that rosebud girl

food for thought …

i think i wrote this when i was a freshman in college….

Turn around and say goodbye
Let the tears fall from your eyes.
Turn your back on all you’ve known,
Go to somewhere far from home.
Keep the memories of friends’ faces,
Conversations, and special places.
Make the promises from the heart
That you’ll stay together when apart.

Turn around and leave the past
Step out of the shadow that it casts.
Its memories are what keep you alive
And remembering what you could revive.
But feelings fade and memories blur
A reality, that sadly, does occur.
Promises are broken, feelings are hurt,
Solid relationships crumble to dirt.

Your heart is torn apart in two
And you must choose between old and new.
Part of you has moved ahead
But for the other, the past is not dead.
Sometimes both can coexist
But when they clash, trouble is in the midst.
That’s when the worst comes to pass
And you realize everything cannot last.

No use to question, no use to try
And salvage what has gone awry.
The past is behind you and now gone
And you have no choice but to move on.
When all is lost, the present is there
For you to fall back on in your time of despair.
So reach out to the past only when
You are sure it won’t hurt you again.

damn you, cal!

usc lost to cal today. triple overtime. i am so pissed. freakin’ trojans. rank them no. 3 and see what happens. grrr. i guess there will be no new orleans, no national championship in the forseeable future. *sigh*

i have seen cal beat usc too many times to remember. i think they won three out of the four years i was in school. and cal always won in such crazy ass fashion….or usc just choked away a 21-point lead or something like that. aaaaaaaaah! stupid bears. i am always afraid of the cal game.

now i need to go drinking. that could be of great consolation. but i am still ill. double grrrr.

oh well. at least i won our high school pool this week. that’s small consolation……

i hate being sick.

i still feel like crap. apparently everyone in the office is coming down with something. even ed. my nose doesn’t feel nearly as stuffed as it did a few days ago and i don’t feel as tired, but i still don’t have much of an appetite. it sucks because it means i have to throw some food away that i made a few days ago. i hate wasting food. *sigh* and i’m still too tired to go to the gym. grrrr. i think i may give up on the workout routine until the Y’s next fall session. *sigh again*

it’s almost october. wow. this year just kind of flew by. but october is good. that means my birthday is around the corner. birthday = $$$ from mommy and daddy. woohoo! money to pay off debt! stupid debt. ed has something planned for next week…early birthday present….i wonder where we’re going.

our chicago trip is also coming soon. we had some hotel snafus but everything worked out. it should be fun. i just hope this stupid illness goes away by then….

elisa emailed me a few days ago to tell me that she and matt got engaged. wow. i feel like a holdout. hahaha. i think i can count at least six people who i know are getting married within the next year and a half. sheesh. that’s a lot of weddings. that’s a lot of wedding presents! hahaha. oh well…my time will come eventually.

now i will force myself to eat. empty stomach = weak feeling. or at least that’s what i surmise. i need to do productive stuff anyway. like pay a stupid doctor bill in person so i can yell at them. and go to the bank. and buy fun kitchen tools. and go to work eventually. bleh. all i want to do is sleep.

sickness sucks.

damn you, illness!

i am ill right now. it sucks. my head is totally stuffed, i’m hacking up a lung, and i feel like a mack truck hit me. ugh. i hate illness. and i have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow.

sickness sucks. bleh. i need a new nose.

hey, it was a panty storm!

so the hurricane passed yesterday and it was rather uneventful. lots of rain and wind, nothing out of the ordinary. now it’s sunny outside and just windy. sheesh. this whole state panicked for nothing.

today is james’ birthday. i miss my fish boy! i need to call him later and harass him. and beg him to visit me. he’s such a dork.

i talked to my mom yesterday on the phone. i haven’t talked to my parents in a long ass time. we had a good laugh over how everyone out here panicked over the storm while we on guam would have been like, “whatever.” my mom also told me she came across some old awards from high school and stuff while she was fixing something in my old room. damn. i have a lot of stuff on guam still. i need to get that stuff back sometime. i can sell some of my old toys on ebay. they’re in good condition and they’re old stuff people would buy — care bears and my little pony and things like that. i’d make a lot of money. damn.

i have another day off. i don’t know how to spend it. maybe i will go to the gym…if the road isn’t flooded up there…..

hurricane? pshaw!

i am sitting here waiting for hurricane isabel to pass….it’s not really supposed to hit us here in delaware anyway…but what cracks me up is how this whole state panicks over weather. they closed schools for thursday and friday yesterday. geez.

right now, it’s just a bit windy. i haven’t bothered to put our grill inside because there are spiders everywhere in the backyard. ew. but i think it will be fine. the wind isn’t strong enough out there anyway. it’s probably like 30-40 miles an hour, which isn’t all that uncommon around here. it’s not even raining yet.

i keep laughing at everyone because they’re freaking out over the hurricane. this is nothing to me. i’ve been through maybe 30 of these in my life, maybe more. we get five of these a year on guam. i think i’ll call my mom later and she will laugh.

this is a panty storm. sheesh.

now i will just wait for the rain. inclement weather is fun to watch. and at least i have today and friday off and i can be a slacker.

my island.

wow…i am feeling old…

i’ve been in this sort of nostalgic, contemplative mood lately. i’ve puttered around the internet, found some old friends from guam, gotten a peek at their current lives…and it’s a trip.

it is 2003. it’s been six years since i left guam and graduated from high school. i’ve deduced a few things since then:

i graduated from a class of 80 people. about 20 of those people have kids already (maybe even more than that). that’s 25 percent of my graduating class! it’s crazy. some of them have two kids already. many are married. we’re all 23 and 24, for god’s sake. when you think of that proportion, it’s staggering. i remember coming back to guam after my freshman year at SC and going to this brunch sponsored by my high school class….it was like a day-care center. like, 10 people, had their babies with them, in strollers and stuff. it boggled me.

it boggles me even now.

i remember that a lot of people in high school cared most about getting married and settling down and having kids. i didn’t. i cared more about my career. i already knew what i wanted to do, long before i got to high school. sometimes i wondered if i was the only non-domesticated person around. if i was the only career-minded person around. it was a strange feeling. not that there isn’t anything wrong with being a stay-at-home mom….i just realized a long time ago that doing that wasn’t my cup of tea. sure, i’d eventually like to settle down and get married and have kids (to teach them how to play soccer….hahahaha), but there are also 30 billion other things i’d like to do first. but anyway…i digress…

i always wondered what it would be like to go back to my 10-year high school reunion. i always had an inkling i’d be one of the few without kids. and one of the few not married. and i thought this years ago. and it looks like i might be right.

but it’s not just limited to my high school class. i’m willing to bet that almost half the people i knew from guam (and that’s?a pretty large number) are all married and have kids. and we’re almost all under 30; hell, we’re almost all under 26! it’s odd to me. is it cultural? i don’t know. it’s fascinating to me, though.

all these numbers could be higher because there’s a lot of people whose whereabouts i don’t know of. i still wonder about people from guam. i do. i’ve found some old e-mails and stuff. sometimes i’m tempted to just drop people a line out of nowhere. but then i lose my nerve. there are a lot of people to whom i want to say, “you know, i’ve thought about you the last six years and just wondered how you were doing.” and there are a lot of people to whom i’ve just wanted to say “i’m sorry” to the last six years. like rodney. *sigh*

guam will always be a bittersweet place to me. i never want to go back. well, maybe just to see how different it is now from when i grew up there. but a lot of bad things happened there. maybe that’s why i didn’t keep in touch with a lot of people from high school because the whole experience wasn’t the greatest for me. but it’s like a bad car accident — sometimes you can’t help but stare and look back. and so i sometimes reach out to the past. because it’s kind of interesting to do that sometimes.?and it’s interesting to see how different everyone really is.

the 10-year reunion is four (well, closer to three) years away. maybe by then i’ll have caught up to everyone else who is settled down. who knows? it would be an interesting experience, needless to say….

good weekend … and idiots on phones.

so far, this weekend is going right:

1. i won the first week of the high school football pool…awwyeah….can’t knock on a good start….even if it is only nine bucks….
2. sc won on saturday…even if it got a little hairy there…2-0, baby!
3. ed and i are going out with elisa later….mmmm…..italian in philly….i hope i get gelato….

i get a rare two days off in a row, so i will enjoy it. i thought of making a spontaneous trip to albany to visit mark and michele on monday, but i may not have enough time. i don’t know. i’ll think about it some more.

and finally…an anecdote….

we get a lot of wack jobs who call us at the paper. there was the “i’m sorry” guy last year, who literally called us up at 3 a.m. and left a voicemail where all he said was “i’m sorry” about 50 times. and he called us three times. but on friday, larry got the call that tops them all….

we get lots of calls on fridays mainly because it’s a football night and every yokel out there wants to know scores. but around 11 or so, larry got this call from this guy who kept asking him if he could put something on the AP wire. larry tried to explain that we don’t have anything to do with the wire and the guy would have to call AP himself.

so larry asks, “well, what do you want to put on the wire?”

the guy says, “uh, i have this feeling that something’s going to happen on 9/11. i had this same feeling on 9/11 two years ago. i don’t know what it is, but i just have a feeling.”

larry presses the guy, asking if he’s got some concrete information or whatever. the guy just keeps repeating himself — “i just have this feeling.” finally, larry says he can’t do anything unless the guy has some actual concrete information, and at this point, larry’s pretty much dismissed the guy as some ranting, raving wack job. so before the guy hangs up, he says, “it’s just a feeling. we’re all going to die in a few days.”

and that was pretty much it. weird. we all thought it was the funniest thing on earth — then again, newspaper people always have a habit of making fun of really bad things…it’s that whole “gallows humor” theory.

but i don’t think we’ll ever get another call like that again. he’s definitely topped “i’m sorry” in the phone hall of shame.

i’m an ass-kicker.

all i keep hearing about is drinking….and more drinking….and more partying. hahaha! i’m missing out on all the fun. and all the possible ass-kickings that could have happened….that would have been fun….i would have kicked the guy’s ass at jb’s party, no question…..edgar told me about it on IM a few days ago and i told him i would have had his back. then we started talking about how we’re ass-kicking people….and about how we’re asking to be arrested one day…it was pretty funny.

i miss kicking ass. *sigh* it was so much fun to beat up on people (or get other people to do it for you). oh, to have my guam posse back again…..hahaha!

this chicago trip needs to happen NOW. damn. i can’t wait to watch SC in person. all the trash-talking has already started through e-mail with edgar’s friend matt g….it’s pretty damn funny….i want to tear up chicago….damn….i will be very broke.

otherwise, nothing else happening. same ol’, same ol’. i’m trying to figure out a time that i can go to north carolina to visit jeff and jaime because i said i would do it this summer and never did. and i want to go to new york, even for a day, just to visit some friends up there. i am in a traveling mood.

today, i have to go to work when it was supposed to be my day off. we had a scheduling snafu. it’s all right, though — i get paid overtime. and yeah, i could really use the money…to travel…and party…and perhaps save up for NEW ORLEANS….

and on a sidenote, edgar told me about this chick he met at jb’s…brown sugar…and he totally wants to go out with her and stuff. that’s good for him. i wish him luck. because as fun and crazy and single life can be (moment of silence….for all the good times that will never be relived….OK, i’m over it….) everyone could use someone. and edgar’s a great guy. fun-loving and all. my kind of people. and it’s a shame no chick has been smart enough to realize it. so, good luck bro.

okay…enough sappy stuff…though i have been in a sort of sappy mood lately because i keep reading my cousin’s xanga….and about all her drama….and sometimes i wish i could reach out to her….to tell her that high school is all bullshit really….and boys at that period of time can be all bullshit too (and deserve an ass-kicking…ahh….what memories….). but that’s not really my place to tell her anything. after all, you gotta live your own life. that’s the only way you really learn anything. and the only way you gain perspective. but that’s a whole other tangent….

didn’t i say i was going to stop being sappy? (slaps self.) okay, i’m over it. damn.

now i have to get ready to run after my soccer kids….and go to work….i might have grass stains and shit all over me when i get in the office….and i might be all sweaty….oh well. no one will really care….