Maui

So it's back to reality for me. The past couple of weeks have been amazing, starting with an amazing wedding shower that my parents threw for me. From the luau decorations, tiki bar and the food, it was phenomenal! for last minute invites and registering at bed bath and beyond, the turnout was awesome and I got almost everything off my registry. I got to catch up with old friends and family I hadn't seen in ages, and afterward went back to my house with all our loot and cash and partied at Mark's pig roast/keggar, with a lot of fun people, followed by me passing out and throwing up after many shots of tequila.

Traveling to Maui was no picnic. All in all it was about 22 hours of travel time, including a not so fun 5 hour layover at LAX, and going through security multiple times because I needed a cigarette. We arrived in paradise at about 11pm, so we couldn't see anything, we got our rental car and slept like rocks. I woke up early the next morning and stepped out onto the balcony only to see beautiful palm trees and my first view of the pacific ocean, it took my breath away. The week was filled with amazing firsts and moments I wouldn't trade for anything. We rented snorkel gear and only 20 feet out on our beach we saw a turtle, it swam right underneath us. We took a snorkel cruise and a huge school of dolphins danced and jumped and swam right next to our boat. We got up at 2:30am and drove to the summit of Haleakala (a dormant volcano, 10,000 feet!!) and watched the sunrise above the clouds. We drove a good portion of the road to Hana and drank coconut water from full size coconuts, ate fresh pineapple from a roadside stand, saw a waterfall and trekked through lush and beautiful rainforest. And of course we had to go to a luau, where we saw awesome dances, made new friends with a ton of newlyweds, ate until we could burst and watched a man toss flaming sticks all over the place.

I've never truly fallen in love with a location before. After a little while, I'm always ready to come home, but in less than a day of smelling the flowers and seeing the ocean and just the feel of the island, it broke my heart to have to leave it and come back to New England...and yes, I did cry when it came time to leave...

The wedding was nothing short of amazing. Mark and I felt so close and so in love, we didn't even remember that we had a camera on us the whole time. We were almost late to our own wedding, after I spent close to three hours at the beauty salon! Makena Cove was beautiful, with the waves crashing on the rocks behind us as we exchanged our vows. I was more than happy with the ukulele musician, it was perfect throughout the whole ceremony. Just after we were pronounced husband and wife and we kissed, he began to play "Somewhere over the rainbow" and I lost it, it was the happiest moment of my life, and I balled like a baby. Even in the wedding video you can hear me say, "This is the most perfect moment of my life."

It was hard coming home, lucky only about 13 hours of travel coming back. So far out of all the pets, Toots is the only one home and he's happy that way. My parents leave for Florida tomorrow, it's not going to be an easy couple of days. Then I go back to work on Monday, from what I hear the place is horrible, my lead tech took early maternity leave (3 months early to be exact), short staffed and shitty...honeymoon is over...

I don't know if I posted on here that my parents are leaving. They are quitting their jobs, sold their house and at the end of this month moving down to Florida with no set home, work or anything really. It's very much out of character but then again, most of the decisions they have been making over the past couple of years have made little to no sense to me either. Yesterday they showed a side that really pissed me off. Mark's grandfather passed away after a too short battle with cancer. A few months ago Mark's parents wanted to throw us a wedding party. Even under the difficult circumstances, with pop's diagnosis, going on hospice, etc, they still insisted on throwing us a party, but about two weeks ago, they realized they just could not do it. At first Mark and I were upset, kind of mad because we couldn't get any straight answers out of them, mad because they insisted and then suddenly about a month before the wedding we had to make new plans, but once his mother actually came over and talked it over with us, we were more than understanding. So my mom said she would throw a wedding shower for me and Mark would have a sort of bachelor party/BBQ in the back yard for his friends and family. Well that has been all well and good, until yesterday...

Mark's mom asked me the other day if the party was the more the merrier, of course it is, that's the impression my mom gave me, more people more money, gifts. Well, I tell her so and she hands me a list, so I send it to my mom to send out invites. My parents show up at the wake for pop yesterday, we are standing in line, by the coffin might I add, so they can pay their respects to the family and my mom starts going off about how Mark's mom invited soooo many people and she was supposed to be throwing the party in the first place and now she has all these extra mouths to feed. My mom has been telling me all along that we need to invite as many people as possible so we make some money, but because she didn't invite them this isn't ok? Then she gets mad because Mark isn't charging for tickets to his party, who would pay twenty bucks to hang out in our backyard for a while? And also, we were at the reason why Mark's mom couldn't throw the party in the first place, at a WAKE! How disrespectful can you get? And as I'm waiting for my dad to say, "Maybe this isn't the right time," he starts in with, "OH my godddd...why isn't the line moving..." like a child, like someone waiting in line at a fast food restaurant. I was furious....

I'm 24, and I seem to have more respect, manners and sympathy than either of them do. I'm grateful that they decided to throw me a wedding shower, do not get me wrong, but my mom is going about it so weird. It's all about the money, the envelopes, getting everything off the registry...doesn't she understand that this party means more than that to Mark and I? that we aren't having a wedding reception or church to do, we will be in Hawaii, alone. We want to see our families and friends and celebrate, and I really won't be pissed off if they show up empty handed. Yes, the money would be great because we could really use it for our new home and so we can actually enjoy our honeymoon, but that is not the reason we are getting together....

At first I was so upset to hear my parents were leaving, but over the past couple months, I feel like I need the time apart anyway. So many times I've talked to my mom about my relationship and had her turn not doing the dishes into he doesn't respect me, only to talk to my new friend, Linda, and have her say, "Do A, B and C and problem solved." I've relied on my parents, especially my mom, for so long, I guess I never really looked at or noticed certain things before that drive me nuts...

look back and laugh

Yesterday was my friend's Ginny and Dave's Jack and Jill. Normally, I would skip these types of things but I can't afford to go to the wedding up in Vermont, so I paid the 20 bucks to get in to the American Legion to show my support. Near the end of the night, it had it's moments that made me smile inside and feel really good, but that old feeling of closeness and affection I once had with these people is pretty much non-existant. Ginny and Dave both have really big families so the majority of the party was made up of them, a lot of my friends (including myself) are shy people who only act out or have a lot to say when we've been drinking. Most of my friends, including myself, don't drink anymore and have even quit smoking (not me!). So for a majority of this shin-dig, we caught up In between big gaps of silence, reminding me that throughout high school and early adulthood that we were glorified drinking buddies more than anything else. Even though I haven't drank in a long time, I brought a half pint of soco along with me, thank god I did, or I would have been falling asleep in my chair. The music was lousy, Dave's cousin "DJ'd" the event, completely disregarding Ginny and Dave's taste in music, playing shit like Bruce Springsteen and a lot of country. And even when they through on the cotton eyed Joe, I said, what the fuck, and I got up from the table and did it with my buddy Lee because I wasn't having any fun sitting around that table with these people. The thing is, we're in our twenties, but I was sitting around the table with what felt like a bunch of high school kids trying to prove they were cool, by not laughing at bad jokes the DJ told or jamming out to really shitty music. I don't care anymore, yes some of that old humor and bad music gets to me, but I want to make the best of any given situation. And it's been a long time since I felt that sort of "peer pressure", to act that way too, and I almost felt like a fool until Ginny, sick of listening to family members karaoke country song after country song, karaoked "Roxanne" by the police...

Let me explain the Ginny I met back in 7th grade. Ginny was timid, afraid to speak her mind. terrified of everything. Designated babysitter everytime we drank because she was too afraid her parents would catch her. I had to yank this girl out of her shell and it took years!! And here she is, beer in hand, dancing around in a flowing skirt, belting out Roxanne, while Dave stands at a distance, staring at her and smiling wider than I've ever seen in my life. I could see this love radiating from his face and it was beautiful. I wanted to cry because that is a moment they will tell their kids and grandkids about.  It just stuck me as funny, that the person out of all of us to rock the party was her. So by the end of the night, her and I were out on the dance floor jamming out to bad hip hop songs, while everyone else sat there like bumps on a log.

I come home around 10:30 and Mark has a few friends over. His friends are the polar opposite, they don't want to grow up. the stragglers were still there, one of them drunk, passed out in a chair, the other a schizophrenic kid who has never held a job (who Mark didn't want there but someone dragged along and then left him there). These two kids had no rides and were too drunk to walk home, so had to pass out on the couch in the basement. One had the nerve to ask Mark if he could stay longer (around 7am) and have Mark give him a ride home on his way to work. Mark says no, your lucky enough we let you sleep on our couch, you put yourself in this position, get yourself out of it. Everywhere I go, people either act as though they are too mature or they just act like kids in high school, I can't win. Mark can see it too. I know your supposed to grow up and stray from your friends, but with a lot of them, it's gotten to the point, where we don't even see what we used to see in them at all.

so while Mark was on vacation 2 weeks ago we sat down one afternoon to look up wedding stuff, each of us on our individual laptops. while I looked at the same old websites at the same boring places, he went on priceline and mapped out a trip to Hawaii, flight and even the wedding with ukullali player and taped wedding service for around 3 grand. To me, this solved all of our problems. Nothing stuck out to me as I looked at places in the Mass/Ct area. Everything was too expensive, causing us to throw a lame party and have no money leftover for a honeymoon. I didn't know who to invite, seeing as most people who were my friends, suck ass. His friends would show up most likely in jeans and not even bring a gift. My aunt would get too drunk. Not only would we have to stand in front of a bunch of people, which would make us feel awkward and uncomfortable, we'd have to dance in front of them as well. We'd have to get some crummy DJ that would play songs like the electric slide and wouldn't have any punk music. I'd have no bridesmaids because woman suck and I don't get along with them. We would have to worry about stupid shit like flowers and whether to add a vegetarian dish to the menu. I wouldn't get sushi. Nothing about the whole planning of the wedding experience brought me any joy. I watched as a friend of mine got engaged just 4 months after me, and she is speeding through her wedding plans. If I sat down to try to plan this thing, I got overwhelmed and was more tempted to drive down the street to the town hall, sign the papers and call it a day. But I know that isn't how I want to remember it.

I went out to lunch with my parents today and my dad brought up the question of, "So is this thing still on?" I hesitated...see...I didn't bring up Hawaii for a while because I wasn't sure how my mom would handle it. "I can't see my baby get married? Oh my god" and I imagined her storming out. My grandmas pictured me walking down the aisle in this huge princess dress, while they balled their eyes out...but that's not how I pictured it. So finally, I had the courage and I threw the idea out there. they both suddenly confessed that this was something they saw me doing all along and that they couldn't picture me doing a conventional wedding. My mom was the one who said, "This is your day and if this is what you want, we support it." Seeing as 3 grand was around the lines of how much they wanted to spend in the first place, they are on board to help us fund the trip. This is amazing. Suddenly all these horrendous plans and putting things off, is lifted from my shoulders. Instead of some intense ball gown that I will sweat to death under, becomes a simple, elegant, light white dress. I don't have to wear shoes, I'll be on the beach. Instead of trying to imagine my fiancé in a suit jacket and tie, which I couldn't see anyway, he's in a nice button down shirt and his least ripped pair of khakis. No flowers for every single table, just the ones in my hand. No huge few hundred dollar cake but a cake for two. Dinner at any restaurant we want, sushi, steak, vegetarian dish, who cares, we can eat what we want. We can have the ceremony taped, come home, throw a backyard BBQ and leave it on in the living room on a loop, so anyone who so desperately wanted to be there, can see it. Now the day is just how Mark and I want it, a day that is actually about US, instead of a day that is posed as a day about us, but really isn't.

So two of my friends are getting married this summer, the wedding is in Vermont and up until this week when I received my invitation I wasn't even sure I was invited. well, every time I see this friend she makes me feel unappreciated, belittles me and has made me cry the last like 5 times I've seen her. We don't talk. she comes to town and doesn't call me and if she does, we see eachother for maybe an hour. Anyway, the friendship has been downhill for years and I don't even care for her much. The same weekend is an amaaazzzzing music festival in Canada, Rancid, the dropkick murphys, social distortion, mighty mighty bosstones, Against me (basically every single one of my favorite bands in one place!!) the tickets are about two hundred bucks for me and Mark and that's not counting a hotel, food and gas, but if we can swing it, we are going and skipping the wedding. Does that make me a bad person?

23 going on 84

So I've been noticing some comical things I've been doing and saying that make me feel really old. I needed a new pair of sneakers and I was bored on Monday before work so I went to platos closet to see if they had any cheap shoes in my size (notice I love saving money, the good thing, I wasn't carrying around coupons). I found a pair of chuck taylors relatively close to my size and I was about to try them, I haven't owned a pair since high school and thought hey they go with everything I should get a pair, then I thought about my back and said, "oh they have terrible arch support," and I walked away from them. it wasn't until a few days later that I wanted to kick myself in the teeth, i'm fucking 23, why the fuck should I care about arch support?

While my back was hurting, I was on an anti-inflammatory, I had to take it with food and couldn't lay down for like 20 minutes after taking it or i'd get heart burn. I waited too long to eat one day because my family was going to Texas roadhouse for dinner for my moms birthday. My brothers picked me up and I told them to rush because, "I need to eat so I can take my back pill." I sounded like a 101 year old man. I also noticed this when I first was diagnosed with acid reflux. My dad would offer me coffee or orange juice the morning after I slept over their house, "Oh no, I didn't bring my medicine, I'll be regretting it all day."

I also started enjoying listening to Fleetwood Mac, waking up at 7am, thinking that 11pm is too late at night, and complaining that music is too loud. I always considered myself an old soul but this is getting ridiculous. I'm off to find a punk show close by and get sloppy drunk so I can act my age...

I'm all for people trying to spread awareness and shit. People with diseases, animals that are abused, whatever. But when I'm scrolling through my facebook newsfeed in the morning starting off my day with a cup of coffee I really don't need to see pictures of pitbull puppies with chunks of flesh missing from their bodies and shit like that. That is just going above and beyond to me when it comes to spreading awareness. This is why I stopped watching the news, it's fucking depressing, and for someone like me, i'm not desensetisized to this shit. It truly fucking bothers me and I cannot go throughout the rest of my day without thinking about this shit. Just this morning I saw a picture of a kill shelter and literally a massive pile of dead healthy cats and just below it a picture of an infant baby with a MASSIVE abnormality growing on it's head. These two people, I'm not close friends to and also are constantly posting this kind of shit, I finally got around to deleting them. You wanna post this shit, fine, get a fucking blog, join a fucking cause, but I don't need to fucking see it everyday. I'm not saying this shit is right, I know it isn't and it needs to stop, but throwing it in my face isn't going to do anything but make me lose my breakfast, make me cry and ruin my day...