Another one of those entries in which the journal's title is explained...

Hill's party went well. Great, great food. Tender luscious chicken and steak, yummy macaroni and fruit salads, all kinds of tasty goodness. I was pretty much full for the rest of the weekend after that. It was mostly her family, a few friends from her hometown, and an ex-coworker that dropped by. We had fun looking at the book on mullets she got as a present (HIDEOUS pictures of rock stars! Damn, they let their pictures be taken in those do's?), and she also got a henna kit that we'll be trying out. She was attempting to use it as I left the house, so hopefully she's figured it out by now so she can teach me. Her parents have both worked in the canning industry, and we heard some squicky stories. Now I'm really feeling reluctant to read Fast Food Nation, which my coworker passed on to me on Friday. He ate a cheeseburger right after finishing it, if you can believe that. I'm impressed.

You know what? I just really don't seem to be into the whole Mother's Day or Father's Day thing this year. Same old sadness at the "oh, my dad's so great" entries. I'm not mad at Dad on Father's Day the way I was mad at Mom on Mother's Day, mind you, but when it comes to our family MD has been a bigger deal than FD. Mainly because Mom's really into presents and holidays, and Dad gets cranky about both. While Mom wants to have attention lavished on her, Dad just wants the gifts and then we never do anything after that.

So I pretty much ignored Father's Day this year. I got him presents and gave them to him on Wednesday, made the late-night phone call when I got home at 11:30 last night (I would have called earlier, but I knew they wouldn't even get home until I was on the train) and that was it. I didn't go home for it because I didn't want to go home- my "sanity" was all eroded after last month and I just couldn't take yet another trip home for any reason- and I also didn't feel like making more arrangements for them to spend the day up here. Not that I don't love you, but I mentally need to be not in the bosom of my loving family right now. At any rate, they were going to Granddaddy's on the day, which is even more patience-eroding for me. So while for me it was the right decision to not go home... I felt guilty anyway. Didn't much help to find out that Dave's mom was asking if I knew it was Father's Day the day I was going to be here for. Uh, yeah, we did that early.

I got an enthusiastic feet-sweeping-off dramatic welcome upon arriving in town again, complete with picture-taking. Awww. He seems to be even more enthusiastic lately, which prompted Teri's making the comment that "I'm smoking, driving and talking on the phone, while two people are getting it on in the back seat." Okay, not quite that bad.... Teri wanted to go over and see her new boyfriend Gabe, who was at some concert. So we hung around in the parking lot, and Dave and I were told by some security guy to "get a room." I'm so glad these moments happen when I'm not in my own town. Especially since Dave thinks that kind of thing is hilarious. I'd probably run into someone I interviewed if I was making out on the street here. Talk about embarrassing. Meanwhile, Teri got annoyed at her boyfriend wanting to see a band instead of going off with us, especially since she's visiting her dad for a week.

We then went to go pick up her friend Ashley (joining her on the trip) and hit McDonald's, then went home to bring her mom a requested McFlurry. This was interesting because her mom and friends had been having a little drinking bash in the backyard, and most of them staggered in to comment on how tall Dave was, does he play basketball ("No, I'm a computer nerd"), well, he should, etc. He's pretty used to this kind of thing, with people being dragged in to compare how tall they were to him, etc. One chick, however, would just not let it go. She was 5'9 or so, and (a) kept going on about how she dated someone his height once, (b) would not shut up about "why do the tall guys like the short chicks?" As usual, Dave has no answer to this one. Though he did say that he'd dated from really short to really tall and that didn't matter to him, and I made a nice chin rest *snicker* Tall Girl just kept going on and on, and finally dragged her (about 5'6 or so) boyfriend out into the whole thing. Man, did we ever have a hard time leaving the house. Not that it wasn't amusing, mind you- I used to have roommates that were 5'8 and 5'll, and both would complain about not finding tall boys to date and how only the ones their height or shorter ever went after them. It's not like I don't get it. I've dated plenty of short boys, too, and most of them seemed to have some kind of, well, Napoleon complex. Teri (who's 6 feet tall) and I were both going on about how the short guys are the ones who tend to get the pissiest if you won't date them, because they think it's because of their height, but it's really because of their getting so dang pissy. At least the tall guys don't give you that kind of trouble!

We had a very long, mushy conversation throughout that night. About how he thought I was gorgeous upon first seeing me and got totally intimidated, about how it feels like we've known each other forever even though it's only been months, stuff about how he wants to support me while I have a writing career (well, I don't really know about that... if I'd want to quit just to do that, anyway). How he's worried about telling his mom about the engagement because she's tended to get along great with his friends when they were platonic, then started giving him shit once he started dating them. Though given that we've never been platonic and she just gave me a bunch of handmade potholders, maybe this won't happen? We also got into a big discussion about schooling. While he's pretty damn smart, somehow his mind doesn't seem to work in any compatible way with the traditional school system. The best he ever did was in classes where it was pretty much independent study, read a book and practice at the same time. Unfortunately, that's not real common to find. On the one hand, he's pretty miserable in regular classes. On the other hand, most things do require official schooling these days. What a dilemma.

Dave did practically nothing for Father's Day either. Must be a trend. Well, we went to the mall on Sunday to do shopping, but he wasn't able to find Dad's requested Supertramp album, so he decided to pick him up a bag instead. Unfortunately he couldn't do that until Monday. Oh well, I guess? His dad never said anything about not getting an official present on the day (other than "Oh, you couldn't find it? Weird.").

I've finally figured out why Dave seems to ignore it when I go on about something or other that scares me with regards to kids. We were watching some in a restaurant and talking about how it seems like having kids eats parents' brains or something, or the kids must take them. I said that kind of thing worries me because I don't want to turn brain-dead and smothery, and he said he wouldn't let me do that. It dawned on me that he's got this whole "what can't we face if we're together" Buffy attitude thing about it. That he's so sure that it'll work out that he's not worried about it.

Huh.

After that we attempted to go to a car show, but it had ended early, then wandered through an open house (his logic: "Well, we're going to need one of these eventually."), then ended up at his softball practice in the park like an hour early. Eventually he decided he was just not in the mood to deal with certain snippy coworkers that were going to be there, and since practice was mandatory anyway, we left.

The disturbing thing about this town is the intermingling of normal and well, scary that goes on almost everywhere. We were passing by some picnic tables when a bunch of drunk homeless guys hailed us, at first complimenting our "colorful" outfits (we were both semi-coincidentally wearing teal-ish stuff), then one wanted to look at the necklace I made him. Upon finding out who did it, one guy said he wanted to see my drawings and the other said "Go into business." Hell, he even offered assistance. Though I honestly don't know how much assistance someone whose address is "usually over by the library" is going to be able to give... Then later on Dave parked us over on a hill where yet another homeless crazy guy was hanging out. He started going off to Dave about cell phones and beating in people's faces for money. We have no idea why.

Gawd, we're both crazy magnets.

After that, we hung out with Teri, Jeremy and Nikki for awhile. I found out that J&N had moved out of his mom's house because his mom and her husband kept stealing their money and food. Including stealing the special pregnancy food, while throwing fits if anyone touched their own food. So much for saving up for an apartment, huh? Someone's gotta remind me of this the next time I gripe about my parents. So instead they moved into his Bible-thumping grandparents' place, where they were paying cheap rent to sleep in a tent in their backyard for awhile before finally being allowed a room. I had to restrain myself from screaming "You're making a pregnant woman sleep in a TENT?!" upon hearing this. I was originally told it was because they didn't have enough rooms, but I've now seen the inside of that house, and um, that's not the case. Oh well, at least they can keep more of their money, and nobody raids the food.

Nikki was wandering around barefoot, which prompted the predictable jokes. "But at least I'm not in the kitchen!" she said. Hey, one out of three isn't too bad... She and Teri also had this amusing exchange:

T: "I just went on birth control."

N: "That's good. Want the rest of mine?"

It was a pretty uneventful night after that. The train arrived early, so I happily got home early. Unhappily for a lot of other people, their connecting train was stuck at the other end of the state thanks to some big fire, and they would have to stay in a hotel for 12 hours. My seatmate was pissed because she thought the area didn't look too good and the free hotel must be slummy. Hey, it could be worse. Then on the bus ride home, there was some guy who'd come from Texas via Amtrak and was swearing the entire time he'd never ride again and no wonder they're going out of business. There were two Amtrak employees on the bus, and one said that they didn't know when they'd hear about it, but probably not until the last minute. The other said that it was more of a worry for the across-country trains rather than the in-state ones, because those were paid for by the state. Maybe I won't have to worry after all? I hope not, because otherwise I'll have to go see Dave via Greyhound, which is, well, another crazy magnet. Yikes.

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