In Which I Make a Shakespeare Reference and Not Very Well at That

Dominic got home from work a half an hour early, which was just in time to catch me walking out the door to my Monday class, so he drove me to UTSA with the intent of working on his charts for his flight tomorrow while I was in class. I left him in the student lounge by the bookstore and preceded to class, where I sat for thirty minutes, waiting for a teacher who was a no-show on just the second day.

Once the girl with the brightly died red hair, which was shaven off on each side and left long on top, called the graduate office to find out what was going on, and once we all discovered our teacher was home sick with strep throat, I went back to the student lounge, where I found my husband, serenely bent over his complicated maps, completely absorbed and completely unaware that I was behind him. I bent down to kiss the back of his neck--

AND THEN I TOTALLY GOT REVERSE HEAD BUTTED.

Lesson: Never, ever sneak up behind your husband and try to kiss him on the back of his neck because he will think he is being accosted and will reverse head butt you and it will hurt.

Admittedly, that was stupid--what I did.

Afterward, we went to La Madeleine, the French cafe, where Dominic had an excellent mushroom chicken pasta and I had a caesar salad and then molested the complimentary fresh bread and jam. Afterward, I declared that La Madeleine had stolen my heart, and then I ordered a cafe mocha with a shot of mint to take home with me. The poor guy making the coffee for me spilled some of it on his hand, which must have burned like hell and all Montagues, and on the way back to Dominic's fancy pants sports car I remarked that I felt guilty for ordering the frivolous overpriced flavored coffee that cost a man the use of his hand.

And then Dominic and I laughed really hard, not at that poor man, but at how funny the moment was.

But I really am sorry, man who made my frivolous overpriced flavored coffee. So sorry, I've had to tell all the internet in effort to absolve myself from my sins.

Weekend in the City

The weekend was good. As it needed to be.

We discovered two very good restaurants--one, an excellent old school diner, decor courtesy of the 1970's (they had bottomless hot chocolate and fresh cream!), the other a French cafe and bakery which pushes the definition of charming to its limit and has free fresh bread with a variety of samples of homemade jams so good I wanted to hook myself up to them intravenously.

We also went shopping at the North Star mall, and I made Dominic go with me into Sac's where I immediately targeted their shoe department and spent a half an hour with my eyes bulged out at the designer shoes. Manolo Blahniks on sale were still 300 dollars. I told Dominic I pitied him because one day he was going to have to buy me some of these expensive shoes.

Today has been a bit of flurry of school work--Dominic doing it in actuality; I'm still considering mine. Also, running at the gym, which I've been doing a lot of lately for various reasons, and then making chicken salad, and hoping that Desperate Housewives comes on later.

I've got my first story due for my fiction workshop on Wednesday, and I've gotten it mostly written, except it still needs to be rewritten fairly badly. I'm afraid I don't like it, which is the case for almost every story I've ever written. Perhaps when I shape it up it will emerge into more of story, less of a case of random jumbly-mumbly words.

Emoticon: Blah

Tonight, I came home to a dark house, a franticly meowing little kitty, and a sleeping Dominic in the bedroom, the door half cracked. It was just ten 'till nine.

Dominic's schedule is so hectic. He's gone a lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. And now that I'm taking classes on Mondays and Wednesdays--classes that begin at 5:30 clear across town during RUSH HOUR--and Dominic doesn't even get off work until 4:30, and considering the fact that he leaves before I even wake up, we don't see each other conscious at all these days.

As my college roommate can attest, or my estranged mother, or anyone who has ever befriended me only to have me run off as soon as possible in order to be by myself, I like my alone time. I have always needed time to myself in the past to unwind, to relax, to be, for a moment, irresponsible of the weight of the needs and judgments of other people. Always, I have always, always been this way--until there was Dominic.

I knew I should marry him because I never ever wanted him to go away ever. But of course he's in a line of work in which going away is an ever present necessity, and we haven't even begun with that yet--the chronic going away, probably as soon as he infects me with a passel of kids. Sigh.

Things have been a little heavy around here lately, a little morose and glum, a little tense. It feels like the heavy pall a bleak, dark winter should cast. Only it's not really winter here in Texas. It's more like a distended summer, once the hotness has melted away. All that's left is a bland, dissatisfied limbo.

Still Here!

Hey Internet! We're still here just totally swamped with new things. Work has been keeping me incredibly busy, and I can hardly breathe! Kate just started her grad school classes and she's excited about that. It's kind of fun for us to study together now even though we've only been able to do it a couple of times. It reminds me of when we were in Troy. Those carefree days...I miss them now that they're gone! Isn't that the way it goes? Well, I have to go because I have a flight a 6:00 in the morning! That is not cool to say the least! Later!

Guilty Conscience

Dear United States Postal Service Worker:

I am so very sorry that today, when I pulled up beside the drop-off mailbox outside the Post Office in my SUV, I shoved a letter through the slot when you had so clearly just taken the mail bin out of the box, thereby forcing you by my inattentiveness to go routing inside the empty box for my letter. I just want to let you know that when you held out your hand expecting me to hand you the letter I had just carelessly thrown into the abyss of the empty box that I was absolutely mortified, and I expected you to ask me to park my obnoxious vehicle and get my gym clothes clad carcass out into the cold and bend over and crawl into the empty mail box and get that letter myself. And I would have done it because that's how guilty I felt for being young and inconsiderate and able to go the gym at 11:30 in the morning because I don't have a family to support or anything so I don't have to get a real job like you, Mr. Postal Service Worker. No doubt you work everyday--good, hard work to get all those letters out to people all over America--and here I am, a punk kid in a SUV with not very many responsibilities and enough free time to go to the gym whenever I want, a complete waste of adult air who inadvertently forced you to crawl into a metal mail box to retrieve my letter, which wasn't even very important to begin with.

Thank you for being so nice about it. I'm really very sorry.

Sincerely, Katharine

El Mariachi & Margaritas

Yesterday Kate and I decided to take the day and enjoy some San Antonio fun. We drove down to Market Square to do some shopping and picture taking. I went mostly excited about the thought of having nachos! The place was cool though, nothing more than a glorified flea market, but where else can you try on ponchos and sombreros? They had lots of little jewelry stands so Kate was in "sparkly things" heaven. I also was in Spanish tile heaven. I probably said "If we had a house we could get some of these..." a thousand or so times. What can I say, I like the Spanish style and nachos. We wandered around though for a while and I was a little disappointed that the farmers market was closed, but I guess it is Winter. I can't always have my way.


The place we went to for nachos was called La Margarita. We ate al fresco at tables covered in Spanish tile and ravaged by hooligan pigeons!


Lawless Pigeons!

La Margarita
Since we were at La Margarita, we had to have a margarita, however I had to drive, so only Kate had the pleasure. The nachos were delicious. The best I've ever had. There was TOO much beef and chicken on them, and me saying there's too much meat on anything is a rare occurence! Kate also got fresh Gulf oysters. She ate five, I ate one. That was enough.


Mariachi!

Then this Mariachi band came over and played Kate and I a love song. It could've been about stupid American tourists. I wouldn't know, I don't speak Spanish. It sounded great though and was our first Mariachi experience!

Overall, It was a great day and I'm so lucky to have the long weekend to spend with Kate. I wonder what we'll do today?

Everyone Looks More Glamorous in Black and White

Al and Liz were kind enough to scan a few photos for us. You can see them here. Most of these pictures are also on their website. We probably won't be putting up any more of the professional wedding pictures on this site any time soon because we don't have a scanner; however, the husband has been in spendy mood lately, so perhaps we'll be graced with the presence of one more quickly than I think.



Dominic and I are extremely pleased with quality of the pictures. They turned out even better than we knew they could. I'll be working on getting copies of different prints from the negatives to send to people who want them. If you'd like me to send you a couple of pictures in the mail, and I haven't already told you I will, send me an email or leave a comment here. If I've already told you I'll send you a picture or two, it wouldn't hurt to remind me.

I'm a notorious goofball, airhead.

Wedding Photographs

In a half an hour, Dominic and I are going to meet the couple who photographed our wedding. With them, are our much anticipated wedding photos, and I'm sure Dominic will be relieved to finally have them if only to tide the vomitudinous* amounts of impatience I have been blathering basically since the day OF our wedding when, even before we met Al and Liz, I was going on and on about how I couldn't wait to get our pictures back.

Al and Liz did everything they possibly could to make sure we were comfortable and at ease in a high stress situation. And--oh yeah, did I mention?--they put their personal lives ON HOLD for us on Christmas Eve, and they endured the freakishly harsh cold in order to shoot for us that day. They are both very nice people, and from the sneek peak I gathered from their website, where they have already scanned and posted a few of our pictures, they are also lovely photographers.

Thank you, Al and Liz.

You can view the pictures they put on their website here. Click on the Wedding, Bridal, and Reception links to see them all.

*vomitudinous (adj): a great volume of words blathered to the extent of resembling vomiting; i.e. Kate's complaining about wanting to see her wedding picures reached a vomitudinous level.

School Days

Today, I actually purchased books from a university bookstore--again. What this means is that, yes, I will actually be going to graduate school in a week. There is no room left for the ambiguity I held onto for so long because god forbid I actually think too hard about the implications of taking graduate school classes, which are that I will have to see this thing through and pray that one more degree tacked on to the Bachelor's I already have will make me more employable in a job field other than facelessly answering phones all day for any number of giant corporations or being an employee manager at Burger King.

I have been working hard these past few weeks to understand and implement all the processes of accepting and activating my financial aid, enrolling in classes, getting my tuition reduced, changing my former name to my married name, etcetera and to infinity, and, oftentimes, I have been known to stand in the middle of campus and shout loudly for everyone to hear, "I've never done this before! I don't know what's going on! I've never applied for financial aid before! Do you know what's going on? I don't."

People are rather unimpressed by that.

But, today, I cemented the whole process, and I validated the countless times I got myself lost trying to find my way to UTSA and back, by buying books for my course, Introduction to Graduate School Studies, of which there are ten required books on the reading list and two of them are Norton Anthologies, American and English, respectively. So what I'm trying to say is that I am simultaneously pleased and scared to death. On one hand, the general public no longer has reason to snub me for being a freeloader on my husband because I AM GOING TO SCHOOL, and not just any school, but GRADUATE SCHOOL, which sounds like a very pompous and important kind of school, and makes me appear to be intellectually serious about the life of the mind. On the other hand, I am scared to death that after just one class the professor and my graduate student cohorts alike will discover me for the fraud that I am (she doesn't even like Shakespeare?!) and will thus chase me from the bosom of academia, and I will be forever scorned and shamed, and I will have to become a receptionist for Holiday Inn but not even a good one at that because every time someone asks me for directions somewhere I'll mix up my right and left like I always do, and...you get my point.

This thing will work itself out, I'm sure. I'm only taking two courses so I don't possibly see how I could do too badly. You should wish me luck anyway. I'll be praying we don't go over much Shakespeare. But if Ethan Frome turns up on the reading list then my cover will be blown, and I will be forced from the leagues of higher learning. I HATE that book.

Welcome Sir, To The Wonderful World of EBay...

First off, I know. EBay is not new, but it's new to me. I signed up and made my first Ebid last night! It was exciting, like I was gambling or something at the Tropicana. I bid on a new golf club that I've been eyeing for a while and was too cheap to pay the retail price. Three hundred and ninety nine dollars. American dollars. I am happy to say though that I won the bid. For less than half of that, including shipping, I am soon to be the proud owner of a brand new Titelist 983K Driver. It's silver, matches the new car. Coincidence??? Yes. Anyways, I'm excited about my ebay experience but it has been hampered by the payment process which is the worst I have ever experienced with an online company. Maybe not the worst, but definitely the next in line.

Driving the new car has been so much fun everyday. Not because I drive fast (People at work are mad because I haven't passed 78 mph yet), because I don't, but because I'm still amazed that I have (what I consider) such a cool car. It's totally so much cooler than me. For example Kate and I were in the parking lot of Wally World and a kid sitting in front of the store gave me a thumbs-up. Then also when I was driving home from work one day, I passed a school bus and some little arms popped out the window pointing at my car. I can imagine myself sitting on the bus twenty years ago doing the same thing shouting "That's my car!" Then somebody else yelling, "Unh-uh, It's mine!" Like I said it's just a lot of fun. Kate and I have been enjoying it. She's always sure to prevent me from driving down the road with part of a plastic shopping bag sticking halfway out of the trunk. Apparently, I do that alot.

"Captain, I've Got Them On RADAR..."

I now know that when someone says this in a movie, they are in-fact, full of crap. I spent the entire day staring at radar scopes and I can't "get" anything on that peice of crap. My instructor is standing over me like "see this...that's Sacramento." I just shrug my shoulders and nod in agreement when in reality, I don't see it. It's fuzzy lines and hard to discern shapes. Another guy was like, "Do you see this banana shape? That's Waco." No, I don't see any bananas and I definitely don't see Waco. Basically, I hate RADAR. And not because it has wronged me in some way, but because it's smarter than me. So much smarter than me that it gave me a headache while I studied it. It dibilitated me just by being RADAR. Stupid, smart-ass RADAR.

On Being Perpetually Lost and Perhaps Crazy

So far I've started off the new year like this:

Wandering around San Antonio in the blazer LOST LIKE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE FIFTY SOMETHING PLUS AT LEAST TUBES OF CHAPSTICK DOMINIC HAS BOUGHT ME IN THE PAST MONTH, or

Lying on the couch and meowing at the cat. Yes, internet, I said meowing. I meow at our cat. I can't help it. She makes so much noise it really is like she's trying to communicate with us, so I've been listening to her lately, you know, to see what kind of noises she makes and when and if they have inflections or what not and I try to see if it all means anything and then I try to imitate her just to see what happens, but then sometimes she meows at me so sharply and so completely unprovoked that you could almost call it a yell, that she is yelling at me, and that just annoys me so I yell back.

Other than that I've been reading my new book, Tom Wolfe's new novel, I am Charlotte Simmons and eating way too many Welch's fruit snacks. And by way too many, I mean that I'll eat three packs at a time three times a day, and then go eat a donut and then eat one more pack and then lie on the couch and meow at the cat.

2005

Dominic and I spent New Year's Eve with the Bauer's, a couple with whom we're familiar through the Air Force, and their friends, a couple who just got engaged. It seemed strange to me--all three of us, newlyweds or engaged--and I can so easily remember a time in my life when being single was part of the orderly route of the world on its axis, natural and dependable, always spinning, always the same. But now I am married, we're married, and most of our friends from now on will be married as well. It's no secret that Dominic was, is, my first relationship of any kind of weight or substance or longevity ever, so honestly I can't help but feel shocked every now and then when I realize how quickly and permanently my life changed once he entered it. All of it has been so good.

2005 marks the beginning of our first full year of marriage. It's a year that I was never even sure would ever exist, honestly, because all throughout college, 2004 represented the end of everything I was familiar with--school, Alabama, my friends, my family to a certain extent--and 2005 loomed like a phantom I didn't want to think about. But it has come for me anyway, and who knew it would begin like this, a bright new world, a future limitless and wide open.



Happy New Year, everyone.

Welcoming the New Year...

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year! Kate and I are already enjoying the new year in our brand new car that we picked up on New Year's Eve. There are very few things I could have been more excited about and when I got the call saying the trailer had come in I was ecstatic. Which after an entire day of being testy because I had to wait for the car made the moment even cooler. Kate and I took our first spin and I think we could feel how our lives were changing. Not because of the car, but all the new steps we're taking together. Our first big purchase, a joint savings account, and a brand new year to just enjoy each others companionship. We were moving forward in more ways than one! Exiciting times down here in San Antonio, that's for sure.