Spaghetti and bad meat sauce.

To not upset my mother, I decided to use this meat sauce in a can and it wasn't very good. Just..the consistency was off. I even tried adding salt and pepper to it (and I hate pepper) to add more flavor and to put it plainly, it was blah.

I'm THE spaghetti master though. I usually measure and time everything but with spaghetti, I just kind of wing it and it always comes out awesome. I just guess when the noodles are done. My mom said it usually takes 20 minutes but...I don't pay attention to the time, as I said.

Ian came over today and I fell asleep on him. I woke up, completely startled, because my mom opened the door and said I needed to get up and help her because my dog was having seizures. It's a normal thing. My one dog, Teddy, gets seizures every week. When Teddy has three seizures at a time, we have to give him an adrenaline shot and he starts coming out of it.

Anyway, we were sleeping so peacefully and my body is still not fully recovered from leaping out of my bed to help my mom.

I wish we could live together right now. I always like when he comes over because I usually cook and then he does all of the dishes in the sink, even if we didn't dirty them. So it's kind of like living together until my mom comes in and yells at me for something stupid.

I had a political science exam today. Hopefully I did alright. It was all essay questions. I do pretty well with essays because I LOVE writing and I never write BS - I always write a lot but touch on every point that I'm supposed to make. I'm tired.

I will post more C2E2 pictures later...when I actually feel motivated to photoshop them.

I do, just not today.

I'm finding that a lot of people I know are getting married around my age. Am I missing something here?

I'm barely 23 years old and I am in my first SERIOUS relationship. I've dated a lot of other guys. I dated one for four years off and on and whenever I think about it, I wish I hadn't wasted so much of my time with him.

The truth is that, at some point Ian and I probably have seen each other on a bus or would have met eventually. I've spent a lot of time in the area he lives in and our high schools were very close to each other. We don't have any mutual friends because Ian is a hermit crab and I kind of am too. The only way you will get me to go out, especially during the summer, is if I'm going somewhere I've never been before but always wanted to go to OR if you are my friend and you beg and plead with me to brave it through the heat and crowds.

We're a good match. We don't like being around a ton of people...Except I comment publicly about my disdain for tourists and the obnoxious while he laughs and tells me to be quiet. I think he worries that one day I'll get punched in the face by an angry homeless person or a snobby rich woman who feels the need to walk at the speed of an elephant in her Manolo Blahniks.

He's always asking me about the length of our relationship.

Yes, I would like to be married some day to Ian. Just not today. When I say not today, I mean that I don't want to be living with him, unemployed and in school while he's working a full-time job that he hates.

Engaged, sure. Married, no. If you're engaged, you pretty much have as much time as you want to figure out your life, your finances, where you live (if it's an appropriate area to start a family). I want to say that "We have all the time in the world" but I don't know if that's necessarily true.

I haven't checked my blood sugar in almost a year - I'm diabetic.

I haven't gone to my doctor in OVER a year - I have other health problems.

I stopped seeing my doctor because I'd go every three months and he always had the same thing to say to me "keep managing your weight the way you are," "keep those blood levels the same," and "great job. see you in three months."

:| I know that I probably will never be able to give birth, given my situation. And the truth is that I don't want to but I would like to have children. I just don't think it'd be wise in my health conditions to give birth to a child.

I love Ian and I want to grow old with him and yell at our kids together when they misbehave in a grocery or retail store but I don't know if that's what God has planned for me.

The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo

Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo AKA C2E2

I'm attending C2E2 as a Press member. I'm really excited - This is my first and last press event. Juan and I have already networked with a lot of underground artists that we'd like to interview for the newspaper and it would be cool to put the audio up on our website.

I'm interviewing the people who draw Cyanide & Happiness tomorrow and then I'm going to sit in on a panel. I'm tired and tomorrow I'm walking around for almost 12 hours so I'm heading to bed soon.

Currently listening to: Ian snore.

An old friend

I just (as in less than an hour ago) sent an email to someone I was once good friends with.

The truth is that, I hold myself completely responsible for how our friendship ended.

My dad had died a little over a year before our friendship finished - I was constantly taking out my grief on my friend. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair to him and I didn't realize how cruel I'd been until after we were done being friends.

I remember constantly telling our mutual friend that "things are better this way. we're both better people without the other one around." I still feel that way even though I just apologized for how irrational I acted during that time and I'm sure he feels the same way.

We both became much better people after we stopped being friends. I miss him. I miss going out late at night and screaming out of the car window, I miss being terrified of going to cemeteries but he MADE me go - he made our entire friend circle go actually, I miss how things just seemed so much easier...even though I had lost my father.

I took him for granted. I take a lot of people for granted or at least, I used to. I've kind of learned to stop doing that.

When we WERE friends, he was failing his classes/dropping them, he was almost always in a bad mood and I never knew why until we stopped being friends - It was my fault. I took out my depression, my grief, my anger about my dad's death, all of it was taken out on him. And instead of telling me how poorly I was behaving, he felt it was better to not say anything at all but to talk to our friends about it.

Eventually, I lost 2 or 3 of the most important people in my life at that time. I knew it was my fault and I knew that if I wanted to avoid this again I'd have to make a change in my life and get over what happened to my father.

The anniversary of my dad's passing is coming up at the end of May. I always get really nervous around that time, I cry a lot on that particular day.

What I worry about more than anything else when it comes to marriage is...Who will be the one to walk me down an aisle? And who will dance with me? And if I ever have children..who will tell them about stamps and WWII?? Who will make them that awful rice-aroni stuff he made with cut up hot dogs in it? ......Who will teach them how to keep a smile on their face, even when the world has just handed them a swift kick in the behind?

I still cry at weddings when I see a bride dancing with her father because I will never have that. Sure, I could ask one of my cousins or one of my uncles to do it but it's not the same thing. So whenever I think about getting married, I conclude that getting the certificate at city hall would do me just fine but secretly, I want the flowers and the dress and the music and the food and the bad dancing.

I think he would've liked Ian. The same way that I'm a lot like his mom, he is a lot like my father - He doesn't say much but when he does, it makes the most sense. My dad never tried to understand me and that's why we got along so well. My mom's always tried forcing a friendship between us and my dad always knew it would come naturally.

A good day with chicken cordon bleu and my mom and babies.

Today was one of the best days we've had...in a while. We had dinner and went outside and lit a fire.

Since I still live with my mother and she still snoops around and calls it "cleaning," which got old about 10 years ago when I was 13, I decided to burn my old journal that I started in September. I started writing in it one month after Ian and I started dating. I guess I put one together because I wanted to remember everything - The only problem is that I don't want my mother remembering everything.

My mom doesn't need to know about all of the times I've cried over the most ridiculous things...and when I think about it, I take him for granted. There are people that I now who are in really bad relationships or less stable relationships. He has never asked me for anything, he's never told me to do anything, he's always just accepted that I am the way I am - even if I'm a pain in the butt the majority of the time we're together.

I let him read a few of the entries..well the important ones at least, that were about him. They ranged from the first time I really cried over him to spending the night at a hotel, spending the day watching his mom at a dance competition to an evening when I just couldn't sleep because I had spent the last 3 nights falling asleep to the sound of his breathing/snoring.

The truth is that, as dysfunctional as I think our relationship is at times, we really are lucky. Right now, at least. Things are good. We have never had a problem we couldn't fix. Pretty soon, we will have been together for a whole year.

To some of you, whoever you are, a year isn't a long time at all but this is the longest relationship either of us has been in. So to me, at least, it means a lot. The time means a lot.

I smile inside when only a day has gone by and he holds onto me like he hasn't seen me in a week and unexpectedly he says, "I missed you. Did you miss me??"

Note: I am still waiting for the day Ian starts beating me/verbally abusing me/cheating on me but so far, nothing of the sort.

I was hungry after Ian left so I made chicken cordon bleu...which is like the best thing ever known to man (or woman in this case). It's meat with ham and swiss cheese on the inside. I DON'T THINK I really need to go into detail on this one but basically, no matter how many times you taste it, it feels like each bite is the first one - a completely new experience.

My mom did her huffing and puffing routine after I got a text from Laura asking if I wanted to talk. I called Laura. Before I phoned her, my mom kept showing me baby clothes........I'm not a baby, I'm not having a baby, I don't really LIKE babies especially if they are crying (someone should make a video of what I do when a baby is crying in my arms........I RUN LIKE THE WIND TO THE PARENT AND HAND THE CHILD OVER IMMEDIATELY), I don't ever SHOP for baby clothes so I don't really care about the items. My cousin IS having a baby and my mom bought clothes for the shower. She showed me all of these different items and kept expecting some sort of excitement coming out of my face. SORRY...but...no. My mom is so demanding of me sometimes. I don't give a crap about baby clothes only because I'm not a mother and I only have one friend who has a child and frankly, she cares more about the baby than the clothes on him.

My mom and I are two completely different people - because I was adopted. I'm from Korea. My mother's family originates from Germany. Come on now. I am very "this is how it is and if you don't like it, shove it up your butt and I'm sorry if I offended you." My mom is very "I am going to sit here and lie to you and pretend that I agree with you when really, nobody will EVER know my real opinion because I'm going around telling everyone different things to keep EVERYBODY HAPPY." My mom's a people pleaser, I'm the exact opposite. I thrive on affecting people and making them mad and getting some kind of emotion out of them based on something I've said. When I shop, I try on clothes - if they're comfy and okay looking, I'll feel inclined to buy them. When it comes to baby clothes........I pretty much think it all looks cute. Therefore I have no preference. My mom is mad at me because I wasn't SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPER excited about the baby clothes she bought for my cousin's soon-to-be girl.

I'd like to have a kid. or two. maybe. one day. at some point. But I don't think I was meant to be a mother.

I was meant to work.

My unemployment has run out...

So I am on a deep, deep search for a job. Any job will do.
I even stooped so low as to apply for a position as a sandwich maker at Jimmy John's. Tomorrow I have a job interview and I could not be more nervous because I really need this job.
As you know, whoever's reading this, the U.S. economy is pure...shit. Excuse my language, but it is.
I no longer qualify for unemployment funds so I've been checking my email like crazy hoping that somebody, anybody found me charming on craiglist and decided to give me a job.
I am treating the interview I have tomorrow as if I'm just meeting up with a friend to talk about my work experience because the more pressure I put on myself, the less likely I am to get the job. I always find a way to have mouth diarrhea (you talk too much) or lack thereof (you don't talk at all). I find that when I don't really care about getting the job or not getting it, I land the interview.
But this job I really do want because I feel like the company and I are a great fit..they need someone who can proof read, help make their website better, send out emails and answer phones....I am good at all of these things. I've been exchanging emails with the person who's doing the hiring and we seem to get along alright.
Here's hoping.

After four years of being on the newspaper...

I am leaving in May.
I started out as a reporter in 2005, two months later the Editor in Chief (who wasn't a very good one at that) asked me if I wanted to be Arts and Entertainment Editor. I took the job and took over in January 2006.
It was really rough for me. I didn't know what I was doing, I was constantly screwing up, crying, yelling, whining. I had no guidance or help from my editor and frankly, she had no help or guidance to offer.
I was determined to outlast her. I kept telling myself that I wasn't going to quit and that I wasn't going to allow some woman to continuously bully me. I made it to May and went through a whole other stack of problems during the following semester.
What suck was that the person who became editor was a friend of mine and I found it difficult to really take her as serious as I should have and I struggled to follow the rules - that I will take responsibility for.
I can only hope that the things I did or in this case, didn't do, hasn't affected our friendship or the way she sees me.
I stepped down in January 2007 and went back to being a reporter. In March of '07, I decided that I really missed being an editor.
I applied for managing editor, got the job and one month later my father died.
I really dove into my work as managing editor, more often than not I was over-bearing, controlling, mean and brutally honest. And yet, there were days when I cried and cried because I missed my dad so much.
I realize now that I was going through a very deep depression and I used the newspaper as a crutch but I know that if I didn't have the paper, I would not be who I am today. I can honestly say that my father's death helped me grow up even more and shaped me into a better person. Some might not agree but we're all critics nowadays it seems.
After a year of being managing editor, my editor in chief approached me about taking over for him.
I accepted. 2 other people ran against me but I knew with full confidence that I was best for the job.
2008-09 was the hardest school year for me yet. Not only was I taking a number of classes but I was also running the newspaper and had a job that required me to be there 30 hours a week.
I had every intention of coming back as Editor in chief for another FULL school year, which no one in the history of the newspaper had ever done, but after I met Ian I made the life changing decision to step down and force Juan into the job.
I can never thank him enough for taking over for me, this is why I don't walk out on the newspaper staff and why I help as often as I can - because I know that if I hadn't stepped down, Ian wouldn't even be a part of my life and even though we have our ups and downs, Ian really has been my knight in shining armor. Before him, I had a long history of mean, dishonest and abusive boyfriends and so far, after nearly 8 short months, he hasn't shown any of those qualities.
But it's finally time for me to pack up my junk and leave. Juan will be by my side but it's gonna be hard for us to leave. We've both been on the paper for so many years and we have been through so much and seen so much crap go down.
I might cry.
Or throw a party.
Or both.