Spam

Is anyone else's blog being spammed? I keep getting all these comments on my posts from people selling things and most of the time it makes very little sense. I'm totally fine with people posting their own sites or whatever when they relate to my blog, but don't try and sell crap on here.

I switched it so that only registered users can post comments, but let me know if there is anything else I should be doing.

Thanks!

Queen Bee Sting

I've been neglecting my blog. You would think that since I am unemployed and all, I would be posting all the time, but there are a few factors that keep me from doing that. One, I feel ridiculous writing every day, like are there really people reading this on a daily basis that care what I have to say? And two, I am actually a lot busier then I had expected. Its rare that I have a block of time to sit down and write (just ask my unwritten thesis that I was supposed to be working on all summer). I'm thinking about getting a keyboard for my Palm so that I can type up random stuff when I'm out, but then I think that is pretentious. Oh well, I'll try to get better. Maybe when I start school again next week, I can put myself on some kind of schedule.

If you couldn't assume from the title of this blog, I got stung by a bee this week. I was at Santa Monica Beach with some friends from out of town and their parents (I would never go to the beach of my own volition). An old friend from Chicago and her sister were in town with their family for a family vacation and they called me up to hang out. I had originally envisioned this as a one or two night thing, but it turned into a three day, four night extravaganza of mostly drinking from which I am still recovering.

Back to the bee sting. Monday was the calmest of our outings, I took my friends and their parents to Santa Monica to got to the promenade, the pier, and to just lounge on the beach. I had just gotten on the phone with my mother about something that at the time seemed imperative to talk about, when I noticed a stinging pain.

Me: "Mom, I got to go"
Mom: "Every thing okay?"
Me: "No Mom, I think I just got stung by a bee on my ass."

My friends then proceeded to examine my ass for me to determine that yes, that is in fact a bee sting. We walked over to the lifeguard to see if he could help.

My friend: "My friend got stung by a bee, do you have anything for that?"
Lifeguard: "Sure, let me take a look at the sting."
Me: "Its on my ass."
Lifeguard: "Alrighty then, no need to see it, take this topical cream. And make sure there is no stinger left in there."

We go back to the towel and my friends once again have to examine my ass. As they are doing that, two things happen. First, they bang heads as each tries to get a closer look. It was seriously turning into a Three Stooges bit. Then, their parents come back from their walk on the beach to find their daughters examining my ass. It was really an interesting position to be in. Their mom joins in the fun as we tried to figure out how to open this topical stuff the lifeguard had given us. You'd think five grown people wouldn't have that much trouble, but we did. My friend's mom finally had to go back to the lifeguard to ask him how to do it.

The whole thing was a complete debacle. Meanwhile, I was wearing a black floral bathing suit, a yellow tank top, and black pants. Could there be any truth to the theory that bees like yellow and black? I always thought that was bull, but it does seem pretty suspicious. I was Queen Bee for the rest of the day.

As promised, here are some fabulous pictures of the Santorini courtesy of Paul. You really can't understand her in her full majesty unless you are there, but she certainly was a sight to see. I'm just sorry that I don't have pictures of the infamous swimming pool to finish the virtual tour of this lovely establishment.

As you can see, its seriously the Kellerman Resort, though there was no dancing instructor as far as I could tell.

Harry Potter and the Skinny Dipping Muggles

Jumping back onto the Harry Potter band wagon this summer, I am trying to catch up with the books I haven't yet read. Being so dedicated to that pursuit, I lugged the 800+ page "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" with me to a wedding in New York. I finished the book, which was much more depressing then I had expected, and have returned from this wedding a little worse for the wear. My roommate took one look at me when I got home last night and made me recount the entire event, despite the fact that it was 2am and she had work today.

I knew this was going to be a whirlwind weekend. I had no delusions that this was going to be relaxing in the least, but I was absolutely unprepared for the unbelievable world of hurt I am in today. My arms ache, my legs look like I narrowly escaped the jaws of some mythical beast, and my head is floating approximately three feet about my body. How I ended up this way is a blur to even me, but I will try and recount as much of this as possible before my floating head makes a mad dash for it.

This was the wedding of my nearest and dearest college friend and her college sweetheart. I have known both of them since the first week of freshman year. Despite not having spent much time with them since graduation in 2001, I still consider them some of my closest friends and therefore was not going to miss this important day. This proved to be a trek of epic proportions however. When I originally made these plans, I was still employed and thought that I only had a limited amount of vacation time. So even though this was a long way to go, I only planned the trip for three days and could not change the arrangements after my untimely sacking. The wedding was way out at the north eastern most point of Long Island making it neither easy nor convenient to get to. I took a five and a half hour red eye to New York on Thursday night, landing at JFK at 7:30am having slept about 2 hours. Then I took an hour long cab ride from hell with the absolute dumbest cab driver to her parents’ house, where I then got into a car with the bride's brother for the 2 hour drive out to the wedding location. All told, this was an 11 hour trip from door to door.

Once in Southold, I spent sometime with the bride at her grandparents' house, had lunch with the family, before checking into my hotel (there will be pictures of that grandiose establishment very shortly, no amount of descriptive prose could capture the majesty that is the Santorini). My roommate, Paul, had been arranged by the bride, another friend of hers that was coming solo. We had never met, but we were instant best friends. I think it was a combination of sleep deprivation and bordering insanity that we shared. We had about an hour to shower up and change for the rehearsal dinner. I was working on about two hours of sleep but was trying my best to be alert and awake for the forthcoming festivities.

The blur begins at the rehearsal dinner. I drank entirely too much, ate way too little (the lobster looked offended that I was going to eat it, so I gave up that endeavor rather quickly) and scraped my knee on the merry-go-round that I had foolishly decided to jump on while it was moving. I have vague memories of ill-advisedly flirting with the videographer before waking up at 11am the next morning safely tucked away in the Santorini.

The ceremony, which we were late too, was beautiful, and we had just enough time to head back to the hotel, change shoes and jump on the shuttle bus to the reception that was being held at her grandparents’ home. It was picturesque. They had set up an enormous tent in the back yard that over looked the bay. The day was perfect and there was more alcohol then I ever thought could be consumed by one party. Here are the details which I hazily remember. Again I was entirely too inebriated to be accountable for any of my actions. There was a frenzied amount of dancing, which I believe has added to my soreness. Then there was more flirting with the videographer. A rousing chorus of “Build me up Buttercup” which has been immortalized on the wedding video, was followed by a walk on the beach with a fellow wedding guest that I don’t particularly remember meeting. A high-school make-out session with him on the dock (which I later learned was supposedly off limits because it’s so unstable) ended with him ripping my adorable new dress almost completely off. My new superhero, Heather, one of the bridesmaids, whipped out her emergency kit and had to SEW ME INTO THE DRESS! It was so beyond repair that that was the only way I could respectably rejoin the wedding reception.

I don’t particularly remember the shuttle ride back to the hotel, but I was with my hotel roommates, Paul and now Rachel, a college friend who had joined up Saturday (I do know however, that there were at least two drunk dials to friends in LA, but those conversations may be forever lost to me). Once back at our hotel, I ripped myself out of my dress and more debauchery ensued. There was ocean skinny dipping with some other Santorini guests, during which I somehow bruised the top of my foot to a lovely shade of dingy. This was followed by pool skinny dipping that included scaling a fence while almost complete nude. Happily, I escaped any harm in this horribly hazardous endeavor. I can not say the same for some of my fellow dippers.

Sunday is a smudge in my mind that included brunch, the beach and a harrowing 13 hour odyssey back to Los Angeles. All told, I look like I have been beaten, and thrown down about 100 flights of stairs, but this has to be the best wedding I’ve ever been too. Excuse me while I go die now.

Odds and Ends

I went on the interview. I didn't see her. I have absolutely no idea what it was I expected to happen if I did, in fact, see her, but I didn't so its a moot point. Don't really think I want the job either, but whatever. That really wasn't the point of the interview now was it?

In just-as-boring news, I am actually accomplishing some of the things on my list. I have sent out 8 resumes (with only the one I didn't care about responding, but its better then nothing). I have almost completely cleaned out the boxes of crap in my room. I keep having those moments when I am looking through my shit thinking, who saves this stuff? I had a flight itinerary in there from 2003. Like that's useful? And I have cooked for myself twice so far this week, unless you count heating up frozen dinners, which would make it four times.

I want to start smoking again. I think it would help pass the time much quicker. But I won't.

A little ex-boyfriend stalking...

I just did something so beyond ridiculous that I don't even know how to justify it to myself or anyone else. Sometimes, my own dysfunction is even beyond my comprehension.

I have known since I moved to LA that my ex-boyfriend from college lives out here with his girlfriend. I have had no desire to see him whatsoever; especially since the girlfriend was never my biggest fan (she went to college with us too). It was sort of an abrupt relationship. Hot and heavy for two months, then a really odd sexual encounter, ending with me moving to Ireland for 6 months and us breaking up. When I got back from Ireland, he was dating her, she automatically despised me, and we really never talked much after that. He decided to move out here when he graduated (he's one of those film guys) so she transferred to Loyola to be with him. Other then seeing them at the Grove once, where I successfully hid behind my champagne glass and they never saw me, I have heard little of either of them since.

Then something came over me about a month ago. On a lark, I googled his name, just to see what would come up. And something came up. His engagement announcement. To her. It was bound to happen. I'm just not really sure why I needed to know about. I then noticed in the announcement that it said she worked in nonprofit in LA. It’s not that vast of an industry out here, so it took me 2.2 to find out where. It’s some organization up in the valley that works on civic engagement programming. Which all sounds vaguely familiar since I work(ed) for a nonprofit organization that did civic engagement programming. It seemed odd that my life had inadvertently taken such a similar path to this woman.

And today, I started the insanity. I was being very good today, sending out resumes and cooking my lunch, as I had promised in my previous post. And I came across a job posting that I had absolutely no interest in, until I looked at the organization. It was the very same organization that said woman works at. So, I sent in a resume, and they wrote me back. I think I'm just curious. To go in, have an interview, and "accidentally" bump into her. Is she the same as she was in college? Would she remember me? Does she still hate me? I absolutely recognize the stalkerish qualities of all of this, I just couldn't help myself.

The organization is interested and reviewing my resume. Hopefully, they won't ask me in for an interview. I just don't think I could quell my curiosity enough to say no.