Lacking in words.

I am not a dirty person, but I am messy. My apartment is decidedly NOT company ready at any given time. I'm a pack rat. My life, my shelves, my rooms are cluttered. And yet, despite this, I am something of a perfectionist.

I have started countless posts. I compose them in my head constantly, but I have finished none of them. They're not good enough, or the two things I want to talk about don't tie together well enough, but they're not random enough to be posted as tidbits. So I post nothing.

I mean, what right do I have to blog, anyway?

I don't have the words. I have a multitude of words to express my grief, my misery, my boredom. But to tell you of my happiness? To tell you how well everything is going? To tell you how much I love my job, my apartment, my boyfriend?

Apparently, I just don't have the words for that.

Irrational fear #8: Conquered.

Tonight I had the opportunity to go to a reading/signing by Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches. An old friend of mine recommended it to me back in March, and I finally picked it up last week. I finished it on Monday, and then immediately had to look up when the sequel is due out (my birthday, as it turns out!). I also discovered that Harkness would be in Woodbury on Wednesday, January 18th.

Obviously, I needed to go to that.


We had an offsite work party today, to recognize another fantastic year in Creative. We went to Sergeant Pepper's Grille and Bar, where we ate a lot of food, won some prizes, and had some drinks. I won 2 hours off! (The fact that I currently have 3 hours to work off due to being sick this week is irrelevant...woo winning things!) It was a good time, and I was reminded again how much I truly like (most of) my coworkers.

As I was driving home, it started to snow. By the time I got home, I was so overcome with fear of driving in the snow at night that I decided I didn't want to go back out to go to the reading. Jess didn't really care either way, as she was only going because I was forcing her anyway, so she was fine with that.

Here I sat, on my computer on the couch, getting slightly crankier by the second. I stood up, and I said, No. Fuck it. Let's go. Get up, we're doing this, I want to go see Deborah Harkness!

We got up, we got Jess some tea and a cheeseburger, and away we went.

Fear #8: Crippling fear of driving in the snow at any time of day but particularly at night: Conquered.

For tonight, at least.

December again

I made it through Blogvember, but fell just short of my goal. I did not blog quite every day, but very nearly almost did. Anyway, I'm proud of what I accomplished, even if none of my entries were earth shattering. At least it got me writing again!

The She & Him Christmas CD is adorable. I don't like the version of Baby It's Cold Outside that's on it, though; she sang a cuter version in Elf.

For a day when I got out of bed too late to shower, I sure did get a lot of compliments on my hair today.

A 2-day work week is much, much too long after 5 days in Arizona. Never again will I get off a flight at 11pm and go to work the very next morning. There needs to be a day to recoup in there somewhere.

The view from Aron's and my hotel room:


You're in a desert. Go left.


All I need out of a vacation.

Too tired for words

Grand Skywalkers

I'm not even sure I can put into words how awesome today was. We saw the Grand Canyon, we walked on the glass bridge, we saw and fed the fattest goat ever, I discovered I'm not a bad shot with a bow and arrow, I almost won a macbook, I sucked some more at bowling, I won and lost at video poker, I played black jack...

My grandpa said today that this has been his best birthday ever. I think this has been my best vacation ever, and I've had some pretty damn amazing vacations before.

I walked on the sky today.

Today's advice comes from my dear, sweet, amazingly active 80-year-old grandpa: Conserve water; shower with a friend.

California Dreaming

Today is my Grandpa's 80th birthday, the reason for our surprise trip down here. We went to Oatman, AZ, a town on Route 66 straight out of the gold rush era. There were wild burrows, a staged bank robbery and gun fight, crumbling old buildings, and about a thousand gift shops. There was a wild donkey tussle in which a man next to us was knocked very suddenly to the ground; that's when I stopped trusting donkeys, those jackasses. We stopped in Needles, CA for lunch, fresh jerky, and the ability to say we went to California on this trip, and then we proceeded to Lake Havasu.

In the spring, Lake Havasu is a hopping spring break destination, full of busy shops and restaurants and scantily clad young women. Today, it was full of closed, empty shops, and only a few other people besides the eight of us. But we saw what we went there to see: the original London Bridge, moved there in 1971. Pretty strange to see the British flag, old and very British lamp posts, and palm trees. We took a lot of pictures and then moved on the watch the sun set behind the mountains next to a small replica of Split Rock lighthouse.

We got Grandpa some birthday ice cream and now are trying to decide what to do for the remainder of the evening. I'd love to fall into bed after yet another full day, but I have a feeling I'm going to get outvoted on that one.

Tomorrow: the Grand Canyon!

The best vacation.

Bullhead City, Arizona, where my grandpa lives, is in a different time zone than Laughlin, Nevada, where my family and I are staying. This makes for very confusing itinerary arranging.

I love when hotels have everything. Ours, for instance, has a buffet, a 24-hour restaurant, various food court type places, a casino, a billion stores (where EVERYTHING is covered in bling...why is everything in old Vegas SO covered in bling??), a movie theater, some bars, a car museum/showroom, and a bowling alley. We went bowling tonight, and while I scraped a measley 69, my dad got got over 200 and had five strikes in a row. Five!!! Crazy awesome.

Shrimp cocktail is only good if the shrimp are nice and big and displayed in such a way that allows you to pick up one at a time. When there are 30 little shrimps in a sundae glass, covered and mixed with cocktail sauce, it doesn't take very long before I find them creepy and unappetizing instead of delicious.

So far I'm down money in gambling, but I'm definitely up on headbands.

Today's bit of sage wisdom comes from a lady in our elevator, on oxygen and driving a scooter: "Have a good evening and life."

Laughing in Laughlin

Today I got on a plane for the first time since December 6, 2010. Oh, how I've missed flying! Not flight attending, but flying and airplanes and mountains...oh my! Towards the end of our flight, I started telling Pam and Aron about the reasons behind the rules that people think are dumb - why seats and tray tables have to be up, why you have to wear a seatbelt, why you can't hold your purse in your lap, etc. It has a lot to do with how the plane acts in turbulence and during a crash. The surrounding passengers probably didn't like that too much. Oh well.

We got into Laughlin around 9:20. My grandpa knew my mom and dad were coming for a visit, but he didn't know that my aunt and her husband, Pam, me, and Aron were also coming. We surprised the hell out of him, for sure. It's his 80th birthday on Monday, and he's just thrilled that we all showed up.

So far we've gone to In N Out, napped, decided that Laughlin is like an old Las Vegas, watched a holiday boat parade, shopped, had Mexican food and margaritas, and taken a dip in the hot tub. Despite ridiculous amounts of wind, it has been a delightful, wonderful, awesome vacation so far.

I leave you for now with some advice my dad has given me today: "Get a room!" and "Eat less, drink more!"

Black Friday.

My sister and I went to Target at 11 last night to stand in line for a camera she wanted. We got in at 12.05, and the TV I wanted to look at was gone (I didn't have high hopes, really). There were plenty of cameras, though, if you could only navigate through the sea of people to get to them! It was insanity. After much walking around and picking things up and putting them back down, she decided she didn't want the camera, and I decided the $9 stick vacuum I wanted wasn't worth the line...so we left with nothing. We went to Target at 11pm, waited in line for an hour, and left with NOTHING.

But I went back later, and I got my vacuum. Best $9 I ever spent! Seriously, I love it. I got a couple new purses at Kohl's, and resisted buying any of the ridiculously overpriced Kindle cases anywhere.

Now I don't know what I'm doing here, blogging. It took me awhile to pack, and then of course I had to blog, but really I should be sleeping. I have to be to the airport at 4am, after all.

Next up: Live from Arizona!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm far, far too busy to post on Thanksgiving. There's too much good food to eat, too many turkeys to color, too many ads to look through.

Hope you all are having a wonderful Thanksgiving!