reverie

Yes kids this is it, the night you've been waiting for. The night on which I write my 300th post. And oh yeah the last night of 2005 or something. If you had the misfortune of seeing the beginning of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve you saw some guy propose to his girlfriend in the middle of Time's Square in what I imagine was the freezing cold surrounded by a gazillion people and on tv in front of a gazillion more people. Let's just say that in the rules of proposing according to Azina that is a hugenormous no no. (Yes I like to make up words.) Here are the 3 things wrong with that proposal: 1. it's public 2. the standing out in the cold all day 3. it's complete lack of anything resembling romance Now I could be wrong and maybe she found it to be incredibly romantic, but when the awkward girl on the silly New Year's Eve show is the lead in to your proposal I think you've got problems. Again I'm not someone who believes in some big or ridi...

Some amount of time not terribly long ago I mentioned that I have several posts that I have written that never fully realize life as published posts. They are poor little thoughts destined to live out unfulfilled lives in the realm of drafts. I actually have several of these from the past couple of weeks and while I never was able to finish them I like what I was starting so I have decided to share a few of these snippits with you. 12-2-2005 I had this dream the other night where I was in a bit of an argument with one of my guy friends because he was acting strangely around me and it was bugging me. And finally, right before I woke up, his frustration culminated with him exclaiming, "I'm in love with you and I'm terrified!" Yeah he shouted that to me and I immediately woke up, one of those dreams that are annoying to wake up from. 12-10-2005 "Pretty much hanging out with us is like going to a cool party." -Nicole Nicole said this one night on the way home fr...

It is 1:14 in the morning (CST). We just returned from finally seeing Walk the Line. Johnny Cash's story is quite interesting and there are some really great quotes in the film. "Do you got a hitch in your giddyup?" "Rule #1: Don't propose to a woman on a bus. Rule #2: Don't tell her it's because you had a bad dream." "Your fans are gospel folk, Johnny. They're Christians, and they don't wanna hear you singing to a bunch of murderers and rapists, tryin' to cheer 'em up." "Then they ain't Christians." I definitely recommend it. Joaquin Phoenix is amazing. The past few films of his that I've seen (Walk the Line, The Village, Signs) are quickly making him one of my favorite actors. I also enjoyed Reese Witherspoon in this film. I don't really feel like writing an entire review right now, but if you want to know more feel free to ask. As good as the film was, one of the most exciting parts about it was seei...

Last night my siblings and I attempted to go see Walk the Line. I have been looking forward to this movie since about April. It came out over a month ago, but between Thanksgiving and Christmas last night was really the first opportunity I had to go see it. So we all jump in the car, drive over to the AMC 3 minutes from my house, send Joe in to purchase the tickets while we find parking, and what do we discover? The movie is sold out! :( Now keep in mind that there are only 2 theatres in the entire Omaha area showing the film and 3 possible showtimes at those 2 theatres combined. Please explain to me if a movie is selling out why there are not more showtime choices? And the studios wonder why it's been such a terrible year at the box office. Look to the theatres and their ridiculously inflated ticket prices which is a major deterrent and apparently their incapability of scheduling films in any sort of useful fashion. I think we're gonna try again on Wednesday. Being a Tuesday i...

This is my patented "are you kidding me with this?" look. It has served me quite well over the years. Given the combination of what appears to be just woke up from a nap hair, with the obvious fakeness of that Santa, and how terribly my outfit clashes with the jolly red suit I don't really blame my 2-year-old self for employing said look. :) I hope you all have a delightful Christmas! God bless!

I'm in quite a strop right now, but instead of waxing poetic about that which plagues my heart I thought I would distract myself by telling you something quite peculiar about myself. I have the strange ability to remember what outfit I was wearing during certain moments in my life. And I'm not talking about moments that have photos to accompany them. Most of these are completely random moments. Some important, some not so much. Here are a few examples. Last January when I lost my job I was wearing what were at the time my favorite jeans, a light blue & yellow striped polo, my khaki hooded jackety sweatery thing, and white shoes. I was feeling quite preppy and cute. Losing my job kinda ruined that outfit for me. And I remember as I was leaving that day thinking that I would always remember that day and connect it with that outfit which I thought was quite unfortunate since I liked the outfit so much. When I went to see Two Towers on opening night with my mom I was we...

As promised and I'm sure highly anticipated for the past 2 days, my other NYR is to do better with finances. Aside from an enjoyable but brief flirtation with Quicken earlier this year, I am not good at keeping track of what I do with the money with which I have been blessed. I do keep track well enough that I don't overdraw the account, so I'm not horrible with finances but I know that I could do better & I want to. I like creating budgets, I just never stick to them. So my goal when I receive my first paycheck of the new year is to make amends with Quicken, start anew and be diligent about my financial accounts. The great thing about being organized in this way is that it will then allow me to do things I have been wanting to do for quite some time now like taking yoga classes and actually having real homecooked food on a nightly basis (except Tuesdays) rather than eating ramen and soup all the time. I love coming home and cooking, it's a great release for me so I...

A sad day for baseball indeed. Johnny Damon is leaving the Boston Red Sox for the stupid New York Yankees. THE YANKEES. Who does that?!!?!?! And look what he did to this guy. So very uncool. I have a sad feeling that this is not going to be a good year for Boston. :\ Regardless, I'm taking my youngest brother to see Boston play the LA Angels in August. Let me know if you want to come, I'm buying tickets kinda soon. Woo!

Please note that "no lettuce" is not as remarkably similar to "as much lettuce as can possibly be piled upon my sandwich" as some of your fine workers might think. I just thought I would let you know that. Thank you for the nice toasty sandwiches you make. Sincerely, Azina

I want to trip inside your head Spend the day there . . . To hear the things you haven't said And see what you might see I want to hear you when you call Do you feel anything at all? I want to see your thoughts take shape And walk right out I'm feeling life would be so much easier right now if I could just spend some time in people's heads and find out all the things they should say and maybe even want to say but for whatever reason just don't. Now I'm pretty much a champion passive aggressor, but I'm starting to realize lately how important open communication is, mostly because I'm finding with one of my friendships that the lines of communication aren't open in a way that they should be, and that is causing me quite a lot of frustration. So it is my goal to be proactive and do something about this for the sake of my sanity and the sake of the friendship. The reason I share these things here is to challenge you to say what it is you need to say. Too oft...

The following in italics is from a comment Amber posted on the Valentine's date post . With the flurry of blogging that must take place in these remaining days of December to reach 300 by the end of the year I didn't want her comment and my response to get buried. So here you have it. Let me start by saying that what I like best is to be made to feel special, be it Valentine's Day or my birthday or Tuesday. I would argue that that's what most women really want - from significant others, from friends, from other women. I would definitely agree with that. In fact for me, random acts of love make me feel at least as special as the ones that occur on special days because those are ones that are sort of expected. The ones that occur just because you love me mean a lot. And really that can be something as simple as a handwritten note to say, "Have a great day! I'm thinking of you" or a flower you buy when you run out to pick up some groceries. Little things go...

My friend Blair asked me yesterday if I had ever looked up "Azina looks like" on Google. Usually if you do things like that you will find something amusing, with my name there are no results. So I decided to use a few of my friends' names instead. If you don't find yourself here it's probably just because I didn't find a funny one for your name. (Sorry Jodi & Pieter & other fine friends.) These are only intended for your amusement. Amber looks like she missed a fine career in Cirque du Soleil. Nicole looks like such a primary school librarian. Shauna looks like a geeky wizard. Jon (Mark) looks like Grover. Blair looks like a monkey. But not an ugly monkey. More like one of those funny weird-lookin monkeys who jumps on branches and eats leaves and goes "ook" a lot. Shannon looks like he had fun playing in the jumpy inflated castle thing. Galen Looks like a harmless Hippie. Sherry looks like she is in a nice sundress and headed for a party of s...

This was posted on PostSecret tonight. It makes my heart immensely sad. I know all too well the loneliness this city visits upon everyone who dares to venture here. Even two years later I know that were it not for Nicole I would spend far too many nights sitting alone in my apartment. How I wish I could do something to help this person. How I pray God would soon place such a loving person in their path. (If you are not aware, PostSecret is a website where this guy posts secrets that are sent to him anonymously on postcards. It started as an art project and several of the postcards have now been put into a book. It is quite a compelling website, running the gamut from the best to the worst humanity has to offer. As such it is not suitable for all audiences and does typically include content of an R-rated nature, which is the reason I do not post the link here. Should you choose to seek out the website on your own, consider yourself warned.)

In the past 8 days I have had more dealings with my boss' Blackberry mobile device and his craptasm of a wireless provider than I ever hope to deal with again. If you find yourself thinking, hey it's not enough that people can reach me by phone at all times I would also like to be tethered to my email 24/7, please seek psychiatric help. I assure you it is not worth it. They are devil devices. I'm a big fan of email and the internet in general, but I just feel that if I am participating in any sort of activity that requires me to be away from a computer then I probably should concentrate my attention on the activity at hand rather than making sure I can keep all my email in my pocket or my purse. It's completely ridiculous to me. And try as I might there is no scenario I can think of which necessitates such a device. Next thing you know you'll just be able to implant a chip in your head. If you blink twice you can answer phone calls, 3 times get email, 4 acce...

This whole reaching 300 posts by the end of the year would be a whole lot easier if I didn't have 27 drafts of posts that I had started writing but never finished. I have 3 from the past 2 days even. Crazy. One of those will for sure be finished and hopefully a second one. The 3rd has lost any potential relevance and will therefore waste away in the unlov-ed drafts section. As for the rest of the 27, they too will likely suffer a sad and drafty existence, their potential never to be fully realized. A lucky few may escape such a tragic state, but the odds are not in their favor. And yes this counts as a legitimate post in the race toward 300. Don't worry I shall write a much more substantial post later in response to Amber's comment on the Valentine's date post. It'll be good I assure you. :)

This marks post 285. If I am diligent enough I think I can hit 300 by year's end. 16 posts in 18 days (including this one), it can be done! I don't know why but every time the 14th of the month comes around I feel like there's something I'm supposed to remember. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because 4 months out of the year there significance to the 14th- Valentine's Day, Flag Day, the Un-Valentine's Day (which is not a day for spreading hate for those of you who weren't with us when I declared it a holiday in August), and Joe's birthday. Speaking of Valentine's day, Nicole & I decided that we needed to write a dating book since we decided that in addition to our stellar party planning skills we also have great ideas for dates. Sadly when we talked to a couple of guys at church on Sunday night they were completely resistant to some of our brilliant ideas. Regardless I will post them here because I still like them. Now I just gotta find a g...

Last night marked the delightful advent of Nicole and Azina's 2nd Annual Christmas Extravaganza. So many people showed up, it was quite wonderful. I had an enjoyable time and we got such a great response from everyone. :) It's so fun to plan something and then to see it come to fruition. I was thinking about that in church today as we were singing about heavenly host rejoicing at the birth of Christ. At first I asked myself, why were they so excited? They set it in motion. They knew it was coming. And as so many thoughts were floating through my mind about our party still, it really struck me. It's fun to plan things and to arrange everything just how you hope it to be, but to see it all work out is quite exciting. So I began to imagine God and the angels chilling in heaven as he explains the master plan- the greatest, most important & amazing plan to take place ever. Heaven is filled with anticipation and wonder. And then the night comes and a baby is bor...

So I'm stealing this idea from my co-worker Kelli who stole this idea from someone else because well I think it's pretty darn clever. What you do is make a list of the first sentence of the first post from each month. Jan~ Who made it 2005 already? Feb~ February is one of my favorite months of the year, it always has been. Mar~ You ever have moments when you really feel like writing something, but when you actually sit down to do it you have nothing to say? Apr~ This has been about the longest I have gone without writing in quite some time. May~ I quit my internship. Jun~ So, before I leave here on Saturday I have to give my parents a date. Jul~ You may notice a change or two here. Aug~ I'm trying to remember that all of this stuff doesn't matter, that he can take it all away in an instant if he chooses. Sep~ It's not that I haven't thought about posting or wanted to post in the last few days, it's just every time I've sat down to write something the bl...

red balloon dreams float hopefully through my mind tarry by day and sojourn in my sleep for now it hovers comfortably close I am content to remain here and see if it will decide to light upon me hope whispers for only the wind to hear asking for guidance in whichever direction is fit only time will tell if we may traverse this path together

I think I just got dumber by watching Jeopardy. :P The Final Jeopardy clue was, "Now the 4th largest in area it's also the largest state formed primarily from the Louisiana Purchase." I guessed Montana. The three supposedly really intelligent individuals competing for THOUSANDS of dollars guessed Florida, Mississippi (it's pretty little!), and Nevada. The answer was Montana. Note to self: be on Jeopardy.

One of my favorite traditions of the season has finally befallen us. That is the advent of my brother Raj's Christmas list. Previous lists have included the following requests, - A chimpanzee highly skilled in the art of writing theologically sound paper - 1,000 bananas to feed said chimpanzee - Dictatorship of a small Spanish-speaking country with large drug cartel - The deed to the state of Texas and Presidential permission to sell Texas back to Mexico providing that all the immigrants move to Texas before the transaction takes place. - An electrified wall spanning the length of the border that Texas shares with any other U.S. state - Glasses that do my homework as I stare in the homework's general direction, as is often the case I' m quite uncertain where all the Texas animosity came from, that is to say I'm sure I knew at one point and was probably highly amused, but by now I have completely forgotten, keep in mind it is an old list, so it's possible that he h...

Thanksgiving 2005 photo highlights :) I heart aprons (for real I do) After Nicole & I spent half the day cooking I still had enough energy to school Shannon in Spoons. Just kidding, I only said that because he doesn't actually read this. ;) I took an early lead, but it came down to the 2 of us and was tied going into the last round. I did win though. :) fun girls in our fun little apartment Nicole & Seth looking all deep in thought