing (him). I think I'll let the denial continue a little bit longer. Until the beginning of August, at least. This summer has gone by way, way too fast, and I haven't really had any free time. I had some projects that I wanted to get done, but I'm beginning to think it's not going to happen. I was too busy working at the beginning of the summer, and now at the end of it I'm going to be too busy traveling and then entertaining my brother. In all honesty, the routine of being back in school is probably going to be more relaxing than life is right now. But at least it's all fun stuff that's keeping me busy.

Anyway, my dog is howling his fool head off and he needs to go for a long walk before it gets too dark, so I'm out of here.

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