on old people

This time I'm not even going to apologize for not posting in so long, because by now you must know that I don't mean it.  I will say that it only feels like I posted two weeks ago, and that I was very surprised to see that my last post was in June...and that that post was about events that happened in May.  Yikes. 

Anyway, stuff's been going on in my life, check my Facebook, etc. etc.  If you haven't been stalking me religiously, don't worry--it's nothing exciting.  Classes started and have thrown me into a well of despair, not because they're difficult but because it's early modern women (16th/17th century) and modernists, so everything I read now is about dying in childbirth and dying in the war and basically just dying.  Then I go to work and copyedit our company's new book about what to do when you have a child that's dying.  EVERYTHING IS ABOUT DYING.  I've been facing my mortality so much that I can barely walk down my apartment steps without thinking about mis-stepping and plummeting to my death.  Next up: dying my hair black and writing morbid poetry. 

Ok, so I already did one of those things.  Both, actually, if you count that poem I wrote in middle school about the Columbine school shooting and presented at the ward talent show and basically freaked everybody the heck out.  And, for what it's worth, my hair looks pretty awesome dyed black, but I did get judged disapprovingly by the old lady scanning my books at the library.  Usually the older people that live in my town fawn over my curly hair (and, by association, the rest of me), so it was sort of an identity crisis.  (Still worth it.  My hair is rad.)

Hey!  Speaking of old people (see what I did there?), Ricky and I went to a local dinner theater last night and were two of five people there under the age of 50.  (This is not an exaggeration--Ricky will verify.)  The other three were teenage boys there with their grandmother.  We were seated late at a long table, between two unknown couples who were already eating, and Ricky and I were both nearly paralyzed with awkward. 

When confronted with situations outside of your comfort zone, do any of you start thinking about what friends of yours would do in the same situation?  I do.  "So-and-so would just crack a joke and break the ice and start talking to that nice lady.  I can do that!  Ok, ready...go.  Wait, crap, she's talking to the waiter.  And now she's talking to her friend.  What if she doesn't want me to talk to her?  What if this is a place where people don't want you to talk to them while they eat?  What if she thinks I'm rude??  What if she thinks I'm rude and complains about me to the waiter and moves to a different seat and gossips about me and soon the WHOLE THEATER THINKS I'M RUDE?!?!  Better just not say anything."  Like I said--paralyzed with awkward.  Luckily, the lady sitting next to me WAS nice, and said "Come here often?" all nonchalantly, and I almost laughed because hey, that's a cheesy pick-up line.  But we got along famously after that.  She had to have been at least 70, and she had wonderful stories, and she was SO funny.  When Ricky and I told her we had never been to that dinner theater before, she was giving us all the inside tips on food and drinks and whatnot.  The coolest thing about it was that she had so many stories about the show!  It was "S'wonderful," the Gershwin musical revue, and she was telling Ricky and me about when the songs came out and the musicals they were from and how famous the actors were.  On some songs, you could hear people around the room singing along!  It was even better because I knew they didn't know the songs in the vintage-musical-hipstery way that I know them, but because they were around when the songs were actually popular.  Awesome.

Yesterday also marked my first time ordering a drink from the bar, which is embarrassing enough to admit by itself, so I won't tell you about how I was really excited all afternoon and researched the best non-alcoholic drinks and had one all picked out for when we went.  (Wow, it's sounds SO much more lame when I write it out like that.  Please, judge freely.)  I had a Virgin Mary (which is a virgin Bloody Mary, which is ridiculous because the Virgin Mary and Bloody Mary are totally different people, but whatever) and it was delicious!  Ricky thought it was gross, but he doesn't like tomato juice to begin with. 

I should also add that yes, I did miss the Relief Society broadcast to go to a bar and watch a musical.  I am a heathen, but a heathen who really had the best intentions and forgot when she ordered the non-refundable tickets six weeks ago that she probably should check the calendar for these things.  Oops.  Plus, I'm going to watch the archived video of it...as soon as I'm done reading my Depression-era novel about assisted suicide.  It all balances out, right?  Right.

In other boring domestic news, we got a new couch!  I guess I should say "a couch," because our old seating arrangement involved a faux-velvet blue loveseat, which isn't really a couch at all.  Ricky and I were both getting pretty sick of the thing; I mean, we were fortunate to have it, and it only cost us $30, but the fabric gave me irritating almost-goosebumps (and the lovesac is weird to sit on when you're doing homework) so I usually just sat on the floor.  Our apartment has a long, rectangular living room, and really screams for a sectional, but I hadn't had any luck finding one with a) a color I liked, b) proportions that didn't shove all the other furniture out of the room, and c) a price tag that didn't make my lower eyelid twitch...until last month, when a sage green microfiber sectional with ottoman magically appeared on craigslist and I saw it an hour after it was posted and snagged the coveted "first person to email" spot.  We went to look at it, loved it, bought it, and had to rent a U-Haul truck for the day to get it home because we couldn't fit it into a regular pickup.  Now we actually have something for people to sleep on if they come visit!  Hint, hint.

I have a business trip to San Diego (I AM AN ADULT) coming up in two weeks, so I'll try to remember to write about it, maybe.