Wednesday, June 29, 2005

sad song?

i don't about your house, but mine perpetually has way too many cars in front of it. waaaaaaay too many. yesterday, there were eight, count'em eight, vehicles in front of the house by the speed bump. the owners were me (yes, i have jules back, no more 15-passenger van!), kc, vanessa, rauni, kyle, nicki, johnny, and the white car that our land lords own and keep in the driveway. i was at home for a few hours, and i locked up when i left because no one else was there. no one was home, but there were still four cars in front, not including mine. you see, two people left in each car. that's when it hit me... everyone had a friend but me. rauni and her boyfriend kyle took his car, nicki and her fiance johnny took her car, and kc went with her best friend vanessa.

if this was a poor-me movie or a music video about loneliness, that would have been really sad. but i was okay, it was just a funny thing to realize. well, keep reading.

down the road i passed the house where my friends james and teresa live. and they were outside, in front, checking out james' car. i waved.

then i passed josh and kat's apartment. they weren't outside or anything, but i was in everybody-has-somebody mode, so i thought of them anyway. i was thinking, what could make this story more ironic? is pablo going to come around the corner with his girlfriend and their son and their neighbors?

and that's exactly what happened, i swear, i'm not lying. i saw a guy on a bike, with one of those kiddie trailers that the babies ride in, and i realized it was him almost as soon as i had that thought. right behind him were his girlfriend and their neighbors. to top all of this off, i was on my way to carmelita and steve's house, my two friends that just got married early this month. well.

i think this story has been a music video. doesn't it sound familiar? what a sad song playing in the background!

but like i said, for me, the story was much more bizarre than sad. like jack says, i'm alone but i'm not lonely, not anymore.

Monday, June 27, 2005

I'M HAPPY!!!!!

Isaiah 24:14

They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the LORD's majesty.

Friday, June 24, 2005

fear

here's what was keeping me awake last night.

have you ever thought about what fear does to people? it's almost like a drug, because it impares a person's thinking and makes everything seem worse than it really is. sometimes, it can completely incapacitate someone. i remember once when i was about ten, i was summer camp and we had gone to play at this waterfall that ran out of a cool cave. the kids were climbing all over it. i was climbing down onto a little platform and all of a sudden i felt like i was way too close to the edge. i wasn't, and even if i had been, even if i had fallen, i would have landed in the water and been just fine. there were kids right next to me jumping off the rocks into the pool below. but i was so scared i couldn't move. i didn't move at all for what seemed like forever. one kid noticed i was scared and tried to help me, but i wasn't wouldn't take his hand because i was afraid to move. the counsellors finally noticed that i hadn't budged and came to "rescue" me. i was fine the whole time, but i had nightmares about that for years.

consider a woman and a spider. i know that not all women are afraid of spiders, but my mom sure is. especially when i was little, if she saw a spider, she would go crazy- screaming, jumping around, maybe running away, and yelling for my dad. i know everyone says the spider is more afraid of the person, but think about it. most of the spiders in my house were wolf spiders and were harmless. they always died, too, once my mom knew they were there. they had a lot more to be afraid of than she did. but because my mom was afraid, it effectively made her useless, just like i was useless on that waterfall.

why are people afraid of spiders? is it because they can bite? i personally think it's the eight legs that creep most people out. but why is that scary?

why is anything scary?

what are you afraid of? for me, it's broken glass. it scares me because when it's really sharp, it can cut your skin and you can't even feel it. it just splits you open. i still have nightmares about big, jagged sheets of glass with blood on them cutting into people. i hate watching it in movies. i think it scares me because you can't feel it and you can't do anything about it. so maybe that's it? that it makes people helpless? i'm afraid of being helpless? but sometimes fear makes me helpless. that doesn't make sense.

i'm afraid of zombies, too. yes, i know zombies aren't real, but i used to lay awake at night because i was terrified of them. why? i think it's the same reason. if a zombie bites you, you turn into a zombie, and there's nothing you can do about it. i'm afraid of things that make me helpless. it's an oxymoron.

think about movies, where the girl is helpless to fight off the bad guy because she's so scared she practically peeing her pants. in thriller movies, the characters are usually clinging to each other because they are so terrified. fear doesn't make sense. it reduces people to helpless, illogical little children.

FDR said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. when i was little i always thought that was a dumb quote. i thought, of course there are things to fear. that president, whoever he was, didn't know anything. but it's so true! fear makes everything worse, and in most cases, it makes the scary thing impossible to fight.

so what are you afraid of? think about it. why does it scare you?

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

of all the bloody luck

you will not believe what i just heard on the radio.

first, let me tell those of you who don't know, i'm a huge beatles fan. i found out a few months ago that paul mccartney is touring the US again, and he will be in phoenix the day before my birthday. he will be in las vegas the day after my birthday. i want to go very badly. i think i would give up one of my kidneys to go to that concert. the good tickets are around $2000, so i don't think it's going to happen. i was telling all this to my dad, and he said, "well, all you have to do is win some tickets." yeah, sure dad. that's all i have to do.

so here i am at work, listening to the radio. the dj is saying, call in and be a big winner! here's the question: where is paul mccartney (and here my ears perk up like a little cartoon kid who hears "candy") opening his US tour?

now i happen to know that it's miami. i all but shout to pablo, who is sitting right next to me, "I KNOW THIS ONE!" and he immediately opens his phone and tries calling the station. good ol' pablo. but we don't get through.

who does get through? mike somebody from someplace.

"okay, mike, you have a chance to be our big winner! tell us, mike, in what city will paul mccartney open his US tour?"

and mike says london. LONDON!

the dj laughs and answers, "no, mike. his US tour. in the united states."

mike says, "oh, whoops! that was dumb..." or something like that.

dj says, "oh that's okay, mike, we'll give you another chance. here's a hint: the city is in florida."

mike says, "miami?"

and as far as i can tell, won tickets to the thing. of course, the entire time i was about to pull out all my hair. this guy doesn't even know what a US tour is! i could have told that dj so many facts about paul mccartney or the beatles or anything else!

why, why, why?

Friday, June 17, 2005

but break, my heart

sometimes you’ve got to wonder about the wisdom of ol’ bill shakespeare. take young prince hamlet, for example. in his first soliloquy, hamlet describes all the torment he’s going through; his father died, his uncle married his mom, and he feels like his family is falling apart. he ends with the ever-famous, “but break, my heart, for i must hold my tongue.” in this case, it seems that bill is saying that it’s better to keep your mouth shut and suffer than let your emotions out. i’d have to disagree. from experience, my friend.

i’ve found myself in a similar situation as hamlet. no, my mom and my uncle will certainly never get married, and my dad has not been murdered, thank heaven, but i am faced with the decision to either call someone up and maybe feel a little bit better, or keep quiet and let my heart keep breaking. the keeping quiet carries even further, since whenever someone asks me how i'm doing i answer, "i'm fine" or "pretty good" or even "not bad. " so far, i’m holding my tongue like a pro, just as shakespeare suggests.

but how long is this going to keep up? i've gone from seeing or talking to the same person every day, several times a day, to absolutely no contact at all for five weeks now. it's a huge change. it's like not having a house anymore. it's like i don’t have anywhere to go at the end of the day. it sucks a lot more than i could ever describe.

i would much rather loose my tongue than break my heart. i don’t know what shakespeare was getting at, but having a broken heart is one of the worst experiences ever. EVER. but that’s exactly what i have to endure in this situation. i know he doesn’t want to hear from me, so, paraphrased, i tell myself:

“but break, my heart;
suffer, my soul;
lie, my mouth;
hide, my face;
for i must hold everything inside.”

sorry if i got a little poetic on you. thinking about shakespeare and love will do that to a person.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

YES, I LOVE YOU!

for some time now i've been trying to choose between the yes and the moody blues for my second-favorite band. and my first favorite, you ask? you obviously haven't seen my bedroom. i don't have time to count the beatles pictures on my walls. but anyway, i always put off the second-favorite decision by claiming i couldn't choose until i'd seen them both in concert, and i'd only seen yes. as of last night, that is no longer the case. uh.

i saw the moody blues last night, in concert at the sandia casino, the same place i saw yes. it was awesome. i'm so glad i went, even though i had to go by myself. i had begged josh to go with me, but he thought it would be boring (thanks a lot). but i ran into tony while i was there! i was really glad to see him. he said i was a hardcore fan for going alone. i bet him two cents that they would end with "i'm just a singer in a rock & roll band", but i lost, because they played it early. when they did, the guy next to me, who was at least in his sixties (his wife was 58) started jumping up and down and SCREAMING "rock and roll! rock and roll!" it was so cool. i started jamming out with him. people are great. there was a whole family in front of me, and when they saw that i was having fun and cheering and stuff, they gave me a glow stick to wave like a faux lighter. cool!

after "i'm just a singer" they played "nights in white satin", which was probably the high point for me. it was great when everyone in the crowd sang along, "YES I LOVE YOU!" so much fun. they ended with "the question", which is one of my favorites, and then played "ride my see-saw" as an encore. they didn't play my favorite moody blues song, "you and me", but that was okay. like so many of my favorite songs, it's not one of the bands greatest hits. oh well. the concert was great.

but at the end, here i am with this decision to make. i can officially say, now that i can consider the concert possibilities, that yes is my second favorite band. the moody blues will have to settle for third.

but the concert was great!

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

you call him MR. SPIDER, sir

last night i went to see star wars again with josh. i can safely say, now that i've seen it twice, that i loved it. it's great. i think it was better the second time, because the whole darth vader/frankenstein thing didn't freak me out, and i knew when the cheesy lines where coming. it's not happy enough to just watch all the time, but it's great. i'd like to own it some day.

after the movie josh dropped me off at my house. he gave me a ride because i'm still driving my mom's fifteen-passenger van, and parking that at the local theatre is just a bad idea. like a gentleman, josh waited in the driveway until i got into the house, and i'm sure glad he did. i've grown accustomed to our really bright porch light attracting all manner of nocturnal bugs that hang around our door, but this was different. this was the biggest non-tarantula spider i've ever seen, no kidding, and it was chillin right below the doorknob. it was so big that it looked like it could jump on me from twelve feet away and kill me with a single bite. i think it had a concealed weapon somewhere on it's person. i turned right around and told josh that i wasn't going near it.

understand something here... i'm not really afraid of spiders. unlike my mother, i can watch the radioactive bite scene in spiderman without freaking out. i can usually kill them no problem, but this one was really, really big. that thing could bend steel bars. and anyway, i was wearing flip flops.

if josh hadn't been there, i would have had to just suck it up and startle the thing myself. but i'm sure glad he was there to scare it for me. he says he thinks it was a wolf spider and probably wasn't poisonous. whatever. i've never seen a wolf spider that big.

i had no idea i was such a damsel.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

somebody to love

today carmelita came back from her honeymoon. i'm really glad she's home because i missed her a lot, and you have no idea how many times last week i almost called her and then reconsidered because i knew she was out on her romantic dream trip to disneyworld. she told me today that it wouldn't have mattered even if i had called... her phone was off the whole time. smart little girl, that one.

anyway, one of the main reasons i'm glad she's home is because she's curing me from a perpetual case of song-in-the-head syndrome. i've had queen's "somebody to love" running through my thoughts for several days now, and it's a lot worse when you don't know all the words to the song you can't shake. so i went over to carmen's today and she loaned me her husband's (that's weird) 2-disk set, full of 34 of queen's greatest hits. i've listened to track ten on disk one about seven times since then, and i think it's getting a little better.

my little sis was passing through town on her way to albuquerque, so she stopped to have lunch with us. she showed us what my dad bought her for her birthday yesterday... a very, very nice acoustic guitar that she calls samson. her other guitar, an electric one, is named guinevere. steve said that girls are weird because we name everything. well, he's right. and my sis has a purty new guitar.

queen rocks. once i asked my psychology teacher why a person could get songs stuck in his head, and he said that no one knows. if you know, please tell me.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

i'd say so! :)

Your element is Light: Innocent, beautiful, kind-hearted and pure. You are so sweet your almost angelic, you find joy in others happiness and cannot stand to see anyone in pain. You want to make everyone around you feel good about themselves and if someone is upset you can tend to become rather upset as well which means you are sympathetic and raise others above yourself. Being as kind and good-natured as you are people have most likely hurt you in the past but you pick yourself up every time. You may look fragile but you are stronger than most tend to see. Life is beautiful no matter how you look at it and you understand that people make mistakes, not everyone is perfect. You try to see the good in the bad which is a talent few posses, dont ever let anyone change you. You truly have a beautiful soul inside and a heart of gold.

i agree

Orange
Orange is your Lightsaber color.
Orange represents energy and enthusiasm. It also
symbolizes strength and endurance. People with
orange lightsabers are curious about life, and
the world around them. Fascination catches them
at every turn, and they are creative enough to
understand life's potential.

What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?
brought to you by No comments:

Thursday, June 09, 2005

happy birthday, alex!

a few weeks ago was my cousin's first birthday party, and i got some great pictures of my family. here are only a few. my aunt and uncle are two of the most fun people i know, and they provided funny party hats for us all to wear... and there were a lot of us, since the kid really is a cutie.
this is me and my three favorite people, my brothers and my sister! sorry that it's a little blurry, there was a lot going on, and richie, the photographer in this case, maybe got distracted?

i'm the one in the top hat.

this is my cute little cousin, alex. i took pictures of him for like fifteen minutes, and i got ONE good one where he is cute and smiling and has cake on his face. everyone should have a picture of themselves with cake all over their face from that birthday number one.
and these are my adorable little brothers. sure, one of them is a lot bigger than i am, but he's still my little bro. don't they look smart?

boring!

bored? give this a click.

(it's nothing bad, i promise.)

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

easy as 1, 2, 3!

now that my brother is out of class for the summer, he's gotten into those 'get to know your friends' emails. most of them are annoying, and ask questions like "what color socks are you wearing right now?", but here's one that is actually interesting (and these are my answers, not his).


A - Age you got your first kiss: 20, and i'm starting to think maybe that was too young.

B - Band listening to right now: THE BEATLES!

C - Comeback(favorite): i don't really have any good ones, except maybe, "what is this 'we', white man?"

D - Dorkiest habit: i'm addicted to gilmore girls. but that's really the only tv i watch, i swear!

E - Easiest person to talk to: scuba steve! or anybody really, i'm a social person.

F - Favorite band at the moment? THE BEATLES! and what is this "at the moment", white man? ;)

G - Gummy worms or gummy bears? bears. but i'll eat the worms, no problem!

H – Hometown: las cruces, new mexico

I - Instruments: kazoo!

J - Joke (favorite): this one's great! if you don't get it right away, just give it some time.

so there's these two goldfish sitting in a tank. one goldfish turns to the other and says, "okay, you drive, i'll do the guns."

ha ha ha!

K - Kids: none yet, but the girls will be named sofia and lucie, and the boys will be named jason, gabriel, christian, and luke

L - Longest car ride ever: lac cruces to virginia beach

M - Most embarrassing moment: when i was on crutches for my sprained ankle at the NMSU campus and it was raining and i slipped on the tile and my crutches went flying and i fell flat on my back and i made a whole lot of noise and disturbed all the classes and then everyone laughed at me instead of helping me up and all i could do was sit there. sniff...

N - Nicknames: sugar boogar (little brother), erer (sister), sister sue (big brother), hollypolly (everyone else)

O - One wish: i wish i had a red biplane! or a yellow sea plane!

P - Phobia[s]: skunks, zombies, and broken glass. and the dark, if i think it might contain any of the above.

Q - Quote: "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." -yogi berra. that cracks me up.

R - Reason to smile: because almost everything's funny, especially in retrospect

S - Song you sang last: "You've got to Hide Your Love Away"... by THE BEATLES!

T - Time you woke up [today]: ten til six. almost an hour and a halfafter my roomie's alarm went off at 4:30. that woke me up, too, but idon't know if that counts.

U - Unknown fact about me: i'm a morning person. even at 4:30.

V - Vegetable (or fruit mistaken for a vegetable) you hate: artichoke hearts. celery and avocados are usually gross too.

W - Worst habit(s): i'm very territorial. and i might be an intellectual snob. but are those really habits? hmm...

X - X-rays you've had: left foot, both wrists, inside my belly, both ankles, and teeth.

Y - Yummy food: i'm eating m&ms right now. i joined the jedi, because i chose milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate. i don't usually fallfor the marketing schemes, but this one was fun. go jedi!

Z - Zodiac sign: Sagittarius, but i don't follow that stuff very closely.

the adventure

man, working by yourself is hard! i told adam yesterday that i was so bored i was ready to take a drill to my head. i was mostly joking. thank GOD pablo's coming back this afternoon.

last week i was talking on aim to my good friend and study buddy jon. i told him i was really bored and i wished i had a plane. the next weekend jon was in town from burkey and hung out with josh, but i didn't get to see him because i was at the wedding (see yesterday's post :) ). well, jon left a present for me at josh's house. i was super excited because i love getting and giving presents, but josh wouldn't tell me what it was. he did tell me he was jealous though. then i knew... it was a plane.

sure enough, josh handed me a little box with a tiny motorized plane inside. it was yellow! it was pretty! and styrofoam! i named him benny. i loved it! now jon's automatically on my top ten list of favorite people in the world, because i love airplanes. he found the key to my heart.

josh and i put the plane together, but stupid me put the wings on backwards so the plane tilts down instead of up. the adhesive was really strong and i couldn't get the wings off, but josh told me it would probably work anyway. we jumped josh's back fence, which was difficult, since there was a big drop on the other side. josh has a little park behind his backyard, and it was the perfect place for benny's maiden voyage. having the wings on backward worked okaaaay... he was just flying low instead of high. but being the engineers we are, we wanted to fix it.

we went back to josh's house (by way of the fence) and sawed the wings in half and turned them around and glued them back together and added some toothpicks for reinforcement. when we were done poor benny looked ghetto, and i was terrified that his flying days were over. we'd already broken one of his propellers. we jumped the fence again and crossed all our fingers and blew on the plane for good luck. i tossed him up.... and he flew! he kept going higher and higher, and josh and i were so excited, we were like little ten-year-olds, jumping up and down and cheering. it was lovely.

that lasted about twelve seconds.

benny stopped flying in circles and flew clear across the park and over someone else's wall and straight into a tree. a pissed-off bird flew out of the tree and gave us a dark look, but that was the least of our worries. the people at the house weren't home. their back wall was about eight feet tall, and unlike josh's fence, impossible to climb. we could see that benny had lodged himself about twenty-five feet off the ground in a locust tree, right over a really tall shed. josh gave me a boost and i got on top of the eight foot wall. i was hitting the tree branch with a stick, hoping benny would fall out. that wasn't working, and even if it had, we would have to get him out of the yard, and i couldn't climb the fence by myself.

josh told me to jump to the shed. i told him to get real. he handed me a board, thinking that it would reach from the fence to the shed, which it certainly didn't. however, it did reach from the fence to a grape vine lattice, the top of which was about seven feet off the ground. i shuffled to the lattice, which kinda freaked josh out, because as far as he knew i was walking on thin air. from the lattice i could reach the shed. josh told me where to look and i found poor benny, with another broken propeller and a beat-up nose. i tossed the plane to josh, who missed it, the oaf, and they both disappeared behind the wall. i called, "is it okay?" josh answered, "ummmm...... yeah....." i knew he was lying.

getting off the shed was a lot harder than getting on. i had to stretch to reach the board with my foot, and josh had to hang onto the other side so it wouldn't flip and dump me into the yard. finally though, i was back on the fence again, and josh helped me down. benny's tail fin and back wing had broken when josh dropped him. ever the optimist, josh promised it would still fly. we charged the plane and let it go and it went straight into the ground. it reminded me of one of rachel's gutterballs. poor benny!

well, if jon's goal was to get rid of boredom, he certainly did that. big adventure, daring rescue, heights, and i actually didn't mention the dogs, but there were dogs. poor little benny is on the desk in our front hall now, waiting for the day when we fix him up so he can relive his twelve seconds of soaring glory.

well, hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work i go. may your adventures be sweet.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

The Wedding

well, everyone, it's just me today. no pablo, no dr. ghosh, just yours truly, sitting here at work wondering what she is supposed to be working on and hoping the day goes by quickly. and by day i mean seven in the morning to seven at night. it's true, it's not as long as the fourteen or fifteen hour days i used to work when i kept stats for the hockey league, but these twelve hour days are supposed to be every day. pablo and i and supposed to pull in sixty hours a week. it's harder than it sounds.

but i didn't start this to complain about my job (there is much to complain about, but i am thankful for it). i wrote this morning to tell you that my little carmelita, my best techie girlfriend, got married on saturday. and i cried!

on thursday night we had the bachelorette party, and carmen, rachel, vanessa, and my sister and i dressed up in silly prom dresses and mardi gras beads and broaches and fake flowers and silly hats and cat ears and tiaras. oh, and sneakers. those were mandatory. we went out to eat at the restaurant where my brother is a chef (impressed, girls?), bountiful bakery, and then went and had a scavenger hunt at the mall. then bowling, coffee, and the karaoke bar! we all sang, but carmelita showed us all up with "material girl." it was even funnier for her to sing it, since the whole bar knew she was the bride-to-be. i was really glad that no one came up and did anything inappropriate, like give her a lap dance or anything like that. one guy did come and hit on rachel... but he left before the rest of us got too defensive.

after the party in cruces we headed to alamogordo to decorate the church and the reception hall and meet with the guys. we had a lot more fun than they did at the bachelor party! ha ha! the guys were a lot of fun though! the groomsmen were jd, harley, and micah, and cody the camera guy was hanging out the whole time, getting everything on film. he was my favorite! he's funny.

we all stayed in the same hotel, so it felt like high school again, like we were all on a club trip, but this time there were no chaparones and we could stay up all night and now we're over 21, so we could drink. we bought alcohol and played mafia. i didn't drink very much at all because i really don't like the taste of alcohol, and i certainly didn't get drunk. i mostly drank a few cream sodas with cody, who is eighteen. but playing mafia when most of the people present have a buzz is funny! conversations went something like:

"i think rachel's in the mafia."

"why?"

"because she's drinking!" (ridiculous laughter)

"rachel? what do you have to say for yourself?"

"i'm not in the mafia! i'm a happy drunk, not a mean drunk!" (more laughter)

the next morning carmen woke us up at dawn to go get beautiful. the makeup and hair ladies went to town on us. one of the first things that happened was that somehow everyone found out that i don't know what moisturizer looks like. that very quickly turned into "holly doesn't know anything about beauty or makeup." so, everyone felt the need to primp me and practically put on my clothes and explain to me what mascara is for and especially to tie the stupid bow on the front on my dress. everyone thought that it couldn't be right because they assumed i had tied it, which i hadn't, but they came along and tied it for me anyway. once, vanessa tied it and half an hour later or so told me she had to fix it, when she was the last person that had tied it!

i was wearing so much makeup and bronzer and had a loopy hairdo that is so not like my usual ponytail. and i wasn't wearing my glasses, which have fairly thick rims and are very noticeable. nicki, my own roommate, didn't recognize me. scuba and curtis had some real trouble recognizing me. the worst part was that everyone was making such a big deal out of it! i hated it. i was really miserable. but i had to suck it up, like a good maid of honor, and concentrate on carmen. i like her.

rachel and vanessa and i sang going to the chapel for her before the processional. carmen was beautiful! she was so sparkly! i really tried not to cry during the ceremony, and micah said i was making faces trying to hold back the tears. well, the good thing is that everyone could SEE me making faces, since my features were so well highlighted. blast that bloody makeup.

the reception was a great time and we all danced and had fun. we saw carmen and steve off at about seven. steve, if you remember from last summer, is the king of too much information. the girls were teasing carmen, saying that we were going to call her in about three hours and ask what she was doing. she said, "i'll just give the phone to steve." that put an end to our plans.

what a pretty wedding! it's a lot more fun when it's three days long and you can hang out with the groomsmen and go to white sands and bring all your silly hats. oh, and i had my mom's 15-passenger van, so i could drive everybody around. i was the cool kid. woo!

Monday, June 06, 2005

who can guess?

here's the songs that are stuck in my head.

"Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera

"Drive" by the Cars

"Ugly Day" by Five Iron Frenzy

and "Places" by the Beatles.

so, who can guess what's been going on with me for the last month?