Some Surreal SoCal Moments (SSM) I've had

- seeing a Louis Vuitton Kleenex box cover on the dash of a BMW SUV

- walking around an outlet mall and not hearing English for a good 10 minutes

- on a beautiful 75-degree day, observing most of the cars with their windows up (aka AC on)

- overhearing a saleswoman at the Gap talking with a customer about strategies for convincing an 11-year-old that she doesn't really need a pair of True Religion jeans

- going for a run on the beach, just because I wanted to

I'll be making another post like this soon, I'm sure : )

Peering forward

I miss Charlie, the postal worker at the Baker post office. Yesterday when I went to buy stamps for some items, the lady just gave me the stamps and my items back instead of putting the stamps on the items and taking them for me, like Charlie does. Oh well.
It's been just more than a week since Meg left, and I've pretty much gotten used to being on my own. A good (and bad) part of living alone is having lots of time for self-reflection. The theme of the past week or so for me has been that frightening, looming abstraction: my future. Just when I thought I had gotten to the point where I was comfortable with where I was and in my ability to just take things as they come. I guess I'm just scared to grow up. Some days I wish I was about 26 already so I could skip the young-person-figuring-out-her-life bit. I know that this is supposed to be the fun time, when I can explore different ideas and careers and places and decide what I want to make of my life. But I guess in this respect I'm a planner - I like to know what the next step is so I can prepare myself for it and move forward with a clear concept of what I'm getting into. So much of my life right now is variable. I don't have a job or any real plans for after I'm done out here. I could literally go anywhere, do anything. But mostly what I want to do is go home.
For years I prided myself on being adventerous and independent, willing to do whatever I had to do what I set my mind to. But after four years of college, two trips to Europe and almost two months in California, I'm realizing that the only place I want to be is home. I miss my family and the familiarity. And though I'm not sure exactly what I want to "do with my life," I hope I can do some good there, something to make my hometown a better place.
Alrighty, enough of that business. Plenty of time left for me to over-analyze and stress myself out over all that.

I can be lazy

Hmmm, two whole weeks without a post. Go me. In my defense, a reliable Internet connection has been rather hard to come by at my place, and I'd prefer not to blog while at work. But whatever, I'm back, and I'm sure everyone missed me : )
Biggest news of the past two weeks is that Meg left on Monday. So now I am definitely alone out here. It's good in some ways - I can explore things on my own, establish my own schedule, focus on myself - but in other ways it's not so good - it can get lonely, and going to places by myself isn't all that fun. But I'm a big girl, and I can handle this. I'm about to the halfway point of my time out here, which is refreshing and hard to believe. In many ways I feel like I've been here forever - I've got the freeway system down pretty well; I've got favorite places to eat and favorite parts of the city; and I miss home, and my family and friends quite a bit. But I also realize that five weeks is not that long, not nearly enough time to really get to know a place. That's like half of a quarter at OU. And speaking of OU, I'm experiencing my first bout of Athens withdrawl at the moment. The feeling is probably pretty close to what a coke addict goes through - yeah probably not at all.
I'm sitting here on my balcony, and I don't know if I've mentioned this, but San Diego is a pretty big military town, and I live close to several bases - closest, apparently, to the one from which many planes take off. For my Cleveland people, living here is like the air show every day. Some days the noise is so loud I feel like I should duck and cover. When I go out running or when I'm waiting to get onto the freeway, I can usually spot two or three fighter jets in a 10-minute span. It's pretty cool most of the time. I like planes, and big, loud planes that can do tricks are by default even better than regular planes. The times when it is not cool is when they decide to fly the planes early in the morning - and by early I mean like 9. Cut me some slack, I work cop-editor's hours.
Oh, by the way, if you haven't seen, I (finally) posted more pictures of what I've been doing out here to Facebook for your viewing pleasure. Note also that in the latest shots my hair is considerably shorter. I decided to get it cut because I was getting sick of my hair but also to mark the mood of this summer. Maybe I'll get into that more later, but then again maybe not.

Happy 4th of July (sort of)

It's not really the Fourth anymore, but oh well. It didn't really seem like it. Megan and I went to the beach this afternoon - PB, to be exact. Holy f. Apparently that's where everyone goes to hang out on July 4th. It took us forever to find somewhere to park (pssst, don't tell Von's that we weren't actually customers), and then we had a 20-minute walk to the sand. And once we got to the shore, again, holy f. It was like Palmerfest times 100 - on the beach. Tents everywhere with people playing beer pong, blasting stereos, dancing, throwing frisbees, going down slip 'n' slides, you name it. There was just this mass of drunken humanity on the beach. And if it wasn't enough like a street party at OU, there were....wait for it....horse cops. I took a picture of them, I was so excited.

But anyway, we didn't stay too long. I couldn't drink because I had to go to work (well and drive) so I felt sort of out of place, plus it was super crowded. So we high-tailed it out of there and got some Chipotle. I mean, who needs barbeque? I'll take burritos any day. Like I said, later on I had to work, which definitely didn't help the day feel like a holiday. We did take a break and go up to the fifth-floor balcony (which is huge and awesome, I'll get some pictures from it up here) to watch some fireworks. It was kind of cloudy, and the fireworks were all far away, so we couldn't see them that well. It was pretty surreal being up there - like peeking in on everyone else's celebration and not really having one of your own. Standing up there, it felt less like the 4th of July than two years ago when I was in Germany. Can't really explain why, and I wasn't necessarily bummed, but just strange.

In other news, I'm feeling good that I've started to connect with some of the folks at work. Last week I got taken out for drinks by the younger set, so that was really nice. Today, even though I packed my dinner like usual, I accepted an invite to grab dinner at In-N-Out, mainly because I'd never been there, but also because I want to take every opportunity I get to hang out with people outside the newsroom. I also brought in cookies tonight (I swear I'm not a suck-up), which I think people appreciated. And next Sunday is one of my coworker's birthday party, and it was really nice to get an invitation (technically an e-vite). Sometimes I just want to stay in my own little comfort zone, but it's also beneficial to branch out and embrace social opportunities. Makes me feel less alone.

Stopping by

Just a short post to let my faithful readers know I'm still alive. I've been sort of busy - work, doing fun things while not working, getting a new car (!) - hence the lack of posts. And I hope we'll do something fun tomorrow for the 4th. I have to work, so no fireworks or anything for me, but maybe we'll go to the beach in the afternoon or something, just so it feels at least a little like a holiday. So a longer update complete with pictures of my place (finally) is coming!