2004-02-15

Post-trip update, and Why James Owns My Heart

That's right, I'm taking a break from cleaning out my room and getting rid of all my kiddy stuff to eat some cold vegetable lo mein and update!! Wow.

My trip was great. If it were not for James, I would have never come back. Well, James, and I wanted to be here for my siblings birthdays (especially since I missed Cam's last year). And what's better? The entire time I was gone, I got to hear about how much James missed me. That's a good feeing. Not only that, but we had a pretty intense talk about some serious subjects, and guess what? He wants to marry me after all, and move in together as soon as he gets back from Boston this summer. Now, whether we'll be moving to Dothan or Birmingham, I don't know, but I'll start planning the apartment-warming party anyway (haha). I was pretty impressed, because he's very sincere about it (and not scared this time), and said some other profound things as well. During the serious talk, I told him that if he really wanted me so badly, he'd better work to keep me, because I was reaching my limits with some things. In truth, I had started thinking about breaking up with him a couple of weeks ago, and then, without me ever voicing any of this, he fixes everything I was upset about. How's that for awesome? My favorite bit was when he apologized for being so selfish in the past few months and told me he knows I'm "the one".

To prove to me that he meant every bit of this, he resumed his status of Incredibly Amazing Dream Wonder Boyfriend, hair product included. ;D Originally, he was going to meet Elna Ruth and me in Pensacola, but by the time we got on the road, it was too late (for what Elna Ruth needed) to go to Pensacola, so instead, James drove to Loxley (near Mobile; where I used to live; where my grandparents live) and met us. You have NO idea how much that meant to me. For starters, James hates driving anywhere, and that's almost a four hour drive. Secondly, he refuses to even check his mail in the rain, let alone driveanywhere; it was definitely pouring slash storming his whole trip down there, but that didn't stop him. And, what's even more significant was the fact that he was sick all last week, and was swelling, and still drove to pick me up. That's a man in love for you. True dedication. My jaw stil hurts from it dropping to the ground in amazement. He met us at the Waffle House down the (dirt) road from my grandparent's house, met Elna Ruth (who gave him rave reviews to me to my face and even better reviews when talking to Suzie about him), and we drove to see my grandparents. Interestingly, they were not surprised to see him, which I find funny. I've never in my life taken anyone down to the Mobile area, so it was very Twilight Zone-esque for him to be there, where I spent so much of my childhood and almost every "vacation", but it was wonderful. I gave him the embarassing pictures tour around my grandparents house, kissed him in the piano room (!!), showed him my dad's old room, etc, etc. We "spent the night at Uncle Donald and Mary's" (really, we drove to Pensacola and spent the night in a hotel room together, but Mary volunteered to cover for us and say we spent the night at their house; they must really like James), went to Burris's Farm Market in search of a flat of strawberries, and instead got the best-ever strawberry milkshake (their milkshakes are better than yours). See, we told my grandparents we might stop by Donald and Mary's, and then were going to drive home that night, when really we had planned to spend the night together in Pensacola and drive home the next day. However, I realized that the story wasn't going to fit right when/if Grandaddy ever mentioned having had James at the house (because it's so far out of the way and would be on the wrong day, anyway), and was stressing a little when I told Mary what really went down, and she suggested we tell my parents that we went by to visit, and they made us spend the night there because the weather was so bad. That really shocked me, but in a good way. The funny thing is when we were creeping back into Loxley to get the strawberries (before Mary said she'd cover for us), we drove right past my grandfather getting into his car at the grocery; James pointed it out as we were driving. It was funny. I must say, James meeting Donald and Mary went really well. Uncle Donald joked that he wouldn't allow me to marry James because he's a yankee, and Mary started to say something about James being atheist, but I sidetracked her, and she ended up just saying she'd pray for him as we left, but was super friendly and not judgmental or anything. I love them. I may spend the summer at their house, but that's another paragraph.

I must say, I felt more at home with James in a hotel room in Pensacola than I did when I finally got home. James is just amazing. I really do see us together for the long haul. He showed me his old schools, house, and hangout spots while we were in town. It was really sweet. We went to Barnes and Noble in search of Guarding the Moon by FLB (which not a single B&N that I've gone to has), and got coffee as well. I got sick from some bad french fries that evening/the next morning, and James was extremely comforting and made me feel all better. He's so sweet! After going (back) to Loxley to meet Donald and Mary and looking for the strawberries, we went to the Cordova Mall in Pensacola (back and forth, back and forth!) and went shopping for Leighton's (Feb.12) and Cameron's (Feb.16; tomorrow) birthday presents. We got Leighton the Hilary Duff cd (which I plan to steal on occassion), and James surprised me by having already planned on getting Cam this really nice sk8boarding (hahaha) helmet. We also found a Body Shop (the one that sells lotion, oils, etc) and he bought me an oz. and a half bottle of the mango perfume oil I've been lusting over (it was my Valentine's gift). That boy rules, let me just tell you. We got to my house (oh, the drive!!) in time to give Leighton her gift (who screamed in delight upon opening it)[<--misplaced modifier], and run to Walmart to pick up chocolate for Leighton's class (haha; right back to normal). You know, I've been home for three days, and it still doesn't really feel like home to me. Not the kind of home that you feel comfortable at, anyway. I mean, sure, there's that familiar depressing element, but really, that's it. You know what? I didn't miss this place at all. Just James and the kids. My mom has been a constant bitch ever since Friday, but my dad's been nice.

As for Valentine's Day... The parents bought me this super rad leather Hello Kitty purse (which is a melon-pinky color) and got me some funny cards. For James, I bought a frame for the pic that someone took of us at Thanksgiving, some Japanese apricot green tea, a fairy tale-ish card, some Ferrero Rochers, and made him a cheesecake (that he creamed himself over). I had planned on making us dinner; salad, bread with olive oil to dip it in, spaghetti. However, we realized (after I bought all the stuff) that we had no place we'd have any privacy to make the meal and hang out in peace and quiet, so we ditched that idea and had Mexican food instead. We rented All the King's Men (with the extraordinary Eddie Izzard...and Matt LeBlanc) and Down With Love (which James really liked). We headed back to his house, snuggled, and got our veg on. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I spent at least an hour chatting with his dad over tea. I think I should just move out of my house and into his, hehe.

As for future plans, here are the new ones I've made... Since James is going to be in Boston all summer (to include the dates of what will be our one year anniversary, my 20th birthday, and his 24th birthday, as well as the day Harry Potter 3 comes out), I've decided to move to the Mobile area for the summer (live in with Donald and Mary, who quite like this idea), and try to make up some college credits at a local community college there. And then this fall I can go to a real college. I figure I can take out a loan and Grandadd can chip in for the first semester, and then by the second semeseter my GPA will be much better, plus there's my ACT score of 27, and I can look into Pell grants/scholarships/etc. Hopefully all goes according to plan.

Well, that's all for now. I think I'm going to go spiff up my room some, send a birthday e-card to the kids, and pass out. Hope this update was appreciated.