pilots call me starbuck, you may refer to me as god

The newest addition to our family. He doesn't have a name set yet (but Starbuck's a contender) so for now he's the Nugget.

lonely, baby i'm not, i've got my imaginary friends

Being unemployed means I have lots of time to spend uploading old pix to Flickr (which in turn makes me miss our friends something fierce) and doing silly things on Facebook. I joined Facebook only recently and was never on it until we moved and now I needle people into joining so we can chat and stay in touch. I don’t really know why but My Space skeeves me out and Facebook doesn’t. Maybe because it started out as only being available to the academic community and because I’ve seen so many silly pages on My Space (grown women with pictures of sparkly pink ponies and shit). Not that there aren’t skeevy groups on Facebook (apparently enough guys agree that handjobs suck to form a group).

And I’ve joined San Diego groups and even started a group for other newbies but so far I’ve only met 18 and 20-year-old girls. I’m too old to make friends with 18-year-olds, dude. I can’t even comprehend their language. One girl wrote “I’m the real FFG” in her description and I have no idea what that means. Even Google couldn’t enlighten me. Another girl wrote for her favorite music – “nething I can move too”. Ug. And when I look at the pages of random people in San Diego, I always find something that makes go “Next!” I tell myself I’m not being a snob, just realistic. If someone’s politically very conservative, is into Nascar, and loves country, we’re probably not going to click.

(I am a snob about spelling mistakes though. And I don’t mean typos, I make typos all the time. But if someone talks about something that “peeks” their interest, I roll my eyes and move on. Today I found a food blog where someone talked about their “pallet”. For the love of God, if you’re going to write about food, use the correct word!)

Nor do I have any illusions about how quickly someone could rule me out based on my info. If I was a 20-year-old girl who liked to party and listen to Incubus, why in God’s name would I want to make friends with someone who’s almost 30, watches sci-fi, and when it comes to music is clearly an indie tool? As if!

It’s not very rational for me to be so pessimistic about making friends online, considering, you know, how I met the Husband. But I still think of that as one of those amazing, odds defying lucky things. And if I saw someone online who was in my age range and loved Alton Brown and John Cusack movies and geeky shows and could quote the Big Lebowski, well then let’s talk.

But when I think about all the qualities I value in the friends I left behind, their humor, their warmth, their quirkiness and massive brains and the rare and perfect combination of someone who’s a good companion and fun to pal around with but also a good person who’s true of heart and would do anything for you, it gets hard to imagine finding all that on a computer screen (Again, not very rational. If I can meet the love of my life online, why not just a friend?). But I hope someone proves me wrong.

sail away with me

We’ve been married two months today. I realized I never got around to writing about our blissful honeymoon, which I should do soon.

One of the highlights was the Baths on Virgin Gorda. Among these amazing boulder formations scattered around, there’s this very cool trail that you can take that the signs warn you is “challenging”, which made me nervous. I felt vulnerable climbing rocks in a bikini and flip flops and I’m just naturally a wuss about a lot of things.

But I let the Husband lead the way and put my hand in his. And climb we did, in between, over and under the boulders, up wooden ladders and scaling walls with some old rope to guide us. We saw the loveliest little pools and grottoes and at the very end of the trail was our prize – Devil’s Bay Beach. A less fitting name I cannot think of. The water was so calm and clear it was unreal. It was heavenly.

Although my feminist streak occasionally makes a showing, in some things I am all too willing to let the Husband take the lead. When I think of our trek through the rocks, it is impossible for me not to feel the symbolism of following my husband up and over obstacles, through the dark, and up into the light. I gave him my hand and my complete trust and just having him to guide me helped me be brave.

I can only imagine that difficulties we’ll encounter in the future will be a lot more challenging than a little beachside obstacle course but knowing that I have the Husband as my partner and my guide in both the rocky parts and the blissful parts means that I have no fear.

Do as I say, not as I do?

I submitted my resume for a free "resume critique" online and here's one of their generic suggestions:

"After you re-write your resume, don’t forget to check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation before using it to apply for a position. More often than naught, people overlook their own spelling and grammatical errors."

You have got to be kidding me. (Maybe it's a cheesy joke but I didn't see a smiley or anything else to indicate a "wink, wink".)

the sound of settling

I can’t believe we’ve already been here for a week. The days have flown by in a blur of unpacking, shopping, and more shopping. The constant purchasing of things, in the face of our current unemployment, is amusing in a painful way. But it’s the trade-off of all the minimizing of stuff we did before we moved.

The weather’s been gorgeous every single day and we’re still happy with our choice of neighborhood. We’ve gotten lost a couple of times, which was pretty stressful (we spent an hour and a half driving when we were trying to go to a Ren Fest in Balboa Park). And cooking in our tiny new kitchen will take some getting used to. But we’ve got bank accounts, new phone numbers, the Husband’s been getting calls from job recruiters, and we are slowly learning our way around.

Went to Crate and Barrel yesterday to get some of the plates we registered for (pretty pretty!). It was in Fashion Valley, which is a shopper’s paradise. If only I weren't broke.

I got super excited when looking at concert listings in the Reader. New Pornographers! Wilco! Tegan & Sara! White Stripes! How to choose among so many possibilities? Well, ticket prices, for one, which are insane! New Pornographer tix were well over 100 bucks, but then I found out I could get tickets for cheap at Ducat King. Score!

So life is good, although it will be exponentially better once I’m employed. Openings in publishing are scarce right now so I’m pretty sure I’ll suck it up and find a temp job. Let me tell you how thrilled I’ll be to put my Master’s to such good use doing data entry. Ugh.

some new town

We’re here (we’re queer, we don’t want any more bears!). All in one piece, the cat behaved amazingly well, and our furniture gets here tomorrow. Not too shabby.

It was a long damn drive. Saw some beautiful parts of the country, ate at a Texas steakhouse in Nebraska, a Sonic in Colorado, at the Bellagio in Vegas (best buffet ever), and managed to survive the traffic getting in.

The apartment wasn’t exactly spotlessly clean when we got here, which was disheartening, but they sent someone over to clean today and once our furniture’s in place, it’ll feel a lot more like home. Our first dinner here was pizza eaten sitting on the floor and it was just a classic newlywed moment. Someday we’ll have a nicer and more permanent home, we just gotta work our way up. Things only gets bigger and better from here.

Saying goodbye to friends was hard. But my friend A’s wedding was simply the most perfect send-off we could have had. A perfect series finale where all the main characters come together for a night of celebration before going their separate ways. The day we left we had breakfast at our favorite little diner with our two best friends, who sent us off with hugs, a bottle of champagne, and two bags of Miss A’s unbeatable chocolate chip cookies, made with love and hugely enjoyed on the road.

We drove around today and I got excited about all the stores we now have access to (Trader Joe’s! Costco! Macy’s!) and had lunch at Schlotzsky’s, which made me very happy. I now have a San Diego county library card, because that is what big fat nerds/bookworms do to feel more at home in a new place.

Had dinner at a pretty good Thai place and then popped into a Big Lots across the street. Something about palm trees against a sunset sky makes even a Big Lots parking lot kind of a nice place to be.

I am pretty damn happy to be here.