Changes

The last few weeks have been quite a whirlwind of downs and ups and things that would be so frustrating if they weren't a little funny.

First off, the cat and dog have been living together. Mostly unhappily...

August started with my two year anniversary with the boyfriend (aww). We went to a sushi restaurant in La Jolla that I had a Groupon for, and it was underwhelming. The atmosphere was nice, and going somewhere we've never been before was fun, but the sushi is way better in North Park. Which actually is great, because we eat at one of three nearby sushi places every week, and it's nice to know that we're getting the best without paying an arm and a leg or driving 20 minutes each way. We walked the long way back to the car and stopped at a little cafe that had cakes for dessert.

The very next day was his bff's birthday, so we went to a pizza/beer place, where we met some random southerners who were in San Diego before going to Vegas for a gay wedding. We stayed up late, ate burritos, and fell asleep on the couch until the very early hours of the morning. The day after that I was supposed to go to a meet up with my coworkers, partly because our boss was presenting, but my throat had been hurting all day and I had a mini anxiety attack when I got home from work; the thought of skipping it made me calm down. So I did and spent the evening cleaning my apartment and made one of my night-by-myself dinners. The next day I got a call from a fraud center informing me my debit card was stolen (even though it was still in my wallet). There were four attempts from Honolulu to Baltimore of someone using my card, and one was successful to the tune of $76 - at a Food Maxx in Union City. I went to my credit union to fill out a fraud affidavit (at, like, 515 on a Friday) and raced back home because my mom was in town for a visit... waiting in her car.

Over the weekend my sore throat turned into a full blown cold, but we pretty much spent the whole time at the beach and that made it a lot less severe. We hiked Torrey Pines one day and walked from Torrey Pines to La Jolla Shores the next (I stepped on a bee and got stung on my foot and got to experience seeing a whole lot of old man penis with my mother). Oh, and a pipe beneath my room sprung a leak and we came back Saturday night to discover my carpet was all wet. That awesomeness is in much more detail here.

The boyfriend and I had been talking about living together for a little over a year and had recently decided to aim for the fall, after wedding season was over and he had more time to devote to the process. The ordeal with my apartment made us decide to move that up, so we spent the next week on Craigslist, emailing our favorite listings to each other. We also took a couple nights after work to drive around our target neighborhood looking for rent signs and made a few appointments to see apartments.

On one such night I got a call from my gynecologist - I had a yeast infection (fucking antibiotics) and something known as LGSIL - a low grade lesion. This can be caused by HPV. I got the Guardasil shot series after breaking up with the first person I'd had sex with but Guardasil doesn't protect from all forms of HPV - or cervical cancer. Soooo there's that. Now I get to have a colposcopy (where they go in to the cervix with a flashlight and scalpel) and a biopsy. The chances of this being anything more than a random lump is super small, and it will very likely just go away on its own in a year or two. However, now I've had an abnormal PAP and need them every year rather than every two. It was weird though, hearing the doctor say the word cancer. She told me that most women don't know they have cervical cancer because there are no outward symptoms (I wouldn't have felt this lesion), which is why PAPs are so important.

The rest of the week was full of apartment hunting. One night we went to see a place in our second choice neighborhood, which was right by a dog park. Long-story-full-of-emails-back-and-forth-short: we loved it, applied for it and got it! Deposit is sent, lease is signed, and in a few weeks we'll be living together. I didn't expect the boyfriend to be as excited and enthusiastic about moving and living together as he's been since we got the official notice, because the next month or two are going to be much more complicated for him than they are for me. He owns his condo, which means he'll have to rent it out and all of the responsibilities that come with that. On the other hand, I'm super grateful that he's willing to do this to live with me and to live in an area that's close to my work. In the long run I believe it will be beneficial for us both (extra income and a shorter commute for him, an area I already love by work for me), but the initial effort is definitely more one sided.

Days after we got official notice of the new apartment I had my year review at my company. My boss shared with me his vision for the company, told me he wants to support those who share his vision (which I do completely), and gave me a huge vote of confidence in the form of a high profile client. After years of odd-jobs that were fun and other jobs that sucked, I'm so happy to be in a solid position in a company that is not just doing well but has plans for the future, and a company that has a future for me.

So, after more than a week of downs-that-weren't-that-bad, I had more than a week of ups-that-were-amazing. And the next month or two will certainly be stressful and life changing, but they'll also be exciting and happy. I can't wait.

A Leak

At the end of a week that just didn't want to give any breaks (and the end of 9 months of apartment issues), my apartment sprung a leak.

It was a Friday night, my mom was visiting, and we'd had sushi and wine. The boyfriend stood next to my bed and told me the floor was really warm. Unusually warm. I shrugged it off - my apartment is always unusually warm and there's a spot in the bathroom that's always really warm (the cat loves it). On Saturday night he goes to put on his pajama pants, but they're wet - and my carpet is wet. And very warm. And the legs on my wooden bookshelf have visible water damage. Excellent.

We slept on couches in the living room, the recent sinkholes in the news on our minds and the slight fear we'd wake up in a lake, but in the morning my room was still there and only slightly more damp. My apartment manager came over to inspect and let me know best and worst case scenarios, both of which included excavation. So Sunday night I took the cat to the boyfriend's, along with what I'd need for the next couple of days, and left my apartment.

This happened.

And this.

And this.

The water pipe for my whole complex, which traveled under the concrete in my room and through the footing of the whole building, had a leak. They had to shut off all water for two days and the hot water for one night, giving my neighbors zero notice. It's been 10 days and 11 nights so far for me - I stopped by almost every day to grab the mail and check up on things and ended up talking to the plumbers a few times; I learned this had happened before, apparently in the exact same spot. 

There is some discoloration next to the new concrete, which I think is the evidence of a past leak. Oh, and now I have to clean my tub because they turned on the faucet and it ran brown water and no one rinsed it out.

Also, there was a large dip in the asphalt in the alley, right behind my parking space, that had suddenly appeared. It was annoying but I hadn't paid much attention to it because the whole alley is in desperate need of repaving. But it was deep enough and at the worst angle for getting in and out of my spot that I was a little concerned I'd pop a tire. But no worries, now that's fixed.

My room? 

Still got that little hole. And this is the state of my furniture:

My bed is in three different parts, in three different parts of the apartment. 

This was taken the day after my apartment manager told me I could go back to my apartment. Um, no. Also, it still looks like this 9 days later.

It might come as little surprise, then, that I'm moving! The cat and I have been staying with the boyfriend and the dog for the last week and a half, and I kind of don't even want to go back. There is so much cleaning that needs to happen before I'll feel comfortable sleeping there again, and it'd be far too much effort to clean that much only to move in two weeks. But I will right my bed... it'll be harder to sell like that.

Plan B (Or, Better Safe Than Sorry)

What an awesome name. Plan B. So succinct, so simple.

And what a great invention. Seriously. Forget a pill? Plan B. Condom broke? Plan B. Something awful happens to you? At least you won't get pregnant. Just plain wanted to have sex and didn't use any protection? At least you don't have to spend the rest of your life regretting those 15 minutes.

I've always been slightly paranoid about having one of those accidents. I've also always been, like, really in tune with my body so there never was a real worry. The closest I ever got to a pregnancy scare was when The Ex and I spent the weekend volunteering at a family fair for my internship and then went to see Knocked Up, which sparked a conversation about what would happen if I got pregnant... we discovered we had very different plans. I freaked out the next morning thinking my period was late and, despite having used birth control religiously, went to the health center at school to talk to someone. The pharmacist looked at me from above his glasses through the window and asked how late I was. I said I was supposed to have gotten it that morning. He asked if I felt like I was going to get it. I said yes. He told me to wait it out and come back in a day or so if I was still worried. I got my period hours later. I think part of the reason I was so worried even though I had absolutely no reason to be was because I don't fully understand how the little sugar pills in each packet work.

Anyway, back in January I decided to take a little hiatus from hormonal birth control. Turns out, the pill I was on was just not jiving with my body and I've felt way better off it. On the other hand, all that left the boyfriend and I with was condoms. 

And seeing how this post is titled Plan B, you can assume how that worked out.

Back to my not so scary scare story: even though I had no real reason to worry, I still did because the consequences of not taking action were pretty severe. Back then I wouldn't have had an abortion, which would have left me knocked up in college. Awful. Now the first thing I'd do is make that appointment, brave the picket lines, and get that abortion. Slightly less awful, but still not something I'm eager to do. So if there is any real chance I could become pregnant I need to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen. This is just one of those things I would worry incessantly about. I even had a backup stash of Plan B from a visit to Planned Parenthood a couple years back, but that had expired close to a year ago. So last week I went to Planned Parenthood and bought the Peace of Mind pill. 

And it was OK. I was expecting a lot more to happen... nausea, cramps, pain... nothing. The nurse told me to take it with food, and I could kind of feel something weird going on, but it's been a while now and it was not the experience I was afraid of.

So... good.

Although, I was also warned some changes to my period might be expected. It could come early. Or late. Or be heavier than normal. Or lighter. Or not come at all. Or be exactly the same. So there's that to worry about.

In the meantime, I had to cancel an appointment with a male gynecologist  (thanks UCSD for totally ignoring my request for the female doctor I had spent an hour selecting) because I'm not going to form this doctor-patient relationship with someone who does not even have the same parts, and now wait even longer to get back on reliable birth control. The only thing now is I wish Obamacare had kicked in already so it would be free. I'll have to pay for it for about a year until my insurance "requirement" starts, but at least after that it'll be free.

An Absence, A Decision, And The Fate Of My Blog

Well, it's been a while since I've written here. This blog started when I was laid off from my first writing job after college as a way to give myself something to do while I looked for work and to keep my skills somewhat sharp. This was before I knew anything about blogging or internet marketing, so I figured no one would even read it - which didn't matter, since it was a personal project.

But then I learned about both. And I lost the time I had to write the kinds of things I wanted to. And I became a little frustrated that I wasn't doing more with the space on the internet I rent.

So, I made a new year's resolution (twice) to make my little blog a priority. And this year that resolution included buying real estate - buying a new domain, hosting it, and giving it a complete makeover: new name, new look, new focus.

Well, it's the end of June and not only has that not happened, but I haven't even kept up with writing in a few months. At first I was blaming being busy. To be fair, this had some truth to it: working full time, training for a half marathon, and trying to do all the normal day-to-day stuff like make dinner and see the boyfriend and friends, something just had to give. I don't read very much either and honestly don't spend a whole lot of time goofing off on the internet since I spend my whole day at a computer. Blogging just wasn't happening.

But the other reason it wasn't happening – which is related to me wanting a new focus – is because everything I wanted to write about was depressing. I have saved posts, email drafts, articles in Pocket, and ideas in my head... none of which have been published. At the end of my day the last thing I want to do is spend an hour or two writing about the plight of elephant poaching and how I'll very likely watch them go extinct, the plight of women around the world and how it's still our fault when we get raped, the total asshattery of our country and how the people we elect to get things done sit around like 5 year olds arguing over baseball rules ignoring things that really matter. 

But when I think about the focus I want, there isn't anything else I want to write about. I don't like writing about my personal life because 1) it's boring 2) who the hell cares. But what I'm really passionate about is the things that are hard to read about and frustrating to write about. 

So... I don't really know what I'm going to do. I don't want to stop writing, but I also know that in order to do what I want I have to make a much bigger commitment, and I'm not sure I can do that. Now that my writing also includes a food blog (that I do want to grow and which has a lot of potential), I guess I have a decision to make.

Why Interracial Marriage Should Be Legal

 This is what my Facebook looks like.

Oh wait, I mean gay marriage. You were probably thinking something along the lines of, "Whaaaaaat? But interracial marriage is perfectly legal! Why would anyone argue otherwise?"

Which is exactly my point. Why would anyone argue otherwise? Why wouldn't interracial marriage be legal?

So, what's the difference with gay marriage? Why would anyone argue that gay people can't marry one another? Why wouldn't gay marriage be legal?

As WTF as this seems now, it's the same thing.

Interracial marriage has been legal since the late 1960s. My parents were alive then. Alive and old enough to know what that meant. That's really not that long ago.

Maybe I'm spoiled having lived my whole life in relatively liberal Southern California, or maybe I'm just a young, flaming liberal who was ruined in college and now likes going against tradition for the sake of being rebellious. But I'm going to be able to marry my boyfriend, who is of a different race/ethnicity/color/whatever feature you want to focus on, and it'll be OK because he's also a different sex than I am. No one will bat an eye at our colors because it won't matter to anyone. 

Interracial marriage has been legal for 45 years; long enough for most people to accept that it is a little ridiculous to prevent two people who love each other from getting married just because they have different skin colors.

Beyonce is awesome.

Here are the most ridiculous arguments against gay marriage:

• Gay marriage is icky! (Gay people don't think so. Actually, a lot of people don't think so.)
• The Bible says gays shouldn't marry! (That's nice, but it has nothing to do with the law or my beliefs.)
• Once gays can marry, pedophiles can marry children! (Children are not consenting adults and therefore cannot make those kinds of decisions about their lives.)
• Once gays can marry, anyone can marry anything! (Dogs, inanimate objects, and anything outside of a consenting adult is, again, not a consenting adult and therefore cannot make those kinds of decisions about their lives/shelf lives.)
• Gays can't have kids! (Some straight couples can't have kids. Or don't want kids. That doesn't affect their ability to marry. Or adopt.)

Stunningly, our Supreme Court is dedicating an extraordinary amount of time debating whether or not laws that bar same sex couples from marrying is constitutional. Which seems really silly, doesn't it?

When the United States of America was in its infancy, all sorts of people came here from all over the world looking for freedom (in fact, they still do). They come here because the laws say "all people," "created equal," "liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and no where in any law, any proposition, any part of the Constitution say "except for." Nothing that says "except for gays." Or "except for [insert qualifier here]." It's equality this, and equality that, and freedom and liberty and opportunity and unalienable rights and blah blah blah.

So... since when is it OK to discriminate against gay people? When did that suddenly change? And why is this something that needs debate?

Have a gay day!