December 10, 2007

A no-win situation

Well, somehow I managed to survive November (National Novel Writing Month, or National “My Girlfriend is Kind of Acting Like a Self-Centered Bitch” Month as I came to fondly think of it) Thanksgiving, my internship and the semester, and have arrived at finals week. I’m not too concerned about finals, but Heather is naturally stressed to the max. She spent all of dead week studying and rehearsing for her recital, which is going to be Wednesday night, and I spent it all working, drinking and eating too much.

Speaking of eating too much, my mom was feeling pretty good around Thanksgiving so she decided to go all out with Thanksgiving dinner. And I mean all out. I kept eating far beyond the point I first felt like I was going to explode, then spent the rest of the day on the couch, miserable and unable to move. A few hours later I got up and ate some leftovers, then returned to the couch. My brother and I were in such a food coma that we were too exhausted to even play video games. It was good to be home, though. I left Sheffield after work on Wednesday (Heather went home on Monday, saying she needed to get out of town to clear her mind and work on her manuscript) and got hammered with my high school friends, then stayed through the weekend. It was nice, and tough to come back, but the little break really refreshed me for the last couple weeks of my internship, which is officially over as of last Friday. I officially learned nothing, but my supervisor gave me rave reviews and it will look good on my resume, so rock on. Now I have just one semester to go before graduation and the real world.

I spent my fair share of time at Brews Brothers last week, trying to see as much of Heather as I could since she was pretty busy when she wasn't working. Wendell and Wyatt have developed what they said was a ‘groundbreaking’ new flavor of latte – egg nog. I was delighted to be the one to tell them that Starbucks thought of it first. Heather told me that Brews Brothers’ is way better and I believe her, but even though I love egg nog I still don’t love latte and I won’t be trying it anytime soon.

Since I’m not stressing out about finals and I have a lot of free time this week because I requested this week off from the credit union months ago, I finally have the chance to get Christmas shopping done. My brother is taking care of gifts for our parents, which is nice, but I still have to buy something for Heather. Brett keeps pestering me about what kind of gift I’m going to get her, but I haven’t really decided. I asked her to make me a list and she wrote down some pretty generic stuff, like DVDs and whatnot, but I’d like to get her something a little more meaningful. At the same time, if I get her something too meaningful it could change the entire dynamic of our relationship. For instance, I really like to pick out jewelry, but if I get her jewelry this soon what does that say? Does a necklace mean more than earrings? What about a bracelet? I could play it safe and just stick to the list, but if I do that then I look like an inconsiderate asshole.

Women. You just can't win.