The things you can do over the phone these days... I tried to make a doctor's appointment with my HMO, but the receptionist responded to my request by instead offering me an appointment with a nurse practitioner or a phone call with a doctor. I was curious about the phone call option so she explained to me that after I hang up with her a doctor will call me back within an hour. I have no problems with seeing a nurse practioner, but I just had to try the phone option.

Twenty minutes later a very friendly sounding man asked me a few questions, diagnosed me, and sent down a prescription for me to pick up. All within the comfort of my living room. It amazes me the extent my HMO will go to just to process more patients more quickly.

I hope all of you have a Happy New Year.

Matt recently bought himself a two gallon tank and filled it with fish. He wants me to name them. I told him that I would, but later... after they stop dying. We're not sure if the guppies are killing and eating the neon tetras or if the tetras are just dying on their own and the bodies are being eaten by all.

I'm watching a program on TLC about super maximum security prisons. Every once in a while they make comparisions to less extreme prisons such as the ratio of prisoners per guard. But one of the things that really threw me off was when the voice over mentioned a prison fight resulting in death over a cat in a regular prison. A cat. A pet cat. It never occured to me that prisoners were allowed to have pets. And right when I'm wondering if I had heard right, they show a shot of a prisoner in his cell leafing through a magazine with his cat (tethered by a long leash) laying on his bed next to him.

I think what really boggles me is that my current living circumstances doesn't allow me to have a pet cat, but some prisons allow inmates to have them. But then again, some prisoners are better fed and receive better medical care than some of our free population.

Matt and I spent Christmas at my parent's house this year. I was excited over seeing how Sarah will respond to Christmas now that she's much more animated and active than she was last year when she was only six months old.

Turns out Sarah was more horrified than anything else. Up until Christmas morning she was all into the pretty ornaments and presents. She would look at the gifts, stack them, admire them, rearrange them under the tree. And all of her presents were wrapped in Winnie the Pooh paper, whom she adores.

Imagine what went through her head when her mother of all people tried to make her rip all of those wonderful happy smiling Pooh bears into shreads. And because she refused to destroy Pooh, her mother ripped him up by herself only to reveal dull brown boxes full of clothes. There was much crying and wailing on Christmas morn'.

I discreetly opened my gifts while Sarah wasn't looking. (But once she caught me in mid-rip, so I had to quickly hide my mangled gift and comfort her for a while.) I was happy to find that I received several items off of my wish list. And Matt gave me the Pocket PC that I was obsessing over at Circut City. But one of my favorite unexpected gifts of the season was a small watercolor painting. Matt saw my reaction when I opened it and he asked, "How did she know to give that to you?"

He didn't seem to like my answer when I told him, "You just know." He's the kind of guy who buys gift certificates for all of his friends and hounds me to tell him what I want. And even though I pretty much know what he bought me, he still chases me out of the room when he wraps my presents.

I guess he wants to surprise me with the perfect gift, but doesn't quite know how.

The angel keeps falling off the top of my plastic tree. She's made out of some cheap metal, probably tin, but despite several tumbles she's still in good shape. Before Matt left for work I made him retrieve her from behind the mess of wires bechind the TV stand. I think I might have to tie her down with wires.

As I write this, I'm listening to New Order, singing along when necessary. I'm sure that last sentence dates me somewhat. In high school, I remember a lot of New Order, Violent Femmes, REM, and U2, also I had just started into Portishead, Tori Amos, and Bjork. I lost one of my favorite CDs because I had forgotten it at someone's place and I didn't want to see him again. (I eventually replaced it.) I wonder how many things get lost that way.

This evening Matt and I are meeting with the minister who will be performing our ceremony at Starkbucks. At the mall. Two days before Christmas. (He picked the location.) Seeing that we've never met the man, he'll be hard enough to find without the herd of last minute shoppers. I'm actually hoping he'll find us.

I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday season. I won't be posting again until after Christmas. Have fun. Be good.

After seeing Matt's friend and his friend's fiance, I later had dinner with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and Sarah. She loves french fries, but her mommy rarely lets her have them (because even though they are oh so yummy they are bad bad bad). Every once in a while she'd look at me, reach out her left hand, and ask, "Please?"

Only after she finished all of her dinner and some of my mom's dessert did my sister-in-law allow Sarah one fry. My brother wanted to be the one to give her this forbidden treat, but I fended him away from my plate and reached over to give her a french fry.

While she happily ate her fry, I tried to put bit of positive association with saying Auntie and good things. "See. Auntie. Auntie gives you yummy food. Say Auntie?" She garbled a few words, and then I tried again. "Auntie. If you say Auntie I'll give you another french fry." My sister-in-law and brother laughed. And then I thought I heard a small voice say, "Auntie." The whole table turned to look at her. All of us were wondering, did she?

After a little coaxing she said again in a loud voice, "Auntie!" And I gave her the promised fry and a big kiss.

In about an hour from now Matt and I are supposed to be leaving to have lunch with an old friend of his. I want to make a good impression, but I'm running out of clean clothes.

My family was trying to get Sarah to finally say "Auntie" for me on my birthday. Instead she shared with me all sorts of other words which included "Murray" (the guy with the red shirt on the Wiggles), "Tigger," and "No." I resigned myself to asking her for a hug. But when I asked her sweetly, "Hug Auntie?" She smiled and started to enthusiastically hug the stuffed Tigger she was holding. "Not hug Tigger. Hug Auntie?" Sarah then stopped looked at me for a second thinking about something and then offered her Tigger to me for hugging. I think I need my own TV show and line of products with my likeness for her to say "Auntie Jenny."

Oops. *looking at the clock* I need to go and dig up something nice to wear and clean myself up a bit. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

I offered Matt an oppertunity to write a guest entry. He quickly refused. Don't feel bad. He doesn't really talk to my friends, much less write to strangers on his fiance's journal.

I haven't gone to the movies much since the summer, but in the past two days I've seen Star Trek: Nemesis and The Two Towers. I think you have to be somewhat of a Trekkie to enjoy Nemesis to its full extent (but that's probably true for most Star Trek movies). And for The Two Towers, even with all the hype I wasn't at all dissapointed.

Speaking of sequels, one of the previews shown was for Terminator 3. I think the subtitle was The Rise of the Machines. At first I was excited thinking that they had made a movie about the beginnings of the war between man and machine that the previous Terminator movies allude to, but from what they show it seems to be another terminator vs. terminator movie similar to Terminator 2. I don't know if I want to see that. I have a feeling that maybe they should have quit while they were ahead.

The next big movie that I'm anticipating are the two Matrix sequels. (I consider them to be one thing given that they are part of the same storyline and released so close together.) I think the Matrix is Keanu Reeves' best movie since Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure.

The second most asked question that I get after people find out I'm had majored in English is "What's a good book to read?" If I had concentrated in literature, I might have been able to give an interesting answer. Instead I answered their question with a question of my own, "Well what do you like to read?"

You'd be surprised by how many people develop a perplexed expression when they hear my answer. Either they were expecting me to go tell them to read Milton or they never really thought about it. Lately instead of prying more information out of them to make an informed answer, I just tell everyone go read (or listen to) David Sedaris' essays.

I have two of his books (Me Talk Pretty One Day and Holidays on Ice) and have listened to him on This American Life segments. Esquire also has an online archive of his essays that they have published. Go read his latest.

I've been listening to some archived episodes of This American Life. One of them is titled Plan B. "There's the thing you plan to do, and then there's the thing you end up doing. Most of us start off our lives with some Plan A which we abandon ... switching to a Plan B, which becomes our life."

I know people who are on track with their Plan A. I also know those who have been sidetracked onto their Plan B or contingency plan. I sit around wondering, "Plan? I was supposed to have a plan?"

I think the closest thing I had to a career plan were my responses to adults who asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. Librarian. Artist. Psychologist. Ice Cream Taster. For a while I told my mother I was going to be a millionaire. "How are you going to do that?" she asked thinking that I developed a strong sense of ambition and career plan. I'm sure you can imagine her reaction when I told her, "I'm going to win the sweepstakes."

I never really believed that I would win the sweepstakes and become a millionaire, but I liked to day dream about it. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to want what I couldn't have.

People still ask me what I would like to do job-wise. "Whatever won't make me feel like killing myself at the end of the day." Most people give a little chuckle and then get serious about it and ask again. The ones that immediately respond "good luck" without a hint of a smile make me wonder.

I think what I might consider my life plan would be an unwritten list in my head of things that I want to do before I die. They range from serious and career related (get an essay published) to silly and fun (sample every flavor of every ice cream sold on this island). Also on the list are things I still want, but know the chances are slim to none: Winning MegaBucks. Standing on the moon and watching Earth rise over its horizon.

Getting married was never on that list. Neither was majoring in English. Some of the most wonderful people I've ever known weren't on that list. I don't know if I'm on Plan A or B or wandering aimlessly, but I like where I am and where I'm headed.

I wonder if my neighbor thinks I'm some sort of drug addict. I was scrubbing the tiles in our shower at 2 am because (I'm a night owl and) people are coming over to replace the bathroom window and I don't want them to think "Eww." They're nothing near sparkling clean, but all the nasty parts have been cleared up. If you're wondering why I associate shower scrubbing with drug addiction, I suppose you've never seen the "Oh meth. Mm meth." commercial. I doubt they heard anything really, perhaps if they were in their bathroom at the time they may have heard the water running on and off.

Yesterday as I was dragging some of my laundry back upstairs, a couple of people waiting by the elevator with a vacuum and other cleaning gadgets asked me if I was Nicole's neighbor. She was supposed to have left her elevator key in the mailbox, but apparently she didn't and her uber clean friends/family were stranded. Either these people are very friendly with their neighbors or they live in a nice place where people like to stick around (and again are friendly to each other). I have no idea what my neighbors' (people living in the adjacent apartments) names are. I do know that the apartment to the right of us has had about five different renters in it since Matt's been living here. I've only seen the current renter once or twice. What I know about him is what I hear through the walls and windows. He smokes and watches sports with his friends. He seems to be pretty normal, but if he suddenly came knocking one day wanting to get to know me, I'd be creeped out. Maybe I'm just not neighborly.

At the dorms I didn't know any of my "neighbors." At the beginning of the semester, the RAs put signs on all the doors with the names of the people who reside there. I suppose it might help social interaction, but they really serve more as a reminder of which room is yours.

I'm starting sound really anti-social aren't I? I don't mean to be. One of my friends once described me as "gregarious in an introverted sort of way." I think that's pretty accurate despite its contradiction: friendly and social, but not outgoing.

I'm feeling better healthwise, but my stress level increases every day.

Every day I sit down to write an entry, but as you know I don't always post one.

Basil plants are either the easiest plants in the world to grow or my black thumb has mysteriously dissapeared.

Thursday is a good day to do laundry because I was able to do four loads of neglected wash and didn't bump into anyone else in the laundry room (or maybe everyone else knows something I don't).

I feel awkward around mall Santas (that also goes for mall Easter Bunnies). I'm not sure why.

Lately I've been trying to wrap my mind around the idea that I'll be Matt's wife in less than a month. I still don't quite think of myself as grown up, yet here I am all finished with my formal education and getting married. All I need now is a steady job and a good dose of maturity.

I also need to make my sick go away. Matt's also still sick. He has the classic cold with coughing and congestion, every so often it sounds like he's trying to cough up a lung. I'm suffering silently, bundled up in bed, trying to keep warm, feeling achy, and sounding like my throat is torn up when I talk.

Matt has threatened to drag me to the doctor if I don't get better by Tuesday. I don't like doctors. Actually, I'm all for doctors when I know they can help me. But when I suspect I have the flu, I don't see the point. Problem is that I can't tell the difference between a virus and an infection, so if I'm sick for an extended period of time I cave and go to get a professional opinion. What actually turns me off about doctors are the ones that have an attitude problem (and my HMO seems to be filled with them). Like the ones that tell me that I have the flu and then after a long sigh go on about I'm going to have to wait it out because there's nothing they can do about it and there's no magic bullet they can give me to make it go away. I'm sure they get several people who ask for some magical drug to fix the cold or flu, but I don't think they should dispense the snarky lecture and (optional) eye roll to everyone who walks in with a virus. It's not that they're telling me that information, it's that they're being such an ass while they do it. Don't they teach professionalism in medical school?

Bah. I meant to write something filled with sweetness and light, but I don't think that's going to happen until I get better or until my wish finally comes true and I get a house boy who will cook, clean, and serve me pina coladas or (in times like this) chicken soup.

Yesterday, my sister-in-law threw me what I refer to as a domestication party. The official term is "bridal shower," but any party where it is seen as acceptable to give a girl who doesn't cook or even like greens a vegetable scrubber is a domestication party. At my sister-in-law's party she received mostly kitchen related items: an electric skillet, a wok, a carafe (even though she doesn't drink tea or coffee) and other things that I can't recall right now. I know those are traditional gifts, but what's the message behind them? You're getting married, welcome to your new life as a domestic servent?

I actually didn't want a bridal shower. I don't feel comfortable being the center of attention and there were some other issues (not involving presents). But my sister-in-law insisted and she ended up throwing me a fun little anti-domestication party with my friends. And I suppose if there were an overall message in the gifts I received it would be: You're getting married, stop wearing T-shirts to sleep and dress sexy for your hubby while eating chocolate off of each other.

Matt and I are back and slowly settling back in.

One of the things we did while we were there was to visit his brother and sister-in-law's new shop. Peering over the counter to see what his brother was doing as he assembles one of the hot items of his business, I asked "You're writing on them?"

"Yeah, they [meaning tourists] like it when it says 'Maui' on it."

Other than the jewelry his wife makes, they buy their items wholesale from Indonesia. There are stickers on them saying "made in Indonesia" and they have a sign up saying where in Indonesia and how some of the woven items were made. They are by no means being deceptive in trying to pull off items as being "made in Hawaii," they are just aware that some people just want something that looks "exotic" that says the name of the place they visted. But I don't think those people imagine "Maui" being written on the day before in fine tip permanent marker in the back of the store.

Since we went in the middle of the week, we missed out on the craft fairs and swap meet mania that I usually force Matt to participate with me when we usually go at this time of year. Plus we both caught the flu and spent a great deal of time sleeping or just plain groggy. I don't think I made a good impression on some of his more distant relatives that I met for the first time at his parent's house. I recall saying "What?" a lot. Partly because I was in a medicated haze and partly because I'm not sure if they were speaking English or Indonesian half of the time.

One of Matt's nieces is two and she's speaks a mix of Korean (from her mom's side), Indonesian (from her dad's side), and English (from everyone else). She does not switch between languages, instead she mixes different words from different languages together and becomes frustrated when no one other than her parents (who speak all three) can understand what she wants. I was a bit fascinated with her watching her speak differently to different people. Speaking only in English to defy her mother, but slipping back into Korean when she ran about the living room.

Despite being sick, I enjoyed the trip mostly because his family was and always have been so welcoming and nice. On the car ride back from the airport, I asked Matt if they (his parents and siblings) liked me or not. He responded by asking me what I thought. I can't say for sure, but I think and hope that they do.

Yesterday after the shopping mania had ended, Chad dropped me off at my parents' house so I could decorate their tree with my brother and sister-in-law. (Thanks again, Chad.) Sarah is still too little to help, but she said, "Ooooo" when all the ornaments came out of their boxes. The first thing my brother and I did was dig for the most important ornaments. After we put up our eggs, which have our baby pictures on them, we go for the ones we made as children. His is circular felt ornament with a snowman on it. It's cute because instead of cutting out two round white circles for his snowman, he cut out a snowman shape out of the blue felt sky and then cut the white snowman shape to fit inside (so you can see some of the cardboard backing between the white and blue). Mine was a jar lid transformed into red felt and doily decorated frame with my third grade picture in it. There's a really ugly red and white yarn ornament that neither my brother or I will claim responsibilty for, but one of us must have made it for my mother to have kept it all these years.

My mother gave me a fake tabletop tree to put up in my apartment. It came with a short string of lights and some generic ornaments. I've been meaning to make some of my own mini ornaments and a tree topper out of polymer clay, but haven't found the time to.

Right now I should be getting my stuff together for my trip tomorrow. Matt and I will be on Maui visiting his family and taking a break from our day-to-day lives, so I'm not going to be posting for a while. It's not really a vacation if I spend it in front of a computer.

Early Sunday morning, a couple of friends and I are braving the mall in hopes of finishing off (or in some cases, starting) our Christmas shopping. Chad told me that I have to pick my presents (bridal shower, birthday, and Christmas, oh my). If I don't, then he or Val will snatch whatever I pick up with interest and run to the register. I told Chad that's not how it's supposed to work, there's no surprise in shopping for your own presents. He wasn't convinced. So either I'll be nice and cooperative or they'll be stalking me in the store aisles.

One of my friends and I had agreed a long time back not to exchange gifts, instead we exchange Christmas cards. But even with that I can spend an eternity in Hallmark trying to find a meaningful, yet funny card that she'll like. I understand Chad's pain, I know it well. The pain of putting up with long lines, crowded malls, circling for parking, is nothing compared to what we inflict on ourselves by trying to find or figure out what the other person would like or (hopefully) love.

I think it'll be fun shopping with friends. Just give me a cup of coffee and I'll be good to go.