I can cross another thing off my list!

I learned to juggle this past weekend. I can now do a qualifying run with three balls (meaning six catches...a qualifying run means the number of catches equals 2x the number of balls). My brother was able to teach me to do it in a day. He's actually working on giving a presentation for forensics wherein he demonstrates how to learn how to juggle. My biggest problem with juggling is that I keep throwing/walking forward as I juggle instead of staying in place. My brother says there's a sport called "joggling" where people juggle as they jog forward. I think I need to get into that. Anyway, "learn to juggle" was on my 50 things list, so it can be crossed off. What am I down to now? 47 or 48 left? (It depends on if you count Maria's bachelorette party as planning a surprise party for someone.) Not bad considering I wrote that in September. It'd be pretty darn good if I could get 5 or 6 things done on the list every year. I may actually accomplish another of the things on the list next weekend...

Dress shopping

I'm going to go wedding dress shopping this weekend. I'm afraid that the people in the bridal shops are going to think I'm an idiot because I don't know the first thing about this sort of thing. Okay, Martha Stewart says that dresses usually fit into one of eight categories: ball gown, ballerina, princess, bustle back, slip dress, empire, A-line, or sheath. I'm pretty sure that if someone tested me on what these terms mean, I wouldn't pass.

Maybe I should get a gown that is just completely outrageous. I could get a polka-dotted flamenco dress for myself. I like the tradition that says that the groom shouldn't be allowed to see the dress before the wedding. I wonder what Jake would do if he saw me coming down the aisle with a polka-dotted dress wearing a spinning bowtie...

Where I'll be moving this summer

Jake and Justin are going to move the weekend before I come out for my Prince William interview. They're moving to Crystal Towers in Arlington. Well, it'll be cool because I can check out what the place looks like while I'm out there. Lelani, want to give them any decorating tips before they move?

Time Capsule

I guess that Forbes decided that it would let people write an email time capsule to themselves and then send them out up to twenty years later. This is an interesting idea. There are apparently other websites that will let you do this as well. Huh. I wonder if I should write myself an email so that a few years down the road I can look back and think that I've really accomplished a lot. Maybe I could ham it up a bit and make myself look even more pathetic than I really am. Do you think I'd believe myself or would I remember that I was faking it a bit? I wonder...

Has anyone else ever had to do something like this? I had a prof. tell us to write a note to ourselves last year and I think she told us we should put it in an envelope and we couldn't open it for another few years or something. It was on a topic, though...I think it had to do with how to collaborate well with parents as a school psychologist. Whatever I wrote was pretty stupid, I know...whatever I wrote was like 3 sentences long because we had like 5 minutes in class to write it. I ended up just throwing mine away. It would've been better if she would have been willing to pony up the money to send it to us in three years or something. Plus, I think it's more interesting if you write your future self about your whole life...not something about one aspect of your hypothetical future job. I think Brittany wrote a letter to herself like that while she was in high school. I remember something coming in the mail one day and she said something about how Mr. Brownell made her class write letters to themselves. I wonder what she wrote herself. I don't think she told me. She probably wouldn't tell me if I asked her either.

Lelani and Maria, remember that time capsule we put together? I wonder if it's still in that crawl space in my parents' basement. I'm a bit apprehensive about opening that because I'm pretty sure that something I wrote in there will end up making me feel like an asshole. Sometimes I do that to myself. I look back on something and I think, "God, I was such an asshole." Lelani, do you remember that confirmation card I made you that I drew klansmen in or something? I remember thinking that I was pretty funny at the time, but then I think you showed it to me years later and I just thought to myself..."How was this funny again?" I guess it's a little bit scary how much you can change in the course of only a few years. I don't know if it's good or bad. Probably good for the most part, because hopefully I'm just getting wiser. Although I'm not too sure about that.

I like the cock

Jake, Justin, and I went to the Laughing Lizard Lounge in Alexandria for happy hour last Friday. They had a fake rooster in the bar! It was so exciting...I was having flashbacks of the rooster in Georgie's in Princeton.
I played darts and really sucked it up. Jake kept telling me to throw the darts hard, but then I tried just lobbing the darts up softly and it worked a lot better than me trying to whip the things as hard as I could.
Here's that rooster from Georgie's. I wish I could remember how expensive that thing was. Man, I bet I could've bought the one from the Laughing Lizard for a lot cheaper.

Lelani the Festivus Elf

Here's Justin opening his "bomb" while I was in Springfield last week.

It seems that my glass is half empty

I went to the dentist this morning and they told me that I need two more fillings. Crap. I've been angry about how each one will cost $170. I'm poor and can't afford this crap. I've also been angry about how I need to buy another flight out to DC now, because I have another interview. Prince William County didn't contact me until yesterday, and now they want me to come in on February 24 to interview.

Am I a pessimist? I feel like I'm always calling up Jake to bitch about something. I could try to focus on some of the good stuff though (yeah, I never did do that gratitude journal thing)...hey, I have a better chance of getting a job because I'll have another interview. I have a printer now and don't have to run to school to print off my work. My health is generally really good. I'm not allergic to anything. I'm getting married. I'm going to move to an exciting city where lots of cool stuff happens.

But I'm always saying stuff about how I'm going to miss Wisconsin, how I'm afraid I'm becoming more distant toward my friends, how I don't want to spend the money on another airline ticket, and how I'm pissed off because I bought blue cheese dressing at the grocery store and found out that it tastes disgusting...Jake is probably tired of all my crap.

Is anger different from pessimism? Justin thinks that Jake is an angry person. Are angry people just disillusioned optimists?