God I'm old.

(Yeah, I did it again. Can't stop me.)

Becky!
Happy birthday!

Twenty-one is far superior to twenty, you'll see.
But there can be downfalls. Take the following lessons I learned to heart... or just shake 'em off as the inane dribble that you can clearly see they are:

• The first hand of video poker you play will inevitably be a lesson in heartbreak. ...And it doesn't get much better after that.
  
• Never. Ever. Drink 6 rum and cokes on an empty stomach and then help devour a monster plate of nachos.
  
• For that matter, try to avoid rum and nachos altogether... (shudder)
  
• You'll now look 28 to casino security guards and convenience store clerks, no matter how hard you try to get them to think otherwise just so you can whip out your ID.
  
• When you hit 25, the above will start to be way too true, and way too sad, so enjoy it now while it's merely a weird convenience.
  
• Enjoy adulthood, lady. It really is pretty wacky.
  

My own private HELL.

I swear to GOD, middle-management is the festering hole where happiness goes to die.

There's nothing worse in than world - yeah, I'm including clowns - than being responsible for the mistakes of other people, when you know you could do the job yourself (and do it RIGHT) if only you had three of yourself to handle all of the work.

Here's a wall ---> | | <--- Here's my head

By the end of today, if one isn't embedded in the other, I'll be shocked.
Maybe I'll throw a Hey-I-Didn't-Slam-My-Head-Into-A-Wall party, just for the occasion.

"Oh yeah?"

Honestly, the undeveloped thought-process of a child is so ripe for weirdness.

Best quote of probably this week goes to my cousin's six-ish son talking about his younger brother who's just accused him of looking silly:

"You look like a TV."

What does that even MEAN?
You know what, I don't care.
It was hilarious.

Damn. To be six and open to a world without mental restraint...

Sleep.

The one time I ever achieved lucidity in a dream, everything I called forth warped and melted through my fingers. I'm 25 (she says without conviction, as if reading from a textbook), and sometimes I feel as though I've never experienced a moment of true clarity. Even awake I've never been lucid, never in control and clear about what's happening around me.

Instead I'm squinting through nostalgic versions of dramas long stale, struggling desperately to apply some shade of then to all this now.

Some nights, before sleep, I stare at my hands and repeat, "I will know that I'm dreaming." Awake and waiting, for the moment I'll wake up.

1999

Rehashing, like a box under my bed that I keep to remember who I was, just moments ago...

"How's your other half?"

She leaned on a lock-kneed leg absently tripping backpack straps through her fingers.

"Fine, fine."

Eyes advancing over her, he remembered to nod in obliged approval of the third party's well-being. So there they stood, dead center of a campus courtyard: a man and half a woman. And no one seemed to notice.

Life is absurd.

Among the many other wrong wrong things in this administration...

Bush and Social Security

Sincerest form of flattery? Um. No.

I'm getting plagiarized by pathetic little girls with Open Diaries. Hm.

Yeah. Brilliant.

Serenity!

Serenity is an intense, fantastic, well-written romp.
And I immensely enjoyed it...
all three times I saw it yesterday...

at 12:01am, 11:30am, and 4:30pm.

Even after 4 hours sleep and two previous screenings, Serenity is amazing.

From this day forward...

Congratulations Jenni and Jimmy! The wedding was beautiful, and I'm so glad I was a part of it. You guys rock.

It seems I've attended more weddings in the past year than I ever did during the entire span of my education. It has to be a sign, some kind of preparation, trying to ready me for the coming task. Jenni and Jimmy - the latest to tie the knot and who have received probably 15 congratulations from me already (Congratulations guys!) ...heh - can now put behind them the stress of planning and worry and dresses and tuxes and flowers and food, and can finally start concentrating on the habitual annoyances they're sure to start obsessing over in each other. {Had to get a married folk joke in...}

Me, on the other hand, I'm 7 months away from our May 7th wedding, and I have nothing in my hands but the date. No ceremony site; no reception site; no ideas for color, food, or even guests. I had a nightmare a couple months back that I woke up on May 7th, and we hadn't planned a single thing. We had to call up the only available officiant (an internet-ordained Elvis/alien impersonator) and stand street-clothed in a park with only passing park-goers for witnesses.

I'm beginning to think that might just happen.

Because with me and Tony, nothing's ever as easy as making simple decisions. And the next 7 months are bound to evaporate as quickly as they arrive.

All I want is to arrive at the bottom of some steps, with rice in my hair, laughing and clutching a bouquet, knowing - like Jenni now - that all the worry is behind me and what lies before me is as stress-free as room service to a Tahitian bungalow.