I’ve been very lazy about blogging the past few days, but that’s because I’ve been busy! Not busy doing anything spectacularly important, mind you. Just busy. Wasting time, I guess. I’ve been a bit antisocial, too, and I think it’s because I’m overwhelmed with my own stuff and while I completely appreciate that my friends come to me with their problems, I’m not doing a great job with handling them lately. So I do the best that I can and hope that they understand that I’m not trying to be a cold-hearted kind of person, but instead that I need to focus on straightening my life out first.

I’ve made a list of things that I need to do for immigration. The scary thing is that the list fits on one Post-It. I write big, too, so this means that it’s coming right down to the wire. I’ll be mailing it out hopefully by the end of the week. Scary? Yes. Terrifying. But I’m so ready for it all to be over already so I can move on with my life. The packet of information is already crazy thick, so I can’t wait to see just how thick it is when it’s done. Not to mention I’ll be waiting with my fingers crossed until the day that I get that envelope with the approval in it. Enough about that, though. I’ve already had my one allotted panic attack for the day regarding that!

I’ve spent the past three days at the beach. Not today, but the three days before that. Lots of sun, a bit of a burn, and lots of exercise. Swimming makes me happy. I prefer the ocean over lakes and to be honest, I prefer pools and wave pools over lakes too, but swimming is swimming and I’ll take it wherever I can get it! My shoulders and neck are a bit sore where they were burned but I have no regrets. I haven’t been out in the sun so much in over three years, so I’m well past due.

Last night Matt and I went with Jane and her boyfriend Rob to the casino for a thing with Matt’s coworkers. Jane and Rob are really close friends with Matt’s boss (they’re the reason he found out about the job!) so it was nice having them there. Another of Matt’s coworkers and his band were playing while we were there, and they were awesome! Absolutely fantastic band. It was nice to get out, have a night out, have some drinks and good music and just laugh. It felt so carefree. We gambled a tiny bit - when I say a tiny bit I mean that we used $10 in the slot machines and that was it. It was fun but we knew we didn’t want to spend too much. After the casino we decided that we really wanted some food (mind you, at this point I’d had a couple Smirnoff Ices and a Cosmopolitan, so I was along for the ride no matter where we were going!) so we stopped at a little pizza shop and got some take-out. Jane and I sat on the curb with our feet in the street and tried to figure out where everything was in relation to where we were standing (She definitely knew much more than I did about that!) while we waited for the food, and some crazy guy with no shoes came up asking for a light. After that, I managed to trip in a small hole in the sidewalk and skin my knee. Oh, the things you do when you’re a bit drunk. It was overall a great night though, honestly. I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

I’m debating whether to upload this short video that I have to youtube or not. It’s a guy at the casino that had obviously had a few drinks, and was apparently dancing with his daughter. Unfortunately he stopped shortly after I got the camera out, but I got some good footage! If I do upload it, you can bet I’ll be posting it here. It was one of the highlights of the night!

[01:21] Stacy: Is it sad that a refrigerator commercial that shows them demolishing their old refrigerators says “Do Not Attempt” on the bottom of the screen?
[01:21] Stacy: It almost makes me weep for my generation
[01:21] Ang: Awww
[01:21] Ang: lol
[01:21] Ang: I read that wrong
[01:21] Ang: hence the “awww”
[01:21] Ang: I thought them demolishing refrigerators made you weep

So much to talk about that it’s hard to know where to begin, so I guess the beginning would be a good start. So let’s see…

Woke up around 10:30 or so and confirmed my appointment for tomorrow. Scared out of my mind for the blood work because, let’s face it, who wants giant needles in their arm? Oh, well, though. A bit later, Katie (Matt’s brother’s fiancee, and a good friend of mine) called me to let me know that she’d be over to pick me up in a little while. I got dressed, emailed with my mom, and headed downstairs to wait.

Katie and I headed back to her place, where we sat around for a bit, mopped her kitchen floor, and chatted while playing with her daughter (my niece), Lannah. We went looking for Matt’s cousin to see if she’d watch Lannah while we went to the gym, but she wasn’t home. However, we saw a much more disturbing sight on the way to her place. We pulled onto a small side road and saw a boy (around 13 or so) on the ground with three boys on top of him, kicking and punching him while he flailed around. We locked our doors and rolled up our windows (I don’t care if they were 13, we weren’t taking any chances, as they were obviously not friendly to begin with) and as we were pulling into the parking lot we saw one of the boys’ faces - it turns out it was Matt’s cousin’s son. The son of the woman we were going to go find. I believe Katie’s going to talk to his mother later, and since we had no way of getting ahold of the police or anything and since the boys fled the scene, we couldn’t really do anything. I can honestly say it was scary though. I can’t imagine what young boys would have to fight that much about, really.

Anyway, Katie found a sitter for Lannah around 3:30ish and we headed out to the gym. I had my four photos taken for my medical tomorrow while Katie ran to the bank, and then we headed up and she had her orientation for the gym while I wandered around with them. Then we did a bit of cardio warm-up on the bike, the weight circuit, and then 5 minutes on the treadmill. We decided to stop there so we’re not too sore for the next couple days, and we’re going to go back Friday. I think having her around will really help my motivation, and I hope I can do the same for her!

After that, we decided to go swimming (even though the sun and heat and humidity had all but disappeared by this point) so she took me back to my apartment so I could put on my swimsuit and grab a towel, and we headed out to the lake. We swam for about a half hour, in ice cold water, talking about how we’d waited a year to do this again. Regardless of how cold it was, it felt fantastic and I think it was a great way to relax my muscles down after a nice workout.

After this, I came home and made BLTs with Matt, played some EQ2, and am sitting here just relaxing. Tomorrow, I’m going to clean up the apartment during the day, and then head out to the doctor for my medical, and then the hospital for my X-rays and blood work. All in all, it was a great day. Summer’s officially here!

There are quite a few of you lately that are going through unspeakable problems. Things that most people wouldn’t think would happen to good people, and yet they are. I won’t go into detail what they are, or who you are, because I’m sure you already know that I’m talking about you.

I do, however, want you to know that I’m here for you. I can’t do a lot from this far away, but I can always be an ear to listen and a shoulder to lean on. So many of you have done the same for me that I am not only incredibly grateful, but I do believe that “paying it forward” means as much as “paying it back” and you just deserve to vent.

I don’t know if the advice I give helps, but I do know that I’m always here if you need a kind word or an idea from another perspective. Until things get better for you, know that every day you’re all in my thoughts, because you are my friends.