Wednesday, March 29, 2006

break out the bubbly

today marks two years since mike asked me out. last year it was a tuesday and i was so busy that i forgot it was our 1 year "anniversary", as it were. i remembered the next day, i think, and was really upset that i missed it. mike told me not worry, "you'll remember next year." to make sure i did, i looked up next year on the calendar in my phone and set an alarm and wrote "i love mikey" in the text line.

that alarm went off about fifteen minutes ago. i hadn't forgotten what today was... but i did forget that i set that alarm.

if you had told me last year that mike would be engaged to my roommate and not speaking to me, i never would have believed you.

what i should have done is set an alarm on his phone.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

spring break, the novel (epilogue)

yeah, i know that the epilogue comes at the end, and that i've only done part one, but this is not that kind of novel, okay? and i know i've probably beaten this "kc and mike" thing to death, but hey, this is my party and i will cry if i freakin want to.

spring break is over. really over. four days ago i was on the beach in beautiful orlando, on a perfect day, worrying about getting sunburned. when we came back to las cruces, we were greeted by high winds and dust. socorro was freezing. this morning it snowed here for about four hours. everyone else was saying, "oh yay, snow!" and i'm thinking, "it's so much nicer to be warm. have you guys ever been to the beach?" and i'm also thinking, "all those trees are going to die. i told them that it wasn't spring yet, and they shouldn't be flowering, and that they were going to die, but they didn't listen and now they're going to have to wait until next year."

so that's one part of spring break that i'm missing.

disneyland is full of cute little couples. i saw several on their honeymoons, some betrayed by their silly "bride and groom" mouse ears like the ones they gave carmelita and steve this summer. they smooch and hold hands and the girls lean up against the boys while they're waiting in line for rides. at one point i may not have approved of these public displays of affection, but they were cute, and i found myself smiling at them, and yes, fondly recalling when i had a boy of my own. sometimes they noticed me looking at them all goofy (no pun intended), and i'm sure they were creeped out.

but those were not the only times i thought of mike and smiled. when you're driving three sleeping boys all through the southern part of the united states in the wee hours of the morning, your thoughts tend to wander, and if you're me, you think about "remember when mike did this? that was so nice of him. he was cute. i miss him."

first thing i see when i come home? mike's stuff on the kitchen table. i used to wear that sweatshirt when i was cold. i know exactly what the front of it says, even though it's folded so you can't read the whole thing. maybe kc was wearing it. because that's what happened, they were sneaky and they lied and they didn't care what it did to me. oh yeah! what was i thinking over spring break? how could i forget?

well, who wants to look at that all night? i was mad that kc left it out there anyway. so i very nicely picked up the stuff and took it to kc's room (her door is always open when she's not home) and put it on her bed. i turned around and check it out! there's a wedding dress in her closet.

you know that part in hook when rufio gets stabbed and peter is trying to fly over there but he gets pushed away from them when he sees what happened and he yells, "nooooooooooo!!!!"? i think that same thing hit me then, but it hit my brain, not my body.

yeah, i knew this was going to happen eventually, but it was the change that shocked me so much. it's like being on the beach and then coming home to snow. it's weird and uncomfortable, and it makes you wonder, "how could i be dumb enough to think that would last forever? how could i be so naive to forget what it was really like?"

and then i go to school and see mike every morning, come home and see kc every night (only once if i'm lucky), and each time it's hitting me more and more that they really don't care that they are making me miserable. mike doesn't even look my direction in class, even though he told me twice in december that he was going to talk to me again. as far as i know, he's still playing that "loves me like a sister" card, and it's such a lie. i would love to call him on that.

of course, carmen's not really around, adam's most definitely not around, tracy and nick are not around, and josh doesn't want to hear about it. so, i pretend to be happy, even (for the most part)on my blog. look at me, i'm happy. queen of facades. i should really work at disneyworld, i think i could smile and wave all day.

Monday, March 20, 2006

spring break, the novel (pt 1)

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hey everyone. i know i said i'd keep you posted on the road trip, but, as you can tell, that didn't happen. between the lack of wireless internet networks during half of the trip and the general exhaustion from theme parks during the other half, my posting efforts didn't stand a chance. but now, i'm back in socorro, i've finally had some sleep, and i don't have homework, of all the odd things, so it is my lofty goal to catch you up on an action-packed week. i don't think i will be able to avoid rambling, but i'll do my best to make it entertaining instead of just boring, okay? okay.

first of all, concerning the question i left you with last week: it was curtis who snapped. the too-much-quality-time got to all of us in varying degrees, but it hit curtis the hardest. i thought i would be the first to loose my mind, but when i felt my mind slipping from me i fought it. and i won. bwah hah hah!

don't get me wrong, okay guys? curtis is a fantastic friend. he boasts that he would drop everything to help a buddy out, and i believe he would. but his "i'm in charge" attitude that makes him so attractive to little kids (or so i'm told) made three independent young adults want to run the other way. and he's chief know-it-all, which is my number one annoyance, and he's loud and competitive. but i think what really set things off was the general feeling of "i'm smarter than you" that he exerts on everyone, especially scuba. it's true that scuba asks painfully obvious questions, but i think he does this mostly to spark conversation, not for curtis to scornfully tell him the answer as if he had the mental capacity of a four-year-old.

it was then, while curtis was pointing out the mistakes of everyone else, mistakes real or imagined, big or small, that i started to loose it. but then i thought that i'd just give him a dose of his own medicine instead. thus curtis and i fought (sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally) for a few days over which one of us really was smarter, and thus he perished in his task, because unfortunately for him, he can dish it out but he can't take it. i won by a landslide.

but the important thing is that we got over all that by the end of the week, and we're all friends again, and we can all agree that we had a great spring break.

i really meant to write everyday, so i'll try to recap the highlights for you guys. some days were better than others. read on.

day one- las cruces to san antonio
it's funny that i was complaining about the "girls take too long to get ready" stereotype, because i totally blew the "women are bad drivers" stereotype out of the water. between four drivers, it was i who did not only the most driving, but actually drove well over half the way to orlando and back. most driving days we'd get up at 4a.m. and i would drive for the first five or six hours. that's what we did on saturday. we made excellent time to san antonio, checked into a scary little run-down hotel that had a shower all of us were afraid to use, and then did the tourist thing. we alamoed and river walked, and it was fun.

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day two- san antonio to new orleans

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got up at four again, and started driving. i read a few chapters of peter pan to the boys each day in the car. when we stopped for lunch, scuba said that he would take over the driving and take us into new orleans. curtis and i exchanged fearful glances and told him (brutally, really) that we would give him a chance to redeem himself from the driver that we know all too well.

he did not redeem himself. there was actually a point where all three of us screamed. nick was wide-eyed and a little skittish after that. but we finally got to the hostel where we were staying that night, and our much-needed showers. since we were so close, we decided (well okay, i decided) that we should walk to the french quarter to find food.

here's what i wrote, even without internet, on sunday night:
"9:30 pm- let's see, i think i called adam about three hours ago and left a message. i said, 'hi adam, this is holly. i just wanted to let you know that right now i'm in new orleans, in the french quarter, on bourbon street, in a restaurant called "desire," and in about ten minutes i'm going to be eating spicy new orleans seafood and sausage gumbo, and I'M SO EXCITED!!! THIS IS SO COOL!!!'

and i meant every word. that was the coolest thing i've done in a very long time. more than a little scary, but fun.

right now, i'm typing this up in a hostel within walking distance of the french quarter, in real live new orleans, in real live lousiana, a place where i have never been until today. i'm trying to ignore curtis practicing for his barbershop choir, while nick is looking over the ultra-exclusive road trip footage he shot today, and scuba is shuffling about talking about keys. hmmmm. unfortunately the wireless internet here and last night in san antonio has totally let me down. of course, if it were up to me, finding a signal and sitting down and internetting would be a first priority, but i'm quite alone in that feeling. so this will have to do for now. sigh. i'm having such withdraws."

the french quarter was scary, but fun. it smelled mostly like urine and beer, but also of incense and sweat. it was gross. there were tons of drunk people, it was amazing. mardi gras was only a few weeks ago, and there were still beads everywhere. on fences. in trees. in the road, all black and chipped.

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after the gumbo we walked to the mississippi river, which was fun for us since we're all desert rats. the bank of the river was probably ten degrees colder than bourbon street. there was a drunk bum who cussed nick out because nick, who doesn't smoke, would not give him a cigarette. there was a girl with a peace sign carved into her face that asked us for seventy-five cents for something obscure. there was another girl who was leaning up against a wall with blood all over her shirt while a friend and a security guard looked after her.

but we made it back to the hostel just fine, and we were all cheerful when we fell asleep. (okay, family? yes, i walked bourbon street after dark, but i was with three reasonably formidable boys and we all stayed together, okay? don't tell grandma.)

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day three- new orleans to orlando, found gabe, disneyworld fireworks

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up at four again. the ride was largely uneventful. the picture above is of the boys eating our routine breakfast of honey bunches of oats from plastic cups just outside of mobile, alabama, at about 7a.m. we got to orlando, found gabe, the boys took me to the house of gabe's friends jenn and luke, where i would be staying, and then we went to disneyworld to catch the fireworks show and plan out our invasion of the magic kingdom the next day. nick's video camera was glued to his hand the whole night, taping epcot, the monorail, the fireworks, the boats... we laughed at him and called him an artist.

the fireworks were awesome. we watched from the roof of the nearby contemporary hotel and resort, and the accompanying soundtrack was pumped through big speakers for us to enjoy. i learned two things that night, besides that it was officially on with curtis.

1. my brother is more than a little afraid of heights. this was a bit disillusioning for me, because i thought nothing scared him. to be fair, we were very high up on this hotel roof, but still, he was freakin' out. i stood next to the railing to watch the show, and everytime i turned around with various exclamations of joy, he was standing further and further away from the edge, pretending that the ground was close. hmm. that's weird.

2. i am a sucker for all that disney crap. the theme of the fireworks show is that, just like the little mermaid and pinnochio and cinderella and aladdin, your wishes can come true if you wish from the heart. talk about hook line and sinker. i actually got a little misty-eyed. luckily, nick was still preoccupied with how high up we were, so no one saw.

here we are, all excited. happiest place on earth, baby.

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day four- the magic kingdom
slept in till nearly eight. it was fabulous, as was having my own room and shower... and house. jenn and luke left every morning before seven, so i hardly saw them at all, but i had plenty of time to get to know their labradors, toby and jack. they are sweethearts, but they make surprisingly human-sounding noises in the mornings which startled me a few times.

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we got to disneyworld and took a ferry to the magic kingdom. it was so exciting! then: space mountain, peter pan's flight (yay, yay, yay, yay!), it's a small world after all, splash mountain, and then lunch. curtis took off to find a barbershop quartet that he would not shut up about, and rest of us bought ice cream and chilled (get it?). then we did splash mountain again, big thunder mountain railroad, pirates of the caribbean was CLOSED, the jungle cruise, and stitch's great escape, which used to be the alien encounter.

and now i begin my tale. this one's my favorite.

the great ferry adventure
josh's birthday is in a week. i found the perfect present for him in the pirate gift shop! it's a huge ceramic mug with pirates and sculls and stuff all over it, and most importantly, it is dishwasher and microwave safe. yay! i wanted one for me and one for him, but i couldn't very well carry around those huge things with me all day, could i? so i planned (and told the other boys) that i would have to come back at the end of the day to buy them before we left.

we left the magic kingdom early in the evening to meet gabe and his amy for dinner at downtown disney. we hit the rainforest cafe, and it was good, but we were there so late! and i had to buy my mugs that night because the next day was MGM day, and we weren't planning on returning to the magic kingdom. curtis, who very wisely had stayed up until 2a.m. talking to gabe at the lake the previous night, was tired and cranky and mad at me, and he said i should just forget the mugs and let's go home, because look, the fireworks are already starting. i was not tired, not cranky, but mad right back at him and i said i wanted to try, and he didn't have to come with me if he wasn't feeling up to it. zing!

to get back to the magic kingdom, we had to take a bus, then a monorail, then a ferry, and then we had to get all the way to adventureland or wherever the store was, before they closed for the night. the fireworks were over when nick and i got off the bus. we booked it to the monorail station, several floors above the ground level, and barely caught it. then we ran to the ferry, that was just letting off it's passengers. since it was closing time, we were the only schmucks trying to get back into the park. everyone else was leaving. one of the ferry operators said, "you two get a private cruise tonight!"

that's right. this enormous boat, built for the mass flow of people across the lake, which took at least three guys to run, had only two passengers that night. it was cool. we ran all over both decks and pretended we were rich and that it was really our boat.

as we were borne across the lake, we passed another ferry full of hundreds of passengers on their way out. i said to nick, "i bet they can see us," and we waved. a good number of people waved back to the two passengers on an otherwise empty boat. so we played it up, and ran to the back of the boat as we passed them, waving and yelling and i blew kisses. and this whole boat full of people kept waving back, and more and more joined them! it was so much fun. i felt like a disney princess.

then came another ferry full of people, same story. we waved and hollered and of course they saw us, and they all waved back and it was great. the ferry had to stop for a while in the middle of the lake to let the floating light show go by. it was really neat to see that from the water, and the guys on the ferry knew the guys on the light show and teased them over the loudspeakers, which i'm sure they wouldn't have done if the boat was full of people. i told nick that even if we didn't make it in time, i was glad we tried for the mugs, because this was so much fun.

we were finally approaching the shore, where thousands of people were waiting to board the boat. we waved again, but very few people saw us. there was one huge guy in the middle of the crowd who played along for a long time. he was cool. we pulled into the shore, and the ferry guys started lowering the ramp for us to get off. the other disney guy who was holding back the crowd didn't know there were people getting off the boat, so he let this massive group of people started boarding, and they all rushed towards us, and i thought it was the end...

then the ferry guys yelled, "wait, wait!" and the crowd guy herded everyone back into line, and all the people waiting looked at him like, "what's the big idea?" and then they let us off. and people started cheering for us. we waved and ran past, and the cheering spread, and these thousands of people were clapping and yelling for me and my brother, and it was SO COOL. we were famous. famous and at disneyworld.

we ran into the park, through main street, past the castle, into adventureland, past the tree house and the jungle and into the gift shop, where the lady told us we had a whole fifteen minutes to spare, so i bought the mugs after all. we were stoked. the combination of running as hard as we could and making it, being waved to and cheered on by enough people to fill a sporting arena, and proving curtis wrong was sweet beyond sweet. i'm pretty sure it was the highlight of my week.

oh my gosh, this is a long post. part two will come later kids... i hope. stay tuned. :)

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Friday, March 10, 2006

road trip, day zero

tonight we're sleeping in las cruces, but tomorrow morning, sometime between the hours of 3 and 4 am, curtis, scuba, nick and i will be on our way to florida for a real-life spring break adventure. but! dun DUN DUUUUUNNN... little did the four adventurers know that among them was a crazed psycopath! which one of them will it turn out to be?

is it curtis, with his batman reference for every occasion, his propensity for invading the personal bubbles of others? are his goofy, seemingly lighthearted boy scout songs a cover for the madness that lies within? just whay is it that he can quote every scrap of disney trivia known to man? is he hiding something?

could it be nick? what's the real reason that he's videotaping the entire trip? is it to fullfill his own dark purposes? will he be able to handle being the only one in the car who is not perfectly content to discuss governing equations and heat transfer? will the residual nerd stress cause him to snap?

or is it scuba steve, with his perpetual throat-clearing, obvious-question-asking, laughing-to-fill-gaps-in-the-conversation personality? what will he do when tensions rise and he can't agree with everyone all the time? will he have to throw off his "i'm a follower" self and be decisive and take sides?

or will he simply throw everyone off by asking more of those mind-numbing questions?
nick: "hey, i love that movie!"
scuba: "oh, have you seen it?"
nick: "what?"
scuba: "hee hee hee hee hee hee.... a-hem."

or will i be the first to snap? will i go insane with the knowledge that of the four people in the car, i'm the only one who really cares or wants to listen to yes? will i take it upon myself to educate those boys in the way of classic rock? i am travelling with three extremely low-maintenance guys. thus, the ancient stereotype of "women take forever to get ready" will be thricefold proven by me. every day. will i be driven mad by continually holding up the group's progess?

as you've probably guessed, i don't have the best attitude right now. i'm a little cranky about the road trip, but i'm totally excited about disneyworld. hopefully i will be more excited and less cranky by morning... pray for me. i will need patience.

thank GOD nick is coming. if i didn't have anyone to qupte austin powers with when things got really bad.... well, i'd cry.

or snap.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

we're going to disneyworld, kids!

yes, it's true... scuba, curtis, and my brother nick and i are going to florida next week for spring break. we'll be driving in scuba's parent's car along I10, stopping in san antonio and new orleans before finally getting to orlando. we're going to crash with gabe, a friend of ours who moved to orlando a few years ago. he's great.

but of course we're mostly going for the disneyworld 50th anniversary, not for gabe. yay, disneyworld! hopefully we'll be there for two days, and we might go to sea world or universal or something for the third day. and yes, just like the last road trip, i'll keep you guys posted with pictures and everything. i'm starting to get very excited about this! hooray!

we're leaving from las cruces on saturday. see you then! :)

Thursday, March 02, 2006

i feel seven years old...

brit lit keeps my life so interesting.

yesterday, for the first time all semester, i was not in a group with statch. the only reason for this was that dr. mott asked us to form our own groups instead of numbering us off again. it was so nice. and relaxing. ahhh...

seriously, it was like the "after" part of an allergy medicine commercial, when the lady is happily walking around in the sunshine, and the all flowers and puppies wave to her. we should all be so lucky, but two other girls were stuck with the pig. poor things.

the assigned reading for yesterday's class was the general prologue of the canterbury tales. i thought we were going to have a quiz over the material, which you would expect, i don't know, in a college-level class, but instead mott told us to get in groups and draw a freakin picture of our favorite character from the story. a picture! he'd even brought some markers, most of which were pastel-colored. he also told us to write a poem. at the end of the hour, he had us tell the class about our pictures, read the poems out loud, and then hang the pictures on the wall. no, i'm not kidding. at the end of class we had a row of poorly-drawn, oddly-colored portraits along one wall on ripped-out notebook paper with the little paper bits still cringing onto one edge.

it was really embarrassing.

alright, i'm all for coloring and having fun and stuff, but seriously... i know this is a tech school, but does he really have to treat us like we have the literary minds of third-graders? drawing a picture is one thing, but hanging it on the wall? give me a break. does he sit at home and think, "wow, this story is too hard for these poor math-minded techies. what could i do to make this easy for them?"

no, i'm not really annoyed with him, i'm just astounded that i actually got this assignment as a senior in college. i read chaucer in high school, and we actually had a real class discussion about it and had to write an essay. am i naive to think i should be maturing from there? i'm just surprized, that's all.

at the end of class, pablo raised his had and asked, "do we have to bring our parents to look at our pictures?"

mott said if he did, he'd get extra credit.