when i first got married, i had this terrible fear of driving places alone. like if it was a planned thing with friends or something, it was fine. but if i was going to go to target or smiths without dh, there was like a 95% chance it wouldn't happen. i like, didn't leave the house and drive by myself anywhere for months. i don't know if dh knows that. i don't know what it was. maybe a fear that if something happened with the car i'd be too overwhelmed to deal? that because i'm so quiet no one would notice for hours or longer if something happened? that home was just too, too comfortable?

going somewhere with someone just takes so much pressure off for me. like, here comes this taciturn, awkward, vaguely-fashionable-and-pretty-in-a-past-teenage-life, self conscious, polite but seemingly snobbish--and now, overweight--person. and if i have someone with me, it kind of validates my entire existence. like, i'm not too weird or too quiet or too awkward not to have a companion. doesn't even matter that it's dh. i'm as validated going out with my brother as i am with my dh. for me, running errands alone is like trying to do improve alone. ironically, i need to feel like i'm functioning in the normal-people world.

so i don't know what that's about.

also, i prefer only to go outside/anywhere alone after dark. i don't know why. it's just so much more private. which is why winter is so great.
today's wisdom from my boss:

the instant cure for a cold is a bowl of chocolate ice cream and a john wayne movie.

unless you're a woman. then it's sense and sensibility.
one of my employees saw the new hunger games last night and it started this conversation. according to them,

- it's "so annoying" for an actor (philip seymour hoffman, who they didn't know) to “just die in the middle of filming”
-that it's like when they "just switched rachels" in the batman movies
-that the “first rachel” was “tom cruise’s wife”
-that “the second rachel” is too tall, old looking, and "not innocent and caring"

please keep going, guys. that was only twenty seconds and you only said like ten offensive things.

oh, and expect me to murder you in the night for saying that about maggie gyllenhaal.
didn't get the job.

if i couldn't get that job, i won't get anything.

i am going to rot here.
any person who regularly complains about other people with accents immediately goes on my bad list.

"DAMMIT why can't you just speak ENGLISH because we are lazy, ethnocentric assholes. hoooow daaaare yoooou. 'muuuuuurica."
for my dad's birthday--his miraculous, second birthday since his diagnosis--we got my dad a really nice watch to replace the one that he threw at the wall and broke when he found out his brother died.

to quote tiffany maxwell, "that's a feeling."
i think one of my best friendships is officially over. i've kept in touch with my best high school friend pretty much just through text, which we both prefer, for six and a half years. this summer our conversations kind of started flickering out. we didn't talk very much and it was pretty much the same thing over and over. which is ironic, because that's when things really started happening in both of our lives. anyway... the details are many, but i'm pretty sure it's over. things were at an awkward standstill when i deleted my facebook and instagram (and i'm lovin it), and that's been it.

everyone i loved in college (and still love) started to leave, and i'll never forget the night that i met one of my best friends at her apartment to help her pack but mostly just be with her before she left for nursing school. and then i went home that night, that was it. i haven't done anything one on one with someone other than my husband or immediate family member since then. i actually 100% believe that, outside of work, i haven't had an in person one on one conversation that lasted for more than 30 seconds with anyone that wasn't my husband or immediate family member (or maybe grandparents, i don't remember for sure). i know what people would say about this--it's freakish and seriously unhealthy and i'm pathetic. but honestly, it's been great. it's not that i don't miss my provo ladies, and actually i look back on the time we were all together like a really huge missed opportunity because even though you three will always be a part of who i am, i wasn't willing enough or vulnerable enough or in the right place to open up and really craft those friendships like i should have. maybe that would have never happened. and maybe this high school friendship could have never lasted.

it's hard to convince anyone you're a loving, loyal, deeply invested person to be in a relationship with when you aren't social at all. like, physically-painful-to-even-answer an-email-after-twelve-days antisocial (yes this is happening to me right now). when i write my cover letters--and i have written a shit load of cover letters this year--i always include one specific thing. i talk about how i've had so many different jobs at this company and the more jobs i've passed through the more the relationships have stood out. the relationships i had built, or the taking of the opportunity to behave in a two minute conversation so that that person knew i really carec and that they had all my attention--were the things that enabled me to do such great work. and i always include this one line about how my desire to continue building those relationships and the fact that i value them "adds hunger and warmth to my everyday work."

and the thing is, that is like, picked out from the hidden corner of my soul. i really feel that way, and it really means that much to me. there's this saying that you can't get to heaven alone. you have to serve and love and work on those relationships. so, can an introvert get to heaven alone? like, really though. does it count that i can pack a shi-ton of love and caring into two minute conversations when i can't sustain very many relationships, or even text my high school friend back, or even answer a twelve day old email?
these days i am waking up so refreshed, so relaxed, and so happy. it's great, but i kind of hate it because then i waste it on going to work. how sad is that.

but, i have a second interview tomorrow for a really great job!