Hmm...

A raindrop just went into my coffee.

Today I:

1. Rode from Somer's Point (near Atlantic City), NJ to Emporia, VA.
2. Decided that the store Five and Below really sucks, kind of.*
   
3. Had a piece of absolute junk bought out from under me at a yard sale.
   
4. Found a charger to fit my phone (left mine in NY) at the hotel front desk. There was much rejoicing.
5. Ate a perfect banana and threw the peel out the car window.
6. Realized I have NEVER eaten at Taco Bell and then felt great about the decision later.
7. Discovered a stow-away ant in my purse.
   

*First, the store is mostly a rip-off. Much of the stuff in there (including the $5 items) is available at Dollar Tree where everything is a dollar. Exception: the $1 items are still a bargain, and also they have lots of semi-cool shirts and posters for $5. Second, I bought an iPod cover there for $5 which scratched up the back of my precious and wouldn't allow the click wheel to be used because the plastic was too thick. I then went to Dollar Tree and bought TWO iPod covers for $2 total and they both are awesome and work and don't suck. (I was however, saddened at returning the $5 cover because it had a photo of kittens on it.)
I guess I say I don't like the store because while I don't mind cheaply made products for a low price, I do mind products that simply don't work combined with goofy return policies. (I couldn't have a store credit, i had to get a replacement item right then. I didn't want anything and I was in a hurry! Gah.)

Bowls

I'm in a hotel in New Jersey. The room has a full kitchen including basic dishes and pans and flatware, etc. So I have a can of soup and I want to eat it- I dont want to wash a pan and stand there and stir it for 20 minutes, so I go for the microwave method. I locate the bowls in the cupboard and wash one in the 800 degree hot water that comes out of the tap. I pour the soup in- but its all settled in the can; all the solids (potato, chicken) are at the top in a glob and all the cheesy soup is at the bottom. I didn't know this, so I just kind of tipped the can up to pour some soup in the bowl when SPLAT- the liquid somehow escapes the can first, loosing the solids in a rushing mass which then splash into the liquid and the bowl overflows.

Did cans of soup used to be smaller? Is it that people just used to eat less at one time? Why is this bowl so small? I ended up scooping 2/3 of the soup back into the can because that's all the bowl could hold at one time.

The microwave just beeped "done" and now I can feel the bowl laughing at me because it knows I will have to grab it's burniness not only once, but three times because I want to eat that whole can of soup but it refuses to allow me to do that in one microwaving/eating session.

Am I still hungry? Yes.

Ugh...

I love cheerios but I will not eat any variety of them (especially multi-grain) until they take that wretched, ugly souled, miserable baboon woman tearing the balls of her cowering sorry-ass husband commercial off the air AND issue a public apology for subjecting us to it.

Yes, I know I can just change the channel- and I do. But you know when you try to do something really fast, you often end up taking longer to do it because you are all flustered? Well couple the fluster with shaking rage, and usually I end up hearing most of her stomach turning tirade before I can get the remote pointed in the right direction. And how long has this commercial been on? My estimate is at least a year...which is ridiculous. You're CHEERIOS, not 1-800-ask-gary. You have money! You have marketers, and advertising guys! Pull their teeth off their own tits and demand a commercial that doesn't summon the very blackness of Hell! I am convinced this commercial is cryptically mentioned in Revelation.. or maybe some horror movie from the 80's- something about a beast with yellow bloodshot eyes and pondscum seaweed hair, and the poor sap who never has a chance that gets eaten by it right at the beginning.

You know.

New New Jersey

I was born here. Just southwest of Atlantic City, in Somer's Point, New Jersey. We didn't live here for very long, I think it was less than a year; but my Dad makes business trips up here every now and then, so I've been back 3 or 4 times.

We drove up here and took a slightly different route than usual- so I saw West Virginia for the first time. We drove through the eastern-most tip on route 340. I'll tell you what, it looked a lot like northern Virginia and western Maryland.

It's just gorgeous here. It's been raining in Florida for the past week, sounds like nonstop- but here it is 68 degrees and clear blue skies as far as you can see. On the way up through north Georgia and the Carolina's, I noticed something that I had never been quite so aware of. Even just a few hundred miles north of Florida, the air is just different somehow. It's clearer, crisper, fragrant. The hills make the sky look bigger, brighter, more significant. It just seems... right.

Planning a wedding is way harder....

than I thought it was. I look back on how insensitive I've been to the anxieties of friends and family who have been through the process. I always thought you just called someone and "someone" made sure everything happened right. I'm sure this is how it goes for many people- but no one I know is rich so it has not gone like this for any wedding I've been to.

Planning a wedding on a smaller budget (6,000) is much more challenging than planning a wedding around a 30,000 budget. For people who have no clue, 6,000 may seem like a lot of money. Well, it is; but it seems vendors have a common illness- whenever they hear the word "wedding" they get green specks in their eyes that some say resemble tiny dollar signs. We shopped around like crazy for facilities/caterers. Some rooms (no food included) were $5,000, some only $500. Some caterers wanted $206 a person, some wanted $75, and some only $20. Do you want a buffet, hors d'oeuvres, legs of lamb, ice sculptures, chocolate fountains, chimney sweeps? Do you want open bar, cash bar, no bar, sushi bar, or bar exams? Do you require seat covers? And what about the ceremony?

When you begin planning, the ceremony (arguably the most important part of the wedding) takes kind of a backseat for a while. Once you find a decent place, whether that be a church, chapel, beach, park, bowling alley or your neighbors roof, the ceremony is relatively simple. Ceremony sites are either free or can be rented for nominal fees. And if you have chosen a location with natural beauty, decorations are easy. Yes, it's the reception that will threaten your very existence. If you are anything like me (human), selecting a reception venue will shave off several years from your life expectancy. Why?

• There are about 5 trillion reception venues located in any given city.
• Of those 5 trillion, only 7 will have anything you can actually afford without taking out a loan. But very few places will post prices online so you have to contact EVERY ONE you like to find out if it's even worth looking at. You may or may not be made to feel sub-human because of your lack of dough-rolling.
  
• Of the 7 places you can afford, one will have people that are hard to work with, one will have too many rules, one will turn out to be too small, and one will have no more available dates.
• Of the 3 that are left, your fiance will have bad memories of a best-friends horrible wedding in one of them.
  
• Your mother will decide that one of the remaining 2 is not the right shape of room. It will be too rectangular.
  
• You will end up at a place you had immediately struck from your list when you began the whole process because it's now the only one left.

Originally, I wanted a basic room that we could bring in our own mix of furniture, decor, food, and what have you. Gradually this desire was worn down due to lack-of-millionaire-status blues, and my mother. Not that I'm complaining; she has been great, but does not share my visions by any means. We ended up at a place that does everything for you. They set up tables, chairs, decor, all the food, bar, dance floor, a/v equipment. It's oceanfront, so we can have our beach ceremony. I wanted the ceremony at night-time, that got thrown away too- now it's in daylight. Piece by piece, my vision is slipping away and I am clawing at it's tatters trying to preserve some scraps so my special day can be MY special day.

But you know, if I am married to my love at the end of the day, then as we pull away on our roadtrip adventure honeymoon that's all that will matter.

I forget...

So today I had a thought and I decided to start a blog so other people could read my thoughts and realize they are not alone in their weirdity. But it took me so long to choose a template that I forgot what my original thought was. The end.

[Edit]
I remember...

I remembered what I was going to say. I remembered because I saw, once again, the source of my guilty agony. Why is my agony felt in guilt? Because it is caused by a blind eye. A blind eye lodged in the head of another person. If you have ever read "The Tell-tale Heart", you know of what I speak. I have read this short story many times but never before have I identified with it's main character- the narrator. I never understood his anguish.

Until now.