eunice ann

tales of a girl trying to make sense of it all.

foursquare junkie.

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You may or may not have heard about the “next Twitter phenomenon”, up and coming social media application, foursquare. If not, let me clue you in.

foursquare is essentially a means of geotagging yourself via Twitter as you run errands, dine out, or check out new venues in town. You leave tips for other users such as, “Reverse happy hour starts @ 9 & tapas are $2,” and the more you check in to any given place, you earn badges and mayorship (meaning, you’ve been there more than anyone else). Aside from the fact that it easily enables people to essentially stalk you, it’s pretty fun. Plus, several businesses are getting on board and offering specials to the mayor or users with certain stats. You can’t go wrong with a free cup of joe just for being an obsessive tweeter.

The things I like about foursquare:

  1. I am more inclined to try something new based off a tip someone left.
  2. I patronize local business and help spread the word about their establishment.
  3. I get a huge ego boost when I see the words, “Congrats, you just became the mayor of…” (yes, it is all about me)

Things I don’t like:

  1. Currently, the listings are user added & maintained, and if people don’t stop and take the time to search for a venue, duplicates crop up. (Which you can report as a dup and foursquare will take care of) For example, there were six listings for Camelback Ranch when I went down for the Dodger game a few weeks ago.
  2. All the information my tweeps see is a link to a Google map – they don’t get to see any of the tips or information about the venue.
  3. That stalking thing I mentioned.

I challenged a friend-of-a-friend (whom I’ve never met) to a mayorship duel this week on the best mexican restaurant in town, in retaliation for him booting me as mayor someplace else. I am also on a mission to unlock the “Super Mayor” badge – being mayor of 10 places at once (I am at 9 right now).

In all, it’s dumb, sure. Just like Twitter is. But it helps to stimulate our local economy, which can’t be bad at all.

I’m feeling lazy today

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I don’t feel so hot today, and I’ve wasted all my creative energy writing another blog post and designing postcards at work. So all you get is a picture. My favorite from last weekend’s portrait sessions. I’m a big fan of lens flare, in case you didn’t know…

megan & ray

I’m about to get all political on you

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There. You’ve been warned. I’m not politically charged, generally speaking, but there are just some issues that get me going sometimes. Education is one of them.

I’m annoyed. In the 13 years since I was a student in the Flagstaff Unified School District, I see that nothing has changed. Not a damn thing. In short, the district is out of money. Again. And they are asking for taxpayers to cover it. Again.

The funding for the district is so bad, they are projecting closing four schools – two elementaries, one of two middle schools, and one of the three high schools here in town – prior to the start of the school year in August. They simply cannot afford to staff schools that aren’t even full. In March, the voters passed a hotly contested budget override, which would provide additional funds to the district by increasing property taxes. Now the district is asking for a sales tax increase to cover the remaining deficit. Almost half of the educators will be receiving temporary pink slips today, until the district knows what next year’s budget is going to look like.

When is this going to stop? I have never heard the term, “budget override” outside of a discussion directly pertaining to FUSD. They ask for an override every. Single. Year. It’s ridiculous. Where the hell is all the money going?

They try to tug on the heart strings with statements like, “this is going to affect our kids if this doesn’t pass.” Why weren’t you thinking of the kids when you were out wasting spending the money we gave you last year? No one wants to make them accountable. They just want to save the jobs and the classrooms and deal with the repercussions later. They just keep throwing money at the problem in hopes it will go away.

And they wonder why kids are defecting in droves to private and charter schools within the city…

Hallmark – my best friend and nemesis

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I’m addicted to greeting cards. I can literally go into a card store and spend hours reading each and every card. I love to send cards, I love to get cards, I think greeting cards rule.

But Hallmark cards – those are the best. No matter what you need to say or how you want to say it, there are a hundred cards to look through and choose from to say just what you want to say, the way you want to say it.

I’m reminiscent of a card that my ex-husband got for me when he was trying to apologize for being in love with someone else. He got me a card with a raggy teddy bear on the front, pouting and flopped over. It was blank inside. Alluding to my love for both teddy bears and my love for perfect Hallmark cards, he wrote inside that they must make the blank cards for the occasion that someone needs to write “I’m a horrible and pathetic person.”

Today, I found myself at Hallmark, wanting to buy a card to send to a friend, but was challenged in picking one out. It seems that there were several cards that communicated what I felt, but had that one odd line that made the gist feel totally cheesy and generic. How I wished for one of those blank cards today.

I’ve been kind of tortured lately, between telling someone how I really feel about the situation that they are in and just keeping my mouth shut. I was kind of hoping that I’d find the perfect card to convey my emotion on the matter. I didn’t. I found two cards that would work, but wished I could blend them into one. Maybe I should just send them both.

Baffled.

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I’m in a quandary right now.

I’ve been dating a great guy for eight months now. I mean, a really great guy. Our first date was like something I daydreamed about, and he only continued to get better from there. Despite the fact that his crazy travel schedule and our living 140 miles apart makes it really difficult to see each other, I am still. So. Smitten. And just when I burden him (unbeknownst to him) with my own baggage from past relationships, he surprises me with not being like every guy from the past. In fact, he’s nothing like most of them.

Except one.

I’ve spent the better part of the past ten years totally in love with one of my best friends. He gets me. He’s amazing. And he’s so emotionally stunted at times that it’s impossible for me to so much as entertain the idea of a relationship with him, if he ever decided that he wasn’t afraid of the outcome. But we definitely connect to each other. I love him, and I know a part of me always will.

So it’s no surprise why I am so into this new guy. He’s merely a younger version of exactly the guy that I know I want. I don’t think he even knows how alike they are, outside of my occasional comment stating that fact.

And now the monkey wrench — a couple of months ago, I had a long conversation with my friend. As in, three or four hours, saying a lot of the things that I’d been needing to say and hoping to hear for years. It was amazing. And confusing. I had no idea what to do with the new information that I’d received.

So I did nothing. I still think back on everything that was said and wonder what I should do, if anything. But for now, I am just enjoying things as they are. And I’m holding nothing back. I’m all in this time. And it’s not as scary as I would have expected.

5 years later…

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Yesterday was my 5 year divorce-ary. On the one hand, I can’t believe it’s already been that long. I’ve now been divorced for longer than I was married.

I still have hard days. A lot of hard days, if I’m to be perfectly honest. I still keep up with my ex through the articles he writes for a publication in Seattle, mostly because I love his writing; he’s very talented and I’m happy that he kept up with it. I don’t really give a shit how his life is going otherwise. Unfortunately, it means that I have to suck it up when I read comments like “my wife and I…” I guess it still bothers me that things worked out with the two of them (even though they are really right for one another).

I don’t know — I guess there’s some level of fairness that I expected out of all of this — to see their indiscretions blow up in their face at some point. But it hasn’t. And I need to let that go.

I wasn’t happy, so I don’t know how fair it is for me to be mad about everything, after all.

But I still have hard days. They are much fewer and farther between, but when they sneak up on me, like they did yesterday and a few months ago, they really get the best of me. And I get angry, hurt, and sad all over again. Fair? Probably not. But really, I think I still have a lot of healing to do. But I’m getting there.

I forgot how much I love Sedona

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Yesterday, I hosted a group of mini sessions at Tlaquepaque in Sedona. Tlaquepaque (pronounced tuh-la-keh-pa-key) is an art community that is housed among some really gorgeous adobe and tile buildings. I am going to have to go back down there this week just to shoot because I didn’t manage to get any personal shots in yesterday.

It’s just a pretty little place filled with fountains and plants and beautiful, stunning artwork. There were three weddings taking place at the time as well, and we did our best to stay out of the way.

Sedona has changed and grown, and it’s still overrun with tourists, but man, is it beautiful. When I was in high school, the 30-minute drive down the hill was where we escaped to when we’d ditch school (something I didn’t do much of until my senior year), especially when the weather started to get really nice. It was great to just lay out on the Red Rocks, enjoy a picnic lunch, and swim wade in the creek. Then we’d hike around some trails and just enjoy the afternoon.

Aside from the horrible sewer smell and widened split highway into town, Sedona was mostly as I remembered it. Pretty rocks, bustling trees, sound of the creek. It was a great day. I got some great photos that I will be posting on my photography blog shortly.

#7 – Run a 5k

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A couple of years ago, I got connected with a ministry in Denver that caters to people living with HIV and AIDS. The founder spoke at our church one Sunday, told his story of what it was like to live with AIDS, how it came into his life, and how he wants to help others. That May, they sponsored a 5k run/walk and needed volunteers. So my friends and I decided to help with the event and cheer on our friend who was running the race to qualify for the Bolder Boulder. I had zero intention of running that day, until we got an email the night before saying that they had plenty of volunteers, but encouraged everyone to attend and run or walk.

So we showed up at City Park bright and early at 5:30 am. It was cold and rainy and looking to be a pretty miserable day over all. Alissa wasn’t quite 2, so I had her in the stroller and figured that I could walk with her and my friends and we’d have a good time. Until that day, I never even knew that a 5k is only 3.1 miles.

In 5th grade, our school had a track meet. We all had to participate as it was part of our PE class. My events: 100m dash, 100m hurdles, high jump. I took first in the running events and 5th in the high jump. My classmates said I looked like a deer trying to clear that stupid pole. Grace and dignity are not my forte. In sixth grade, I traded out the high jump for the 400m dash and 200m hurdles. I placed first or second in all four events. Track was actually kind of fun!

In high school, I was determined to clock a 15 minute mile, but by then, my lungs didn’t want to cooperate as much. Running a half mile was about all I could muster before I wanted to keel over dead. I’d walk the last half mile and spend the next two hours wheezing. I was definitely a short-distance girl. I never went out for track – the idea of a stadium full of people watching me trip on a hurdle terrified me, so I went out for softball instead.

The track coach watched me running sprints at practice one afternoon and told me she wanted me on the track team. I should have listened. Not only can I not hit a ball, I can’t really catch or throw one either. I spent the first half of the season on the bench, and the last half in the bleachers, after taking a swinging bat to the elbow during practice one afternoon, which severely bruised my bone and muscle. Mrs. Smith, I’m sorry. You were right. I belonged with the runners. Bad lungs and all.

I like to run. It brings me joy. It’s relaxing to my mind and good for my body. Sure, the asthma thing makes it tough, but I manage. I am still not a distance runner though, and that was the reason for this goal. I don’t want to walk a 5k. I want to run it. So I am employing the Couch to 5k program and getting my butt in gear. If I can stick to the plan (which means running even when the wind is blowing 50 mph), I should be ready to go in ten weeks. So I’ll be fit to run one in the dead of summer. Yeah, that’s the plan. Plus, I have gained 25 (yep, you read that right – TWENTY FIVE) pounds since one year ago. No wonder none of my clothes fit any more.

Does anyone have some music they recommend I throw on ye olde iPod that I can run to? If so, please leave it in a comment below!

My life is not a soap opera.

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It’s an episode of Friends.

Friends is my all-time favorite show. Ever. I can (and usually do) watch it every day. And the more I watch it, the more I relate to it.

I’m Joey. Struggling to break into my dream career, but have been known to take the crappiest of jobs if it meant that I was even remotely connected to where I ultimately want to be in life.

I’m Chandler. I’m hopeless and awkward and desperate for love. Okay, maybe not desperate, but I have a habit of defaulting to my “Janice” when I’m confused about relationships.

I’m Monica. I’ve dated a man old enough to be my father and I am ridiculously competitive.

I’m Rachel. I had a kid as a result of a one-time deal with an old boyfriend and an accident happened and had no idea how to change a diaper, much less be a mother. (My kid is way cuter than Emma though.)

I’m Ross. I’ve been in love with a friend of mine for nearly ten years, but I’m too chicken to do anything about it.

I’m Phoebe. I didn’t grow up privileged, and that has made me a free-spirit.

I’ve had ick factors and crushes on cute doctors, I’ve worked in jobs I hated and busted my ass to get a job I wanted that I was underqualified for. I frequent a coffee house with my best friend, where we talk for hours about nothing. I’ve been in love and I’ve been married. I’ve had crazy roommates and been obsessed with Baywatch.

The genius of this show really is that no matter what you’ve been through in life, you can relate to some, maybe all of the characters.

Oh how I love baseball

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The smell of the grass. The crack of the bat. The flavor of a Dodger Dog. The warmth of the sun. The cheers and jeers of adoring fans and disgruntled rivals. The team flags flapping in the wind. The sound of the organist revving up the crowd. The inevitable moment that some jackass decides to start a wave. I love it. I love it all.

It’s no secret that I am a huge Dodger fan. Truth be told, I haven’t always been. I liked them well enough growing up, since in Arizona, we didn’t have our own team until 1996, and so we rooted for either the Dodgers, Padres, or (God forbid) the Anaheim Angels (yeah, you read that right. LA has only one baseball team, people). Every once in a while, you’d run into a misplaced A’s fan. So, for the most part, I grew up liking the Dodgers (save for a brief stint in 1994-95 when I actually rooted for the Rockies for a whole season)

Then I met my ex, who was an avid Dodger fan. He corrupted me. He taught me the meaning of what it mean to be “Dodger Blue.” I learned all about Dodger history, thanks to several years of Dodgers books for my birthday. Our first vacation together was in 1999 to Dodger Stadium. I saw Mark McGwire hit one out of the park, a feat last achieved by Mike Piazza in the 80’s. We had a great time. From then on, I was a true Dodger fan. In 2000, I became friends with Kevin, who I could not believe was a bigger fan than my ex. He even has a tattoo on his ankle with the Dodger logo. Needless to say, we bonded over a mutual love for the team, among other things. Now I look forward to the season every winter, celebrate my birthday by hitting a game (or two or three), and cheer on my boys in Chavez Ravine. Being a Dodger fan brings me both great joy and leaves me on the verge of a heart attack every year.

The guy I’ve been dating went to the A’s/Mariners game last night and was surprised at how empty the stadium was. He said that there were maybe 6,000 people at the game. Shocking.

A’s fans must really hate their team. Two games into the season, playing a division rival and no one cares? Unbelievable. (Why couldn’t only 6,000 people shown up to the Dodger game last weekend?) Although Rockies fans aren’t much better unless the team is on a hot streak in September.

This is, yet another reason I love being a Dodger fan. Dodger fans are passionate. Probably a little too passionate.

Here’s hoping we see October again this year. Go BLUE!