Merry Christmas!

This holiday season has been a little more stressful than I would have liked (mostly on my end, because I didn’t start shopping early like I normally do) and Michael and I are both getting sick (worst timing ever)…but we’re surrounded by wonderful friends and are overall really happy!

I hope everyone reading this blog is having a restful and peaceful holiday season! Thank you for keeping up with us, and here’s a resolution for next year: we’ll update more often!

Lindsey went to Jacksonville over the weekend for her BFF Taya’s birthday (taking the red eye on Friday night and flying home Sunday night.  Would your best friend do that for you?  Let’s all take a moment to reassess the state of our friendships), leaving me alone in our apartment for the first time since she moved in.  And you know what, it was a little weird!  I mean, it was also kind of awesome playing bachelor again, but it’s sort of like going to Vegas in that after a couple of days the novelty has worn off and you’re ready to go back to your life again.  But I got to do all the fun stuff I used to do before Lindsey moved in, like watch football and basketball and not feel guilty about hogging the TV, nap, do some cleaning and straighten up the apartment, sleep in as late as I want… uh, I guess “fun” is a relative term.

In other news, I can’t believe the year is almost over.  I just got used to writing ‘08 on checks!  (Hahah, why is that always the joke people use?  And checks.  They seem so quaint.  People still write checks for things, right?)  After 5 years I finally ran out of checks and have to reorder some more.  At this point I’m only writing one check a month for rent, so my reorder of checks should cover me for the next 20 years.  I was thinking of ordering a fancy personalized background, something that really conveys my personality to the people at the leasing office.  Like, every month when they see my check, the one with the bald eagle next to the Statue of Liberty with the American flag in the background, I would hope that it would make them smile and remind them that America freaking rules.  Well, it’s either that or ‘Nature’s Majesty”.

This entry has been a long time in the making…actually looking at the dates, it took me almost four months from first phone call to getting the job to actually coming in to work! But here I am, the Executive Secretary to the Vice Provost at USC! I haven’t written about it because it felt a little too much like jinxing things, like how you don’t tell anyone about a pregnancy in case something bad happens in the first trimester, but now on my third day at work I feel a little more secure.

The job hunt didn’t begin too auspiciously…I first got a phone call to see if I was still interested in the job and to find out more about my abilities and background. At the end of the conversation, Karen (who works with my boss) told me that they would get in touch early the next week to set up an interview. That week came and went, with no phone call. I decided that I had made a fool out of myself on the phone (she called right when I was trying to take cookies out of the oven, and the cell reception in my apartment is awful, so I was scurrying about trying to find service while trying to mask my nervousness and sound composed) and they weren’t interested, and I figured it was time to move on. However, early the next week I completely forgot that I had created a “professional” email address to use for resumes and job hunting…so when I remembered and logged in, I discovered an email from Karen that had been sent a week ago trying to set up an interview. Mortified, I emailed her back and apologized for the delay, but inwardly I was thinking, “Well, I just blew it. Why would they want to hire some to be the executive secretary to the Vice Provost who forgets to check her email account?”

Luckily, they still invited me to come in for an interview. It was the first “official” interview I’d been on in years…throughout my working life, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid the grueling interview process. Either I interviewed with people I already knew (like at JASMYN and UNF) or got a job in another manner (got offered a position after volunteering, went through a temp agency), but in one way or another I managed to dodge the high-stakes interview. I practiced answering typical interview questions, wished I had my mother around to give me pointers and bolster my self-esteem (I am awful at self-promotion), and prepared my resume…and then, of course, I ended up being late to my first interview because it took me forever to find parking. (I got there with 30 minutes to spare, and it took me that long to find a space! Shades of UNF…)

The interview went well, thankfully, and I got asked back for a second interview to talk more thoroughly with the Vice Provost. Apparently they had already gone through three or four secretaries that had been selected for them and didn’t work out, so this time around they planned to really take their time to choose someone who could do the job (check!) and whose personality meshed well with everyone (check, I hope!). After the second interview I was hoping to hear something concrete, but I still had to interview with Employee Recruitment Services so they could see if I would be a good fit with the university…and that was the fast-paced, intense interview I had been dreading. I hadn’t prepared for this one like I should have, and here’s where I got the stereotypical interview questions: What are your strengths? What are the areas in which you need improvement? Go back through every job on your resume and tell me how you met the outcomes of the job! (Yikes!) I was flustered and kept talking in tangents, and the interviewer actually told me that I needed to work on articulating how I met job outcomes. Overall, though, I think I made a good impression…but then I had to wait another week to hear anything.

I was hoping that they would pick me, but I was steeling myself for rejection. It was Friday afternoon, and I was supposed to hear something by 5:00…it was 5:05 when my dad called to check up on me, and I told him, “Nothing yet…I’m hoping that they’re making all the other ’sorry, we chose someone else’ calls first and that this is a good sign.” In the middle of talking about the job, I got the call…and the job! I probably sounded overzealous in my “YES I WOULD LOVE THE JOB THANK YOU” excitement, but yay! Employment! So I got to call my dad and give him the good news, and I had the added bonus of finding out on the very afternoon my friends were scheduled to fly into Los Angeles for the weekend!

The bad news? The night before I got the job offer, USC instituted a hiring freeze. So while I did have a job, they didn’t know when or how I would be able to start working…so the rest of November was spent wondering when I could start the job, which was starting to sound mythical. I ended up going through a temp agency, which will hopefully only be for a short period while the department can get an exception to the freeze and hire me as an actual USC employee (paychecks will be great, but benefits will be awesome). In the meantime, I’m hoping to endear myself and make a great impression.

I’m really excited to have this job, for several reasons. To name a few: I like being the person who helps important people do their job well, my boss has a background in public health (his last secretary left to get her Master’s in Public Health, which is exactly what I want to do!) and I will learn a lot by working here, I love working in a university setting, and it will be great to get paychecks again. It’s only my third day, but so far I like the people with whom I work and I feel like I’m getting a handle on what I need to know.

Little details: I’m working at the USC Health Sciences campus, not the main campus, but my round trip commute is still over two hours each day; I have my own office with a big window that offers a tiny view of some mountains; I have to dress like a professional every day, which is completely different from my wardrobe of jeans and sock feet that my former coworkers used to see at UNF (but I keep thinking about how they would have liked to see this business-lady version of me! And Jane, today I’m wearing bright lavender! You would love it!).

Overall, so far so good! And I know Michael is happy to have me back in the working world, because it means I’m not at home all day to leave my dishes on the coffee table. (Not to mention the fact that he will have a little more disposable income now that he won’t need to support me!)

A short, unordered list of things I’m grateful for:

Lindsey, of course.  But not just because she’s my girlfriend, but because she’s the best girlfriend, ever.  She’s amazing and makes me so happy.  Every day with her is full of laughter and kisses and cuteness overload; I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect partner.  And she feeds me.  Oh how she feeds me.  The proof is in the pants and how tight they’re getting.

My friends.  We don’t see each other as often as we used to, we don’t get into as much trouble as we used to, but we’re growing up and growing up is awesome, too.  They’re family to me.  It doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing, we’ll always come back together.  I’m thankful that I was fortunate enough to meet all of these incredible people and humbled that they would all extend their friendship to me.

Having a job.  Under-payed and over-worked, yes, but it’s steady and I like what I do.  Eventually I’m going to take all of this experience and parlay it into something more, but there’s no rush.  I’m just paying my dues for now, and grateful for the opportunity to do so.  The economy being the way it is, a paycheck is a paycheck and I’m not complaining.

Our little home.  It’s just a little apartment, but I love coming home to it.  It’s cozy and comfortable and just enough space for both of us.  Some day, way out into the future, when a stork drops a little bun off on our doorstep, we’ll need something more, but that’s for future-Michael and future-Lindsey to worry about.

My health.  I could probably stand to see a dentist, but other than the occasional toothache and pink-eye scare, I’m in good health.  It wouldn’t kill me to exercise a bit more, though.

That Lindsey finally got a job!  It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!  She hasn’t written about it here because she’s worried about jinxing it, but she starts on Monday.  We’re finally going to be one of those dual-income households that I’ve heard so much about.  Finally, we can finally start paying down our debt!

And all of you folks who read this blog: thank you!

One year ago today, my mom died. To be honest, today snuck up on me. It doesn’t feel like a year has passed, even though I miss her every day. Sometimes I even find myself talking about her in the present tense, which sounds strange even to my ears…but here’s the thing: neither my mom nor I were/are religious, and I don’t think she’s in “Heaven” or anything, but I do sometimes think that she’s just hanging out in the aether, keeping tabs and checking in and maybe even pulling some strings when available. And if that’s the case, then of course she would still like all the things she liked when she was alive, like “The West Wing” and C-Span and properly-fitting work pants (I like to think that she’s still very invested in my work wardrobe) and blueberry cobbler, to name just a few. But because this is a relationship blog, I can’t help but think about my mom’s death as it relates to Michael.

The timing of my relationship with Michael couldn’t have been better as far as my mom was concerned. She went into hospice in June 2007, and I met Michael almost exactly a month later. My mom got to see my crush develop, and she was the one who strongly encouraged me to grab the bull by the horns and book a last-minute flight out to Los Angeles to see if the chemistry was there in person. When it was confirmed that this had exploded from a crush into full-force love, she couldn’t have been happier; her mind became consumed with wanting to get to know this boy who was making me swoon on a daily basis. My mom and Michael started emailing back and forth to speed up the “getting to know you” phase before he could visit her in person–of course, her very first email to him was about food. She wanted him to write out lists of his favorite seafoods, meats, fruits, and veggies (and how he liked them prepared), and she also wanted to know what he didn’t like to eat so that I knew to avoid those foods. Even on days where she was throwing up and unable to use her hands, I would perch on the couch and transcribe emails to Michael, right down to the punctuation. “Put in a little smiley face!” she would tell me, or, “put ‘dot dot dot’ and then keep going.” Everything Michael-related made her feel so happy and serene, and in one of her last emails to Michael she wrote, “You have no idea how much comfort you have given me simply by existing in her life.”

Everyone at hospice knew about me and Michael, and everyone had seen pictures of us together (she had some on the bulletin board in her room, but she also carried around pictures of us in her journals so that she could show anyone at any time); so when Michael finally did make it to Jacksonville for the first time and came to hospice, all the aides and nurses saw him as we walked down the hallway and were like, “MICHAEL’S HERE!” It was adorable and heartwarming, how so many people were invested in our relationship just because it made my mom so happy and they were all so devoted to her. And then when my mom got to see him in person for the first time…well, it was like they’d met before but hadn’t seen each other in a long time. One of the things I love about Michael is how well he can get along with just about anyone, but watching him with my mom was something truly special. No awkwardness was detectable, just the sense of two people who were completely comfortable with each other right off the bat…just the way I felt when I flew out to Los Angeles that first time.

They got to see each other twice before she died, and I know that both times made preparing for the inevitable easier for her. It seems like a lot to pin onto one person, but meeting Michael meant my mom could become more at peace with knowing she was going to die soon. She knew that I was going to be well taken care of, and almost every time we talked about him she told me that she hadn’t seen me this happy, on a regular basis, in years. And it was true! So she knew, even though she wasn’t going to be around to see it, that I was going to be okay. And I am. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner to be there for me during all of this. The day she died, Michael–as always, the more eloquent of our pairing–wrote this in his journal, and I keep going back to it:

“I will always cherish our time together, just talking and getting to know each other. Mostly though, I would just listen. She was an extraordinarily articulate woman and I was easily captivated by her musings. She had a keen insightfulness and when she spoke, her words carried a kind of weight that’s earned only through living through life’s many battles. She was a survivor in every sense of the word, going 12 rounds and still standing until the very end. She was a teacher, and as much as I will never understand death, she taught me and everyone who came into contact with her so much about living. Our time together, just like her time on earth, was much too short, but I am grateful for even having the chance to know her.

Here’s a poem that I keep reading over and over. It’s optimistic and comforting and makes me cry, which I guess is the appropriate emotional response right now.”

Death is nothing at all. It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life
that we lived so fondly together is untouched,
unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes
that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort,
without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.
All is well.

-Henry Scott Holland, “Death is nothing at all”

I think Mom would be immensely proud of the way Michael is living up to her expectations, and I still couldn’t be happier with him. I know the holiday season will be intermittently rough for me (last Saturday night was the first breakdown), but being able to spend it with Michael–just like she wanted–is one of the best ways I can think of to honor her memory.

I love you, Mom.

We’re back from Vegas!  We just went for the weekend (Friday night to Sunday afternoon) and some of us came home a little richer (Lindsey) and some of us much poorer (me) but we were all winners when it came to having FUN.

The day before the trip I “learned” to “play” roulette online and was totally making a killing, so I was stoked to discover they had these video roulette games where a bank of screens surround a real wheel and you place your bets on the screen so you don’t have to actually interact with anyone and everything moves really fast and you get a new spin every 30 seconds or so — just like the online simulators!  Except with real money.  My strategy of betting on favorite numbers didn’t work out too well (I played my favorite number 16 every time and it was like the coldest of cold numbers at every table, all weekend.  At one point after playing for a couple of hours I had to use the bathroom.  Before I walked away I convinced Lindsey to bet on 16 in my absence… and of course it hit the minute I walked away.  Her 50 cent pity bet turned into an $18 gain — for her.  Looking back, I should’ve taken that as a sign of things to come, but oh well), but Lindsey’s kamikaze technique of randomly touching the screen worked just fine.   Beginner’s luck I tell ya.

Even though we got into Vegas around 10:30 Friday night and I was tired, the minute I sat down and started gambling I perked up (amazing how that happens).  We wound up getting to bed around 5 am, but not before I lost $80 at video roulette and then another $50 at blackjack.  At some point in the middle of the night the table minimums go down so I took a seat at a $5 table and did okay for a while, mostly just treading water.   It was fun being reckless (but feeling lucky) and doubling on a 12 and hitting a 9, but since nothing good happens after 2 am the house eventually parted me with my money. It was fun though.

After waking up around 3pm on Saturday, Lindsey and I explored outer-Vegas, driving all the way into Henderson (where I lived until I was 7) and randomly chancing upon a really good Italian restaurant where we had dinner and listened to the owner tell us how Vegas has sucked ever since it stopped being run by the mob. Then we drove into Downtown Vegas and walked around Fremont street and got to see lots of awesome neon. We also popped into the Golden Nugget where my mom and dad worked as blackjack dealers. Along with lactose intolerence, I have gambling in my genes!  I hadn’t been there since I was a little kid and none of it felt familiar, but it was nice to go “home” and see the place where my parents worked.

Saturday night was all about strippers. Oh, I should probably mention that we were rooming with our friends Daniel and Esther and it was her birthday weekend.  It’s become a tradition to celebrate her birthday with strippers, and guess what Vegas has tons of?  Strip clubs!  A cabbie had given Esther a card to this club that said “free limousine service and complimentary admission” but she was skeptical as to what the catch was, because there’s always a catch, right?  Either you have to listen to a time-share pitch or sponsor a magazine subscription or whatever, but there’s always a catch.  Because I have an awesome professional voice, she asked me to call them to find out what the deal was. Not only did we get a free ride to the club (but we had to tip the driver), but we also got in for free (cover was $30). So it sounded legit and I reserved the limo and then we were whisked off to Sapphire, which is like a gigantic club except only the women are dancing and they’re doing it while naked and on your crotch. Amazingly, there wasn’t a catch — oh wait I spoke too soon because I just ordered 4 drinks from the bar and got charged the equivalent of 10 in LA. So THAT’S how they get you.

We stayed there for about an hour and watched from afar and then took a cab to Little Darlings, where they had this machine where if you fed a $20 into it you could either get change back in the form of $1 bills or “make it rain” on stage. I got to see it happen twice and it was AWESOME. Lindsey also got to grab boobs and we both got to see some rad pole tricks and ladies making out with each other.

We got to sleep around 6am and then were up 4 hours later to get ready to check out. We were total zombies the whole day yesterday but it was worth it.

Lately there is SO MUCH to write about and what seems like so little time…I’m still high off of my Jacksonville trip, and in less than 12 hours I will be picking up two of my best friends, Taya and Robyn, from the LAX airport to spend the long weekend with me here. Right now I’m waiting for Morgan to get here to dye my hair (those pesky grays are starting to emerge again, and I think it’s time to be a redhead–well, auburn, at least–again) and watching “Law and Order” on TV (seriously, being unemployed gets you all caught up on Law and Order). At some point the laundry machines will be empty and I can be more productive…but for now: blog entry!

High points of the trip:

• While Taya was at work, I got to use her car. On Tuesday and Wednesday I went to UNF to visit my former coworkers; I wasn’t as organized as I should have been, so notification that I was coming there was spotty and a little random. Luckily, I ran into almost everyone (with some major exceptions) that I wanted to see just by trolling the halls and hanging out in the adjunct office. I miss all of them so much–they were really like my second family, and I absolutely adored working with so many passionate, intelligent, and caring people. I got to see Eileen, Russ, Jane, Jon, Joe G., Amy, Marcus, Andrew, Sandra, and Barbara while at UNF, and Pam and Joe F. met me for lunch on Friday at Bungalow on Park. Things have changed at the Writing Program…they didn’t fill my position, and it was a little frustrating to see things that wouldn’t have happened had I still been there (like the copier in the adjunct office being out of toner for weeks–and I had left plenty of extra toner there when I left, but who knows what happened to it). The Writing Program Center doesn’t even exist anymore…the library is gone, and someone else is in my former office (he painted it white, which made me saddest of all). It was difficult seeing the changes, especially knowing that if I hadn’t moved things might have been a bit better, but it was so wonderful to catch up with people who made me happy to go to work every day.
• There seemed to be a fortuitous converging of friends in Jacksonville! Claire had moved to Atlanta to pursue her Ph.D., but she was coming through Jacksonville on Thursday while en route to Orlando to accept a teaching award. We met up with our former book club for some happy hour drinking (Yuengling on draft for $2.10 each, omgsogood) and catching up. Then Laura, who had moved to Washington, DC, after I left for Los Angeles, was back in town for the weekend and met us at The Pearl on Friday night for dancing (where I also ran into one of my former writing workshop cronies)! I couldn’t have asked for better timing as far as my friends were concerned.
• I greedily tried to take advantage of everything I liked in Jacksonville that I’ve missed while in LA: I’ve already mentioned YUENGLING, but there was also the Turkey Parisian at European Street, Jax roll at Sushi Cafe, vegan pumpkin ziti and vegan tiramisu cupcakes from Taya’s kitchen, and shrimp piccata at Ragland’s. Plus, there is no natural foods store close to me out here, so I went to Grassroots in Five Points to get some nutritional yeast and ogle their fantastic cheese selection.
• We had a friend gathering at Mary’s house, so I could squee over her baby Stone (he’s gotten so big since I last saw him!), visit with her husband Paul, learn the Thriller dance in her living room, and try on the many wigs lying around the house. Then we went out dancing for one last night at The Pearl, although it was a bit of a bust because the sound was awful, to the point where some songs were all treble and others were almost devoid of vocals. It was painful to my ears and it made it really difficult to dance, so we left sooner than I would have anticipated had it been a normal night.
• I got together with my dad and met Alicia, my mom’s “angel nurse” at hospice to do two things: my dad had never seen my mom’s memorial bench in person, and Alicia had brain surgery recently so we wanted to check on her and see her gnarly scar. (She’s doing really well!) It was drizzly and overcast that day, but the bench still looks beautiful. I’m not going to be in Jacksonville on the anniversary of my mom’s death, November 26, so it was really important to see the bench while I was in town. I didn’t bring any flowers or have any kind of ritual in mind, but just seeing it makes me feel more at peace. I didn’t get to see Katherine, though; she was supposed to come with us to see the bench, but Dad talked to her and she said she was sick. People kept asking me throughout the trip, “How is your sister?” and it was a little odd that I didn’t have a good answer. Um, she’s doing well…I think?

All things considered, the trip to Jacksonville was SO worth it and I only wish it had been longer. There wasn’t nearly enough time to see everyone I wanted to see and fit in everything I’ve missed since leaving there. Hopefully I’ll be back in December!

Lindsey and I woke up early this morning to perform our civic duty, and while our experience may be the exception rather than the rule, the process was quick, painless and easy.   Polls opened at 7am and we rolled up at 7:20 and pretty much walked straight into a booth.  Our local polling place is in the auditorium of this church, and there were a few different tables signing people in and plenty of voting booths.  My only qualm is that the place seriously smelled like bedpans.  Other than my initial stupidity at inserting my ballot into the little machine — at first the holes weren’t aligned so my ink marker wasn’t marking anything — everything went off smoothly.

Since the whole thing only took like 5 minutes, we went over to our neighborhood Starbucks to redeem our free “I voted” coffees.  I talked Lindsey into a Pumpkin Spice Latte (which is what she really wanted anyway) so I came away with 2 coffees (and a coffee cake!).  I drank one on the way to work and I got so warm that I started sweating!  Even though it was overcast and rainy I had to turn on the A/C! And then as soon as I got to my desk I finished the other coffee, so now I have 16 packets of sugar and a few hundred of milligrams of caffeine in my bloodstream and I FEEL SO AMPED!!!!!!!!!!   USA!!! USA!!!!!

Tonight we’re heading to a Downtown bar for this. As we watch the results roll in, hopefully we’re able to use alcohol in a celebratory manner and not as a salve for our crushed hopes, or fuel for a homicidal rampage. Guess we’ll see!

Last night, right as we were about to call it a night and go to bed, we somehow stumbled upon this show on the Discovery channel called I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. We, like most people, find it pretty fascinating that there are women out there who don’t know they’re pregnant and suddenly find themselves in labor.  Apparently this phenomenon happens often enough for there to be a TV show about it, so we watched and recoiled in horror as story after story was told Unsolved Mysteries-style with a voice-over and actors reenacting the trauma. Basically, each story’s arc goes a little like this:

1. Didn’t think I could get pregnant
2. Thought the lack of a period was kind of weird, but stuff happens
3. Actually lost weight / didn’t get cravings
4. Didn’t realize A HUMAN BEING WAS GROWING INSIDE OF ME
5. When I started going into labor, I FREAKED THE HELL OUT
6. A baby?!?!?!?!?!!!?!!?  I don’t even own a bottle or a crib or nothin’!  Because I didn’t realize I was pregnant, see.

There was one lady who was already in the hospital due to her labor pains but the nurses were all, “well, you’re pregnant,” but they didn’t know how far along she was.  So she’s in her room and she’s in incredible pain, so she goes to the bathroom and POOPS THE BABY OUT.  OMG OMG OMG, they actually showed the “baby” floating in the toilet and it was the grossest/creepiest thing ever.  Thank God for DVR so I could rewind and watch that scene in slo-mo over and over again.

In all we watched about 45 minutes of it and had to turn it off because it was making Lindsey ill and also causing her to totally reconsider the miracle of childbirth.

Here’s a little YouTube clip:

Yikes.

I almost didn’t make it to Jacksonville! Against my better instincts, I booked a flight which allowed me only a 50-minute layover in Atlanta. The flight from LA was pleasant enough…I sat next to a friendly guy from Alabama who was visiting his brother in California, and he told me all about his recent divorce, his 80-pound weight loss, and his trip to Universal Studios. They had the fancy touch screens on the back of each seat, so I got to listen to music, play a trivia game (which I won both times, but I will admit that the Delta trivia games are HARD! You can win without getting half of the questions right!), finish reading The World and Other Places by Jeanette Winterson, eat a cheese plate (Delta actually has a pretty tasty one; stay away from Northwest’s if you appreciate cheese at all), and take a tiny nap. We were scheduled to get into Atlanta about 20 minutes early, so I thought I’d have plenty of time to make my connecting flight. It turned out that there wasn’t a gate open for us, and we ended up deboarding almost 30 minutes late. At this point, I only had about 20 minutes until my flight to Jacksonville was scheduled to leave, but I thought, “Well, they’re both Delta flights, so I’m sure they’ll be in the same terminal.”

What, have I never flown on airplanes before? Of COURSE they weren’t in the same terminal. In fact, not only were they in different terminals, the two gates were as far apart as physically possible at the Atlanta airport. I came in at A1 (where that little beetle-looking symbol is), and I discovered that my flight was supposed to leave at E2. I was calling Michael while practically race-walking through the terminal to get to the shuttle, and he was like, “Walk faster!” “I can’t possibly walk any faster! I feel like I’m already getting shin splints from walking so fast!” By the time I got to Concourse E, they were calling for final boarding call for my flight, and of course E2 was the farthest possible distance away. I started running really awkwardly, and this other guy was running alongside me. We were both out of breath, all, “Are you going to Jacksonville? Me too! I hope we can make it!” Then we passed an old lady in a wheelchair being pushed by an airport attendant. “Are you both headed to Jacksonville? Please tell them not to leave me!” That’s when we both slowed down. No way were they going to leave the little old lady in a wheelchair behind, so we could walk the last 100 feet and catch our breath again. We made it on the plane with only a few minutes to spare; I squeezed into my window seat (window seats are my favorite!) and we were on our way.

Arnold picked me up from the airport and took me back to Taya’s apartment (she was in Busch Gardens for the evening with her girlfriend), where a 6-pack of Yuengling was waiting for me in the fridge. East Coasters (except Georgia; sorry!), consider yourself lucky! Yuengling is one of my favorite beers, and it drives me crazy that I can’t get it out here. So one of my goals for Jacksonville was to drink as much of it as possible (within moderation, of course), and it was incredibly sweet of Taya to get some for me. Robyn met me and Arnold at Taya’s; they were both exhausted (Robyn’s brother got married earlier in the day and Arnold had to wake up early the next day to go to a training), but I played the “but I came all the way from California!” card and they graciously took me to the Pearl so I could dance. We only stayed for about two hours, but I got to hear some of my favorite jams and got to commandeer my former dance space. When I noticed Arnold yawning, I knew it was time to go.

Unfortunately, I was still on West Coast time, so I was wide awake. I ended up watching “Bridge to Terabithia” off Taya’s DVR (and crying as much at the movie as I remember doing when I read the book in elementary school), then plundering her bookshelf and reading some Dean Koontz book (progressing in my past, that gave me a middle school flashback) before falling asleep on the couch with the light on around 4:00 in the morning.

The next day was pretty low-key…I met up with my dad for lunch at Al’s Pizza, where we talked about my life in California and how confident he is that I’ll get the job I want. It still dumbfounds me that I have such a great relationship with my dad at this point in my life. Maybe he’s mellowed with age, or maybe I’ve matured to a point where his viewpoints don’t affect me as much. As long as we avoid talking politics or anything race-related, we’re great. I love hearing stories about his life, which is something he never used to talk about when I was growing up, and I’m much more appreciative of all the sacrifices he’s made and how much he really would do anything for me. I like to think I’m channeling my mother when I take her sage advice of “pick your battles” and “there is always a silver lining” when talking to Dad; instead of wanting to cut him out of my life for good (which was my M.O. when I was 17), I just tune out his political leanings and focus on the good parts.

He took me back to Taya’s, where she arrived soon after and we could get all best-friend gleeful on each other. We got to catch up for a while and I got to meet her girlfriend Rey (who gets the thumbs-up from me), then they were off to go bowling (separately) and I had the night to myself. I don’t even remember what it was that I watched on TV, but I got to get some great Dottie snuggles on the couch! My first 24 hours in Jacksonville had come to a close, and it was good to be back.