02 September 2007

you CAN be heard.

YOU cannot imagine how HAPPY and overjoyed I was on August 31st, when Sean and I heard on NPR that Kenneth Foster's death sentence had been overturned on the 30th, SIX HOURS before he was to be killed. We first heard about the case in July, on Democracy Now!, and I've been following it since then, signing all the petitions, visiting the websites (such as this one- FreeKenneth.com, and there are so many international ones about this issue, it's hard to keep track!), and hoping that somehow, SOMEONE would step in. And the governor of TEXAS (and you KNOW they never do this) commuted his sentence! It's only the THIRD time in his entire term he's done that. Kenneth Foster was completely, 100% innocent, and an all-white jury in Texas used a morbidly old law to incarcerate & sentence him to death. It was ridiculous and one of the most blantant abuse of civil liberties.
This part of the website will explain everything about Kenneth's case to you.

In other news, I read the most disturbing article online the other day, basically stating that post-Labor Day, there is a plan being rolled out by the U.S. government to help rally support for war with Iran. If we go to war with Iran, there is no hope for our country. Have we not learned from all other empires in the past? You fall by stretching yourself too thin. Instead of insisting it's our way or no one's way, why we can't we pratice peace? It's not naive, and it's not ridiculous, to hope that our country is somehow capable of being kind to the rest of the world. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER. If our country falls, who do they think is going to help us out? Britain? Maybe. That's probably IT. Everyone is so opposed to the U.S. and the domanation regime it's running right now.

Anyway, this is one of the examples of what I read. The same article is all over the internet. If that doesn't make sense, tell me--what does? It's SCARY.

I haven't blogged in forever. We've been moving in, then the first few weeks of classes...it's been hectic. We saw the Black Crowes last Wednesday! 'Twas amazing, as always. They're definitely my favorite presently-performing band. They suit me, and Sean as well. The second they came onstage, he was like "I'm growing my hair. I'm growing it."
Aaaah, my love.

Bob Dylan & Elvis Costello are playing together in ATL, and we're going! And with Kim and David! It. Will. Be. Amazing.

I think I'm going to sponsor a child in Palestine. Freedom of Palestine is the issue strongest in my heart. It rips me into billions of pieces.

19 August 2007

18 August 2007

soooo, sally can wait

This week has been ridiculous. We've both been been working the most insane shifts. Mine was of my own making, so I can't complain, but Sean's is like 8AM-MIDNIGHT all the time. PLUS, we just moved in Thursday afternoon, so our apartment still has boxes everywhere.

We've come to the startling realization that we have ENTIRELY too many books. It's alright, because we do actually read them, but it's kind of amazing. We have 4 seperate shelves and a few crates to hold them all. We're alright now, but thank God there are no more Harry Potters coming out, because we'd reach capacity soon.

Classes start Monday! I'm actually-and this is quite nerdy, I know-excited. I want to get back in the swing of things. I think I have 3 more semesters, hopefully, and then I'm FINISHED. I like to think in terms of semesters, as opposed to years, because it makes it seem shorter. It's 1 1/2 years, if you're wondering. My projected graduation date is December 2009, which will put me at 5 1/2 years in college. I am aware that this figure is ridiculous, but in my defense, I have changed universities three times, and my major just as many. So. Really, since I started Sociology last August, it's not taking me that long at all.

Our apartment is TINY. So, so much smaller than either of us anticipated. It will be lovely when we're finished, but it's definitely a good thing we don't really have a lot of furniture. Ooh, we DID buy a bed frame. And it is AMAZING. For the longest time (the entire time we've been together) we've slept on Sean's mattresses on the floor. My first goal in the living space aspect of our relationship was to move back into a somewhat decent city, as we lived out in Godknowswhere up until last week. My second goal was to GET THE BED OFF THE FLOOR.
I have succeeded in both!

I had a complete and utter girl moment today (Kim, that's why you have a missed call). I found something an ex-girlfriend had given Sean, which was fine, because I'm usually ok with that stuff. But in the back of it, she had listed all these reasons why she loved him, and a lot of them are the same reasons I love him, and it completely stung that he had experienced these exact things with someone else. OBVIOUSLY, I know he has. I know he has ex-girlfriends, I have ex-boyfriends--you do some of the same things. Basic personalities don't change just because your partner does. But everyone likes to operate under the guise that everything their significant other does in their relationship is unique to them, and it really sucks when you have actual proof that it's not.

Needless to say, he threw away the gift.

I didn't even feel bad about it. I told him how I feel about that kind of stuff--if it's something that's truly amazing to keep around, that's fine. He has a painting one ex-girlfriend did hanging up. That doesn't bother me, because it's actually a cool painting. But other things, like notes and gifts and etc., I don't understand keeping. To me, when the relationship ends, those things become material possessions, just like any other thing, and the sentimental value leaves. I don't have things people have given me in the past. I either left it at my mom's house, or it didn't make it in the move to Sean's. So, I don't know. He doesn't keep pictures, or notes, but just random stuff people have given him. Most of it is fine. This, however, was not, because it made me cry.

AND that is the story of that part of my day.

I have 9 hours left at work. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.

I'm going to re-read Harry Potter. And see if Sean will buy me macaroni and cheese later. Oh yes.

13 August 2007

on Love, and other extraordinary happenings

(I posted this on my Myspace blog, which I never, ever use. I put it on here mostly so ONE PERSON could read it, as she is incredibly important to me and was absent for much of what I'm writing about.)

My life is so incredibly different than what I imagined it ever could have been right now.

Part of what is bringing all of this on is that Sean and I will have been married for six months on the 16th. Six months! On the 23rd, we'll have been together for 10. I say it to everyone who asks, but I'll say it again--I never, ever thought I would be married at this age, if at all. Fresh off of Dr. Finley's Sociology courses, Sean and I both discussed (& agreed) to great lengths the concept of marriage, the idea, the instituition. We were both whole-heartedly opposed. It had nothing to do with being children of divorce, it just wasn't something either of us factored into our lives. I've known since I met Sean we were destined to be intertwined in a beautiful pattern for the rest of our days, I just didn't know what the pattern looked like. We were both terrified of dating--we didn't want to ruin what is a beautiful friendship.

I think that is our greatest strength--at the very heart of it, our relationship, we are truly best friends. I also never believed that the person you're with should be your best friend. To me, my best friend was the girl I've known since I was 16, who gave me a ride home on my birthday and introduced me to Bob Dylan, Magical Mystery Tour, and Ryan Adams. She was, and remains, my soul sister, this other cosmic entity sent to me to get me through life. How could someone else be my best friend? Especially someone I met after her? But he is. I can honestly say he knows me better than anyone, and knows me well enough to know that you can never know everything, because I, like the rest of human beings, am constantly evolving and changing. But he understands my roots, my cores, my beliefs, and my spirit. Those are the most important things.

Now, I can't imagine life without Sean. Before we began talking, as friends, I was about to fly to a foreign country with a friend, to stay with another friend, with the intent of staying, just to escape. In fact, up until the week Sean and I first started hanging out, I was planning how to pay for my plane ticket, credit cards and all. And Sean completely turned my world 100% upside down in a matter of minutes. I knew I would stay, and I knew it would be with him.

We drove 13 hours to Philadelphia to see Beck. It was our first date. After we came back home, I stayed at his house, because it was late and he lived 40 minutes away from me. Then I stayed the next night, because we didn't go to classes and we wanted to be around each other. I stayed the following night, because conviently, my stuff was still at his place. And then I just stayed all the time, and he asked me to bring more of my stuff, and I was officially moved in. We've been living together since we were dating, which was one of the most exciting things I've ever done. I never thought relationships really started off like that, it sounds like something the flightly character in a film does. If I am that flightly character, I hope I always am.

We went to Las Vegas in January, to see his Hawaiians, and it was on that trip that I realized he would be in my life permanently. I think it was half simply meeting the other part of his soul---so much of him is rooted in his Hawaiian relations and nativety, which is remarkable because he has really spent so little time there. The other half, I belive, was the pure magic that Hawaiians weave around anyone they love. The entire trip was loaded with an other-worldly quality I had not yet experienced in life, and didn't realize was possible through another human being. Sean asked me to marry him on that trip, with the sweetest and most wonderful proposal in the world (and I'm not sharing it, because I am keeping it for myself), and I completely and totally accepted (the exact words were "I'm down!"), and we giggled and stared at each other and talked about how crazy it was for us, the two opponents to marriage, to be discussing such matters.

We never set a date; I never had an engagement ring. We weren't really sure when or where it would take place. We talked about having a ceremony outside, on Monte Sano, and having a friend speak. We woke up one Friday, and more or less decided that if it worked out, that would be the day. It was the 16th, two days after Valetine's Day. We took clothes to wear with us to school, and as it turned out, my Spanish class was cancelled that afternoon, and we were both finished with classes by 11:30. We decided to go to Zero Gravity, and get these wonderful, $10 rings, and then to the court house. We were going to do it alone, and then decided if anyone deserved to be there, it was our mothers. We called them about an hour before we were supposed to go in. They both subsequently had minor heart attacks, but made it in time. :)

Life since then has been the most blissful extension of life before then. Everyone says things change when you get married, that you find out something about the other person you didn't know, or you start fighting, or whatever. We DO find out new things about one another, all the time. We find our things we have in common, things that we don't but that still manage to work together. We're like a zipper, if that makes sense. We each fill in the other side. Sean and I have continued to fly around our merry, peaceful world with only minor bumps, which have all had to do with our completely horrendous money-managing skills. But surprisingly, and with the help of some lovely relations, we survive even those, and we're finally getting on our feet, and acting like responsible individuals. Only in the sense that we now watch our spending. Everything else about us remains children in love, giggling, holding hands, and gnome kissing (rubbing noses).

Our natures are incredibly well-suited. I'm all instinct, and Sean is all mind, all theory. He's the first person who can bring theoretical proof to my instincts. Before, I always knew I was right-on about something, but never prove it. Since I've met Sean, he's helped me express what I've always known. It works both ways--since meeting me, Sean becomes more and more comfortable with allowing his mind and intuition guide his thoughts. He's not totally there yet, but he's grown tremendously. Sean has some of the greatest ideas and aspirations of anyone I've known, but not always the confidence to vocalize or apply them in his life. I am so incredibly proud of him, and so happy to be included in his life. He is never condescending, or rude. He is never mean to me, he never yells, and he is endlessly patient. He is SO loving. Sean beams love out of every part of his body. I feel it every time he touches me, however slight it may be. His entire soul IS LOVE. We both are faulted in that we're incredibly sensitive, but I think this is also one of our greatest combined attributes--we're sensitive to one another, neither starts a fight, we discuss things to great detail, and above all else, we're sensitive to the needs and dreams of others.

Recently, I've seriously started to think about what it would be like to have a child with Sean. This is still years down the road, but it's something I've been giving real thought to. We've joke about it, coming up with names and the like, but it was until one day when he, like he so often does, looked at me and grinned so, so widely, before exploding into one of his rainbow-colored tangents about who-knows-what, that I realized I really, really want to do that with him. I want to bring another life into the world that is ours, and I want to teach our child, I want him to teach our child, I want to see him with our child and know that we have created this extraordinary breath of life. This will most likely not happen for a good 2-4 years down the road, (you can never be positive, sometimes children like to sneak up on you), but it's something I look forward to doing with Sean.

I meant to write about other things, other events happening in my life or other people I know. I had no intention of speaking of Sean for so long, but I'm glad I did, and I don't want to mar this with talk of someone else.

I am happy.

WE are happy.

12 August 2007

we all float on ALRIGHT

The other day I had the trippiest dream. It was trippy in that I had the same dream two times in a row, but in the second key elements had changed. Falala.

We are moving THIS Friday, and planning a huge gigantic colorful brilliant amazing "Yay, we live in Huntsville now!/Yay, Kim and David are visiting!" get-together extravaganza. Everyone who reads this and lives in the vicinity is invited. If Goldie Hawn's son is already in Huntsville, he's invited. For. Sure. I doubt it though. I also don't think it will be a huge event, mostly because the new soon-to-be-ours! abode will not be too too large.

I love my husband. He is the most stunning individual in my life. This was brought on by his discussion of the apocolypse he is engaged in right now with his mother. Mmmmm.

SO, so. I got a new job! I will be the Arts & Leisure Senior Writer at the paper at my college. Hopefully, this is will be fun. And fruitful. And enjoyable. And not awful. We shall see.

I have a new blog that I read like a madperson, Desert Peace. I linked to it. The man who writes it is a working for Palestinian civil rights in Israel.

I really have nothing legitimate to say, I just need a way to fill time before we vacate.

5 days!

08 August 2007

*cue Olympics theme song*

AND NOW, for your comic relief of the day:

I was reading this article about the 2008 Olympics, and because the Summer Olympics are in my top 10 favorite things about being ALIVE list, I got really, really excited. Especially because it says they start on August 8th. So excited to the point that I forgot I am currently living in 2007, and was thinking about how I can go home after work and watch the opening night, and I'll have to get Sean's mom to TiVo specific events for me since I'll be working during the week and etc. I even called Sean to tell him but he, luckily, did not answer his phone. And then I had a rude, rude awakening, when I went to NBC's site, and there was NOTHING Olympics related on the main page. I was momentarily confused, because I figured if opening night is TONIGHT, surely there would be ...something? AND THEN, it dawned on me that this is 2007, not 2008, and I still have a full 365 days to wait.
Well, I guess 364 1/2.

I think when we get home, I'll ask Sean to run around the backyard and hop some bushes and throw a javelin and MAYBE even turn a cartwheel. Just to make me feel better.

BUT...LOOK!

OH, and Keely tagged me for this:
4 jobs I have had: server at Ruby Tuesday, information desk person at UAH, cashier at Tender's, and I worked for my parents. Not in that order.

4 films I would watch over and over: E.T., Almost Famous, Alice's Restaurant, Help!

4 places I have lived : Baton Rouge, Louisiana; New Orleans, Louisiana; Tarrant, Alabama; Albertville, Alabama.

4 favorite T.V shows: I don't watch TV! I like Pucca, when I see it.

4 favorite foods: macaroni and cheese, all kinds of salads, lots of kinds of pastas, and ice cream!

4 web sites I visit everyday: facebook. Aahahaa.

4 places I love to be: the ocean!, home with Sean, anywhere with Sean, in the clouds.

4 favorite colors: yellow, white, turquoise, orange

4 names I love but wouldn't use for my children: Nadia, Rose, Jasmine, Apple.

07 August 2007

i didn't realize they were together!


Tim Burton & Helena Bodham Carter. Apparently they have a child, she's pregnant with their second, and they're engaged.

I LOVE when things like this happen. Seriously. Could they be MORE perfect?
I called Sean from work just to tell him about this. I think he most likely believes I am crazy, but he just giggled and said "That's cool, baby."

Damn straight.

Hmm.
I wonder if I should start talking about REAL things now.