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Posted on January 6th, 2010 at 12:22am

So here we are. Two Thousand Ten. It’s gotta nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

I’m yet again reminded of sitting in a booth at Denny’s with Charrmaine, coming up with clever rhymes about how great 2008 is going to be. It’s apparently been two years… I’m still waiting on some greatness here. Judging by my goals for the next year, I’m starting to think the greatness may have to be put off another year.

But first, a recap.

Christmas was pretty okay this year. Neither Christmas Eve or Day were at our place, which meant lots of driving two days in a row. Christmas Eve was with my mom’s side of the family, at my Aunt’s house. We did a gift exchange/yankee swap kind of situation. I walked away with the gift my parents brought: a Cuisinart popcorn popper. I figure I have enough movie nights over here that it might someday come in handy.

Christmas day was up in Irvine. My single-ness finally caught up with me, and it was brought to my attention that I’ve been single for the past few Christmasses. It was also mentioned that our family is the only family in the big extended family without any weddings, and/or little ones running around. Being the oldest, I was looked at first. To which I said “Hey, Todd and Beth have been together like four or more years now!”

As for Christmas loot, everything got toned down a bit this year. I got an iPod Nano, which I’m still excited about. The jacket my parents bought me was a size or two too small, so it’s been returned. My dad got me a pretty cool green-laser projector thing, which I used at my NYE party. Todd made me a cool custom Munny doll. Danny told me he ordered me some DVDs I wanted… but I still haven’t got them yet. So, I’m starting to think he once again bailed on gifts for me.

My New Years party was pretty awesome. A very excellent way to end one year, and start another. Despite some big last-minute failures on my part, the party went off very well.

All of my construction and planning was so, so behind. The morning of the party, I woke up at 6 and drove right to my parents’ house to get back to work. With so much still to be done, I didn’t at all have time to stop and take a break for things like… lunch, or dinner.

So, by the time everything was finally up and running and people were showing up and drinks were getting poured, I had a completely exhausted body and a completely empty stomach. Trouble.

It was, hands down, the most drunk I’ve ever been. After one measly cup of Sarah’s punch (which, granted, was extremely strong—we’re talking one full bottle of Sailor Jerry’s, and then some vodka and RedBull on top of that) I was pretty solidly drunk. By the second glass, I was getting pretty wild. As the night went on, the punch bowl was damn near licked clean, and then out came the shot glasses. Trouble again.

That all being said, I didn’t pass out. I didn’t throw up. And somehow, I didn’t even wake up hungover.

Right before we did our midnight countdown, I somehow had the wherewithal to prop up a camera to record video. I’ve got about 4 minutes of video consisting of our midnight countdown, one metric shit-ton of confetti, Ted and I trying to fake kiss (but we failed and just smashed our faces together), and all sorts of Drunk Obnoxious Chris running around and yelling things.

I’ve never actually seen myself drunk before. God damn, I’m obnoxious. I’m pretty damn embarrassed about it now. But oh well, I had a lot of fun.

Group by group, the crowd started to drop off after midnight. The last to leave were Sarah, Carrie, Garret, and Devin. Around 4:30 in the morning we called it a night, and by 5 I was laying in bed…. spinning.

I couldn’t sleep very well at all. About 20 minutes after getting into bed, I got the worst charlie horse ever. In my thigh muscle, and it lasted (what felt like) 15 minutes. I was in so much pain. After it was over, my leg still hurt. It hurt for the rest of the following day, in fact.

In the morning, I had maybe only slept a total of an hour. That day was rough. Running on a total of an hour’s sleep, a night of heavy drinking, very little food in my stomach still, and a full day of running around climbing up and down ladders the day before. Rough. I said this once before, but it bears repeating. It was an absolute exercise in seeing just how far I could push my body before limbs just started to fall off.

The good news, though, is that I managed to lose over 5 pounds from all that. No, seriously.

I spent the next day sleeping, and it was amazing. I caught up with Jasmine to make up for all the lost time. We ate at Carl’s Jr. The last time I ate there was easily 8 months ago. We knew it was a mistake ahead of time, and it was. A brick of [delicious] food in my stomach all night long, and I’ll never do it again. Another good way to start off the year, really. Re-learning that lesson.

I spent most of the 2nd sleeping and putting my own apartment back together. I went out and bought another Wii. Later in the evening, I met up with Sarah for dinner. We went to Islands, a place I didn’t much care for. But it had been years since I was last there, and I didn’t hate it much at all this time around.

After that, we came back to my place to drink beers and play the new Mario Bros. Carrie joined us later. It was an extremely relaxing night, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Sarah and I went to Disneyland on the 3rd. I was expecting it to be crazy busy, and I wasn’t really let down. We managed to make it through the day without waiting in any lines that were too long. I had a horrible realization about my mental state while at Disneyland, and if I can find the courage, it will be the topic of a big long post someday soon.

I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, but I agreed to a weight loss contest. 15 pounds in 2 months, starting yesterday. With the exception of the rum and coke I’m drinking right now, I’ve been behaving rather well so far. I even did 3 miles on the treadmill last night (for the first time in about a month and a half). I know it’s a long shot, but I can’t just give up.

Speaking of giving up…

Goodnight Moon.

Posted on January 6th, 2010 at 12:19am

I spent January through March depressed. In April, I got a new car. In May, we re-signed our lease in an apartment we didn’t want. Between the NIN concert, the Mansion’s 40th, and a particular girl, September was easily the best month of the year, and quite likely the decade. October was the worst. In November, my apartment was broken into and I lost about $8,000 in electronics. In December, my insurance company paid me back only $4,500.

In general, I spent most of this year on the brink of destruction. I went to places darker than I ever thought possible. I think it’s easy to say that next year will be better. Hard to imagine it being any worse.

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on December 21st, 2009 at 1:13am

Well, it’s official. Sarah is my own personal corrupter. It was bound to happen eventually.

Quite a few things going on these days. Of course I’m still working on all kinds of projects for the new years party. I keep coming up with crazy ideas to try and make happen. And amazingly, we’ve been finding ways to make everything happen.

Usually when we’re building and planning these insane parties, I come up with these “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” ideas that end up being too big for our budgets and/or skill set. This time around, though, everything I’ve come up with, we’ve been able to put into practice. It’s kind of amazing.

I finally got a check from the insurance company. They’re giving me a little more than half of the value of the stolen items. Infuriating. There’s another two grand I’m “eligible” for if I can prove that what they’ve given me isn’t enough to replace the items. Which, in actuality, is just more arbitrary hoops to jump through just to make things difficult on me. I might not get around to shopping for everything until January. Maybe there will be some after Christmas sales and I’ll be able to make the money stretch further.

Sarah came over Friday and Saturday night for more drinks and movies. Friday night we ate at Gandolfos, then tackled two bottles of wine and watched Stingray Sam. All three of those things sound fantastic to me right now…

Saturday night she came over later in the evening. I was out of mix-ins for our drinks, so she decided it would be a good idea to do shots. So… that’s what we did. It was just supposed to be a quiet Saturday movie night, and a half hour later we’re both giggling our little faces off. We watched The Long Kiss Goodnight, and other random TV shows. Talked a lot about the party. She’s painting a big mural-like space scene for me. I’m sure it’ll be rad.

I’ve got quite a bit of Christmas shopping left to do. It’s only just starting to stress me out. Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow… or Tuesday.

Todd is coming into town tomorrow night. It’ll be good to see him again. I want to borrow American Astronaut from Sarah and make Todd watch it with me. I’ve got a feeling he may like it.

I think that about does it. End of the year is rapidly approaching. Time to look back, and plan ahead.

Things just keep changing.

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on December 7th, 2009 at 1:23am

Painting, building, cutting, nailing, sawing. I’ve spent almost all of my weekend in the garage working on party-related things.

I’ve come to realize that I’ve lost focus on too many other things in my life, while I’m working on all of this party nonsense. I forgot that it’s already Christmas time, which means I need to start shopping. So… that kinda sucks.

There’s still so much left to do.

I just finished watching Metropolis. When I put it on my Netflix, I knew it was a very old movie, but I did not know it was a silent film. I enjoyed it, but I think my understanding of it is only surface-level. Might be worth another watch or two later down the line.

I’ve been having some troubles with insurance companies lately. First, my car insurance company loves it when I pay may bills late so they’ve become very good at mailing me my bill the day before it’s due. And since they only accept checks, I need the actual paper bill to pay the damn thing.

Then I get a letter in the mail from my renters insurance telling me that it’s been a month since I’ve filed my claim and if I don’t send them any of the paper work and information they requested then my claim will become inactive. Which is very maddening, given that I’ve got a delivery confirmation notice saying they received all the paperwork I sent out last month. I’m sure this will be a fun one to try to clear up.

What else?

I’ve been extra broke this weekend, so I didn’t get my regular hang-outs with Jasmine or Sarah. Definitely a bummer. Lots of talk with Li-Ling and Company(tm) about our winter Disneyland trip, which is always a great thing. I’m asking Sarah to come with this year. I need a riding buddy, now that everyone else has partnered up.

I’m becoming increasingly excited for a new year to start. I don’t know why, really. As silly as it is, there is definitely a “start fresh” feeling when the calendar rolls over to January. I’ve already got my list of things I want (and need) to accomplish in 2010.

I think that about does it. Nothing terribly exciting going on right now.

And for the life of me, I can’t get this paint off my hands.

Goodnight Moon.

Posted on November 29th, 2009 at 2:59am

A productive day. I woke up pretty early (which is getting a lot easier, considering the small amount of sleep I’ve been getting lately), and went right over to my parents house. I started a big new project for the party, and so far it’s coming together nicely.

I find it kind of funny, sometimes. I get a fair amount of shit being “such a girl,” (and I’m aware that I bring 95% of that on myself) but I’d like to see what they say about me when I’m buried in saw dust, hammering and cutting wood all day long. Damn straight.

Sarah came over tonight for some food and movie-time. She’s just back from her trip to Paris, but doesn’t have any of her photos printed yet. So I was sad about that. We tried a new restaurant that opened up called BJ’s and it was extremely delicious. A ton of food, rather cheap, and yeah… just really tasty. It was a total win.

We came back to my place and watched The American Astronaut, which we’ve been meaning to do for sometime now. I don’t think I’ve got the words just yet to express what I saw, or even how much I enjoyed it. Suffice to say, it’s an excellent little movie and completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

Tera, we need a movie night soon!

Sarah and I spent a lot of time discussing the party. She’s pretty much the only person outside of my family that is really in the loop about what I’m doing. She’s been talking it up at work for a while now, so I feel much more confident that a good number of people will show up to this thing.

Which, of course, really puts the pressure on me to make it something awesome.

Shouldn’t be a problem!

Goodnight Moon.
I love you.

Posted on November 24th, 2009 at 11:52pm

I don’t know how much longer I can continue to say “I’m just going through the motions” before I start to bore myself. For having my life turned upside down and inside out, things sure are boring over here.

I’m looking forward to the long weekend coming up. Tomorrow should be a pretty easy going day at work, and then it’s time to shut off the brain until Monday. Plus the food, of course.

My mom and I have made a lot of progress in the garage cleaning it up and emptying it all out. Danny and I have been taking apart all sorts of random things we find along the way. We successfully took apart a CRT monitor, which was dangerous. Do something wrong and it could kill you, actually. A few cool parts inside, but we ended up having to shatter the tube/glass… which exploded in a pretty awesome kind of way.

I’m totally in a crap mood tonight. Not really sure where this one came from. I had a very hard time falling asleep last night, so maybe I’m just cranky. It was pretty close to 4 in the morning by the time I started to get tired enough to sleep. I think I’m gonna try to go to bed a little earlier than usual tonight to make up for it.

Again… I’m this point in my life where the only thing in my head is “something’s gotta give.” It’s the same point I’ve been at for years now. Wasting away what’s left of my years. Bah.

I’m just cranky, right?

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 2:28am

I don’t really have anything worthwhile to say right now. Still pressing forward with the insurance company. Still slowly making headway on my New Years party. Still bored as all hell while I’m at home, and still drinking lots of wine and watching lots of movies to occupy my time.

That’s… about it really.

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on November 16th, 2009 at 1:48am

The insurance company requires me to send them a copy of the police report along with all the other paperwork. So, I stopped by the police department Saturday morning only to find out it takes “ten to fifteen business days” to get a copy mailed to me. Which means I’m at least ten days away from sending any paperwork to the insurance company. Which, then, means I’m a long ways away from them sending me any compensation.

Translation: I’m computer-less for much longer than I can stand.

I talked to my parents tonight about them fronting me the money to replace my main computer, and then I can pay them right back as soon as a check comes through. We didn’t get to finish the conversation, but it seemed to be going in a positive direction. I’m sad I even have to ask. If I had that kind of money right now, I’d definitely do it myself. Go on credit for a few weeks, maybe a month.

Otherwise, I’m still just going through the motions. I keep telling myself that, at least. I think it helps me feel like I’m doing… “it” right.

Moving has been on my mind a lot lately. I’m not sure it has much to do with the break-in, actually. Other than, that is, just adding to the sense of “Boy, I sure do hate it here.” Not that I have any idea where I’d want to go, or with whom I would live. Although, I secretly have two people in mind that I think I’d get along well with in a roommate situation.

Los Angeles has been popping up in my head again. Which is, perhaps, ironic being that I no longer know anyone living there. Tera and Charrmaine have moved out and moved on.

I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. I’ve got nothing better to do, you know. Last night I watched Children of Men, then right after I watched 12 Monkeys. An inadvertent post-apocalyptic theme going on. I don’t know why exactly, but there’s something rather alluring to me in these dystopian worlds. The war-torn world in Children of Men, or the dark and over-crowed Los Angeles in Blade Runner. It’s almost romantic to me. The busy, noisy, dirty city. It never stops moving. You could never feel alone with that many people around.

But all of this has made me think about moving to a big(ger) city-type location. I just don’t see myself living outside of California, so it would have to be LA. San Francisco is too north for my likes, as great a city as it is.

Besides… who am I kidding? I’m not going to move. I’m not going anywhere. I’m stuck right here.

Goodnight Moon.
I miss you more than I should.

Posted on November 15th, 2009 at 1:22am

The Cassandra Syndrome:

A condition that describes someone who knows, or can see the future but cannot do anything about it.

Goodnight Moon.

Posted on November 13th, 2009 at 1:23am

“It’s kind of amazing how you lose it over not having Friday night plans, but when your shit is stolen you’re all composed. Proud of you.”

Emily dropped that on me the other night. I’ve noticed the same thing. I’m a little surprised I haven’t punched a hole in a wall, or lost my temper, or… cried even. Reruns of House make me cry… but this happens and… I’m fine? Weird.

The difference is that when I’m stuck home alone on a weekend night because I’ve got no plans, I take it personally. Obviously I’m home alone because no one wants to hang out with me, right? Where as when my shit gets stole’d, I can’t really take that personally. Unless I find out it was done by some friend of mine or something, but that’s just not the case here. It’s just a random event that happens to effect me.

Maybe that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t know.

I spent tonight digging through every last inch of this apartment, trying to track down proof of the things I [used to] own. I’ve got photos or receipts for most of everything. I’m having a hell of a time tracking down any kind of evidence of ever owning my Canon camera. It’s frustrating.

Weekend is coming up. Looking forward to getting all of this business out of my brain for a little bit and re-focus on party setup.

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.