Adventures and Vomit (But mostly adventures)

I’ve said it before,  but in case you missed it –

I love having a boyfriend who makes me try new things. It wouldn’t be any fun if our interests were identical. Just a couple of weeks into the relationship, he made me try paintball, and the new things haven’t stopped.

This past weekend it was tubing. Maybe it doesn’t seem like the biggest adventure in the world, but considering I hadn’t put on a bathing suit in years, let alone gone near a body of water, it was a bit of an achievement.

I earned a life achievement there was well: Finally vomited from motion sickness.

But that was at the end.

Tubing itself was a lot of fun. I spent half the time wondering how idiotic I would look when I finally lost control and flew off, but I made it through the experience without losing my grip. In all fairness, I also got off the tube earlier than the boyfriend. Like a good girlfriend, I pulled out my phone, took video, and hypocritically spent the rest of the time hoping to see him fly off.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Through all of that I was fine. My stomach felt just like it does on land. Motion sickness is my allusive enemy, because I never know when it will strike me. At some point, though, as we headed toward Cedar Point, Lake Erie decided to break me. But hey, I made it all the way to Kelley’s Island, had lunch, and back to the dock before my insides decided to rebel against me.

Yeah, I left that day sick and with a defined rash from my life jacket, but new experiences are totally worth what they bring. I can’t wait to have more.

Misc Monday – On my mind

If you didn’t notice from my last mini-rant, some stress has recently snuck its way into my life. Roommates and money and the standard. Misc. Monday. Here’s my brain.

Then I realized that money really isn’t weighing on me as much as I would normally expect. The stressful situation is worth it. Because the rest of my life is going alright.

So…

On likability

Today is one of those days when I have to sit and appreciate just how well I have it. I have a job, a home, a family who loves me, friends who care about me dearly, and opportunities I never would have been granted if I’d been born in a different country. Or under many other circumstances.

It makes the problems I’m having with my roommate seem silly. It makes the fact that I’m losing my best friend seem like something I should be grateful can even happen. It makes the financial situation I’m entering seem glorious.

Because my problems are small and petty.

The end.

Out of my element

Dating always means some sort of adjustment. My boyfriend of a couple of months makes me immensely happy, but when we first started dating, we had to have a gun conversation.

I’m not a fan of guns. It’s probably not fair to say it that way, but it’s easiest. Really, my problem isn’t the weapons themselves, it’s that I don’t trust people. Most of the people I’ve known in my life who like guns haven’t exactly been people I’ve trusted with such a dangerous weapon.

Example: I had a coworker once who didn’t like guns until she met her fiance, and then was suddenly a fan, wanting to spend their bonus money on accessories and her days shooting Coke cans. That alone is fine, I guess. If she really suddenly started liking them, fine. But let’s discuss the household where she kept these guns, specifically, her fiance. One night, fiance was drunk, and decided that he absolutely had to clean the gun he keeps under his bed. Luckily, he didn’t shoot anything that night, but the next morning when he woke up, he wondered what his gun was doing out. I’m not sure if he decided to clean it again or what, but he had forgotten he’d loaded it in his drunken state, and shot a hole right through the floor.

My favorite part of the story is how he didn’t think to run downstairs and make sure his neighbors were, you know, alive. The woman downstairs found the hole and called the police, who confiscated the gun.

He had his concealed carry. Former co-worker now does as well. These people are why I don’t like guns.

As I was saying, the current boyfriend and I had to have a gun conversation. I felt much better about him owning and keeping guns after he showed me how incredible secure and locked down they were. Eventually he showed me how they worked, and, finally, to make me feel better about being around them, he took me shooting yesterday.

It’s an experience I never thought I would have, but I’m glad to have done it now. I was fairly nervous while we were there (the heat and smell of body sweat probably didn’t help the nerves), but afterward, I could see how it might be enjoyable. Mostly, though, I’m glad to have been shown how they work.

I also like that I’m seeing someone who has different perspectives than I do. It makes you consider the world differently. I still don’t trust people, and I still don’t like the idea of a lot of people being licensed to carry the things around, but I feel much better around them now.

Below is my target, which I was instructed to share. I’m pretty sure I got worse as the session went on. The picture really, really doesn’t feel like rotating, so we’ll just pretend it’s right-side up.

Misc. Monday – Political Passion

Went to the Ohio State Fair this weekend, and was thoroughly impressed by the passion at this booth.

That’s Annabel Cupcake speak in sarcasm kiddies, if you didn’t pick up on that.

Airbender SLICE (of cake)

I never understood why people were so proud of the cakes they made – until I made an attempt myself.

That crap is hard, people.

So here’s my feeble attempt at a cake for my boyfriend’s not-birthday. I am now more thoroughly impressed by people who actually decorate cakes, particularly those who do it well.

Midnight at Rises

My little brother and I saw “Dark Knight Rises” in IMAX last night. Actually, we were the crazy people who paid $40 each to see all three movies, with “Batman Begins” starting at 6PM, “The Dark Knight” at 8:45, and Finally “Rises” at 12:01.

The night was fantastic, not just because I got to see three great movies, but I got to spend it with my brother as well. I think it was worth it just to see “Dark Knight” in IMAX one last time. I don’t think there was a moment that insane crowd cheered for over the course of the night louder than when Joker made his first appearance.

As far as my feelings for the movie go, I enjoyed it. As a fan of the comics, I appreciated the way Batman lore was applied to the storyline. You could tell who in the theater knew the comics during one moment in particular – one of Bane’s. The cheers and shouts were incredible. It was also apparent when some people talked about a “twist” that was only a twist if you didn’t know much about the comics. I almost wished I didn’t at a couple of points, because those people sounded like they were having a great time. Then again, I was too. Though, I’m not sure anyone was having as good a time as the guy who sat next to me. I’m pretty sure it was the first action movie he had ever seen, despite saying he’d seen “Dark Knight” 30 times. There’s no other reason a grown man would jump, scream, smack his hands to his knees, and nearly smack the chick next to him in that kind of excitement.

Overall: Good movie. The three flow nicely together. I’m gonna go ahead and say that I think “The Dark Knight,” and not “Rises” is the strongest of the three. I know people were saying that Bane is as great a villain, and maybe he is in some ways, but he doesn’t linger with you like the Joker did.

After the movies I sat happily tweeting in the parking lot, going on about this series, when across the country people were panicking because of the shooting during “Rises” in Colorado. I had no idea. When I woke up, it was to a DM on Twitter asking if I regretted my excitement.

Of course I don’t.

What happened at that theater is a tragedy that I highly doubt – actually, I hope – few of us can understand. But allowing the actions of one man on the other side of the country to affect me only gives those actions more power. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. I just ask that people not give that man more power than he deserves.

Misc Mondays: Fifty Shades of Potato

Like what seems to be every other person on the planet, “Fifty Shades of Grey” has somehow infiltrated my life. Oh, I’m not reading it. But my coworkers won’t stop discussing it. Every time a new person starts reading it, they all pick up the conversation with the same enthusiasm I’ve heard them use a dozen times already. Now one of my friends is convinced that if she buys it for me, I’ll read it and my boyfriend will thank me for it.

So I decided to make him a gift of it.

In explanation, he’s a big fan of the joke going around about potatoes. The basics get changed, but it goes something like this:

Once there was a woman with three children.
The first daughter goes up to her mom and asks, “why did you name me Daisy?”
The mother replies “because when you were born, a daisy fell on your head.”
So the second daughter asks, “And why did you name me Rose?”
The mother replies, “because when you were born, a rose fell on your head.”
Then the third child walks up to her mother and says, “My favorite color is potato!”
The mom replies, “Shut up, Brick!”

It’s a terrible, terrible joke, but he lights up every time he gets an excuse to shout “my favorite color is POTATO.”

I’m not going to read “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Below is the only “gift” he’s getting out of it.

 

/end misc. monday

Sweat

Have you ever stopped to think about sweat?

It’s one of those things you don’t think about until it’s consuming your life, which was the reality of living in Ohio recently. The temperature seems to have decided to relax a little, but I’m watching it. Weather is a conniving bastard, after all.

You think about sweat when it’s so hot as you step out of the shower that you aren’t sure whether or not the drip rolling down your head is freshwater or saltwater.

You think about sweat when you realize that while your boyfriend’s back is drenched, you’ve got lovely marks under your boobs, just from spending time outside.

You think about sweat when you come back from a 2 mile walk looking like you snuck into the neighbor’s pool.

And if you’re me, you think about sweat as you curse yourself for ever having moved into an apartment without central air. Sure, we have window units.

Window units suck.

So while everyone else was hiding indoors, I was doing everything the last couple of weeks to get out of my apartment, which felt like it was trying to melt us.

Hello, Internet. I missed you :)

Korra: On Loving Her Without Shame

Since it came up in my last post…

I love Avatar: The Last Airbender. It started while I was in high school, and I watched it initially in secret. Well – except for my little brother who was in the appropriate age-range for the show. Eventually I snapped out of the idiot high-school mentality and stopped caring. I bought the DVDs of season 3 as they came out because they were released before the show aired in the U.S. It’s my happy place – the show I pop in when I need background noise.

The next series, the Legend of Korra, is more than well underway at this point, and I’m insane obsessed. One of my coworkers, it turns out, also had a secret love of the show. It’s more than a little fun to start talking about how much we like bending in a work environment. We’ve started wondering what we’d bend if we could bend anything. God, I’d like control of alcohol.

Sometimes you need that childish love. Sometimes you need that simple, yet complex, story of good and evil where good wins.

And sometimes you need to bend some booze on a weekday night.

Said coworker send me this gif, and if you’ve watched Korra, you’ll understand when I say: Be the Leaf.