Relationships.

They turn you into a monster. Before you jump to all sorts of reasons as to how this could never happen (whether to you or anyone), hear me out. This information is based on observation and experience. I have lost some good friends due to relationships.
This is how it will go down:

1. You become addicted. You may think, "Oh, I would never let this happen," but the truth is, it does. Well why not? You're with the one person that gives you the crazy rush of butterflies in the pit of your stomach every time they look at you. So now you're an addict. Great job Spartacus! Before you know it, you addict, you're willing to sacrifice anything to get your fix.

2. You alienate yourself. You may think, "That's ridiculous, I'm great at balancing friends, family, and significant others," but the truth is, no you aren't anymore. Just give it a couple weeks and the only person you're talking to is your significant other. Whilst in those couple of weeks, your friends are slowly giving up on you. You will receive fewer invites out with your pals. Your closest friend is the last to try to get a hold of you on Week 4 of this relationship. At the start of week five, you will have no friends outside of your relationship.

3. You become possessive. Again? You're going to complain again? Suck it up, of course you're the last person you'd ever think to grow a possessive personality trait. The truth is, now that you're friendless addict, you now become possessive and start to get pissed any time your significant other decides to make plans that don't involve you sometimes.

3a. Now that you're possessive, what comes next? CONTROLLING. These almost go hand in hand because a few days after the possessiveness starts, depending on how desperate you are because there is no one else in your life, you have now upgraded yourself to be a controlling friendless possessive addict. You now try to control where they go, who they're with, and what they do.

4. This isn't worth staying in a relationship anymore, so now your significant other is going to break up with you because you can't stop fighting with each other. It's going to happen, so don't go on to thinking "Oh but we fight all the time, it's what we do." Think about it. Ask yourself, how much are you fighting compared to how many light-hearted conversations you two are having?

5. Of course you're not going to let him/her go, obviously because of what you've become, so you have now reached a point of desperation... "Honey, I can change! I can do better! What can I do to fix this?!" It's too late, stupid! Stop pouring salt into your self inflicted wound and let them go. All this begging makes you look pathetic and more unattractive than you've already become.


You see? In these few easy steps, you have ruined yourself because you decided to be in a relationship. When you look at your--now single--self in the mirror the next day, you can't recognize yourself. You've turned into a monster. Good job.

Cure: Give yourself 8-12 months of Nothing (open to many interpretations) and you'll be back on your feet, ready to conquer the world, and restart this vicious cycle, in no time.

Recommendation: You've got about a 50-50 chance of getting divorced (if you decide to reach the point of marriage, seeing as you only have each other now) anyways. You might as well stay single. It's what's best for you and the people around you. It'll shorten the body count.

I think things like this are beautiful:

How rude of me!

I forgot to write about my latest incident/event/mishap!! I've decided to write a book. It'll be called, "Courtney's Chronicles," or, "The Chronicles of Courtney." I think enough things have happened to me to fill the shoes of a good amusing book. I can't help that these things happen to me!

So.....

It's News Years Eve. I'm with my pal Tim and we're driving to the store to pick up a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough, and juice, for a small social gathering. It is precisely 10:06 p.m. We roll up to an Albertsons to find that it is in fact closed already! The nerve. We call up our friend at her house to inform her of this tragedy. It's now 10:15 p.m. and she calls us back to tell us that, "Food 4 Less is open til 10:30, go go go!!"
"Ah! We're on it!"
Even though Food 4 Less is right down the street, I still needed to drive a little faster than normal. What if they decided to close the store even earlier because all the other customers are too busy to go to the store at this hour on New Years Eve?!
So I'm in the left turn lane, ready to drive like I own the bat mobile, but I can't exactly yet because there's a car already in front of me. Rude. So my next plan is to get in what ever lane they decide not to take. Pretty simple right?
GREEN! --Could they turn any slower?!
As I'm approaching fifty mph, I forget that I can't speed like that because I'm waiting for my renewed license to come in the mail. Just as I finish telling my pal Tim, the red and blue lights of doom are shining behind my vehicle.... The rest goes like this:

"S***! Oh s***! Tim! This can't happen! This can't happen right now! Oh my gosh. S***!"
"Courtney. Calm down. It's going to be okay! It's going to be alright."
My legs are getting tingly now because I've never been pulled over during the five years I've had my license.
I pull into a parking lot, hands are shaking, Tim is still calming me down. The officer comes over while I'm rolling down my not-so-automatic window...
"Hiii officerrr..."
"Have you had anything to drink tonight?"
"No sir."
"Do you know why I pulled you over?"
"Yes sir, I was speeding."
"You know how fast you were going?"
"Fiftyyy--"
"Fifty-two," as he pointed out on his speed monitor thing.
"Ah, fifty-two. I know I was speeding, I was trying to make it to the store before it closed, and I got a little excited," I'm going to die. I'm going to get a speeding ticket, a ticket for driving with an expired license, I'm going to die, and be poor forever.
"What do you want for dessert?" .......wait what? He was directing this question to Tim?! "What do you want for dessert?" Tim doesn't answer, "C'mon man, it's better than a $400 ticket."
"...uhhhh, I, umm," says Tim. I'm dying. Tim isn't answering the officer and I'm dying!
The officer seemed kind of chill because then he was talking to me all like, "Man, you put a guy on the spot and he can't think of anything."
I'm just just just, "Iiiiiiii know! Come on Tim! We were in theatre together! You were the best at improvs!"
"You guys took theatre?" Mr. Chill Officer asked.
"..yeah," says we.
"Oh, I majored in theatre at SDSU," he said casually.
"NO WAY! Really?!"
"Yeah theatre has been a big part of my family. My mom won best actress in her class along with the guy that plays the original Freddy Krueger," This is unbelieveable.
"Wow, for serious?! That's awesome!" EPIC.
"Alright well you guys take care, have a good night."
"Wait, that's it?! Well alright! Good night!" says I.



THE FIRST TIME I GET PULLED OVER, AND IT WAS BY A FELLOW THESPIAN!!!!

I drove to the store that was still open, ticketless.

Most epic chronicle so far I believe.

School

I'm going back to school this Fall. I just don't know where yet. I'm still in the process of mapping everything out, but I'm feeling really good about it.
I'm going to teach theatre to high school students!
I need to get out of here or I know I'll get stuck in the black hole of not going to school. I want school for me, not for other people.

So here's my super basic outline:

1. Generals this fall.
2. Graduate school in a different country, or a different state.
3. Teaching credentials at an undecided location (I've got a few years to decide that)

Today is my 21st birthday

It was a calm day, but a good day.
I'm the first out of my crew of friends to turn 21, so I figured I'll do all the crazy things next year when everyone else turns 21. Makes the most sense.

My day:
-Wake up early ish to the rain
-Watch a movie
-Have tea
-Shower and get presentable
-Goodwill shopping!
-Chilled
-Check facebook which totaled up to 51 "happy birthday" notifications
-Recieved a total of 4 "happy birthday" phone calls (including one coming all the way from Germany!) and 5 "happy birthday" text messages
(-Realized how old fashioned I am when it comes to technology)
-Go out to dinner with Katie Wagner and Kelly Strange and do what all 21-year-olds do best

Today was a perfect birthday for me.
Nothing lame.
Nothing crazy.
It was just right, like Goldilocks, ya know?

Of Course This Happens to Me

Last night, I got stung by a bee while I was toasting a bagel.

I know this chain of events doesn't seem to make any sense at all, so let me explain the possibility of these shenanigans....

Picture this:
I'm sleeping over at my friend's house, in my ugly gushy clothes, and about to start 500 Days of Summer with her, when we get a craving for a toasted bagel. While she plays games on her phone, I go to the kitchen to toast us a bagel. I get two luscious bagels and plop them into the toaster and stand by, waiting patiently for this deliciously satisfying movie munchie.
Out of nowhere, on the ball of my right foot close to my toes (still on the tough skin) I feel a gradual pinpointed zing. I automatically think it's a splinter I may have slid my foot over because, though crazy, it seems like the only reasonable explanation. Right?
WRONG.
The reason it is unreasonable is because (1) The kitchen floor is in fact not made out of any wooden material at all and (2) I did not move my foot from its planted spot on the floor.
Naturally, it was now time to lift my foot from the floor and examine where this unreasonable pain is coming from.* As I'm frantically staring at my foot finding where the burning is coming fr---ah. found it---I notice a fluttering thing on the floor. It's small.
My thoughts shoot over to my worst fear: It's a spider. A Black Widow? Brown Recluse? Oh dear Lord baby Jesus. I am going to die. I'm going to die in the ambulance on the way over to the hospital.
Wait this fluttering thing is, well, fluttering. Is that a bee? IT'S A BEE!**
I need to get to Katie's room to tell her! Her parents are sleeping so I can't scream in the kitchen!
I try to walk, but of course I can't walk. I start hobbling, but my right foot now has a pulse. I'm now bounding/hopping to Katie's room on my left foot, but the floor boards are really loud, so I have to now control my hops so that I get distance but still can't be so loud as to wake her rents up.
I'm now taking large quiet sliding hops on my left foot (not as easy as it sounds), exclaiming one of my favorite four letter words every time I land.
Then I'm yelling for Katie to help me because "I just got stung by a bee"***. Of course this doesn't make sense to her either so I repeat myself when she asks what's going on. She proceeds to get tweezers while I'm sitting on her bathtub cursing the life of this Devil Bee. She flew in (picture her wearing a red cape. She wasn't actually wearing one but I pictured her with one so now I ask you to do the same) with her tweezers and then a sliver of INSTANT relief was my next step. It was then followed by baking soda (which helps if you didn't know) and then fuzzy socks (which helps more). She literally saved my life.
Scariest, and the longest, five minutes of my life.

I've never been stung by a bee before. I made sure to avoid their existence in my childhood. Of course the first time I ever get stung by a Devil Bee isn't while I'm laying on a freshly cut field of grass, or having a picnic on a patch of daisies (NO NO), but is when I'm twenty years old, and toasting a bagel.

*Writer's note: the panic is slowly coming to a boil..... at a simmer perhaps?



**Panic is eminent.



***The quoted text is said approximately 3 times in two seconds.

Thanksgiving.

Worst start to the day ever yesterday.

I already hate the holidays enough as it is, and yesterday afternoon's disaster did NOT help at all:

I'm getting ready to go hang out at the Severson's for a few hours before they feast. I did my usual routine--wake up slow, take a fast shower, and listen to toe-tapping tunes while I get presentable for the public eye. It's now noon and I'm walking down the stairs to feed my dog and peace out. Something odd stops me at the base of the stairs. It's a glistening puddle on the wood floor that's lining the stairs.

I immediately assume it's a puddle from my dog, until I noticed that this was no ordinary puddle. The glistening substance had stretched all the way to the bathroom, seeping into the laundry room, and trailing down the hallway. Now, I know that my dog can have a small bladder from time to time, but it's not THAT small...

Evaluating the situation before me, I realize that this substance is in fact coming from the downstairs bathroom. I tiptoed to the scene of the crime and BAM!--I'm hit with a wall of a putrid sick nasty stench that is getting more and more concentrated the closer I inch to the bathroom. By then, I'm using every four letter word known to the Webster Dictionary (not very lady-like, I know, but you would have had the same reaction if you were alone and had a shortage of towels) and slowly gliding into insanity. To make things worse (true story) the glistening substance was not just water. No no. It was DOOKY SEWAGE WATER that overflowed from the toilet while I was using the shower. So the bathroom floor was covered in chunks of Lord knows what, while the rest of the stanky water extended to the hallway and laundry room.

While I'm collecting every towel and rag I can use to soak up the water, I phone up Joann to tell her I'm probably going to be a little late because of this problem-house. I explain the damage to her while opening up every window in the house to rid the stench, starting with the one in the bathroom. It gets worse (true story). The shower curtains are closed over the tub, blocking my way to the high window, but to my I-can't-take-this-anymore-surprise THE TUB IS FILLED WITH FIVE INCHES OF CHUNKY DIRTY DOOKY WATER! I would have had a sailor's reaction if I was not on the phone that moment. Of course I still yelled at the nasty-not-niceness though.

Next, I called up my dad, to inform him of this stupid broken house that I wish was haunted instead, for some help even though he was eight hours away. Since we only had a few towels, he suggested I get a pair of gloves and wring out the excess dooky water in the sink so I could clean up the rest of the water before it seeped into the wood floors. Okay look. I'm a tough girl, but I'm not Butch! No way in the seven layers of Hell and Outer Darkness combind was I going to get anywhere near this schinanigans! I got the dooky water all cleaned up just fine doing the towel shuffle thank you very much. The sewage water also came through the wall connecting the bathroom and the garage, and trailed all the way to the garage doors.

Luckily, he ended up getting in touch with a blessEd son of god who was willing to come over and assess the situation thoroughly. Not to mention this blessEd son of god brought his amazing daughter with him, who brought me a diet coke and delicious cookies!

Conclusion: There's a backup in the main line from the sewar pipes to the downstairs pipes, which is why the dirty liquid attacked the downstairs while I showered upstairs. I now cannot use any bit of water sourse in this house until my dad gets back on monday. Looks like I get to house-hop again just for the weekend, woo!

Good news: I had a blast spending Thanksgiving at my love Katie's place with her fam!

This day started out really sucky, but ended in a way that I wouldn't have changed one bit.