Engaged

So.

I’m engaged!

I’m getting married!

Can you believe it? It happened in September and I sort of still can’t.

Niall and I had gone on a couple of fancyish vacation-type trips, but he picked a regular old go-to-LA-and-watch-a-USC-football-game weekend to propose. It was perfect.

It was also a complete surprise.
I wondered why he was acting so weird and kind of hurrying me along in the bookstore when he KNEW I wanted to try on a tee shirt. I didn't clue in when he asked me what my favorite spot on campus was (I answered “Right here in the center, where everything is going on!” So then he asked me where my favorite place on campus was that I hadn’t shown him before-- I thought he was interested in learning my favorite haunts, but apparently he was trying to subtly get me to lead him to a less crowded area. (It worked.)). We wandered over to the alumni house and apparently while I reveled in the thought of standing in the very room where the first USC students lived and learned, Niall was gathering the courage to ask me a Very Important Question.
We walked outside to admire the statue of Joseph Widney and his dapper pocket watch, and Niall turned to me and told me that he loves me and he wants to spend his life with me. "Will you marry me?" He asked.
And then I gaped at him and said "Really?" for about two solid minutes before I came to my senses and said YES.
We’re getting married in June, which, I have learned, is not six months away.

 

Rain Rain That's Okay

When I first moved to San Francisco I was NOT PLEASED with the weather. I had just come from LA, where the rainy season is approximately two hours and it could be 75 degrees in the middle of January. I wore flip flops all year round!
No I didn't.
Why? Because I was USED TO IT. I got used to the hot LA weather and became a giant weenie. (One might argue that I was always a weenie but to them I point out that my sister and I used to regularly go surfing in the dead of winter. We would go several days in a row so we'd be pulling on wet, sandy wetsuits. Also, our system for deciding if it was time to stop and go home was whether or not we could still hold our hands together with straight fingers. Because if we couldn't control our fingers then we couldn't get the key out of whoever's wetsuit it was in and unlock the car. See? Not always a weenie).
So when I first moved to SF I would be standing there waiting for the bus, shivering even though I was wearing all of my jackets. Gradually I learned the art of layering so the cold, foggy weather didn't bother me quite so much. Basically, I submit this paragraph as evidence that I would never survive if I lived somewhere with SNOW.
Where was I? Right. The cold weather was okay but what I couldn't STAND was the rain. The raaaaaaaiiiinnn. I didn't own rain boots when I first moved here so I would wear sneakers which would (surprise) get soaking wet. For two years I had wet shoesies and pant cuffs and socks. I didn't buy rain boots because I was too indecisive. I thought maybe I would like to get some of those rubber galoshes with some cute pattern like they sell. But I could never make up my mind of which ones to get and I thought about buying neutral colored boots but, ugh, that's just boring isn't it?

Until this year. I bought THESE:

They're from Timberland and oh oh oh I love them. I don't know if the photos do them justice and maybe I'm just overly excited because of my two-year wet feet interval but oh man do I love them. If you ever hang out with me when I wear them you'll notice that I tend to announce at random intervals "BY THE WAY HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE THESE BOOTS?" Yes, in all caps.

Seriously, they make me so happy. I wear them every time it rains or looks like it might rain or I want to wear stretch pants.

Now I just need a new raincoat. Because I, erm, prematurely sold mine to a used clothing store before I  bought a new one.... Apparently I'm not meant to own an entire set of rainy day attire at the same time.

Shower Power

I hosted a bridal shower last weekend. A friend of mine is getting married in June and I offered waaaaaaaay back when she got engaged about a year and a half ago to host! a! shower! because! I! was! so! excited! I had also recently escaped the clutches of a sociopath so I was excited about pretty much everything life had to offer me at that point in time. I remember noticing how SWEET the air smelled and how AMAZING it was to just... drive my car and listen to music.
So! I offered to host the shower awhile back and then schedules got crazy and the bride traveled to Africa and back and I have classes on some SATURDAYS this quarter so we kind of had to pickadate right quick fast and in a hurry. So! Last weekend was the shower! I probably could have just skipped that whole rambling backstory, I guess.

ANYHOW. Shower! The bride wanted a western/horsey theme so we ran with it (galloped with it?).

Please to be noticing the Breyer horses as table decorations.

I made soap in the shape of little horsies for party favors.

I was a bit worried they would melt since I had to transport them from SF to LA so I also made a backup party favor.

I got the idea for this from the comments on Swistle's post about party favors.

(In case you were wondering what songs are on the CD, here is the list. I made it in a bit of a hurry so it was just made up of songs that I figured people would mostly like and that I mostly like and that have the word love in them.)

Rick Rolled!

We also had bandanas for everybody to wear.

Breyer horse!

We played Rope the Cowboy, which involved attempting to use a lasso in the traditional fashion after a couple glasses of champagne. I can't take credit for that brilliant bit of tomfoolery, it was my co-host's idea. I did bring the Pin the Tail on the Donkey game, though (also fun post-champagne).

The cowboy's face isn't normally empty and creepy like that, it was a photoshopped pic of the groom.

And here we have the prize bags. Now, I don't want to oversell these but they pretty much represent a stroke of GENIUS by yours truly.

(BREYER HORSE)

You see how they're all labeled with something that horses like? Well if you won a game then you got to pick a bag. Inside the Sugar Lumps bag was a bottle of brown sugar & vanilla bubble bath and one of those shower loofah shmoosh thingies. Inside the Carrots bag was a bottle of Yes to Carrots lotion and some Yes to Carrots lip balm. Inside the Apples bag was a kitchen timer shaped like an apple and a little red veggie scrub brush. GET IT? GET IT? Well. I thought the prize bags were pretty awesome.

I also got to wear my tiered skirt and purple cowboy boots so I'd say the party was a win.

Staying In

Today I am staying in.
I am staying in this morning because I will inevitably spend money if I go out and I really shouldn't.
I am staying in this afternoon because I am waiting for the dishwasher repair man to come.
If the dishwasher gets repaired early enough, I am allowing myself 1 (one) trip to the Goodwill donation station. But that is ALL.

Today I am packing.
I am packing for a mini road trip that I am planning to take to Southern California. Just for a couple days, just to see a couple of important people while I'm still in this strange limbo of summer break/working part time.

I have my audiobooks. I have my new hot pink duffel bag. I have clean tank tops and undies and my swimsuit and flip flops.
I don't have an itinerary.
My plans to stay with my friend M fell through because of the construction at her apartment so now I'm not quite sure about lodging. I texted a couple of people but have yet to hear back. I'm not worried, though-- something will work out. It always does.
The last time I drove down to LA on my own, somebody (you can probably figure out who) flaked on me at the last minute and I called my friend Nicole at 11 pm from a Safeway parking lot off the I-5. She had to work at 7 am the next morning but she gave me directions to her house and promised to have a vodka cran and some cheese ready for me when I got there.

So I don't have a plan, but I have a very long car ride and a cell phone to figure it out. I would like to see my friends. I would like to eat at some of my favorite restaurants. I would like to wear my sundresses.

It is actually a little bit surreal to be going to LA. I used to live there. For eight years, I lived there. I considered it my home. And now I hardly consider it at all.
LA is big and loud and dirty and inconvenient. It is full of people looking at you, looking at each other, dressing up to go to the grocery store. It is full of people who are something else. Bartenders are actors, waitresses are singers, singers are poets, celebrities are a nuisance.

LA still has a special place in my heart, and I think it always will. I don't want to live there, but I want to remember what it was like to live there and the kind of person I was. I recently showed my SF friends how I would sway my hips when I walked in my heels and fancy jeans, tossing my hair and pouting because I knew people were looking. Someone was always looking. I never walked anywhere I could drive. I would drive across the street to Trader Joe's to buy a salad for lunch. But after a night of drinking, my friends and I would walk home a mile or two from the bars. Because it was warm enough. And because we were too cheap to pay for a cab and none of us had the phone number for one anyway.

I lived there for eight years and the last time I was there was in the middle of last December. The last time I drove down there on my own was almost one year ago. My my how things have changed in one year.

I wonder if going there this time will feel different. I try not to wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't left.

Today I am packing and tidying up. I am waiting. I am staying in.

So how are you liking San Francisco?

I moved from LA back in June to start school up here. I grew up in NorCal, but I tend to tell people I am "from" LA since I lived there for the past 8 years. Also, it's less embarrassing to admit you don't really know where any Bay Area cities or streets are when people don't think you grew up here. If you say you're from the area but can't list the cities accessed by the Bay Bridge people tend to think you are a special kind of idiot.

Anyhow, when people ask how I like living in San Francisco, I usually say "I thought I would miss LA more." And I really thought I would. I loved LA. I was happy there and I felt like it was MY HOME. So it surprises me how little I really MISS it. Of course there are people I miss and of course there are things that I used to do that I miss but I don't wish I still lived there. And I really had thought I would.

I genuinely LIKE San Francisco. I had never really thought of it as an option until I decided to go to school up here. It was always too cold, too foggy, too NorCal. And, duh, I loved LA-- why would I ever leave? But now I wonder why I hadn't thought of it before! San Francisco is a big, fun city with a lot going on and plenty of places to explore and buy stuff. And it lacks certain things from my LA life that I did not care for: Smog. Unbelievable amounts of traffic. A city-wide "meh." attitude toward environmental issues. Palpable unspoken tension. Too much highway between me and my family. Celebrities and celebrity wannabes. Did I mention the traffic?

And, also, San Francisco seems to have this (as my classmate described it) "come as you are" attitude, while LA is much more "see and be seen." Having lived in both cities, I think that this assessment is quite good. I might call it Right On The Money. Or at the very least, close to the money. Spitting distance from the money, if you will. LA definitely has a Notice Me attitude, where everyone is checking each other out. San Francisco feels.... different from this. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I like it.

I like living here.

I'm back, baby.

Here I am in SoCal again. People keep asking how long I'm planning to stay and my fairly consistent response has been till they kick me out. "They" referring to the general population of LA, I suppose?

football, 40s, fools, and fish heads

I kind of hate to admit this but I had almost semi-forgotten exactly how much I LOVE going to USC football games. Weird. I took a quick jaunt down to LA this past weekend to go to the game and see a few of my peeps. As a season ticket holder, I could have gone to the 2 previous home games but I've been too caught up with school and not wanting to drive down there and blah blah blah to be able to. So this was my first game of the season. AND I WAS VERY EXCITED!!! Everybody thought I was crazy 5 years ago when I bought my season tickets. "You're crazy," they said. And they were probably right. Instead of buying the student pass (since I was a grad student) or buying scalped tickets for the games I wanted to go to, I was spending, well, a lot more. But I'm very glad I made that decision. Good for you, Julia of the past. Now here's some other advice-- don't cut your hair off. You will regret it.

Michelle and I decided it would be a good idea to buy 40s and walk around campus before the game. Here we are in front of Tommy Trojan, AKA inspiration for tattoo #1.

Normally I am categorically against wearing a scarf and a tank top-- it's too "combination of the seasons" like wearing ski pants and flip flops or a mini skirt and ugg boots. Although, come to think of it there have been many occasions when I wear my fauxfurry boots and a skirt when I'm going out on the town so I guess I don't really have any room to be up on my high horse. But if I saw someone wearing a tank top and a scarf, I might judge them. So I don't blame anybody who saw me on Saturday and perhaps judged me. But- the weather was nice and I wanted to show off my ink and I still had to wear something cardinal and gold. Plus I was drinking a 40 and all of my ideas seemed like good ones at the time.

Including the idea to 'take a bunch of photos at the game!' Since I have been going to the games for 8 years now, it is likely that I already have several versions of the following photos. But here they are again....

I took this flower picture as we were walking to the game. Michelle thought it looked hopeful.

After the Trojan victory, we were walking to the bookstore and out of the corner of my eye I saw this woman who had been walking next to us trip, stumble, and fall on her face. She had a little boy with her who said "help. help." in that faint, terrified way that a traumatized kid might. So Michelle and I hurried over to the woman whose nose was bleeding profusely. Michelle gave her some tissues and I jumped into Student Nurse mode and instructed her to pinch the bridge of her nose and apply pressure with the tissue. And then I found out how frustrating it is when someone doesn't listen to you. She kept just sniffing and swiping at her nose with the tissues and then putting them down. She wouldn't hold the tissue to her nose so she got blood all over her hands, face, and the grass around her. Great. So Michelle went to look for the public safety people and called them while I stayed with the woman and tried to help her with the tissues. She seemed really out of it and the little boy looked terrified.

I asked the woman her name. She wouldn't tell me.

I asked if she had been drinking. She stared at me.

I asked if she was planning to drive somewhere. She said "Certainly not."

I told her it looked like she was swaying a little while she was sitting. She said, "You are."

She definitely wanted to be left alone. Every few minutes she would say something like "Okay. Thank you." which clearly meant "LEAVE ME ALONE NOW." But if there's one thing I'm good at it's sticking around whether I'm wanted or not and was also concerned about the little boy so I stayed with them until the public safety guys showed up. Then we told them what had happened, I alcohol swabbed the hell out of my hands, and Michelle and I took off for the bookstore where I rewarded myself with a new sweatshirt.

I got to spend some time with C which was really nice, and then on Sunday afternoon I drove back up to SF. I arrived at my apartment where Kelly was Bowiesitting for me. She opened the door and said "Hey! Welcome home! How was LA? Oh, just to warn you there's a big bag of fish heads in the bathroom."

I've also watched 15 episodes of Family Guy

Well here I am in the greater LA area....
The drive down was fine-- my good friend and neighbor Stefanie decided to take me up on the ride to LA to visit a friend. We had a nice time for the first hour or so wherein she used the conversational skills clearly inherited from her mother (So Julia, what is your favorite movie of all time? Have you read any good books lately? How do you envision your life in 5 years?). Then she informed me that some people tell her she has "carcolepsy" and zonked out. I coaxed her awake with Taco Bell and David Sedaris and she was a fine travel companion after that. We met up with Elena and Jon for delicious dinner and phone envy at Houston's. Okay, I know everyone else already knows this but man iphones are cool! I always thought I didn't want a touch screen phone, but I suppose I can get over that for a phone that makes the noise of maracas when you shake it.
My car is still making the funny noise but I plan to ignore it and drive to San Diego tomorrow to visit 2/3 of my sisters and 5/8 of my neices and nephews!

Ready or not,

here I come!

You hear me, LA? I'm officially heading down on Tuesday. Provided I finish my final in the morning and my car ceases to make the funny whirring noise it's been producing within the past few days. Call or text me if you think your life might be enhanced by my presence. I usually provide snacks.

Procrastination Daydreams

The great thing about having a final finish at 10 am? The rest of the day is free! The bad thing about having a final finish at 10 am? The rest of the day is free.... and you are much more likely to procrastinate studying for your next final (tomorrow). Or rather, I am. Which I have been. Clear?

Anyhow, I have another final tomorrow and then one next Tuesday and then the quarter is OVER!! And I am definitely, definitely ready for it to be. Have I mentioned that?!?

We get a little wee break in between quarters this time and there are about 25 thousand different things I would like to be doing with it. Okay, obviously that's an exaggeration-- but there are several different things I would like to do with this break, including:

- talk to people on the phone whom I have been ignoring

- eat Indian food

- eat sushi

- stay up late

- SLEEP. Glorious sleep.

- visit my parents. Fingers crossed that the weather will be nice enough to swim/ sun myself since I've gotten to do NONE of that this summer

- celebrate Miss Jennifer's 26th Birthday!!

- visit LA. Lots of people I love still live there. I would like to see them and I think they would like to see me. Plus, I owe LA a visit because we didn't part ways on the best of terms. You see, I think it was mad I was leaving and thus acted out toward me. My tires got slashed, my job started getting crazy and unpleasant, my social life got weird and difficult, and my car broke down with everything I owned (that the movers had not taken) in it. Including, but not limited to my clothes, my grandmother's charm bracelet, a dvd player, 2 bottles of vodka, my signed Matt Leinart jersey, and a little box of cash. Since it was 5:30 pm, there was only one little place open. So we paid almost $800 and waited 3 and a half hours in Culver City for my car to get a new Radiator (and other stuff(?)). LA, you'll always have a special place in my heart-- can we call a truce please?

- visit San Diego

- shop

- Do some of those "fun San Francisco things" that I haven't done because I either haven't had time or didn't know they existed.

- exercise

- eat a fucking custard pie

- play with my nieces and nephews

- go see a comedy show or a really hilariously funny movie

- party

- go to Magic Mountain again before my pass expires

- clean and organize my apartment well so I'm starting with that as a baseline for next quarter.

#1. "Fashion"

In order to actually (hopefully) achieve my writing goal for the week, I think I'll start with the compliment I recieved this morning. Ian told me that I look cute today. This is probably because I was too tired to take a shower last night and took one this morning, which meant I couldn't straighten my hair. Since my hair usually does unpredictable, crazy things when not controlled I was somewhat reluctant to leave the house. But I put on what I thought was a pretty cute little combination of clothes, plus some nice dangly earrings that draw one's eye.

I was excited to learn that I looked cute in someone else's opinion-- perhaps I have finally gotten the hang of this "layering" business. After moving here and leaving my apartment a half dozen times, I became frustrated and believed that my collection of lightweight sweaters had rendered me completely unprepared for the foggy chill of San Francisco. But I perservered. I used my bookstore gift certificate (given to me by the school- how awesome is that?) to purchase a nice warm fleece sweatshirt makes up for its slight frump factor with the fact that it has the school's name on it. And then I took another look at my clothes and realized I actually do posess a number of the raw materials to make it through at least the summer and fall months. I have jackets and sweaters and long and short sleeved shirts... it's really just a matter of learning to coordinate them into functional, comfortable, carryable, cute outfit combinations.

Getting dressed is not always the easiest thing in the world for me. When I was little my grandmother sewed most of my clothes for me, which is awesome. And then in middle school we had a uniform. In high school I would wear anything and tried to be different from everyone else. I wore leopard print pants as if they were jeans with my Dad's lacoste sweaters (which are actually popular now, who knew?). I shopped at Urban Outfitters when it wasn't so insanely overtrendy and overpriced. I wore a skull ring that I bought at the fair. I painted my shoes with glitter nail polish. In college I settled down a little and wore less... interacting(?) outfits. But I will say that if I found something I liked, it was hard for me to take it off. I can remember finding a combination of clothes and wearing it to class 2 or 3 days in a row, because they were different classes and I was proud of the one cute outfit I had come up with. But when I started working and saw the same people every day I had to (finally) learn how to put together clothes I liked on a daily basis and rotate them through the weeks. It took some getting used to and some outfits I couldn't wait to get out of when I got home, but I did it.
And now moving to this new city and new climate has presented other challenges.

So I told Ian that I had some trouble getting started since I was from LA where people don't really layer. He disagreed and said that people do in fact wear layers in LA.


I realized that this is true. But the layering in LA is generally achieved in a rather nonfunctional, borderline frumpy manner, such as this:

I'm not saying that some people can't pull this off and look adorable while doing it... I'm just pointing out that I don't happen to be one of them. And so the layering does not come naturally to me, which explains why I'm still glowing from the compliment.

because people keep asking me

I tell people I am from LA because I lived there for 8 years. I moved there to go to USC (Fight On!) and then ended up staying. I never really felt comfortable in high school so when I moved away I only kept in contact with a few people. And I went to high school fairly far away from my hometown, so I didn't really have friends there. I still identify with it as the place I grew up and where my family is. But LA became my home.

And it's interesting to hear people talk about LA. If I tell someone I live in LA, they ask "Oh really, do you like it?" which is a fine question, but it's usually accompanied with an I-feel-sorry-for-you tone and head tilt. Which usually causes me to wildly overcompensate and say things like "Yes, I LOVE it. I absolutely love love love it!! It's fantastic. It really is." Which probably confirms everything they were suspecting about LA....

But it's true. I do love LA.

I love LA for being the place where I came into my own and became the person I wanted to be.

I love LA for being difficult at first-- for making me decide if it was really worth it to stay.

I love LA for all the different kinds of people it attracts. And how I can relate to many of them.

I love LA for its ridiculousness. For the touristy areas, the valleys, the seedy bars, the tiny boutiques with scarves for $45, the eighteen billion Indian restaurant within 6 blocks of each other, for the horrible way the city is set up and its stubborn refusal to change, for the people who have no concept of what weather is supposed to look like.

I love LA because you can find anything there. Anything.

I love LA for my Trojans, of course.

And I love LA because not everyone can.