5.6.99

    There's nothing like starting dinner with dessert. I got home today feeling worn out. All day I looked at code line by line and made corrections to someone else's asinine choices. And, of course, inwardly I grumbled that someone got paid to do that sort of coding in the first place. It rained on the way home. I hydro-planed getting onto the 405. Although, if I want to be a true Oregonian I'll have to stop using "the" with every highway name. Here they say "405 South" or "I-5 North" which in L.A. would simply be "the 5." That's a bit mythical, isn't it?

    Due to the rain it was slow getting home and that capped a day that just dragged and dragged. So, as soon as I got home I changed into sweats and fluffy socks and pulled out the pint of Mint Chocolate Chip, Ben & Jerry's ice-cream. Mmmmm.... Did you know there's whole cookies in there? Whole cookies. T. went to the supermarket alone the other day and came home with a variety of meat products and three flavors of Ben & Jerry's. The why of these decisions is not important. What's important is that in addition to the mint he also bought Phish Food and Chunky Monkey. I remember trying B & J years ago and not being particularly impressed but, oh my, these are good.

    After my sugar fix we went out to the Happy Panda for dinner. I don't know what made me crave Chinese food but it was soooo good. We ate way too much and have leftovers. I guess I'll be having chow mein and rice and orange chicken for lunch tomorrow. Dinner was really fun. We talked a lot about random stuff. We're planning a trip to his family's family reunion in Alabama. Actually, it turns out it's going to be more like two reunions as we doing a day with the maternal side before several days with the paternal. I'm kind of nervous.

    I'm not sure what I'm nervous about exactly. I think I'm afraid of expectations. A few of his family I met at the wedding but there's a bunch of people I haven't met yet. T. just told me that we need to come up with a photo of me for his grandmother's family-tree wall display, or something like that. For some reason, that just makes me want to shrink into a corner. I don't like being anywhere near the center of attention when I'm new to people. Why? Maybe I'm afraid of making an ass out of myself, of being blindsided, of being boring. Ick.

    On the other hand, I'm highly amused that we're doing this. That I'm doing this. Who knew I'd have a new family? Who knew that one day I'd be travelling back to the South, to Alabama, to meet the people that have known an cared for the love of my life since he was a little baby. Growing up we always visited family in Montana and Washington. For Christmases and summers we'd take road trips and plane trips to Grandma's and Grandpa's. For T., it was Alabama and Arkansas. And yet, here we are today. T. and I are in some ways a lot alike but in other ways it's a miracle we ever found each other. We are very much yin and yang. When he's down, I'm up. When I'm worried, he's calming. When he's angry, I'm sympathetic. It's a pretty good deal going on. I just hope he'll protect me when we're down there. From what, I don't know but I might need to hide behind him a little bit and just watch.

    I can't wait for the weekend. This having a real job sort of thing is burning me out. Of course, my "job" is ending tomorrow. Here's to hoping something interesting comes along by Monday.

    One more thing, I just started reading a new journal. I've heard about it for ages and I think I took a peek once in awhile but never stayed around to read. It's called Lagniappe and it's just smashingly good. I think I avoided it because I thought it was an L.A.-based journal and, for some strange reason, didn't want to... I don't know... read the competition? I'm not sure if that was the reason at all but it's too bad I waited this long because it's really good. Check it out at www.la-lagniappe.com (I'm pretty sure the "la" is for Louisiana). Cheers, Toni.