Roll On, You Wild Western Windblown Band

I have just, as of this writing at 1.22 am, come home from an amazing concert. I don’t really go to a lot of concerts, partly because I’m too cheap for big shows, I’m too particular for small shows and partly because I never have anyone to go with. But there are a handful of bands for whom I will make the trek into the city by myself without complaint. Tonight was one of those nights. No, no one you’ve ever heard of, but two of my favorites, Micky and the Motorcars and Reckless Kelly.

You know how when you’re at a concert, and your favorite bands are playing your favorite songs, and the energy is really high and the vibe really great, and you’ve got a nice smooth buzz from the beers you just drank, and you’re making new friends with the girls standing next to you, and you’d like some random dude to hit on you despite the fact that you’re married (but they don’t) and, man it’s practically the best concert experience you’ve ever had? That was tonight. It was fucking magical, nearly. I want to experience the feelings and highs and rush and music that I felt tonight every day. Every damn day.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last, that wonderful, magical feeling, but I know that this will be a night I look back on with gratitude and awe. Everything aligned tonight for just the absolute best possible show I could have hoped for. And not even the drunk-ass lady rubbing her fake boobs all over me could have ruined it.

So How’s Married Life Treating You?

This is a question I get A LOT, and while I don’t really know what sort of answer people expect (“pretty shitty, actually”?), I am thrilled to be able to answer honestly that it’s AMAZING and I HIGHLY recommend it.

Nothing has really changed in any sort of substantial way between Feller and I, but there’s something just … GREAT about knowing that this is it. We’re stuck with each. We’re both fully committed to the long haul. I mean, we both were before we got married, but now, it’s OFFICIAL. And it’s so cool. And weird. And wonderful.

I was asked this question three times today, and I got to tell people about how we had just been talking the night before about how happy we were to be together. How wonderful our relationship is and how glad we are to have found each other.

Our marriage is still new enough that we get congratulated at other people’s birthday parties, and, if given the opportunity, we will both happily talk about the wedding and being married and other gacky love stuff. It’s pretty great.

Worry Wart

I’m a worrier, always have been. I remember being in first grade and worrying so much I gave myself stomachaches. What a 7 year old has to worry about it, I have NO IDEA, but there we have it. Worrier.

Like the time the feller was going for an hour long massage 10 minutes away from his apartment. I came over, took a nap, woke up about an hour after he left and waited for him to get back. And waited. And waited. And 45 minutes went by. I tried calling him and no answer. Another half hour went by and still no answer, and I was trying to talk myself into not worrying. “Surely he stopped at the store to pick up dinner or … something. And OF COURSE his phone is off because his phone is NEVER on, and he’s FIIIIINE.” After another fifteen or so minutes, I was *this* close to calling hospitals because what if he had been in an accident? What if something happened? NO ONE WOULD KNOW TO CALL ME. I’d be sitting up all night waiting for him to come home and have NO IDEA where he was. I’d find out when his parents showed up or if some kind hearted intern or nurse or someone got on his phone and texted everyone in his contacts list or posted something on his Facebook page or someone came by his house to … I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T KNOW HOW IT WORKS. We’re not even in a relationship on Facebook! NO ONE WOULD KNOW TO CALL ME.. BRB, gonna go make sure we’re each other’s emergency contacts for everything. Around the time that I was FREEE-HEEEEE-HEEEEEAKING out, he walked in the door and was like “Oh yeah, she gave me an extra half hour for free, it was awesome. No big deal.”

So yeah, worrier.

So imagine my reaction when I applied for grad school here and my application remained in “incomplete” status for about a month and a half. Visions of my REALLY REALLY *REALLY* bad Pitt transcript coming back and biting me in the ass. The requirements here only ask for a minimum undergrad GPA of 3.0, which I have, but my 1.2 GPA from Pitt can’t look good! And PANIC PANIC PANIC.

And imagine my relief when I checked my application status online last week and saw that I was accepted. I am looking forward to this.

Happy Holidays

So, quickly, check out my 2010 Book List! Eventually, I’ll get down to doing a Top Five of 2010, but it might be a couple of weeks. You know how I am about follow through.

ANYWAYS. The feller and I went home for Christmas and New Year’s. Well, my home. Arizona. We stayed a few days with my mom, until we decided that we needed some Grown Up Time and got a motel, which was AWESOME. OMG. Awesome. And then we were down in Tucson for about 5 days staying with my BFF and her hubby. And, fuck. It was SO NICE. We didn’t have a plan or an agenda or shit that we had to do. No wedding dress shopping or bridal showers or weddings or birthdays or preplanned bbq’s. All those things were fun, and I enjoyed doing them, but there’s something to be said for the freedom to chill and hang and do whatever you feel like doing.

We had dinner with friends and played with fireworks (they’re legal in AZ now!) (except bottle rockets; you still can’t have those) (how long before someone burns down his neighborhood, I wonder?) and made Christmas candy with Mariam and I got a new tattoo and we went shopping and drinking and just had a relaxing good time. It was EXACTLY what I was hoping for on this trip, and even though it wasn’t how my feller wanted to spend his Christmas break, he was wonderful and went along with everything I suggested.

The only bad thing is that I’m homesick like crazy now (though I suppose I will admit that the INTENSITY of my feelings are in part due to menstrual hormones). If I weren’t in a happy, loving and committed relationship, I’d pack up my stuff tomorrow and go home. And it’s not even that I don’t LIKE the Bay Area; I like it FINE, but it’s not my home. It’s not where my support system, all the people I love, is, and I just don’t know if I could ever feel about here the way I feel about there. Because it’s about more than just the people and relationships that I have there that I don’t have here; I LOVE Tucson. I love the desert and the mountains and the heat and the summer storms, and, I don’t know, I feel at home there. I have since the first day I moved down there. But for now, I just hope and pray that my path leads me home someday.

ANYWAYS. Tucson was awesome. Family was awesome. Friends were awesome. And everyone really liked the feller. All in all, it was a successful trip. And we came home to find our house-sitter was a secret cleaning freak (or maybe not so secret; I don’t know her life), and she left us a list of the things she had cleaned, which basically was ALL THE THINGS. NO JOKE, she DUSTED OUR CEILING, y’all. I don’t think I’ve EVER dusted a ceiling in my LIFE. AND she thought my kitties were adorable! Even Bandito, who’s kind of a shithead! So that was a pleasant surprise at 3 am when we got home.

So, good trip, good holidays and now it’s back to the same old same old for now. But I do believe change is a comin’ this year. I’m ready, I am.

Living Together

People have been asking for picture’s of the house, and I WANT to take pictures! I really do! But I think I’m giving up on ever taking them. I’m never home during the day and weekends are usually so jam packed that I don’t have the time or spare thought to whip out my camera for documentation. And I’ve been so busy/stressed/tired/sick in the evenings that all I want to do is curl up in bed with some How I Met Your Mother.

At any rate, the house is AMAZING. I mean, it’s not perfect; I wish the driveway were wide enough for two cars to park side by side. I wish the insulation were a bit better so it would stay warm all over the house. I wish we had a garbage disposal. But really? Except for those few small things? The house is wonderful. It’s huge and old and charming (but not in the way that in housing ads “charming” means small or kind of shitty or “oh yeah, you totally have to stand on one foot and cross your eyes and do a little dance to get any of the appliances to work”), I mean, it quite literally charms me. It’s got all those built in bookshelves that I love and enough space for all of our stuff without feeling cramped and the biggest bathtub I have ever had the pleasure of taking a bath in. I can stretch out in that thing and barely touch the other end and it’s so deep and wonderful and, yeah, I think Imma need to take a bath tonight.

And living with the feller? Well, it’s ALSO amazing. We seriously enjoy all the time we spend together and even though neither of us has ever lived with a significant other before, we’re settling in together and getting the hang of cohabitation. And despite me acting like a crazy ass bitch a few times, he still likes me enough to want to hang around for awhile, which is fantastic. Because I kinda dig him too. He even likes my cats most of the time.

We’re getting into the rhythm of him cooking and me cleaning and eating dinner at the dining room table together and chilling on the couch with some TV on (I got him watching Dollhouse, which is something I was hoping to do, though I admittedly skipped the shitty first four episodes and just started with the unaired pilot and went from there) and snuggling in bed before I fall asleep. Seriously. We cuddle in bed EVERY NIGHT before I fall asleep, and he gets MAD at me if I don’t call him in for snuggles. He’s taken to calling our bedtime routine “Mandatory Relationship Cuddles,” and it’s a lovely way for us both to unwind and enjoy each other. We’re kind of disgusting (I mean, we unironically use the word “snuggles”) but in a really wonderful way, and I look forward to getting tucked into bed by him for years to come.

So the living? It is good. And in a time that is not very far from now, we will be on vacation in Arizona and hanging with my family and my friends and doing fun things like eating No Anchovies and just chillaxing and not thinking about work, because that’s what I want. To not think about work for awhile.