2012 didn't suck

august 2011. that was my last post and the first year to break my tradition of writing a year-end synopsis. it's been awhile; watching certain parts of my life go up in smoke has become a spectator sport for me, and it's been quite time consuming. that paired up with my insatiable urge to fuck off, so i haven't been able to sit in front of a computer for long enough to jot things down. fortunately, i've been able to oust a few proverbial fires over the last year, and i am currently sitting here with a space heater, Eric Clapton, and plum oolong tea. i feel like telling stories.

[pausing progress; i don't remember the first part of the year so i'm checking my facebook...]

found this picture of the beast hail that pummeled the st louis metropolitan area earlier this year

that's right. grad school. i had 4 of 10 classes knocked out only to find out a semester after the fact that one of them was a fail. i tried disputing it, because i don't fail classes, but i didn't keep any coursework and the teacher was cunty so i have to retake the class. i had to do some paperwork to get off my "academic probation" (judging myself even though it's all a misunderstanding)... so naturally i did not do my paperwork but instead wallowed in spite for a semester. i've recently completed the paperwork, and am enrolled for the spring 2013 semester. back to being a winner.

relationship-y shit. long distance relationship. he [allegedly] managed to not cheat on me for 11 months, but then couldn't hold back anymore. how do you "catch" someone cheating from 2,000 miles away? you don't. you let them tattle on themselves by inadvertently sending a text that reads, "awkward question. are you on birth control? we weren't too careful saturday night :-/". my eyes actually focused in on the "well, shit" face. a fucking emoticon to your harlot. enough already. i have since met someone who makes me confident that had i married any of my ex's, i would have surely been settling.

HAWKS!

rugby, because football is weak.

la familia. stacy and chris have moved to stl, and samantha moved in with me. i've had to learn how to share, and that's been stressful for me. turns out it's not 'just like riding a bike'. sam has brought a ton of happiness to my life. it's really nice having a companion and since we are so different, and have had such different life experiences, she has offered some new perspective. i guess i can let her use my ottoman and patio furniture.

he seems like a nice guy.

CARDS!!!

2012 highlights:
-travel. i made six trips to california, a two week rockstar trip to scottsdale for work, a long weekend trip to colorado for family weekend, and had a long vegas trip with megan.
-i met dan aykroyd.
-i wrapped up my six year enlistment in the air guard and am officially a civilian again.
-made it to a few Cardinals NLCS games.
-babies and weddings everywhere.

day drunks

how are we getting home?

i'd say this last year was a win. my recollection of the beginning of the year is failing me, but i can say that it turned out pretty great. the summer was amazing--i was out running stairs and boxing. samantha and i did the fourth and owned oktoberfest as well. this was the best christmas i've had in a very long time. my hard work in the gym is paying off. i'm extremely happy with my new love interest. i'm working on the master's again, and i already have a lot of fun stuff on the books for 2013.

i have my health, a solid job, a great family, fantastic friends, and a sweet new Bears onesie. i'm ready for anything!

da bears.

back to school

i voluntarily signed myself up for school again.

today i went to the campus for a simple prerequisite override and to talk to the VA representative about the GI Bill.

i signed in with advising at 3:50. since there was a whole slew of people in front of me, i walked over to the admissions office to talk to the VA rep. she had left early. what luck.

i went back to advising to wait for my turn. here are some things i witnessed during my two hour wait:

-people (plural) dancing in their chairs when no music was playing,
-people (plural) playing mp3s on their phones aloud as if everyone wanted to hear "because i got high" by afroman,
-a female security guard who walked like she had balls between her legs,
-an old man security guard with a revolver as old as him in his holster,

James Earl Jones, King of Zamunda

-a woman who resembled a frumpy James Earl Jones saying things to the crowd like "let me know if you are still here", as if her speaking to me wasn't enough to let her know i was there?....
-a toddler who was repeatedly hit over the head with a rolled up ad sheet,
-a kid with a bright red mao t-shirt,
-some guy who was so huge i wasn't even as tall as his 'UMC' shoulder tattoo,
-a neon sign above admissions that said "open from 8:00PM til 4:30PM" (i'm not sure what 'til' means, but whatever),
-and many examples of how crack cocaine is one hell of a drug.

the adviser guy stuttered past my first name, as if it gets any more phonetically concise than 'steffany', and just called my last name. this is what happened once i got up there:

"hi, i'm steffany, i just need a prerequisite override done for the "reading proficiency" requirement."
"ok, do you have your paperwork?"
"yep, here's my college diploma."
"um, no, we need proof of at minimum six college credit hours."
"...yep, here's my college diploma."

--awkward silence--

he told me he needed to see my transcripts. i said it stated on the website to just bring in "proof of previous college work, such as a transcript or degree," and that i didn't understand why a "college degree" didn't prove "reading proficiency."

this is where six years of experience came into play. if there's one thing i DID learn in college, it's that when you have an interaction with a neurotic customer service representative who controls your fate in a given situation, you must:

1. be super friendly and cooperative since you are so lucky to have their help,
2. admit fault since you don't know what you're talking about,
3. apologize multiple times for being such a dumb problem for them, and
4. thank them for being so right and for all their time that they wasted on you.

from there, i was done and gone in five minutes. two hours of wait time for a five minute interaction.

i really took having online classes at a Christian university for granted.

the massage, or something

the last three days = taxing. i woke up this morning pretty grumpy, and as i checked my 200 e-mails that come in throughout the night i noticed a groupon for a discounted massage. i decided that sounded like a good idea... i was pretty stressed and i'm in the middle of running a LOT so i'm pretty creaky from all the exercise.

i purchased the groupon, and i looked forward to the massage the entire day. i went into the office, and at some point i painted my nails. earlier in the morning i had opened the blinds in there because i didn't turn on the overhead lights (i have a bizarre aversion to most overhead light fixtures) since my coworker was not in today (Tim you SUCK. by 'you suck' i mean i hope you are feeling better).

for some reason i never bothered to turn the lights on for nail painting.

finally 3 o'clock rolled around and i left the office to head toward the massage place. i was hungry since all i had for lunch was a cruddy, soggy salad from the government cafeteria. i say cruddy and soggy because i'm pretty sure i'm the only government worker who even bothers with the salad bar, which is only once a month at best, so they don't exactly have the freshest veggies.

i found the massage place and decided to kill time at a Lebanese cafe. i decided to eat outside, and the food was great but i was attacked by a baby bird.

finally i go in for my massage. i walked into the place, and the front room is a nail salon with little Vietnamese ladies walking around. i started wondering what kind of massage i signed up for and did 'deep tissue' mean what i thought it did...?

finally a round, blonde lady comes up from the back room looking for me. i follow her into the massage room and we chit chat about how our days were going. on our way back to the room, i'm pretty sure all of the nail women judged my self-painted nails.

in the room, she handed me a clipboard with some paperwork to fill out, asking what my name is, am i on any medication, what areas did i want worked, am i a psychopath, those sort of things. i filled it all out and handed it back to her. she looks over it, we discuss, and she just stays sitting there.

enter weirdness. so, usually the massage therapist discusses, then leaves you alone to undress and whatnot. they give you extra time for the whatnot. but instead, she just sat there.

i'm thinking, "so, is she going to leave, am i supposed to undress now, is she going to stay in here for that, usually they leave, couldn't she at least turn the lights down, why is she just sitting there, maybe people don't undress at this place, i wouldn't have eaten at the cafe if i knew someone was going to see me stark nekkid, maybe i undress elsewhere, i don't know what to do with my hands, why is she just sitting there"....

so naturally i ask, "so... do i undress now... oorrr...?"

a mutual 'what-the-f*ck' look came over both of our faces as an awkward pause soaked up a few seconds while what sounded like some hindu version of "do you hear what i hear" was playing softly over the CD player.

she got up and headed toward the doorway as she told me to undress and that she was starting me face-up. she'd knock when she came back.

so i shimmy out of my clothes and into the massage bed thing. she knocks, comes back, turned the lights down, and we made small talk for a few minutes and the massage went great.

until the end. so i'm laying on my front with my face in the little peep hole thing. she massaged my upper back and neck, then did a little head massage. nice. well, then she pulled on my pony tail. more than once. so it was no accident.

i thought, "did i inadvertently write that on my paperwork, or.... uh, no one has done that before during a massage, kind of... rough, or something. weird. but in a good way, but not really because that's weird, since this is a massage, um."

then she tapped me on my shoulder to wake me up, as if the hair pullin' didn't do it.

it was a really good massage, and she was nice or whatever. but... yeah that happened today.

weird.

spongy placenta

so this was one of "those" weeks. seemingly for everyone. i'm not sure what "those weeks" really means anymore because it seems to be every week, for everyone, anymore.

what do we do? hold a last-minute happy hour. because my friends are awesome.

i show up early (on time) since i live right down the road. as i'm waiting for my friends to show up so we can all discuss what our horrible days have been like, i get a few texts from a friend. she makes small talk then asks if we can talk on the phone. which is out of the ordinary.

i call, she drops the bomb that blondie's pops passed away that morning. many things ran through my mind: i can't imagine how he's doing, i don't know what to do with my hands, what's appropriate death etiquette between ex's, well we're not really considered 'ex's', do i call or text, i don't want to muddy the water, jumbo mango margarita, i knew the man fairly well and want to attend services... and all i muttered after a decent pause was, "what can i do, if anything..."

well we get off the phone, she said i should do something which was in concurrence with my gut.

i sat down at the table, and denise told me she ordered me a mango margarita, which was also in concurrence with my gut.

katie offered a little insight about what is caring and appropriate in that type of situation, so after 5-7 minutes of deliberation and tweaking, we collectively composed a very appropriate and caring text message to send off.

so happy hour commences. we discussed things like boys, jobs, not getting jobs, not having boys, allergies, moving, denise's pumpkin muffies in our mouths, corned beef and cabbage, the first day of fall, lindsey moving away to chicago, not working, the revolting process of childbirth, and i'm sure some other things...

over the course of the evening, we downed 4 baskets of chips, salsa, guac, and queso, among other things. the margaritas were just delightful, and of course we topped off the night for some photo ops by an old rustic decoration truck outside of the restaurant.

i can't not laugh every time i read the title of this post. katie relayed robin's theory of how you can say anything while laughing, and it really does make it funny. the image of katie leaning over the table saying "spongy placenta" through forced laughter will definitely stay ingrained in my mind for a long time.

and turns out, it works.

my friends are so cool.

extreme grocery shopping: a [justified] rant.

so i pull into the dierbergs parking lot.

i get stuck waiting for a huge pick-up truck, as it takes an excessive amount of time backing out of its parking spot. i wasn't one of those people who stalk shoppers as they roll their cart to their vehicle, piddle around looking for their keys, load the groceries in their trunk, load the babies into seats, drop the cart off at the rack, get in the car, adjust the seat, tinker with the radio, warm up the engine, then finally stick it in reverse... only to take an excessive amount of time backing out of the parking spot. i save that for the winter. this time, i was already halfway through the isle when they started inching back with reckless abandon as to who or what was behind it.

in any case, i get parked and go inside.

about the same time that i get my cart, a little haggard lady on a motorized scooter/cart takes off on her shopping journey as well and seemingly needs all the things i need. i go into the produce. garlic--check. the lady is on my heels. still.

for some reason i had a hell of a time finding these particular mini gold potatoes. and for some reason, i couldn't just get mini red potatoes or life-sized gold potatoes. i wheel around, looking for these things and the lady is all up in my business. at one point she even startled me as i was turning around a shelf. i didn't hear her stealth-mode-cart-scooter-thing and since she's sitting down and wheeling around i didn't see her head over the counters.

finally i get the potatoes and make a move toward the puff pastry. i was making a left-handed turn, and she comes zooming up on my left side from behind me and takes off past me, cutting me off mid-turn. sorry but just because you're putting around the grocery store on a scooter instead of walking doesn't mean you just have the right-of-way and can just roll around willy-nilly.

so i grab a bottle of wine on my way toward the puff pastry. i was bottlenecked into a thin isle between the meat counter and a free-standing cooler thing. a man is standing there with his eighteen misbehaved children with their huge plastic car cart in the middle of the walk way. i stood there, with no way out, and gave a polite 'excuse me' which fell on rude ears. he looked at me and we exchanged an awkward what-the-hell-move-i'm-not-moving-you're-impeding-my-shopping-agenda look.

puff pastry, check. on my way toward the check-out, some negligent mother let her brat kid take over the cart and block my path toward the door and the rest of my evening. that wasn't convenient.

i'm being rung up at the check-out. a dierbergs employee was behind me getting some grape drink (i was not in north county) and was watching what i had. i picked up two movies from the discount bin while i was waiting in line, and the lady decided to rummage through what had been run up and tell me all about the movies that i just purchased, one of which i have not seen.

finally, i make it out the door, pack my car, and get on my way for the evening. as i was waiting in the turn lane to exit the premesis, a thug was turning in. one of those skinny white boys who wear flat billed caps, clothes that are too large on them, and bump music in their teal colored 1992 honda civic hatchbacks.

you're pulling into dierbergs. you're not hood.

the realist.

it's been years. here's to you--Amber Reed and James Cummings.

\\the realist.

sometimes i'm winning,
sometimes i have luck;
and sometimes i can't quite explain why things suck.

i usually don't mind it,
and i don't let it get me;
but then i sit still and end up writing a ditty.

about what i'm not sure,
and for what reason who knows;
its just a feeling i get from my head to my toes.

its when things are exciting,
and your hopes are quite high;
but deep down you wait 'till they fall from the sky.

it only goes so well,
and plans only so fun;
you keep standards low until you have almost none.

that way you don't falter,
and there's no disappointment;
sometimes a dose of reality can be the best ointment.

it will rain on the parade,
a goose will poop on the pier;
your bubble will pop, but have no fear--

you can't lose your hope,
since it's nothing you had;
you actually win instead of ending up sad.

that way you called it,
you already knew;
you do win for losing and it's satisfying, too.

you can't be let down,
since you were already there;
delays and cancellations--you haven't a care.

it's easier you see,
to expect the worst;
you don't have those pesky frustrations or hurts.

the plans fell through,
and the band is off beat;
then a ferret walks on by and pees on your feet.

no worries here,
i didn't expect a nice night;
but i can smile and relax because all along i was right.

then when things are fun,
and life seems just grand;
i'm even more grateful since it never was planned.

breather

Life aside, everything is alright tonight.