Now, I'm far from the greatest driver in the world, but there are just some people who make me look like an expert.
There is a road circling my apartment, one lane going each direction. I was driving up to the apartment entrance when I noticed a car sitting the wrong way in the lane going the opposite direction. "What the fuck is he doing?" I thought, but then realized that he'd probably tried going through the gate that clearly reads "EXIT ONLY." I guess reading comprehension is hard. He wasn't making any moves, so I figured it'd be safe to drive past him.
The driver waited until I had just about driven past him to be like, "Oh hey, let me get into the correct lane." Then he started shifting over in my lane. I initially tried to speed up to get out of the way, but he didn't want to be behind me and started speeding up too. So I had to pull to the right and slam on my brakes to let him in my lane.
The best part? As he cut me off, he gave me a look like this was all MY FAULT. Stupid asshole. I hope he gets stuck in traffic on I-35 for four hours. Is that harsh? Okay, two.
Yesterday night, after being in Dallas for two long days and spending Thursday night swing dancing, I decided to spend Friday night at home. I talked to Patrick on the phone. He was drunk, which always promises amusing conversation. I dug out the alcohol I keep in my apartment but rarely drink, but after a couple decided that I did not really feel like getting drunk.
I forget what we were discussing, but at one point Patrick said, "Well yeah, but I bought the Metallica tickets!" as if this was the winning point to our argument. "Um, what?" I replied. "I bought those tickets. Back in April. I gave you the card number when you ordered the tickets, remember?" "NOOOOO," he cried, and I had to look up my American Express statement to prove to him that yes, indeed, I had bought the tickets. This led to a thirty-minute rant on how uncool it was that his sister bought his Metallica ticket, of all horrors. "What, are you implying that I'm not cool enough to go with you?" I retorted. "Even if you are the bigger fan, I didn't just buy the tickets to be nice. I want to go too." That made him feel a little better but he still spent an inordinate time saying how he'd pay me back. I told him that he can pay me back by shutting the fuck up about it, but he decided on buying me a Foo Fighters shirt instead. I will not object to that, I suppose.
Yesterday I bought There Is Nothing Left to Lose and Wish You Were Here. I have almost all the Foo Fighters albums except One By One. It's sad that Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands, and I have only two albums of theirs. I am really excited about Them Crooked Vultures, the side project that Dave Grohl, John Paul Jones, and Josh Homme are putting together. I saw clips of their recent show - Josh Homme is nowhere near the frontman Dave Grohl is (still the best concert I've been to), but I think the album should be good.
I am giving up caffeine again for good after my relapse yesterday. I was wired until 3:30, and I woke up at some point in the middle of the night with my heart racing and gasping for air. Fuck caffeine. Now I remember why I gave it up.
Emotions do not make life easier, I think. I've always been a person who ruled with my head than my heart, but emotions are too inexplicable for me to stick with that rule sometimes, no matter how hard I try to do the right thing. Even though I have a reputation with my friends for being objective and am completely too analytical for my own good, I don't call myself a bundle of contradictions for nothing. I can't explain why I feel the way that I do, when my head tells me it doesn't make sense...but sometimes you just have to take what you have, run with it, and hold your breath.
Well, I've procrastinated from my chores long enough. Let's see. Moon tonight with amigos. Tomorrow I want to meet my baby cousin Eliana. And there's a new episode of True Blood tomorrow that promises to be Eric-centric. It should be a good weekend.
I'm sorry Mama,
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to make you cry
but tonight
I had some Dr Pepper
I was in Dallas yesterday and today for field work. The work there was pretty uneventful (other than being ridiculously hot, but welcome to Texas), but coming back sure made up for it!
My coworker and I were on the interstate near downtown, camping in the left lane and waiting out the traffic. Suddenly, we heard a loud noise. It took several seconds for me to register that the noise was the sound of a vehicle hitting ours. "WHOA!" my coworker said. Speechless, I watched the truck that hit us barrel down the left shoulder.
My coworker stepped outside to look at the damage. Very luckily, the sound was more dramatic than the actual damage - the left side mirror had been destroyed, but that's it. With an accident that minor, there weren't any injuries. I noticed that the truck had not pulled over to the shoulder. "He's trying to run," I said. I couldn't believe it. For something as minor as hitting a side mirror, you're going to risk getting into so much trouble by running? It made me mad. After my accident in January 2008, I felt so guilty for totaling that guy's car and hurting his leg, even months and months after it happened. I can't imagine being so thoughtless to leave the scene of an accident.
We searched through the lanes of traffic, but the car had disappeared. Then we saw him frantically trying to switch lanes to get to an overpass exit. I was able to spot the car and got his license number. I guess my coworker didn't believe I had the right one, even as I was saying it out loud to myself, because he slowed down to make sure. I caught a glimpse of the man as he was on the overpass. I have to admit I felt pretty triumphant as I looked at his face. Haha, sucker. I got your license plate.
We ended up having to call 911 to wait for an officer to come to the scene. We found out afterward that there had been another vehicle hit by the same guy. Here's what we think happened: the truck hit the first guy, damaging his bumper, and in a hurry to escape, he took the left shoulder as his route. That's when he hit us. The police officer said it would be hard to convict the guy since I was the only witness who had caught just a glimpse of his face (I admitted that I wouldn't be able to pick him out of a lineup). But the police would be able to do an investigation on him. The officer was very nice. The accident took an hour out of our trip. It's weird, but I kind of had a feeling something like that would happen today.
Anyway, about an hour out of Dallas, my coworker took me up on my offer and let me drive. I'm not a fan of dual-cab trucks, especially in the dark, in areas where I had to drive close to the wall without a shoulder, and in the rain. Oh, and all without the side-view mirror to check my blind spot. My coworker helped me with the blind spots, though, so that was good. And luckily, it didn't start raining until the end. We took a different road back to the office that had very limited visibility, and with the rain, it was hard for me to see at some points. I was just so grateful to get home.
Back to the office tomorrow! Then I'm supposed to go swing dancing, and I can't flake out again. So I need to rest up now.
Mom: So, did you watch True Blood?
Me: UGH, I accidentally closed my browser and couldn't get back on to the live feed...I missed half the episode!
Mom: Don't worry, Eric was only in the opening scenes.
1. I ACCIDENTALLY CLOSED MY BROWSER WHILE WATCHING MY LIVE FEED OF TRUE BLOOD, AND COULDN'T GET BACK IN THE LOBBY. SO I MISSED HALF THE EPISODE.
2. THIS EPISODE WAS LACKING SOME ERIC. HBO, YOU CANNOT MOLLIFY ME BY SHOWING JUST ONE SHIRTLESS SCENE OF HIM AND THEN NOT HAVING HIM IN THE REST OF THE EPISODE.
3. THE BATTERY FOR MY FIRE ALARM IS GOING OFF SOMEWHERE IN MY APARTMENT, AND I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHICH ONE IT IS. PROBABLY THE ONE THAT IS TOO TALL FOR ME TO REACH. GOOD TIMES.
4. I STILL HAVE A BUNCH OF LAUNDRY TO DO.
5. MENTALLY I AM STILL A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD. WHY AM I SO WEIRD?
6. OK, I FIGURED OUT IT'S THE ONE THAT MY BROTHER CHANGED TWO MONTHS AGO. IT IS TOO TALL FOR ME TO REACH VERY WELL. EXCITEMENT.
7. I APOLOGIZE FOR THE CAPS.
How many times did you move growing up? How did moving (or staying put) impact your childhood?
For a Navy brat, I got pretty lucky in terms of both my dad's sea duty and the number of times we moved. My dad completed all his sea duty when I was tiny, so I don't have any memories of his being gone for months at a time (though my mother said that whenever my dad would come home, I'd be so mad at him for being gone that I would run and hide from him).
We moved from Italy to Virginia in March 1985 to a little townhouse in Virginia Beach. We moved from the townhouse to Navy housing in June 1991. Then we moved from Virginia Beach to Texas in 1994. We lived in the same little house for 12 years before moving into a bigger one (literally right across the road) in 2006.
I'd say the two moves that had the biggest impact on my childhood were moving to the States and to Texas. Obviously, moving to the States had the biggest impact because instead of being exposed to Italian as my primary language, it became a secondary language. And moving to a new state always is a big change. But I'm happy with all the moves. I have good memories of Virginia but I love Texas.
This weekend was an enormously satisfying one, as I was able to be completely lazy but still have a good time with friends. Also, I'm not sick anymore, so that is double plus good.
Yesterday I lounged around in my apartment until the evening, when I went to go meet the Conrad and one of his friends for a movie. I wanted to see Inglourious Basterds. Now, I'm not a big Tarantino fan. I mean, I love Pulp Fiction but I haven't seen many of his other well-known movies (Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, the Grindhouse flicks). I did not like the Kill Bill movies at all, but since I was making out with talking to my then-boyfriend throughout the duration of the films, I guess I really didn't give them a fair chance. But I have to say, Inglourious Basterds was really good. It has all the elements of a Tarantino flick - random Samuel L. Jackson narration, title cards, twisted gory humor. I went into the movie without knowing too much about the plot, so I sat through most of it wondering if the film were based on a true events (silly me!) If you're looking for a conventional Nazi war drama, this is not it. There are more dialogue-driven scenes than anything, but many of them were suspenseful (like the opening scene). I have to admit I was pissed off at the ending for about 10 seconds before resigning myself to the novelty of it. Oh, and the acting is incredible - even Brad Pitt, who I am usually very critical of, did a good job.
Today I went to the funky street that I explored on Friday to eat lunch with a friend. It was fun. We also went to get coffee and watched a live band perform. They were jazzy and bluesy, and very good. I even did a little dancing on the last song, but I was terrrrrible because I was so out of practice (plus it was hard to dance on the pavement wearing sandals.) Some people started taking pictures of us, good lord. But anyway, I definitely like the feel of that street and want to return to it more often, especially since I work so close to it whenever I'm downtown. I even found a school parking lot to park at, so parking was a breeze.
Another three hours until TRUE BLOOD. I cannot wait. A great ending to a very nice weekend.
Today I had to go downtown for my (now weekly) real estate meeting. My project manager wants the team to put in more face time at the downtown offices, so I stayed there this afternoon to cover one of my other coworker's shifts. I'd been hoping to start heading back to my place around 4, since traffic on the interstate is usually just a little miserable on Friday afternoons. But I got stuck on the phone trying to book a rental car through my company's required online booking agent (I will spare you all from that rant), so I didn't get out of the office until 5.
Not wanting to put myself through the agony of rush hour traffic, I decided to step outside of my normal schedule and explore the area a little. The downtown office is close to a very popular section of the city, known for being eclectic and weird. I haven't really explored the area, despite only being a short walk away from it, and my ignorance of the section always elicits gasps from people. Even though I'll be there on Sunday to meet a friend for coffee, I decided to explore the area a little. I went back to my truck, slipped my heels for tennis shoes, and decided to explore.
I checked out the different shops and enjoyed my surroundings. I saw Leslie again. A homeless guy angrily called me a bitch when I refused to take some piece of paper from him, which was a little startling...but what can you expect? A man played music on the street. I bought a $5 necklace from one shop, and stepped into a candy store next. It is the best candy store ever. So many chocolates, and every flavor of salt water taffy you could dream of. I greedily scooped up taffies and chocolates, and paid $6 for the sugary treats.
My most exciting find, however, was a little hole-in-the-wall record shop. I almost missed it when I walked by, but when I saw the sign, I eagerly went inside. My brother collects vinyl records and has a small but respectable collection going - when he visited me back in June, he found The Wall at Half Price. Half Price's record selection is always hit or miss (usually miss), so I wanted to see if this store would have anything better. I was not disappointed. It had two full rooms of records from nearly every genre imaginable. I headed towards the sections I thought my brother would like. There wasn't anything excited in the metal section, so I went to the rock section. My eye caught a Beatles tab, and I thumbed through the selections. You will never guess what I found:
Magical Mystery Tour! I eagerly snatched the album and headed to the register. It was only $15! It wasn't until I got home and looked up the record that I realized...this is an original 1967 edition. IS THAT INSANE OR WHAT? Unfortunately it isn't the mono version, which appears to be the most valuable, but I'm 99% sure that it's a 1967 stereo first pressing. So, second best. It is in really good condition, considering it's, you know, almost 43 years old. The booklet has been separated from the folding, but it appears all the pages are there. The record itself seems to be in good shape. I'm just in awe of the find.
I almost want to keep it (even though I don't collect records), but I got it for my brother. Patrick sounded really excited when I told him. And, it's one of his favorite Beatles records, so this scored me some sisterly cool points, I think.
I also bought a used XBox since my other one sucks and is broken, but this was in no way as exciting as my record find. Next time Pat is in town, I have to take him there.
Soooo I ended up not going anywhere tonight. I woke up this morning with a raw throat and slight congestion, and I felt pretty tired this morning. My symptoms improved dramatically by the afternoon, but I didn't want to take any chances of breaking my body down more, or infecting anyone in case I was still contagious. And now I'm starting to get all congested again, so who knows. I figure by Sunday, I should be better for good. At least I'm not sick like I was last year. This is all very bearable.
I've been so ADD lately at work, it's ridiculous. I swear, sometimes I think I would benefit from Adderall...it's very hard for me to concentrate on one task for an extended amount of time. I mean, seriously, since I've started writing this entry, I've gone back and forth between this, Facebook, and Youtube.
Tonight was such a lazy night. I did relax, which was nice, but I didn't do any work, which wasn't as good...I'll have to make sure I am up early tomorrow. Nothing really drastic, but just preparing agendas, that sort of thing. Real estate stuff. Good times.
Before I go, I will post a video that launched a debate between my mom and me. True Blood fandom, of course. (My mom is trying to take Eric as one of her boyfriends on the show, but I told her she can't have both...and Bill is already her favorite).
