They found a lot of things in the attic that day

Back from California!
It was really all in all a very good trip. I got a notice from my credit card company today that I had gone over my pre-set spending limit (bound to happen when they charged the hostel room surely). but that is okay since I actually have the money to cover that mostly in hand already (payday, handily enough, is also today). The wedding I went to attend was fantastic and beautiful and an all-around good time, there was dancing and alcoholic refreshment (though not too much, just enough for a bit of bubbly fellow feeling and exchanging hats with near strangers) and delicious food and lots and lots of sunshine (because it was Santa Barbara, heretofore know as the sunshine capital of the universe--man was it bright out!). I obtained a new set of grandparents --we're supposed to have lunch in mid-May and they have demanded that I call them "Meme and Pepe" (thats French for grandma and grandpa, by the by), met another knitter who lives in the same city I live in (how strange to meet on the opposite coast!) and some all around gorgeous humans (is it that California attracts them in droves, or is it just that they're more likely to be wearing very little clothing due to the heat, so you're more likely to notice?) who pronounced me and the other East-coast wedding attendees "so 'real', you know?" which never failed to crack me up (is 'real' California code for "out-of-shape" or "pale" or both?). And I ran somewhere in the vicinity of 14 miles beach side. I had a great time. And I'm not even quite broke yet! Woo!

into the lab again once more

The weekend away was great! Raleigh was a very cool (fairly inexpensive) place to go for a weekend. There were even daffodils! It was still pretty much sweat-shirt weather, but I did wear my flip flops the whole time without ill effect.
It was really great to re-connect with my friend from gradschool too, and totally fascinating to me how different our lives and backgrounds are--this has always fascinated me about this particular friend, but I kind of forgot until we were talking and comparing our career paths and also to a certain extent our finances. I was bowled over by how different our paths have been.
Without giving too much away, let me explain: I had written something fairly long and detailed about our particular paths and current places, but it seemed to just come off as though I was bad-mouthing her decisions. I don't want to do that. Everyone makes their own choices and has to live with them, and I don't want to be the sort of person who casts aspersions and questions the abilities of others or even be a person who sounds like they are by comparing themselves to another. Suffice it to say, I had a really good time, but there were several times over the course of the weekend where my inner cheapskates' eyes popped at some of the things that we differ on budget-wise. I thought it was really interesting that people who are so similar in some ways can be so completely different in other ways. My major memories and experiences with this person are all attached to a time in our lives where we felt we were broke, at least temporarily, and though I have sort of stayed in that mind-set (or budget, I guess) she has moved beyond that and is finding herself frustrated by the limitations of her income.
But aren't we all frustrated by the limitations of our income? I know I am always hoping I can spend a little less and save a little more--even when I go and do things like take a weekend trip. And I did manage to keep my spending to cash and spend less than $100 over the course of the weekend on food and drink and a birthday present for my dad, so I am pretty happy about that!

caveat

Okay, so re-reading the posts I linked to yesterday, I feel I should say. Ultra-ready I am not. I am most likely much too laid back to ever actually commit to that sort of distance (though I have trained for marathons and run them in the past). Ultra is different. I have a feeling it would shred my hip joints.

Anyway.
I'm going away for a weekend, to visit a friend from grad school. Its pretty exciting (to me)--I haven't been doing much in the way of traveling lately. I've been a crazy little saver lately instead, which makes me nervous about this trip: for awhile after I bought the plane ticket I was regretting having spent the money ($158 round trip) --it could have gone so many other places! But I've never been to North Carolina (where my friend is currently living) and I haven't seen her since I finished up my program (I got a job pretty quick and was living too far away to go back for graduation).
I've already committed to going to a wedding in California in April, it will be an expensive (and tight) couple of months. I am waiting to hear back from a friend who might come out to California with me--it would be great to have someone to split the hotel room with, but I am not sure if she is about to bail on me (I called her yesterday to say I was ready to buy the tickets and book the hotel room and she asked me to wait until today...dun-dun-duhhn). She just had a baby, and as far as I know it doesn't have any sort of job at the moment, so I can understand her reasons if she decides she can't go. (yeah, we're supposed to take the baby too--traveling with a 6 month old will be a new experience for me).
Its a hard thing: I have all of these savings goals and a massive percentage of my income (I think I'm at about 55% ? its not a huge amount of money, sadly, but it is kind of cool--totally only do-able because my living costs are so low right now--having 4 roommates has a definite upside!) being direct deposited into various accounts and holdings, and I don't want to stop any of it--which I can (conceivably) get away with if most all of my discretionary money gets put toward travel expenses...which will be hard given the price of gas and necessity of food. But I have been saying I wanted to loose some weight...Not that starvation for budgetary reasons is really a good diet plan to follow. I just get nervous when it looks like the numbers are going to be close--if I have any sort of snafu like my double-deposit nightmare I could be in some trouble real quick.

soft shoe

Okay so I suck. When I am not making some inane attempt, I am generally cracking wise to all and sundry, thinking I should really be writing this shit down because I am secretly brilliant. And then I go to write it down and the Big Fat Sads hit me and all I can write about is how some stupid guy is leaving me and blah blah blah. For chrissakes--do you think I’m going to get over this anytime soon? I hate the Big Fat Sads. I used to indulge in them a fair amount as a teenager--I was anti-color in clothing (shades were fine: black, white and grey. No color though. Not on my watch) and would have been wearing the big black eye makeup and such were it not for the fact that I grew up in rural Maine and I never learned how to put on makeup at all (seriously--I am a no-makeup person. I had friends who tried to teach me in college, but they would put it on and 15 minutes later I would have smeared it off--I’m really bad at most of the grown-up-girl-stuff). And I thought sad was probably the best of all the emotions. I was always sad about something.

So I think I may have wasted all my sad back then. Or possibly the summer after my freshman year in college, when I indulged in clinical depression (don’t worry, I think it was mostly situational) for a couple of months. So now I am all “sad sad sad” flailing myself around and then in mid-flail I suddenly realize how ridiculous I am and how stupid it all is: to be sad over a boy? Wtf? Okay so he is leaving me, okay so it isn’t going to work out in typical fairytale fashion. Did I really think I was that person? I mean, yeah today I wore khakis to work, but I am generally just about a half-step above streetcrazy as far as appearance goes, so how in the hell did I expect to “normalize” and participate in the mating games of civilized society anyway? Because that’s the thing: he totally made me feel like we were doing the “normal” thing, that there was a flow and we were following it, that everything was as it seemed and that that was a good thing. And so I’m all romanticizing life and imagining continuing normalcy and it turns out I was some sort of diversionary tactic prior to his world tour. Shit. And its one of those things that starts to freak you out, not in and of itself, but because you’ve been building your little romanticized worldview and as it gets pulled down around your ankles you suddenly realize that its cold out there without it and you can’t figure out how to keep warm anymore.

It reminds me, very pointedly of the most worrying part of my ramble around Europe in college--my aunt and uncle came to visit me in England, and we palled around for a weekend--did all the expensive London stuff I couldn’t afford to do on my own, went to visit some friends of theirs in Kent, that sort of thing, and then the time came for us to go our separate ways--and I had been traveling for over two months already at that point--I knew my deal, knew what I was doing and how to go about it, but when I left them at the train station I was suddenly terrified and uncertain about anything and everything--I felt abandoned and alone, because I’d been a kid again--a part of a group, a follower--for that whole weekend, and then I was jumping back into being in charge of myself again and it felt so totally foreign in that moment I wasn’t sure I could do it. But of course I did: when you haven’t got any other options it makes things pretty easy I’ve found. You do something because you have to and its just that simple. Which is where I am right now I guess. He is leaving me and I am all wrapped up in my Big Fat Sad but I’ll get over it because I have to: I just don’t have that kind of tragedy in me anymore. And I never did learn the proper way to do that eye makeup (I would still like to learn that I think--I do think it is fabulous still, to this day).