Sometimes you get days that are just so amazing, when you feel like everything is falling into place: you're in love, your work is going well, you have a place to live, food in the fridge, money in the bank, a cat on your bed at night, streaming Netflix on the Wii, and some good girlfriends. And that is enough for you.
Today is not one of those days.
I'm sure Julian will chime in at some point on this, since he was witness (or at least a witness over Skype and email) to me losing the plot. I'm not proud of it. Basically, J has a friend that I cannot stand. I'll call him Richard. Richard is in my opinion a mean, domineering jerk who pushes J around and expects him to basically come when called. So when Richard tells Julian they are going out for drinks, it's not a request but a command. (Julian will I'm sure disagree with me but whatever.) Julian is probably Richard's best friend, and has been since they were in their first year at university.
Richard also HATES me. Hates me! Sometimes it feels something like jealousy. At first when it was just us going out when I was doing my junior year abroad, Richard would make snide remarks about my hair (messy) and my clothes (apparently very American, which was a bad thing in his eyes). My friend Veronique told me that she one time heard Richard say to someone that Julian was wasted on someone like me. Julian told me to ignore him if it hurt, but that Richard just has a strange sense of humor. Once J and I got engaged, Richard exploded and actually called me up and told me I was free to ruin my own life but I was not taking Julian with me. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach. I told Julian to have a word with Richard about this, and said I would feel better if they didn't see each other for a while out of respect to me, which Julian did.
I don't want to go into it right now, but Julian and I did have a break for a while last year. Richard was overjoyed we had broken up. It was horrible, but I got the last laugh when I sent him an engagement announcement in March. Ha ha! Seriously though, J had a long talk with Richard and made it clear this is what he wanted, and I promised to stay out of things where Richard was concerned. Well, this is where it all went kinda pear-shaped, as J would say. Richard emailed me yesterday to say he would do everything he could to stop us from getting married.I ignored it. He wrote again, telling me that all I was interested in was Julian's family money. I wrote back saying that that was a mean and inappropriate thing to say, and that it was totally OTT. Richard wrote back and called me a selfish bitch, dragging J 6000 miles from home. So I forwarded the chain to Julian because by this point I was in tears.
Then J told me to ignore Richard, that he's just going to miss having his best friend around, and that he's been having a really difficult time at work (he works as an investment banker at a bank that shall remain nameless but is all over the news right now) and probably drinking too much. It made me cry even more because I felt (not for the first time) that he's defending his best friend against his future WIFE when it's the friend who is the problem! J said that wasn't the case, that I was always his best girl, and that he would take care of things with Richard. They're having dinner tonight to talk about this. I don't want to keep him from his best friend, but it is so painful.
Mary brought me a Frappuccino to my desk to help me, and I just ate one of my emergency Milky Ways I stuff in the bottom drawer of my desk. I called Jen and Jenn and they agreed to come over to my apartment later with bottles of wine. We're going to watch He's Just Not That Into You and Notting Hill (hello, nostalgia?) and veg out. I promised Julian I would be sober enough to talk at 1am though!
So... bleh.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sometimes...
...there's nothing like a girls' night out! After I get married, I won't be able to go out all the time with my friends so I am doing it as often as I can. (Then I feel guilty because I feel like I shouldn't feel that this is the end of my life... it's just the end of my old life!)
Anyway, I went out for sushi tonight with Jen and Jenn -- it got so confusing in the car when I was reading them their horoscopes off my Blackberry. I said "Jen, what's your sign again?" and Jen answered "Virgo!" and Jenn said "Taurus!" at the same time! So funny -- we were shaking with laughter. I had to refer to them by their last names which Jenn said made me sound like I was her old gym coach. We went to Zushi and OMG I am soooo full. I ate the Hungry Roll and the Ultimate Tuna Roll and a bit of Jen's Hot Night Roll. Good thing I skipped lunch! My stomach looks so big it looks like I'm five months pregnant!
Then we went to 21 Choices in Old Town Pasadena and had ice cream. I had chocolate with boysenberries mixed in. SOOOOO GOOD! Jen, Jenn and I sat on one of the benches and watched all the Occidental students. We felt so old! The whole time we were laughing -- I couldn't breathe when I asked Jen what she was having and I thought she said "Oreo with crab mixed in" -- so surreal. Jenn said the idea made her throw up a bit in her mouth.
Nearly midnight... nearly 8am where my baby is. I loved tonight but it will be so much better when it's us going to Zushi and 21 Choices.
Anyway, I went out for sushi tonight with Jen and Jenn -- it got so confusing in the car when I was reading them their horoscopes off my Blackberry. I said "Jen, what's your sign again?" and Jen answered "Virgo!" and Jenn said "Taurus!" at the same time! So funny -- we were shaking with laughter. I had to refer to them by their last names which Jenn said made me sound like I was her old gym coach. We went to Zushi and OMG I am soooo full. I ate the Hungry Roll and the Ultimate Tuna Roll and a bit of Jen's Hot Night Roll. Good thing I skipped lunch! My stomach looks so big it looks like I'm five months pregnant!
Then we went to 21 Choices in Old Town Pasadena and had ice cream. I had chocolate with boysenberries mixed in. SOOOOO GOOD! Jen, Jenn and I sat on one of the benches and watched all the Occidental students. We felt so old! The whole time we were laughing -- I couldn't breathe when I asked Jen what she was having and I thought she said "Oreo with crab mixed in" -- so surreal. Jenn said the idea made her throw up a bit in her mouth.
Nearly midnight... nearly 8am where my baby is. I loved tonight but it will be so much better when it's us going to Zushi and 21 Choices.
So...um....hello!
What a way to get me to blog! There was a funny thing that happened this morning... I'm on a little online forum for people who are British but live in the US, or American who live in the UK, or are married/engaged to one of those two (confused yet?) and I linked to a blog I happened across where the blogger was talking about how much she missed grape jelly, and it was almost EXACTLY what we had been talking about on my forum just recently. Well, it turns out the poor lady we linked to had a stalker, and she thought all the extra traffic from our little forum linking through to her blog was the stalker, and we got her really, really worried!
Good news is we got it all sorted out in the end and now she knows we aren't any harm. But it got me thinking... I write a lot in my regular diary, one of the old-fashioned kind with a lock and key (I know it's sooooooo cheesy but it's what I like!) so why not do this online as well? There are so many changes coming in my life in the next few months and I would like to have a chance to share them with, um, I guess whoever reads this!!!
So hi! I'm Melissa (duh, pretty much everyone reading this is going to be one of my friends) and I live in Pasadena but I grew up in Burbank, CA where my parents still live. I'm engaged to Julian, who lives all the way over in London, England. His family are in Southwold, which is in the county of Suffolk on the east coast of England.
We met when I was doing a year abroad at the University of Bristol and we just clicked at a party. I didn't plan to go out there and fall in love but you know how it is... I had to go back to my senior year at college and Julian moved to London because what was my junior year was his final year (the English only do three years at university, not like us Americans!), but he was lucky enough to have a job. I visited him about 6 more times in my senior year, sometimes just for a few days. Every time it got harder to leave, so after I graduated in 2008 I spent 6 months with him in London and had the most GLORIOUS time! My parents were not so crazy about the whole "living in sin" thing but believe me, it was worth it! I got to experience one of the greatest cities in the whole world through the eyes of someone who actually lived there... I became an expert on riding the "Tube" and going to the supermarket... I loved Waitrose best. I also got to sharpen my housewifely (is that a word? ) skills because I couldn't work. I know how to make excellent roast beef and Yorkshire pudding now, and I took up scrapbooking which I absolutely LOVE.
So... about two weeks before I was due to leave England it was Christmas. My parents weren't so crazy about me being away but there is nothing like an English Christmas, especially for an Anglophile like me! Julian and I went to his family's house for the holidays and I was in for a big surprise. Not from "Father Christmas" but when Julian proposed... in front of his whole family on Christmas Day! I was so surprised and I jumped up and down and nearly knocked the tree over!
So we talked and talked and decided that we wanted to live in California. I love England, but I can't do the winters. I'm a SoCal girl, what can I say? So we had to start figuring out how to do this. Luckily my dad is a lawyer and he was able to get me an appointment with a great immigration attorney. He told me that I had two choices: I could either get married and have Julian come over on a spouse visa (the CR1) or he could come over as a fiance and we then get married over here (K1). The K1 is faster so I said, let's do that! We gathered up all the forms to be ready to file May 1st 2009, but then all sorts of crazy stuff started to happen... but that is for my next post.
Good news is we got it all sorted out in the end and now she knows we aren't any harm. But it got me thinking... I write a lot in my regular diary, one of the old-fashioned kind with a lock and key (I know it's sooooooo cheesy but it's what I like!) so why not do this online as well? There are so many changes coming in my life in the next few months and I would like to have a chance to share them with, um, I guess whoever reads this!!!
So hi! I'm Melissa (duh, pretty much everyone reading this is going to be one of my friends) and I live in Pasadena but I grew up in Burbank, CA where my parents still live. I'm engaged to Julian, who lives all the way over in London, England. His family are in Southwold, which is in the county of Suffolk on the east coast of England.
We met when I was doing a year abroad at the University of Bristol and we just clicked at a party. I didn't plan to go out there and fall in love but you know how it is... I had to go back to my senior year at college and Julian moved to London because what was my junior year was his final year (the English only do three years at university, not like us Americans!), but he was lucky enough to have a job. I visited him about 6 more times in my senior year, sometimes just for a few days. Every time it got harder to leave, so after I graduated in 2008 I spent 6 months with him in London and had the most GLORIOUS time! My parents were not so crazy about the whole "living in sin" thing but believe me, it was worth it! I got to experience one of the greatest cities in the whole world through the eyes of someone who actually lived there... I became an expert on riding the "Tube" and going to the supermarket... I loved Waitrose best. I also got to sharpen my housewifely (is that a word? ) skills because I couldn't work. I know how to make excellent roast beef and Yorkshire pudding now, and I took up scrapbooking which I absolutely LOVE.
So... about two weeks before I was due to leave England it was Christmas. My parents weren't so crazy about me being away but there is nothing like an English Christmas, especially for an Anglophile like me! Julian and I went to his family's house for the holidays and I was in for a big surprise. Not from "Father Christmas" but when Julian proposed... in front of his whole family on Christmas Day! I was so surprised and I jumped up and down and nearly knocked the tree over!
So we talked and talked and decided that we wanted to live in California. I love England, but I can't do the winters. I'm a SoCal girl, what can I say? So we had to start figuring out how to do this. Luckily my dad is a lawyer and he was able to get me an appointment with a great immigration attorney. He told me that I had two choices: I could either get married and have Julian come over on a spouse visa (the CR1) or he could come over as a fiance and we then get married over here (K1). The K1 is faster so I said, let's do that! We gathered up all the forms to be ready to file May 1st 2009, but then all sorts of crazy stuff started to happen... but that is for my next post.
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