the daily brew

I didn't learn how to make coffee until I was 19. Through an odd series of events, I ended up living with my parents for a few months and the coffee practically flows through their house 24 hours a day. They babysat me for awhile by always offering to fill up my cup or make a new pot, but inevitably I had to learn. Since I always ordered a latte or mocha at coffee places, I didn't have any experience with real coffee and followed the recipe they provided: 2 level scoops of coffee grounds for a whole pot of water. Little did I know at the time that I was essentially drinking hot, brown, coffee-flavored water. Now, two years later, I found the right taste for me (and it's a LOT stronger lol).

I told you that story to tell you this story. I thought I had found love a few years ago. I have finally found what works for me. It's such a different sensation when you find it and make it yourself. I am so happy. I am so in love.

No jokes about finally being legal

My 21st birthday came and went and I've been too busy to blog about it! It's pleasing to look back at the post of my 20th birthday and realize that I still have the same people in my life to create memories with. I am very lucky to have kept the same friends over the years because I think that the older you get, the more important it is to have people around who have watched you grow into who you are.

Today

Today, more than once, I had to make myself stop and take a few deep breaths. The recent move, the insane heat, the significant lack of money, figuring out financial aid works and realizing that I missed the deadline, all culminated together at once to give me quite a stress cocktail. Thinking of putting $1200 for tuition on a credit card will do that to anyone, especially knowing that the reward for the hard work now is still years away. But that’s when I realize that there is a reward for all the stress I’m experiencing now. Some people live their entire lives pinching pennies and living paycheck to paycheck. Reminding myself that this is temporary really helps to get through it.

Today I came home from the cashier’s office at my school, and instead of having a mental breakdown as I had anticipated, I set aside all the ominous financial aid forms and invited a friend over to go swimming. Maybe this isn’t the best way of dealing with a problem. Maybe I should’ve tackled the forms right then. Maybe I should’ve compared my bank account to my bills and made a plan for how this is all going to work. Maybe that would’ve been the sensible thing to do, but that method doesn’t really work for me. It’s always worked out before, and today I realized that no matter how much I micromanage my stresses, I’m still going to have the same amount of money to work with, and still going to have to get through school one way or the other.

Today ended up being a good day. I think a dip in the pool does a person good.

lots of updates

My last post was months ago and I wish I had a good reason for neglecting my blog, but I don't. The time since then has been full of change so the purpose of this post is update for those readers I haven't lost.

My blog has never had a real "purpose", but it seems as if it has mostly been the chronicles of my singleness and dating screw-ups. I'm now happy to report that I've finally done it right. In the early months of this year I reconnected with Dan, a guy who's been in my life for the last five years and has played many different roles during that time. I dated one of his friends. He dated one of my friends. For a period of time a few years ago, I would've called him one of my best friends as our social group was really tight. When we started hanging out again, the best friend label was slapped back on at the start and our friendship kept evolving. I instigated the "what are we?" talk after a few weeks of being everything to each other and we made it official. Life has been pure bliss since then and I am so happy to have finally found what I've been looking for.

The lease at Dan's old house was over on July 24, and since I've spent the last few months at his house with no problems, it seemed only right to get a place together. At the end of June, we moved into a fabulous four bedroom, 3 bathroom house with his long time friend, Richard. I know living with other people carries a bad reputation for eventually ruining friendships, but I have no doubts that this will work out. Our house is so big that I feel like I could live with ten more people and never have issues because we would never run into eachother. In fact, the three of us all have our own living rooms lol. Our time together has been spent playing in our backyard pool, roasting smores at our fire pit, and bbqing daily. It doesn't get much better than this. Yesterday Dan and I built a fort in the living room, listened to records, and ate ice cream while laying inside of it. I'm so glad I finally found someone that can match my weirdness :).

And lastly, I have to update my school/work situation. The economy failing finally hit home for me in March when I cut myself free from my parent's company. The lack of work was pretty evident and it didn't feel right to myspace all day on my dad's dime. My track record has been pretty spotty since then, and I ended up taking a quarter off school. Things are looking up now because I'm scheduled to go back to LifeTouch Photography on August 10th and am taking summer classes. I'm also looking into taking out a fat student loan so I can afford to keep living my low-budget lifestyle and go to school full-time. I don't mind taking it slow if I have to, but knowing that my life is moving forward again is a very good feeling.

The Great Flood of '09

Folks, have you ever wondered how to clear those dust bunnies out from under the washer and dryer without physically moving the machines? Well I've got just the solution for you! With no heavy lifting involved, you can get that floor wiped clean using the following method that even the biggest idiot can pull off!

***This method will only work if you are at your parent's two-story house (preferably built circa the 1960's), and there has to be a bathroom on each floor.

Step One: After flushing the toilet in the upstairs bathroom, DON'T jiggle the handle to make sure the water has stopped running.

Step Two: Return to your desk on the bottom floor with your full cup of coffee. Make sure you don't have to get up from the desk, or pay attention to your surroundings in the least bit, and then stare mindlessly at your screen for at least 20 minutes.

***Unbeknownst to you at this time, the running water in the upstairs restroom is more than the old pipes can handle at once, and the shower stall in the downstairs restroom is slowly filling with water...

Step Three: Act bewildered when your dad walks and starts groaning "Oh no... Oh no... Oh no..." and mumbles about water on the floor. Get up from your desk, inspect the bathroom and the adjacent bedroom. Agree with him that, yes, there does in fact appear to be water all over the floor, and apparently underneath the carpeted areas as well. (Random wet spots on the carpet are evidence that the entire underlying pad is soaked. Fabulous).

*** Mind you, this is not clean water. This is water filled with dog hair, soggy clumps of dust, and chunks of cat litter that were stuck in the corners of the bathroom floor.

Step Four: Bust out your SHAM-WOWs and spend the next two hours cleaning up water!! Feel refreshed knowing that you successfully flushed those dust bunnies out from under the dryer and now they will haunt you no more.

RHPS

Procrastinating is my biggest vice, and I'm starting to think I should have put more thought into spring break, seeing as how this is the last week of instruction for winter quarter. Mind you, I'm pretty good at spur of the moment vacations so it shouldn't be too hard to find myself wrapped up in crazy shenanigans in a foreign country with little to no planning. I'll likely end up rocking down to Cabo and staying with some contacts there. Typical tourista stuff.

Note to self... find a cheap plane ticket to Cabo.

A vacation will be nice. I think I need it. A break from school. A break from work. A break from the monotony of everyday life here. I am starting to feel like I've run out of words to make my day-to-day life seem interesting anymore. Who woulda thought I could run out of words.

And then there are things that don't even need words. Like this.

Some buddies and I went down to Seattle on Saturday night to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and per usual, we dressed accordingly. So here ya go, from start to finish.

WARNING: the following pics are not for homophobics.
























My life is so exciting huh.

So anyways... I feel like I need to update about Bill, the oh-so-sexy man from my last post. I couldn't resist the urge to write about him last time but I'm already wishing I hadn't. It was, indeed, too soon. Let's just say my cell phone hasn't been buzzing off the hook from texts. I know the outcome doesn't change whether I blog about it or not, but it feels like if I get chatty about a good date, when I come back to say it fell through... It's like I actually lost something. Then again, it's also too soon to completely say that this one fell through.

Guess we'll see. I haven't decided yet whether or not I actually care. Nothing like running off to Mexico for a week to soak up the sun and enjoy having no strings attached.

Laces, Leggings, and Good Days

I wore real tennis shoes today for the first time in probably 6 months. They had laces, and I wore socks. This is not only shocking to me, but to anyone who knows me.

Micheal walked into math class this morning and sat down next to me like he does everyday. Class had already started so I got his attention by poking at his arm. He looked at me, and I flicked my eyes towards my shoes while positioning my right foot to show off the piece of attire that was far from my usual ballerina-type flats. Micheal clutched his hands to his chest in a lame attempt of mimicking a heart attack, then whispered, "It's too early in the morning for you to be shocking me like that!" Hahaha. I adore that guy.

Keith looked at my outfit today and proclaimed that my attire looked like that of 2003... Whatever that's supposed to mean...

In other news, has anybody heard that annoying radio commercial for a new pill called "Good Days?" It starts out with a cynical woman narrator:

"Look at how many pills we take everyday! Pills for our skin. Pills for our heart..."

And already I'm thinking, "Crap! She's right! I do take a lot of pills everyday. She sounds very disapproving and I should probably cut back.... " I run through the list in my head... I start listing all the daily vitamins and supplements I take and get all the way to vicodin for the occassional back pain, and then the enthusiastically narrator butts in on my thoughts:

"Well now you can take a pill just to have a GOOD DAY!! And it's called GOOD DAYS!!" She goes on to tell of how she and a group of researchers have just engineered this magic pill.

Wait, what? Didn't you just tell me I take too many pills? Now I'm confused. Someone needs to tell this chick to fire her advertising writer, because that is a horrible gimmick and you made me feel guilty for no reason. Pssshhh.

But anyways, back to the shoes and socks discussion. Lately I've realized that I don't really enjoy wearing pants either. Since it's socially unacceptable to run around pantsless, my wardrobe of leggings and long shirts has been multiplying. Jackie would label these kinds of things as Weird Jacee Items... or something along those lines.

I will never forget a conversation between Jackie and I one time while thrift store shopping. (On a side note, I truly do enjoy having a shopping buddy because she keeps me from buying essentially atrocious items that I apparently think are sensational). So anyways, we're shopping, and I hold up an item of clothing and ask how she feels about it. She shakes her head. I take one last look at it before abandoning it back on the rack it came from, and with a shrug I say, "I would wear it."

She looks at me like a parent who has just let their 1st grader dress themselves for picture day so that their young, creative personality shines through in the portrait (I met a lot of this kind of parents back in the day when I was doing school photos). With a big, accepting, friendly smile, she looks up from the clothing rack and says with a slight head tilt, "I know you would. "

We still joke about that, and now if she says, "Oh you look cute!" I always have to ask the follow-up question: "Cute in a normal way? Or in like a Jacee-never-matches-anyway-and-you've-come-to-accept-it-by-now kind of way?" That always gets a smile.

That was quite a tangent to go off on, but as Mister Roger's would say, it's another day in the neighborhood, and that means I need to get back to work. Ciao.