SHUT UPPP

So I've been slacking like a mofo the last couple of weeks, blog-wise, because I'm buried neck-deep in schoolwork. Seriously - it's not pretty. My brain's in overdrive and the brakes won't be back 'til Aug. 14. Which, in case anyone's curious, is in 45 days. Not that I'm counting or whatever, it's just that I know these things. Because I wrote them in my planner about 100 days ago.

Right, so back to the point - my blog's moving! New name, new URL, etc. There are a few reasons for this move, mostly because I'll be off to the "Real Grown-Up World" soon and in order to keep it REALLY real on the blog I'll need to be slightly more anonymous. I don't want to censor myself EVER but I also really, really would hate to ever write something that reflected poorly on any potential or actual employer.

It's all good, though, not much else will change! Thanks to everybody who has made this spot feel like home, I'm sure we'll be just as cozy over at WordPress which I'm sloooowly learning to use. So if you follow me via RSS, link to me from your blog (you awesome people!) or something fabulously tech-ish like that don't forget to update your bookmarks and links and doodads and all that stuff.

Check out the new digs here: http://www.thiswastedspace.wordpress.com. I'll hopefully have it up and ready soon, but between school and my plans to be fabulously wasted for part of this weekend while celebrating my constitutional right to do exactly that. So 'til further notice hang out here, drop by over there, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around. That's what it's all about, y'all.

I have no idea what's going on with the universe, but it's like it knows that I have this massive flipping Texas history paper to write and it's doing everything it can to get in my way. And every time I sit down to write something the things that come up get progressively more ridiculous. Examples: Texas was in the CWS. CWS went to three games. There was a marching band parade on campus. Sistery's car got broken in to. There was a pool party 20 feet from every single window in my house. I wanted a pina colada. I had, like, three pina coladas and now I'm writing a blog entry. Seriously, life, this is getting silly. I'm expecting the coyote to show up any minute with his "ACME" textbook, which he'll lend to me, which will then explode in my face. It wouldn't be the first time I've been the coyote, that's for sure.

Anyway - I'm a little more than halfway through at this point and hoping to be completely done by Monday (which in Mere years is about Wednesday). It's due at 10:00 am on Thursday so between the random parades of band camp kids and people alternating the Beach Boys and Michael Jackson over the loudspeaker at the pool, I will have to find some way to discuss The Young Adult Experience In Texas, 1947-1967. Oh, em gee. And yes, my eyes just crossed too.

August 14 can't come soon enough! Plus, as I told Kt earlier this week, I miss regular me and am ready to be rid of this bitchy stranger (that would be "school Mere"). Blerg.

My awesome, talented cousin Stewart Gray saw my crappy Paint-Brush (Pro!) artwork on that guy's "Jack Ass" plate and sent me this:
It's truly a thing of beauty! :-) From now on all Eevil drivers who need to learn how to drive/behave in public shall receive the Dreaded Jack Ass Plate Of Shame!

Thanks, Stewart, you rock!

If you've known me for a while, then you are probably aware that I used to be MUCH more confrontational and much more likely to fly off the handle at any given second with so much as one misstep from another person. Friend, family member, total stranger, it doesn't matter. Through a huge amount of work, I now either let it go or scream silently in my head and then blog about you later on when you annoy me. It takes a lot to push me to the point of hating you in the first twenty seconds that I've known you, is my point.

Enter yesterday's trip to the pharmacy. D and I were on our way home from work and school, respectively, and stopped to pick up a prescription at our Walgreens, which has a two-lane drive through. Now, I don't know if you've heard this before, I've probably blogged about it but I'm waaaay too lazy to go back and find it among the rest of the blather that I've inundated the interwebz with in the last year, but I have the freaking worst luck with lines. If you ever see me standing in a line, don't get behind me. The guy in front of me will inevitably have 6,000 questions, pay in pennies, or confuse the person working there. It never doesn't happen. So when we got to the drive through and there was one car in each lane, D kind of hung back, obviously in line but waiting so that when one of the cars got done he could get into that lane. HOWEVER, some people TOTALLY SUCK and this D-BAG comes driving the wrong way, very clearly sees that we're waiting in line, turns his car around and pulls in front of us behind the car in the outside lane. And if you already know how much I hate line cutters then you probably know what happened next.

I nearly hit the roof. I started screaming at the guy but my window was rolled up, and since I was getting "a little worked up" D just pulled the car into the other lane, hoping the "out of sight, out of mind" approach would work. But no, I was pretty livid. I threatened to throw my iced tea at the guy's car but D reminded me that I would want that eventually, so I didn't. But still - for the second day in a row I will ask you - WHO FREAKING DOES THAT?! That's some crazy-person behavior right there. Clearly, whatever he was doing was more important than obeying the long-established social and cultural norm of waiting in a friggin' line. And then the guy in the other line ended up taking for-freakin-ever because the tech had to update his insurance, so the line jumping d-bag was gone before we even got to the window in the other line, as is the custom. So, of course, I snapped a pic before D calmed me down. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you- Line Jumping D-Bag:


I may or may not have added the vanity plate. Ok I did. But only b/c it's true!

Yeah that's right, for those of you who read the title of this post: I went there. My brain's too overloaded right now to come up w/something that's NOT a cliche. Anyway:

I love San Marcos. I was born there, and I go to school there, and if I had it my way D and I would be moving there tomorrow. I love everything about it - the university, the river, the people, unicycle football, the "Just For Fun" parade (which, bring it back!), Ralph the Swimming Pig (who bit my sister when she was little, BTW), drive-through alcoholic beverages, all of it. I love that you can go to class in a swimsuit and then wander over to the river without walking more than a quarter of a mile. And yes, I'm all for the hippies, which I realized around the age of three, when I was in the Just For Fun parade with my Montessori school and the lady walking with the float behind us was dressed as the Statue of Liberty, her costume completed by her "torch," which was actually a glass of very red wine. Someone else carried the bottle for her. San Marcos kicks so much ass.

However. I get that it's super fun to go to the river before class, and maybe not to shower for a while, and that you're going to the river again after class because your life is more fun than mine, but you absolutely have to leave your shoes on while you're in class. Especially if you're sitting three chairs away from me. I will die and it will be your fault, and I get that you might not mind if that happens but I do. Seriously, who does that? Who finds it appropriate to remove his shoes in the middle of a class, thus allowing the lovely and unmistakable aroma of FOOT to waft around the classroom for your classmates to enjoy? Some people eat in that class! Not me, and definitely not after Foot Guy graced us with his smelly-footed presence for two days in a row (thankfully, he was absent today and we're not meeting tomorrow, but I hope he goes there anyway because HA HA!), but the class starts at noon so a few people bring their lunches. Foodies are always saying how scented candles ruin a meal, I can't imagine how they'd feel if they were eating their pasta salad and suddenly smelled FOOT. Fracking nasty, y'all.

Two wonderful years ago today I married my best friend, biggest fan, and love of my life. It was the easiest and best decision I've ever made and I honestly feel so ridiculously, undeservingly blessed that this beautiful man chose to share his life with me! I don't usually get sappy on this blog but I figure it's my blog so what the hell. :-)

We got married in a beautiful, simple celebration at a home on the San Gabriel River in Liberty Hill with everyone we love there to share it with us. It was a perfect day - beautiful weather, smiling faces, more love and joy than I've ever seen or felt in one place before or since, and no major disasters. Not even really any minor disasters. Our dear friend Rachael wrote and performed the ceremony (including one of my favorite poems of all time, see below) and then we moved the party up the hill for barbecue, dancing, and lots and lots of cupcakes. Best. Day. Ever!!

"You are joined together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.

You shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

From The Prophet by Khalil Gilbran

Happy anniversary, babe! Love you.