going to the chapel and... wait, what?

I've noticed that sometimes in life, certain events can evoke unexpected thoughts or emotions, even when those events aren't necessarily about you.

My best friend is getting married in just over a week, and I'm a bridesmaid. So then why did I just have a dream about my own wedding? My boyfriend and I have no certain plans of taking this step, and while I've always longed to have a beautiful wedding, it's not something that's going to happen anytime soon.

So then wtf? I think it was partly Emily's wedding and partly because I watched a couple episodes of Scrubs that had to do with Elliott organizing her upcoming wedding.

I think it's funny, too, that in my dream, things kept going wrong.

- I got a parking ticket for parking someplace that wasn't marked (Lame!)
- The dressing room was in the extreme back of someplace that couldn't decide whether it was a theater or a department store, and the back area walls were completely draped in black fabric
- I forgot my jewelry but my mom saved the day and brought it from home without me having to ask (Yay, Mom!)
- She also brought my stepdad (Bad move, Mom...)
- My best friend (Emily) and her sister (Emma) were helping me dress up and were in charge of what seemed like half a dozen bridesmaids
- Matt accidentally came in for something and the girls threw a black bed sheet over me so he couldn't see me (it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the ceremony, if you didn't know)
- I got in a fight with some bitch outside the dressing room, kicked her ass, got coffee or soda on my shoes, someone cleaned them off
- I kept frantically running in and out of the dressing room and outside because I'd forgotten something or needed to get something
- My dress had a corset type bodice with a poufy (pick-up) skirt (Pretty! Sorta looked like this one: David's Bridal Style T9104)

The dream never actually got past the dressing up part because I had to wake up. :( I wonder how the ceremony turned out...

r0x0rz my s0x0rz

My good friend (and fellow blogger) Cristina (becauseiamusemyself.blogspot.com) took me to the No Doubt/Paramore concert at Sleep Train Amphitheater this past Friday night. I haven't been to many concerts, but each of them were an incredible experience. This one was no exception.

In spite of a 45-minute drive turning into a 2-hour drive, mile-long bathroom lines, and missing Paramore on stage, I had a fantastic time! No Doubt was absolutely amazing.

Below are some snippets and photos from the SacBee website:

---

There was No Doubt about the party at Sleep Train Amphitheater

"On the road after a five-year hiatus but without any new songs to push, No Doubt wowed a packed Sleep Train Amphitheater Friday night with a straightforward greatest-hits set.

Opening with the jaunty, jagged "Spiderwebs" from its 1995 mega-seller "Tragic Kingdom," No Doubt set a tone of good-time familiarity that kept a rare sellout crowd at the 18,500-capacity Wheatland venue permanently on its feet.

Front woman Gwen Stefani continually stoked the audience, separating out male audience members to sing about how they were "just a girl" only to playfully mock the inevitably silly result."





Other highlights:
- Cristina accidentally taking a snapshot of my ta-ta's as I stuck my upper body out of her sunroof to check out traffic.
- Being able to hear Paramore as we drove up and around the amphitheater to park.
- Almost getting a contact high from all the folks smoking weed on the Lawn.
- Awesome light shows.
- Yummy garlic fries.
- Singing 90's songs on the long drive home. <3

does this habit have a name?

I have a tendency to associate certain songs with certain people I know - either because I heard the song while we were together, or because the lyrics fit them perfectly. I have no idea if this is a normal thing (do you do this?) but I can't really help it.

Here's a few examples:

- An old boyfriend - "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)" by Nine Days because we heard it on the radio every single time we were in his truck.
- My best friend - "My Favorite Mistake" by Sheryl Crow because the Ouija Board decided that song described her life when we were like 14.
- A deceased friend - "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan because he was a lonely and misunderstood person who died too soon.
- My friend in Malaysia - "She's So High" by Tal Bachman because I met him online after watching his Final Fantasy 9 mash-up music video to the song.
- An old co-worker and friend - "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones because we worked at Home Depot together, myself in the paint department. He made this my personal ringtone on his cell.

I'm eagerly awaiting the people in my life who will be assigned to the following songs:

- "Barbie Girl" by Aqua
- "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" by Kenny Chesney
- "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga
- "Rockin' the Beer Gut" by Trailor Choir
And especially:
- "White and Nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovic

These will certainly be some interesting people to know.

it's the little things...

It's the little things that keep me sane at work.

Doctors named Jay Vajay. (If you need help figuring this one out, I feel bad for you.)
Finding out that the Transmittal Confirmation Reports that the fax machine spits out are already in order and I don't have to sort them myself.
Finding ways to sneak onto blocked websites.
Receiving funny emails about people who are dumber than me.
... Which is similar to receiving emails by the idiots who accidentally hit the "Reply All" button.
Slacking off to the extreme, and actually getting away with it.
Trying to pronounce some of the clients' names that come across my desk.
Resigning myself to working on my birthday, then discovering that somebody left a tiny army of paper kodama on my desk.

melancholy musings

Every so often I start to feel like I'm simply bumbling through my life, succeeding or failing at things simply by chance, lucky enough to have some wonderful people and experiences, and selfish or idiotic enough to have messed up a number of things I shouldn't have.

I just turned twenty-five. I guess I always used to think that at this point in my life, I would have a college degree, a house of my own, a husband or fiancee, and the possibility of a family in the near future. What an idyllic life that would be.

Unfortunately, like most teenagers (and twenty-somethings, too), I botched it. Not permanently, as I have the opportunity to pick some things up where they were left, but enough to throw my dream out of alignment.

I wish I had gone to college full-time immediately after high school, and stuck with it for at least the customary four years. Sure, experience is always good when looking for a job, and you don't get that at college - but I would have had such a good springboard into the rest of my life. I wouldn't have jumped back and forth between mediocre retail jobs for years, making a mediocre income. I can't help but feel that if I had received a degree earlier on, I'd be living the life I wish I had. I've decided to quit my "secure" (ha-ha) government job to go back to school full-time to finally achieve that goal, and for that I am proud of myself. But I can't help wishing I'd done it when the time was right.

I wish I had made better choices. After getting out of high school, I made a lot of bad decisions and hung out with some questionable people. Sure, some of those people were fun, but they weren't exactly the type to inspire me to great things. I did make the hard choice to stop living the life I was, but I will live with the memory of those years for the rest of my life.

I wish I had treated myself better, physically and emotionally. If I had - and if I had really believed in myself enough - I'd be in a much better place in my own head, heart, and body. If I could honestly make myself believe that I am a beautiful, loveable, wonderful person, I wouldn't have such a laundry list of awful relationships, huge mistakes, and self-esteem issues, and I would already be the person I dream of becoming. All I can do now is try my best to be that person in spite of all my problems.

I wish I had been better at keeping my friendships strong. I have a bad tendency to let wonderful people slip through my fingers for various reasons, and so I've lost touch or lost that connection with some of the people who are important to me. It's truly heartbreaking when you find out, too, that you'd been replaced, years ago, and you never even knew it. Sometimes you can try to rekindle that friendship, but for many of these people, once you come clean with your own failures in the relationship, they decide that they don't want to talk to you anymore. That hurts too, but after all, you dropped the ball first.

I wish I had been absolutely truthful, every moment of every day of my life. Yes, sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes it will drive people away - but isn't that so much better of a reason than the fact that they found out about what you were hiding, and that you lied to them about it? Lying isn't fair to anybody, and it only hurts everyone involved unnecessarily. Some people will forgive you. Some won't.

What I wouldn't give to be able to go back and do it all over. I'd have figured out what I was passionate about and earned a degree in that field. I'd have dumped that selfish idiot and saved myself a lot of heartache. I'd be a healthier, saner, stronger person. I'd have shown those wonderful people exactly how much they meant to me.

Well, if wishes were fishes, I'd be eating sushi at every meal. (Wouldn't that be nice.)

All I can do now is put my whole heart into loving the wonderful people I have in my life, achieving the things I've always wanted to, and striving to be the person I've always wanted to be.

I'm trying. I hope it's enough.

Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.

Sometimes I wonder if Chuck Norris actually appreciates all the one-liners.
Although I guess if he didn't, we'd all be dead already.

keeping secrets

I don't really like Facebook apps. For the most part, I only have about 3 that I like and use. However, I recently added a little app called Honesty Box, where your friends can send you completely anonymous messages to tell you what they REALLY think. Sure, most of the people that use it are probably dying to find out if someone has a crush on them, but I bet every once in a while someone receives a gem.

I got one. My very first anonymous message read thus:

"You once asked me to keep a secret for you. I was very uncomfortable doing so, but I hope it shows you how much you mean to me that I did.
Please don't ever ask me to do something like that again."

Wow. Talk about painful but well-deserved honesty. I had no idea who sent it, but I realized that one of my friends cared about me so much that they would do something like that for me. I felt ashamed and strangely grateful at the same time.

For some reason, this morning, I was thinking about it again, and suddenly received a fierce slap to the face (and a kick to the heart):

I HAD NO IDEA WHO SENT IT.

That meant that I have asked so many of my closest friends to do this terrible thing for me that I had no way of narrowing down who had sent the message. I've gambled my precious friendships just so I could get away with something I probably shouldn't have been doing in the first place, just so I didn't have to face the music and own up to my own mistakes.

Wow. What a way to live my life - running away from the things I didn't want to face, and asking my friends, the people who I care about most in the world, to cover up for me at the expense of their own self-worth. What a horrible thing for me to do.

To the person who sent this anonymous message to me... and also to my other friends who have experienced the same thing:

I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking, but that's no excuse. I should never have asked you to do that for me. I hope you can forgive me.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing this fault of mine to light. Thank you for sticking by me even though I asked you to do something like that.

All I can do now is be conscious of this tendency and refuse to repeat it ever again... and hopefully my good friends will help me keep to the straight and narrow with their honesty.

whoopsie-daisy!

This blog is all about self-discovery, right? ("Duh, it's the subtitle of your blog!" you say.) Well, sure. So I started blogging in hopes of discovering more about myself. And I did.

I discovered that I was influencing myself and the posts I was writing. I was enjoying reading my favorite "happiness blogs" so much that I started trying to write similar stuff. That was a mistake. I am not meant to be a big-time blogger. I don't have the dedication for it (translation: I'm too lazy.) So after trying to write posts that are amazingly insightful, I lost my inspiration and my drive to write at all. I mean, come on, it's been almost two months since my last post! Ouch!

I've decided that I don't care about developing a fan base. Sure, I'd *love* it if lots of people read my blog, but I'm not going to do something that I don't find enjoyable to get fans. So from now on, the stuff that I post on this blog is going to be mostly for me, and for those few friends who actually want to read what I write. (And a big thanks to those folks for supporting me!)

Sorry if you've had high hopes for my little corner of the blogosphere (for a little while there, I did too.) But I hope you'll stick around anyway. You might not be inspired, but hopefully you'll at least be amused. :)