Covetousness and Christmas

So, now the holiday season is over. And although I did get stuff I wanted, I have come to realize that I want too much. I covet a large portion of Amazon.com, for example. I want the HGTV dream home, even if I'd have to sell it after a week cuz there's no way I could afford the property taxes, let alone the insurance. I want the job I just applied for, even if I am grossly underqualified. I want to travel. I want to see all my friends more often than 3 times a year. And I think I want to go to grad school. I suffer from the sin of covetousness. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't covet my neighbor's wife (I don't think I swing that way...) nor do I covet my neighbor's husband. But, let's just take my Amazon.com Wish List for example. On it are currently 5 items, all of which are on there for the express purpose of me not having to search for these items, since I plan on purchasing them all. These 5 items total almost $500. $500?! Were do I think I'm gonna get that kind of money?! Certainly not at Michaels, not with the hours I've been getting and the fact that I still haven't seen my FES raise. Maybe from that really cool job I just applied for? Even if a miracle occurred, and I got it, even 35k a year isn't really that much in Chicago. I'd have to get an apartment, some furniture, a newer TV, and I'd have real world living expenses (things I avoid at present). I didn't get as much in Xmas monies as I'd hoped, since most of that appears to going to my Visa bill to help pay off the 1000+ miles of driving I did between Xmas and New Years. Gah! This is depressing me.

And, really, I'm digressing. Even though the title of this post is about my desire for way too much stuff, I really meant to be talking about my Xmas. About my crazy jaunt up and down the length of Indiana. And maybe a bit of what I did before that, since my last serious post was on my birthday.

So, we'll start with that. As you may know, on my birthday I drove a few of my friends (Gena, Katie, and Laurie) to St. Louis to attend a U2 concert. We got to my aunt's house around 10 and had cake that my aunt made, and tried to make some plans for the next day. I know Laurie and I didn't go to bed until 2 ish, and I think Kaite and Gena were still up until then, reading. Anyways, we got up around 10 am, and made it out for brunch at my favorite French bakery/cafe in St. Louis around 12:30. From there we drove my aunt home and left for the metrolink parking lot, planning on hanging out in Union Station to kill a couple of hours before going to stand in line for the concert. Halfway to Union Station we realized that Laurie's half of the tickets were still in her bag, so we had to get off, wait for a train going the other direction, go back to my aunt's and grab the tix, and try it all over again. So, we ended up with a little less than an hour at Union Station (where we wate a bit of food to tide us over through the concert). Then we hopped back on the metrolink for about a mile, and we were at the Savvis center. Yay for concerts! Anyways, we walked around about 2/3 of the center to find the end of the line for the floor, but although it was a little chilly and breezy, it wasn't too bad, nor too long. Finally we were inside, and we decided just to head for the floor to try and find a spot to stand, rather than trying to buy anything. I guess that was a good thing. We weren't actually that far away from the little bridge/pathway thing that the stage had, but you really couldn't tell until the concert began, because apparently, every other U2 fan in the area is at least 5'8", or taller. But after a bit of wating, Bono came out to introduce the opening act. I ended up not being to thrilled...it was Kanye West, and seeing as I do not listen to that genre of music, I just stood there thinking that the best thing was that he had some violinists and cellists as his backup, and couldn't they just have them play without the rap interuppting it? Anyways, throughout Kanye West, the crowd wasn't too bad...there was the one guy behind me to the right who insisted on dancing to every one of Kanye's songs, but we all still hand breathing room, so it was ok. Then, when Kanye was done, everyone behind us decided that they weren't close enough and that there must be loads of extra room that the people in front were hoarding, so if they just pushed up a bit it'd be just fine. Wrong! At one point, before U2 ever started, there was this guy with his young son behind me. The guy was turned around facing the back, maybe talking to someone, and holding his son when the back surged up, and all of a sudden, that guy was sitting on my ass. I mean, his ass was in the small (or not so small) of my back, just above my ass. And if I had moved up I'd have been on some other guy's ass. I mean, right before U2 started singing, Laurie began sorta freaking out and had to squeeze out and head for the back where there was more room. It was really tight in there. But by the end of the concert, there was actually some room near me. I guess other people got tired of being that close, too. But anyways, it was a really good concert. U2 is mighty good. After the concert, and after we waited in line to buy stuff, only to see most of it sold out, it was midnight, and there were only 2 metrolink trains left to run that night. But we needed to get back to where I parked my car, since I sure as hell didn't want to walk the several miles in a city I don't know, and didn't have the kind of money to get a taxi. And the thing was, the 2 remaining trains weren't going all the way. Luckily, there was a shuttle to take us to the other stations. So, we were able to get back to my car, and then try and find a 24 hour restaurant for "dinner", to keep up the tradition of the after-concert meal. We ended up at an IHOP pretty close to my aunt's house. So, we ate and went back to sleep. The next morning we were woken up by my aunt, whose favorite meal is breakfast. I think she really wanted to share breakfast with the girls sleeping under her roof, cuz she sorta came in around 9:30 and was like "Are you girls awake? Would any of you be up for breakfast? How was the concert?" We got up, ate breakfast, and tried to decide want we wanted to do before going home, if anything. We finally decided ("we" being me in this case) on driving around Forest Park on our way out of town. While were were doing that, we saw a sign for the "Turtle Park" and decided to check that out. It was a little park on the other side of the highway with a bunch of giant concrete turtles! It was pretty cool, and sorta cold. But then we left for Eville. Overall, I think a good time was had by all. Which is good.

After that, I stayed in Eville until after Xmas. However, the 26th marked the beginning of my "tour d'Indiana". Early on the 26th, my parents packed and left to go to my grandmother's, while I slept in for a couple more hours, before getting up to pack and make pumpkin cheesecake for the 27th. After I had made the cheesecake and put it foil-wrapped in the fridge, I drove up to Indy. And even though I left about an hour after I had planned to leave, I made it up there only about 15 min later than I had said would be a good time to meet Ellie. I am a speed demon. Anyways, I made it to Kayla's by 7:15 Indy time, and Ellie and I hung out there talking until almost 9:30, but since peopl were expecting us in Anderson, we had to leave. Unfortunately, as we were trying to get on the highway we got stopped by a train...I swear, whenever you're in a hurry, that's when every light is red, and the trains are all running. But we made it to Anderson a little after 10, and ate cool pizza. I sat and listened to everyone roleplaying, since I was a little late to make a temporary character, and I really didn't want to be "Cap'n Crunch" a la Sean. But it was fun to just take in. And Ellie laid to the side reading E's story so far. But everyone couldn't stay there forever (it's not that big of an apartment), so after a while, most everyone left. I convinced them to watch Vandread, and they sorta made it through 2 eps, but Jenny and Ellie were falling asleep. So, they went to bed, while E and I stayed up, watched one more ep of Vandread, and then a few eps of Azumanga Daioh, which is a very strange show. Anyways, we finally went to sleep, cuz the next day we had some stuff to do. We got up in the morning, showered, got all our shit together, went to pick up Jenny's granparent's car, and headed off to Indy only about an hour late. By the time we got to Indy, Julie and Andy had been waiting long enough they left Steak 'n' Shake and went to the mall and bought a sweater. But finally we were all together. We talked, opened gifts, (I'd like to say that my gifts were the best, cuz I'm so fucking cool), got our pic taken, and walked around the mall for a bit before I realized that all the time stuff had finally confused me, and I needed to have left Indy about an hour and half before I actually did. I was definately not making any mashed potato stuff when I got home! But I did spend some money in the B. Dalton bookstore that was going out of business, which sorta made me happy. And I got to see people and spend time with them which made me very happy. And I'm extremely happy for Julie and Andy, cuz he surpassed my coolness expectations. Let's just hope we didn't frighten him ;). So that was good.

When I got to Eville I was a little late for the party, but not too late. I ate a little Jambalaya Chicken Helper courtesy of John, a potato thing by Laurie, and some dessert items, including my cheesecake. Pretty soon after I got there we opened gifts, and then we played a game that I can't remember the name of, but involved drawing. But it was mainly stick figure drawing, so not too far out of my league. Umm.....some people started leaving then, and then we played a bit of a trivia game, and then it was pretty much time for people to leave. I think we're getting old down here...too many of us had to get up in the morning for work, or had worked earlier in he day, or were just tired becuase we're old. But not me! No, Laurie and I ended up hanging out for a while at my house, looking at random stuff on the internet, like some very interesting pictures that I need to send a link of to Ellie. Then we played a bit of Mexican Train, but I had to go to bed at some point, since I was gonna be driving up to Michigan City in the morning/afternoon. So, I took her home about 1:30 ish, read one of my new 50% off manga that I had gotten earlier in the day, and went to bed. (Sorry! no pics of this one!)

When I finally woke up I packed, and headed off to run my errands before leaving town. These errands consisted of eating, cashing my check, and paying my car payment. So, I didn't leave until around 2 (more than an hour after I had planned). Are we developing a pattern here? But I drove like a bat out of Hell, but also a bat that didn't want a speeding ticket, and made it to Michigan City in about 5 hours and 15 min. Pretty good, if I do say so myself. Anyways, after I got there, we ate dinner, visited with some friends of my mom's, slept, went for brunch, opened presents, went shopping, went to my aunt's house for dinner and to watch our recording of my brother's play, slept again, then packed and left to come home. That was my Xmas. Exciting.

Wow...this post is pretty long for me....but I guess I did actually do stuff, some of which was halfway interesting.

Anyways, til next time!