Where to begin?

Where do I start to talk about the last week and a half of my life? There is really no definite place that would make sense (even the beginning doesn't really cut it) so I'll just randomly speak about what was one of the most awesome, amazing adventures of my life.....

Driving on top of a mountain, through the clouds then above them. Driving for an hour straight up into the air, surrounded by the poorest of humans and animals I have ever seen. Relative poverty here in the US would be a very difficult thing to compare.

Finding out how horribly disorganized the Social Forum was when, in multiple attempts to go to a forum, I was twarted. They had either been cancelled, moved, had no interpreter or were just running about three hours late.

Men in Caracas appreciate the thickness in a female body, and I'll be damned if I didn't let them down with some thickness!

Ultra means "another" or "more", as in, "Por favor, ultra 7Up".

The rain in Venezuela, while filled with pollution and acid, made my skin feel very soft and made my hair really curly. And when they say "A chance of rain" in Caracas, it means you'd best bring a poncho or be near an awning if you don't want to get pelted with painful drops of water (which, of course, I happily played in while everyone else ran for cover)!

The Bolivar is not pronounced "boliVAR" but "boLIvar", as we found out upon checking OUT of the hotel at the end of our stay!

The BoLIvar has a horrible exchange rate with the US dollar. I bought shoes for my wedding. I paid 32,000.00 for them. It equals about $12 USD.

There is a restaurant, called Mastranto, which puts a whole new meaning to the words "Customer Service".......they were the most attentive people in, literally, the entire world (that I have seen, at least). Every little thing that we could have wanted, including samples of each one of their appetizers AND desserts for absolutely FREE, along with free passion fruit juice. Freshly squeezed, fresh, personally bottled passion fruit juice. It was so amazing. My tastebuds really didn't know what to do. They were amazing.


The J.W. Marriott Hotel Caracas doesn't mind lying to Americans or the US Embassy. Nor does it mind making my fiance think that I am missing, dead, injured or somehow other than perfectly healthy, happy and on my way to the airport. In a taxi supplied by them. After saying goodbye to them. To their faces. And eyes.

Americans are called "Septies" in Australia. It's short for septic tanks, because we are full of shit. That was pretty amazing......and pretty much true.

The Bush regime is implimenting psychological warfare to the poor in Caracas in an attempt to sway their opinions of Chavez. This includes pumping major money into the country, paying people off to spray paint anti-Chavez comments on the walls in the poorest communities. Bush Inc. knows too many Americans support Chavez, so they can't pull a Regan-Era Guatemala and overthrow the government. Ah, the many ways around being a good person......

The sound of a machine gun butt hitting a car window with two American women and one Caracan driver inside sounds like a small, almost hollow, "tink". I couldn't count how many machine guns were inches from my head while driving in the mountains.

The heavy pollution (from the vast amount of oil and car exhaust in the country, among other things) along with very dry airplane air creates a NASTY head cold in an American who is used to the only-slightly dirty-by-comparison Chicago air.

There are bugs that are never seen, never heard and never felt, that will leave your feet, ankles and shins/calves red, swollen and horribly itchy for DAYS after leaving. We don't know if they were bed bugs, fleas, lice, mosquitoes or freakin' vampire bats. Whatever they were, they are making me very frustrated and bloody.

Learn Spanish. To truly exist in this world of massive globalization and McDonaldization, one must MUST learn to speak Spanish. We are truly an ignorant country. There were people walking around Caracas speaking four or five different languages. Yeah, I know "ultra" means another and sure, I spoke to a deaf man on the el today, but that means nothing. I need to learn a language spoken frequently in my apartment complex, city and a huge chunk of the world. Enough of this "expecting them to learn English" bullshit. Rosetta Stone, here we come! (because Steve said he wanted to learn Spanish as well).

My trip was amazing. It was awe-inspiring. It was something that words could never describe. Neither can pictures, although they try. There is nothing that can be said about the experiences I've lived through the last two weeks.

Absolutely amazing.

And now it's time to blow my damn nose (story of my life for the last 48 hours) and get ready for Steve to come home with the ingredients for dinner. Ah, the married life of a worldly, cosmopolitan Chicagoan!!

Viva Venezuela!

Where to begin?

Where do I start to talk about the last week and a half of my life? There is really no definite place that would make sense (even the beginning doesn't really cut it) so I'll just randomly speak about what was one of the most awesome, amazing adventures of my life.....

Driving on top of a mountain, through the clouds then above them. Driving for an hour straight up into the air, surrounded by the poorest of humans and animals I have ever seen. Relative poverty here in the US would be a very difficult thing to compare.

Finding out how horribly disorganized the Social Forum was when, in multiple attempts to go to a forum, I was twarted. They had either been cancelled, moved, had no interpreter or were just running about three hours late.

Men in Caracas appreciate the thickness in a female body, and I'll be damned if I didn't let them down with some thickness!

Ultra means "another" or "more", as in, "Por favor, ultra 7Up".

The rain in Venezuela, while filled with pollution and acid, made my skin feel very soft and made my hair really curly. And when they say "A chance of rain" in Caracas, it means you'd best bring a poncho or be near an awning if you don't want to get pelted with painful drops of water (which, of course, I happily played in while everyone else ran for cover)!

The Bolivar is not pronounced "boliVAR" but "boLIvar", as we found out upon checking OUT of the hotel at the end of our stay!

The BoLIvar has a horrible exchange rate with the US dollar. I bought shoes for my wedding. I paid 32,000.00 for them. It equals about $12 USD.

There is a restaurant, called Mastranto, which puts a whole new meaning to the words "Customer Service".......they were the most attentive people in, literally, the entire world (that I have seen, at least). Every little thing that we could have wanted, including samples of each one of their appetizers AND desserts for absolutely FREE, along with free passion fruit juice. Freshly squeezed, fresh, personally bottled passion fruit juice. It was so amazing. My tastebuds really didn't know what to do. They were amazing.


The J.W. Marriott Hotel Caracas doesn't mind lying to Americans or the US Embassy. Nor does it mind making my fiance think that I am missing, dead, injured or somehow other than perfectly healthy, happy and on my way to the airport. In a taxi supplied by them. After saying goodbye to them. To their faces. And eyes.

Americans are called "Septies" in Australia. It's short for septic tanks, because we are full of shit. That was pretty amazing......and pretty much true.

The Bush regime is implimenting psychological warfare to the poor in Caracas in an attempt to sway their opinions of Chavez. This includes pumping major money into the country, paying people off to spray paint anti-Chavez comments on the walls in the poorest communities. Bush Inc. knows too many Americans support Chavez, so they can't pull a Regan-Era Guatemala and overthrow the government. Ah, the many ways around being a good person......

The sound of a machine gun butt hitting a car window with two American women and one Caracan driver inside sounds like a small, almost hollow, "tink". I couldn't count how many machine guns were inches from my head while driving in the mountains.

The heavy pollution (from the vast amount of oil and car exhaust in the country, among other things) along with very dry airplane air creates a NASTY head cold in an American who is used to the only-slightly dirty-by-comparison Chicago air.

There are bugs that are never seen, never heard and never felt, that will leave your feet, ankles and shins/calves red, swollen and horribly itchy for DAYS after leaving. We don't know if they were bed bugs, fleas, lice, mosquitoes or freakin' vampire bats. Whatever they were, they are making me very frustrated and bloody.

Learn Spanish. To truly exist in this world of massive globalization and McDonaldization, one must MUST learn to speak Spanish. We are truly an ignorant country. There were people walking around Caracas speaking four or five different languages. Yeah, I know "ultra" means another and sure, I spoke to a deaf man on the el today, but that means nothing. I need to learn a language spoken frequently in my apartment complex, city and a huge chunk of the world. Enough of this "expecting them to learn English" bullshit. Rosetta Stone, here we come! (because Steve said he wanted to learn Spanish as well).

My trip was amazing. It was awe-inspiring. It was something that words could never describe. Neither can pictures, although they try. There is nothing that can be said about the experiences I've lived through the last two weeks.

Absolutely amazing.

And now it's time to blow my damn nose (story of my life for the last 48 hours) and get ready for Steve to come home with the ingredients for dinner. Ah, the married life of a worldly, cosmopolitan Chicagoan!!

Viva Venezuela!

Grrr....

Here it is, the first day of classes, and I'm exhausted. I am so angry.....I did NOT want the new semester to start out this way. But here I am....eyes puffy, shoulders hurting, all pissy. Damnit. So angry.

SO MUCH!!!!

I am just sitting here, thinking about how much stuff I have going on right now (and about to happen) and I can't help but smile and laugh my ass off!

Here I am, today, sitting here with really nothing to do. Here we go.....

Tomorrow: Classes start.
Tomorrow and Tuesday night: Rehearsals for Dido, classes
Wednesday morning: Leave for Venezuela
Sunday evening: Return from Venezuela, give my man kisses, do homework, sleep
Monday through Thursday: classes, rehearsal, plan wedding, work
Friday: rehearsal, plan wedding, work

Rinse and repeat as needed (all except Venezuela....that will actually be a great working vacation, getting me ready for the craziness that will be this semester).

But all I can do is sit here and laugh about it. I don't feel any of the stress yet, and I can only imagine what's in store for me on this trip. I can't even imagine the new experiences I'll take in, the people I'll meet, the amazing things I'll do. I CAN SNORKLE IN THE CARRIBEAN!

Holy shit.

There is this awesome energy circling inside myself right now. It keeps churning, exploding, bubbling, rocking and moving me through the day. I am so completely happy with everything right now. Happy with my life, my future, my everything.

All I can do is sit down, hold on and enjoy this ride for all it's worth! And do homework on the plane......

Wedding dress and sore boobs

I have my wedding dress! We went to a mall in River North (I think) way out on Cermak and Harlem. Yes, I bought my wedding dress at a DEB in a mall! It was perfect.....perfect fit, perfect cut, perfectly flattering for my figure. It was perfect all around. And it cost about a sixteenth of what inexpensive wedding dresses cost. I'm so excited!

A bit of the wedding fever bug has made its way into my life for the moment. I really hope it lasts, considering we have about 13 weeks to pull it all together, get invites out, line up what's going on and stuff. I think getting the dress helped, but I know once school hits, I will be overwhelmed again.

I AM TAKING FIVE CLASSES AND HAVE 19 BOOKS!!!!

A little overwhelmed already.....but thankfully, they are paperbacks and no more than a few hundred pages each......*whimper*


But I'm hoping that my arthritic man and I can churn this wedding out and make it be the best damn wedding anyone has been to. Excluding their own, of course. I don't expect to usurp anyone's wedding day. Unless it sucked. Then yes. Yes, I want my wedding to be the best damn one!

The man is up and stumbling through the apartment. Time for some breakfast eating!

Today

Every day there is something new to be learned, either big or small.

Today's lesson was huge.

I have harbored some fear from my past that has, until recently, been relatively silent in the back of my mind. Maybe it's the upcoming out-of-country experience that has brought it flailing to the surface, or maybe just that enough time has passed for me to realize this relationship is real and isn't going anywhere. And that scares the hell out of me. The ever living hell.

With that feeling of being scared and my past fumbling to the surface, I let my paranoia and need for self protection get the best of me.

I have to realize now, I don't need self protection. Well, not in the same ways as I did, at least. For the first time ever, I truly looked those fears in the face and released them. Of course, it was after a lengthy 'discussion' and many tears.

After awhile, he asked me why I was crying and I honestly couldn't say why. But I realized, in a place where I couldn't verbalize it, that I was releasing years of training, years of hurt, pain and anger. I knew I had to. I've never had to before. If I was with someone, I either didn't care enough or cared too much, neither one being healthy. This is healthy. And because it is, I have to do what's right for him and myself. I am only better because of what happened today. And that part of me fought it, kicking and screaming, because it didn't want to change. It wanted to be proven right. But it's wrong. The rest of me knew that, and now all of me does.

I have never had a reason to let those things go until now. And it took today, and all that happened in my life before, to make me realize that. I have let it go. I feel lighter.

Of course there is still a bit of fear.....I couldn't imagine my life without him now. But it's not the overwhelming, paranoid fear that was guiding me for awhile. That was the last bit of my former life I had to give up. And I did. For me, but most importantly, for him. He deserves nothing less than all of me. It used to hurt my mouth to form the letters to make the word "trust". It was always so dirty, something that was earned and thrown back in my face, or given blindly and trampled. Something that people would say to me to make me believe their lies and deceit.

But now I feel a little flowering thing in the middle of my stomach. I recognize it from when I was young. It's been gone for years, but it's there, coming back. Every moment it's getting stronger, and through these tears I know it's only a matter of moments before it comes bubbling up to the surface, overtaking me, enveloping me.....that once dirty word, 'trust'.

I know that we have lived years in these last few months of our lives, but there are still some things that were slower to catch on to the rest of me, and it was trust. It was allowing myself to fully embrace completely, everything that's been happening. There was always some part of me, tiny or huge, that was waiting for the next shoe to drop. I was happier than I'd ever been before....none of that was fake. Not a single thing was fake. The love is pure and there, the happiness is pure and there.....but it always had a nasty companion that was waiting for the "but".

There is no fucking "but". This is it. This is the storybook romance that we were fed as children and always believed could happen to us. I have spent so many years claiming it was shit that when it really did happen, I couldn't see how it could possibly happen to me. Ah, denial ain't just that river......

But now I am free of it. It's amazing what soul searching and life changing you can do when forced to! But I recognize where it was coming from, understood why it was there, and let it go. It was tired of staying in my gut, coloring all of my relationships, coloring my life.

I just needed to find someone I could trust to release it with. And I've found him. All my life of searching, and I've found him. It's unbelievable but true. I never thought it could be me, and it is. And I have to realize that. And I do. As of today.

I have finally found the person who will love me like I love them. And my god, if that isn't an insane amount of love.

A fever and world travel

I have a fever. It sucks. But I am glad that, if I have to get sick, it's a week before I leave for Venezuela, and not the day before. Nothing is worse than hopping on a plane with stuffy ears and nose. God. Torture.

Time to go lie down and hope to sleep. I'm not tired, but I know I need to sleep this off. I just finished signing up for some free stuff from ModernBride....here's hoping.

This post is pointless. But there is nothing more to expect when my synapses aren't firing on all cylinders.

Classes start in one week from today. I get on that plane in a week and two days from today.

One pointless sentence after another. Times like this suck. I am too sick to make any sense or be able to do anything, yet too awake to sleep it off. ARG.

AH!

I gave all my info, signed the papers and will have my flight booked and hotel room booked by tomorrow! VENEZUELA, HERE I COME!

I can't wait. Can't wait. Of course, it will be two days of travel time and three days actually there, but it's so worth it. I wish I could be there longer, but I'll take what I can get.

I have to leave school now, which means I have to leave the internet for now. We won't have it back up until Friday, and we're leaving for Bloomington on Friday, so it won't really matter anyway.

Can't wait to not be broke. It's coming soon. Sweet, sweet loan check! Save our asses once more!!!

YAY!

I am so freakin' excited about Venezuela, I can't even stand it. AH!!!!! Sometimes, all you can say is AH!

Ah, New Years....

What a party. What a wonderful time. There were about 40 people here, all having a wonderful time.

There was much singing, not so much dancing (unless with the karaoke machine), no angry neighbors (I think they were all out) and nothing broken.

The cleanup wasn't bad at all, and Leslie and Kevin helped SO much with it.

Breakfast the next morning was awesome. Nothing like nursing lack of sleep mixed with a bit too much alcohol with a nice, cold bowl of cottage cheese, peaches and V8.

It helped with all the mopping that had to happen. Yeah...floor.....NOT clean! ;)

But oh so worth it. Steve and I couldn't stop smiling the entire first day of 2006. And we really haven't stopped since.