The big surprise!

What a busy weekend this has been for me! I have today off, and I am spending some time just lazing around the apartment and going online to look at wedding things and… okay, I found out what Julian’s big surprise was! So so so so so excited. He wants me to start looking for a house for us right now. Although I told him my idea about renting a place until we could choose together, he said he would rather have a house, our house ready for him by the time he arrives. So what I have to do is start looking online, and any house I like the look of I send on to him so he can get an idea of what is out there. And… once we find one we like, or even better a few we like, he is coming out here to complete the purchase. My own house! I could be out of my little apartment in only a couple of months, I can’t even believe it.

Julian said once the sale is complete, I can start decorating it too. I guess I’ll have to ask Rachel to help me, since I’m the only one of the two of us who has an actual job, and I don’t know how I can plan a wedding and decorate a house while still going to work. I keep wondering if I wouldn’t be better off quitting my job sooner rather than later, since there is going to be so much work just doing the other stuff. But since Rachel spends her days at Starbucks working on her “screenplay” and since she has a pretty good sense of style (I have almost none, I mean, I can appreciate what other people do and I like it when it’s done well but I can’t figure out throw pillows or things like that) I think she would be a good choice. Also, I feel bad that I didn’t ask her to be in my wedding party, but I felt (and I am going to sound so petty) that even if I put her in the ugliest bridesmaid dress ever, she would still look more amazing than me. And choosing an ugly bridesmaid dress just to irritate my sister would be really unfair to the other bridesmaids.

And really that is what my life has ALWAYS been like – coming in second to Rachel. Not only did she always get to do almost everything first because she’s 2 years older than me, she just always looked better doing it. I know I’ve got a pretty face and a nice enough body, but compared to her, pffffft. She used to tease me when I was 14 and she was 16 because my chest hadn’t grown yet, and of course she got the gift of natural double Ds and at that point I was still just an A. I mean, they DID grow that year, and I’m happy enough with them, but it’s just not fair that Rachel is SO much prettier than me. I know I sound like I’m 16 when I say that, but I still feel it.

I’m also a total klutz and am always knocking things over and Rachel might have had a career in ballet when she was younger had she not gotten so tall and developed. Julian is always telling me to be careful around breakable things because I am always falling into things and upsetting tables and bumping my head on things. My legs always have little cuts and scratches on them where I catch myself on something. It’s kind of embarrassing.  God, what else? Well, she can drive stick shift, which is pretty cool and I have always wanted to do but as Julian says, I have a hard enough time riding a bicycle in a straight line. It will probably never happen for me.

But there are a lot of things that I like better about me than her. First of all, she is kind of promiscuous. Unlike me, she has a hard time committing to one guy and she seems not to see any problem with sleeping with one guy while she is sleeping with another. She doesn’t seem to have any one boyfriend at all, but several guys she just calls up when she’s bored. I’ve been with Julian for over three years, even if we did have a couple of breaks along the way. With the exception of Alex and Noah, the guy who moved to Seattle who I dated for a while last year when J and I were on a break, I have only been with Julian since October 2006. And even then, it wasn’t like I was having sex with Noah and then calling up his best friend to set up a date. I didn’t even LIKE Seth, Noah’s best friend and his bandmate. Because Rachel is “seeing” two guys who are friends at the same time! Yuck. I mean, I told her that this was kind of gross, but then she tried to throw it back in my face, and said I had done exactly the same thing with J and Alex, which is totally untrue. I wasn’t seeing them at the same time, god.

And also, as I think I mentioned before, the one thing I was always better at than her was school. Not that she ever showed that she was jealous of my success. I was a National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist and she just said, “Am I wrong, or a semi-finalist isn’t as good as a winner, right?” She managed to go to college – just – and as far as I’m concerned it was a HUGE waste of my parents’ money. She nearly flunked out every term, and it took her an extra year to graduate. At least I had enough class not to tease her about that.

And then there’s this other thing.  I suppose it’s really stupid but it just bothers me. We have the same waxer at this salon we both go to, Sveta or something. She’s really, really good, but she is chatty, and sometimes brutal (I mean in terms of what she says, not the waxing). The last time I was there, she told me that I was waiting too long between waxes, not like Rachel, who is there at the first sign of a hair. I can’t even get waxing right compared to Rachel. And then Sveta asked me why I didn’t get a full Brazilian like Rachel; ewwww. First off, I don’t need to know what my sister is getting done down there, and second, I just don’t think it’s very ladylike to have that done to you. Maybe I’m a bit old-fashioned like that, but just no.

God, this post was supposed to be about my househunting, but I seem to have wandered away from that. Which is actually okay because I haven’t really started yet – I need to find a zip code map somewhere so I can narrow down the search.  I want at least three bedrooms, central air, some backyard, and a garage. I’m focusing on Pasadena, but I might look a little bit further out too. I mean, the real reason I’m here is because Jen and Jenn moved here, and I wanted to be near them. Now that I’m getting married, and Jenn isn’t even speaking to me, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. I mean, I love Pasadena and I am so attached to it, but if I can’t find something that Julian likes here then that’s okay. I mean, he’s the one who is giving up SO much to come to live with me. I love England, but I can’t live there. I have done two winters there (or 1 and a half) and I just can’t do it. Plus I just miss my friends so much when I’m there, and English women seem so cold. I couldn’t make any female friends when I was there. The men were fine, though.

So househunting! I’ll see if I can post links to houses as I find them. SO excited I can barely believe it! AND I get to see Julian! I can’t wait!