Oh no she diden'

I came home for lunch today and on they news they were saying that Paris Hilton was released from jail.

Excuse me?

First off she violates parole and blames it on her publicist. Then she's sentenced to a 45 day term, which was shortened to 23 days. All I've heard since Sunday in each news segment is Paris this and Paris that. I really wish something tragic would happen somewhere else in the world to take all the focus off of her.

I'm not saying that I dislike her but she is the posterchild for all that is wrong with the american culture. She is THE symbol for excessive privilege and over indulgence not only in celebrity culture but she makes people that idolize her believe that we're all entitled to be excused because of her behavior antics and that those in positions of power ALLOW her to be excused.

So what if she only had three blankets. I'm sure there are homeless people just outside of the Los Angeles county jail that would do anything to be able to sleep in an air conditioned room with three blankets rather than on the streets in the open elements.

Ok, so she didn't have a pillow and had to use one of her blankets for a pillow. Your point Paris? I remember them saying that she was supposed to be allowed visitors this weekend, but of course that's not going to happen.

I don't know why this bothers me. Her life doesn't affect mine, nothing about her parallels my life in any way. So maybe I did wish I had all the privileges and luxuries she did. Maybe I secretly liked one of her poppy-sounds-like-every-other-pop songs but for her to drink and drive, get caught, do it again, get caught again and NOT take any responsibility, blaming her publicist for her DWI. Notice she never took or claimed responsibility. I mean jeeze, you're rich enough why didn't she PAY somebody to drive her home rather than DWI.

She didn't know how to use a payphone. I'll admit when it comes to using things like the yellow pages or typewriters or fill out a deposit slip I'm clueless so I can relate to the payphone thing - BUT there are instructions on the phone honey. I am sure you know how to read, I mean you did write a few books about how to make the world revolve around you, Paris.

It's just ridiculous. They should have just stuck her under house arrest for 80 days in the beginning. Why don't you stick your ex buddies Nicole Ritchie, that fire crotch Lindsay Lohan and crazy girl Britney Spears all under house arrest with you then reality film it on Fox and call it the Privileged Life.

Ok so that turned more into a rant that I was expecting. Why can't I get away with crap like this?

You're all crazy.

Ok, so it's 6.6.7 now but there was definitely a mix of crazy in the air. My normally easygoing laid back boss had issue on issue land on his desk this morning. The topper was a crazy woman that called in then managed to find her way into our building and onto our floor and wait outside his office.

Talk about a woman on a mission.

Turns out she was an employee in another building and she claimed that someone from our department was harassing her. Crazy. She was so distraught with her claims that at one point I even felt uncomfortable. I apologized.. why I don't know, I did nothing wrong but I apologized anyway for her inconvenience and she went back to where ever it was that she came from.

Things got so escalated that HR was called in and they even contacted me to make a statement. I made sure to answer yes and no to their questions because anything I said could possibly cause someone to not have a job. Not something I want on my conscience.

After all that drama, the day is over faster than normal. I head for my car and start on my way home when my cel phone rings. It's a 619 San Diego number. This girl starts harassing me. She knew more about me than I knew about her, so I hung up on her.

The freaks were coming out of hiding today. Gotta check the moon.

It's almost that time again.

I started my 365 day photo journal today. I've had so much on my mind for the past two weeks which has caused a great amount of anxiety and unwanted stress. I finally discovered what I think might be the problem.

On 6/6/6 I had my car all packed up to go back to Cali. What a terrible day to make that kind of decision, if you believe in omens such as those. I don't think I do, but after the wild ride that is my life maybe I shouldn't dismiss them so quickly.

Do you hear LL Cool J's song? I do. What about think about that movie with the spooky stuff? Maybe?

I was talking to my cousin Mannie the other day and he and I are such different places than we were a year ago. We're both working and both single. Last year we had no clue where our money was coming from and we each had out set of enabling significant others. But not anymore. As we had our conversation during our reflection moments I think about how much he's grown and how much I've grown. Lots of things that were pointed out to me that were easily dismissed now scream for attention.

One of my coworkers has a son that plays little league. She just told me that her son might get a chance to play in his divisions world series. This is a huge ordeal and can end up costing lots of money, not to mention time. She rolled up her sleeves and showed me her farmer tan lines, I recommended more 50+ proof sunblock and to wear tanktops since it cuts back on the farmer look. Listening to the pride she has in talking about her son, I can't help but think about a girl that was special to me at one point in my life.

When I was out this weekend, I saw two preteen girls in their softball uniforms and flipflops. They were wearing the shorts and tank style uniforms but still had their fastpitch emblem obvious on their jersey.

Seeing those girls, I had to take a minute to catch my breath and blink.

Why? I don't want children, there were times that I would vocally make clear just how adamant I was in my displeasure in not wanting to be around that crowd. So why was seeing those girls so hard? I've read you push away those closest to you, and I see people in my family do it all the time. I did it all the time, I'm sure I STILL do it.

***

Tomorrow is the anniversary that I packed up my car, and thought that I could make it work. By the time November came around the damage done was so great and the words and exchanges made were so damaging that saying "I'm sorry" will never be enough.

It wasn't even five months that it came to the point of not even speaking. We couldn't even stand to look at one another, much less exchange words.

I remember not feeling right about leaving my aunt Chris's house. She cried. She didn't want me to leave. Now she won't even talk to me and I'm living back in the area. I wonder why. I've tried to email her and call her but the exchanges are awkward so I gave up. I shouldn't feel this way about her because one day she might not be there anymore for me. I lost my grandpa. I spend as much time with my grandma as I can.

I found out her son, my cousin was in a terrible motorcycle accident and nobody in the family told me. What if he had died? He was hit by a car and not wearing a helmet (hurray for Texas laws) and is not currently working and recovering from a bone infection. I found all this about because I read his EX-Wifes Blog. Just great.

They didn't tell Mannie either.

***

When I was driving back to San Diego, I had to stop in Tuscon because it was getting to hot for me and my car. It was about 103 by 1pm. I stopped to get gas even though I didn't need it. I called Sam and asked him to find a hotel for me in somewhere along the 10. I mean he had access to the internet and maps, how difficult could my request have been? I was trying to save money and didn't want to drive from hotel to hotel checking rates.

He made things difficult because he was stressed at having a tax auditor in the house with him. I got flustered and hung up on him because I didn't know the area any better than he did. At that moment I REALLY wanted to just turn around and head back. At that moment I KNEW nothing between us had changed and if anything had only gotten worse.

I was only 6 hours away from San Diego. I had already been traveling for 15 hours almost straight.

If only right? I woulda saved us both five months of misery.

***

I guess my point is, I want to see what this year will be like. I've been forced to start over. Circumstances are not as easy as I made them out to be on paper, or electronically. Life has been hectic and changes have been fast and overwhelming at times. I'm sure some bridges have been burned and hopefully some of them can be repaired.

I don't know what's ahead of me, but I know where I've been. Hopefully that will give me some incite on what to avoid in the path ahead.

More rain.

I went to work today and the weather said it was supposed to be a normal day, normal meaning no rain. I slept with the AC on because around 2am the business across my parking lot decided to start making noise and wake me up.

When I came home @ lunch had myself a sandwich and a fruit salad, I thought about opening up my doors and windows and I'm so glad I didn't. I mean the morning was beautiful and lunch was beautiful. It was nice and breezy out, not hot and definitely not humid.

Around 3 I had to track down an employee on my floor who was on the North side of the building. I looked out his window and noticed a storm coming in. We talked about the storm a few days ago that made the sky turn black... as we stood there watching the SAME thing happened again. I excused myself and went back to the South side of the building.

As tradition, all the managers had their lights off to watch the show. I walked into my bosses office and not long after walking in there a transformer across the highway BLEW UP!!! All we saw was a big BLUE circle of lightning. About 5 minutes later you heard the firetrucks. It was so dark outside you couldn't see them though.

The pink building in the picture above was struck by lightning about 20 minutes later. You could see the lightning dancing around the windows and the second seemed to be a hell of a lot longer than it was. I wonder what it felt like to the people inside. You could hear everyone up and down the hall exclaim out loud: "Did ya'll see that!!!!"

Hehe. ya'll. No, I didn't say that.

I'm not afraid to admit that these storms scare the crap outta me. I'm sitting there at the window with all my peers shaking but at the same time I can't bring myself to run and hide under my desk (where I'm sure I would look stupid). During the storm I thought I saw birds flying outside, turns out they were twigs from trees.

There are no trees remotely NEAR my building, its all concrete. There are trees way across the parking lot, but they're still a good walk away. Circling around the windows are bits of tree twigs just floating around acting like birds. What they're doing up on the 8th floor... that's some crazy powerful wind.

I stood looking out the window at the sheets of water pouring down, watching the lightning, listening to the thunder and the emergency worker sirens going off. Down below I could see the service roads filling up with water and the highway next to it coming to a standstill.

I'm so glad I have multiple options when it comes to getting home. I have a tollway, a highway, and regular roads. Seeing the water I said that silly rhyme that you hear on TV: "Turn around, don't drown". It's silly but the cowboys here seem to think they can take over these mini rivers then they act surprised when they're swept away.

By the time five o'clock came around they rain had stopped and the sky was back to normal. I rushed out of the building before the weather had a chance to change its mind.

An old favorite

I'm sure you know that for quite some time, I've had this serious desire for home cooked food. It's been a month in my new apartment and for some reason I'm still doing the whole eating out thing.

Well ~ I still ate out cause I'm missing so many uber cool kitchen gadgets that cooking in my home isn't very welcoming . . . just yet anyway. After looking at my bill last week and realizing an average of $18.00 was spent per day for both lunch and dinner, I said no more!! Not to mention that since arriving in March I've gained about 7lbs. Yea ~ not the direction I want to be headed in.

I keep meaning to go running, but something comes up, somebody calls and I just make excuse after excuse. At least when I was living with D&G I had a semi valid reason. (1) The track was over five miles away and (2) there were too many stray animals running loose in the neighborhood so I didn't want to risk running there. I've still not found a track here and people run next to cars in my new neighborhood (no thanks, I'll leave the fume inhaling for when I'm sitting in traffic). I have a gym within feet of my front door and a pool that is open 24/7 but I'm just being lazy when it comes to getting motivated. I gotta snap outta that since it's short and tank season.

Something I never woulda really cared about in Cali since most of the time I never wore "real" summer clothes because of the perfectly tempered weather. I'm still in the habit of carrying around multiple layers of clothing, but at work it's freezing indoors yet when I step outside my layers and sweaters come off.

I wore shorts and a tank out to when I went to Central Market and all around me I saw beautiful women everywhere with their perfect legs and perfect arms walking around with their perfect outfits and there I was in my weekend rags.

I picked up all my "good for you" food here. After reading all the foodie reviews in D Magazine it seems they're the place to go to get your fresh food. I have to agree with the magazine, they have a better selection of the rarer and freshest foods out there, aside from the Farmers Market which also has an awesome collection of goodies.

When I went with my new gal pal, we passed by a "real" cowboy who had about six freezers each with a 20x16 poster photo of a cow. Turns out you see what you eat. I know that might make some people go vegan, but I thought it was humorous. What I wondered was how many photos he cycles thru, if he prints them at home, or if they are truly actual photos of the cow in the freezer. Morbid huh? I'm still gonna get a steak or two from that cowboy one day, with any luck I won't bring home a tapeworm.

Where was I? Oh yea food shopping. I got my number at the fish counter realized I had about 20 people in front of me so went and picked out the rest of my fresh veggies: avacado, celantro, jalapeno, ginger and limes (for this dish). I saw the LARGEST cherries I've ever seen and bought about a pound of those, some Texas peaches and some Cali naval oranges (my absolute favorite). My total bill here was $15.00 and I have enough for three more tuna steaks.

Sweet!

It was all so yummy, and so simple ~ it makes me wonder why I waited so long to bring home the good nummies. Not to mention that my smaller portions left me feeling fuller than all the junk I've been eating these past three months. All in all I spent about $105 on food this weekend. I plan to hide my atm/visa card so there won't be any temptation for eating out. Wish me luck.