It’s been so long I actually had to re-enter my password to sign into wordpress and Safari had to the nerve to ask me if I wanted it to remember my info. Yes! I want you to remember my info, this is THEEE MILLIONIZER trying to log into themillionizer motherfucking dot com got dammit!

I am a changed woman. I have no judgement, I only have outwardly grace and compassion. That’s what they teach you in nursing school.

I have no room to judge anyone after I’ve wiped shit off people laying in their death bed, after I’ve disinfected the diarrhea bathroom floor, after I’ve elevated and iced the scrotum of a 90 year old man, after I’ve changed adult diapers, after I’ve carried urine, measured poop, held the bucket while a recovering drug addict super cholo vomits uncontrollably, after I’ve had family members turn to me for answers. It’s been quite the semester.

On the plus side, who am I kidding, I can judge all I want but I know all our shit looks the same. And let me tell you something about nursing students and nurses in general. Ho. Lee. Shit. They like their drink. I knew I chose the right profession. This is what studying was like:

Typical Day:

8am-12pm: study

12pm sharp to whenever: cocktails

December 17, our last day of finals:

6-9am study

9am – leave for campus

10-12: actually take final

12pm- 4pm: lunch and beers at the Station

4pm: wear out our welcome at the Station walk to Hamiltons

4:10-7pm: beers at Hamiltons

7-9: sober up/nap

915: drinks and dinner downtown

10pm: drinks somewhere in the Gaslamp

12-2am: beer at some crazy Irish blues bar (is that even a thing?) catering to the over 50 crowd. Have the most hilarious time of the whole night here.

I may or may not be changed but I am certainly wiser for the wear. Also, I’m not afraid of giving shots anymore. I could do it with a drink in my hand while having a conversation. Line em up, I’ll take em down!

I really should write more about school, it’s fascinating. I will ensure you now though, that I love it. Have no fear.

****

I’m pretty sure one of my cats got really high last night. When the other one started his midnight rodeo I shouted, “TBU! TBU! Get that one high too! We might be able to have a peaceful night!” It was considered but not acted upon.

****

I’ve been away for quite a sometime and while I can’t blame it entirely on Kings of Leon, their new album certainly didn’t help. The shit show started with the awful, awful, racist, completely unbelievable video for Radioactive. I mean it warrants a commentary similar to the one I begged for re: Smell yo Dick

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPBbMbKSZrQ

Luckily, this video actually had some commentary to better articulate my icky feelings about this video. Go here for that. That article brings up just the tip of the ice berg of inarticulable feelings I have about that video. The first and foremost being that it is just cheesy shit, even if it weren’t racist, it’s still gad awful.

I can’t even tell if the rest of the album is decent because it’s all been tainted by the caca of what my eyes saw. I think I’ll skip this go round on the ferris wheel and take the next one. I don’t need a whole album about your nostalgic, idealization of southern male bravado. Yes, that’s essentially the image they’ve carved out for themselves, but this album doesn’t have the soul. Instead of being about raucous-ness and what it means to be a boy in the South with a boner and a drink, this album is about damsels in distress and pretending to be a man while preaching the virtues of Tennessee and everything that is holy below the Mason Dixon line. It just doesn’t have it, not for me at least. Maybe they’re growing up and this is the manifestation. But really it just seems like a desperate plea to convince themselves that they are still the hardcore Southern family band they think of themselves as instead of the corporate sellouts that they are.

And I’m not calling them sellouts because I hate this album, I knew what they were all about way before that, but I didn’t mind, the music was still fun to listen to even as it got progressively more polished, produced and adult contemporary radio friendly. But some line has been crossed and they need to find their way back to the other side.

How can a band go from making me sing along to shit like, “I‘d come all over your party but I’m soft*” to singing a song about some dudes pickup truck. I mean good lord, I couldn’t have predicted a more tragic let down if I let Pete Wentz write, produce and perform the whole shenanigan.

One thing can’t be denied and I’d be stupid to try, Caleb’s voice is still the beautiful bastard child of Janis Joplin and Bradley Nowell, it’s smooth as freshly swept gravel and I love it.

*I’m pretty sure that’s not the exact lyric but that’s how I sing it because I think it fits in just fine with the rest of the song. And if that isn’t what he’s saying, it’s what he should be saying.

****

Oh! Fuck KOL, I have some more news from my actual life. I got straight A’s last semester. It was a hard fight for every point, in one class I only got an A by 3 points, but I made it! Now it’s my registration appointment and I’m terribly confused by what classes I’m supposed to register for. My solution for that is just not to register at all. I’ll wait until they threaten my continued admission then ask a couple questions I guess.

****

You know that Sublime song, April 29, 1992, that shouts out all the cities in which they would like to incite a riot? This one right here

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh5ogOH82Aw

The shout outs start at 2:59. Any way, every time we pass through Fountain Valley, which is not too often but has happened with increased frequency since moving back to San Diego (also mentioned!), I start singing this song. It is like a reflex. My doctor could test the intactness of my auditory nerve and higher level cognitive functioning by mentioning Fountain Valley and measuring the time it takes me to start singing.

Finding that video has led me into the deep rabbit hole that is Sublime songs set to fan tribute videos. They are awful.

40 oz to Freedom is an amazing album. The first Sublime song I heard was Waiting for My Ruca, it was off The Mallrats soundtrack, I was 12 and I was like, OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT BASS! Booom, Boooom. I was hooked.

****

I start classes again, January 18. I am in no way prepared for the early mornings, the stress and all the poop. The poop! You guys, so much poop. Being on break has changed my schedule to waking up past by noon on an early day and not getting started on my daily routine until about 3. This a a problem when, in less than two weeks, I am going to be expected to be up and ready to monitor peoples lives by 6:30am.

The Millionizer is falling and laughing at the drinks we spilled

I just read Mimi Smartypants’ latest post and I was like ugh, it’s true, to break a blogging break you just have to plow through a post and get it over with. It took me ten minutes to get this far, I was all emo and unable to remember any grammar and punctuation rules. I’ll give you all the dirty dish on the wedding, but first, more real time tales of getting these words to your eyes.

TBU was asleep taking his night nap and I wanted him to wake up but I didn’t want to actually wake him up. So I figured I’d write a post. Because what inevitably happens is that I try to write a post and just when I’m all into it he wakes up and demands attention, like a child or a cat or something else that aggressively vies for your attention. Have I told you how I mostly write posts while the teebs sleeps? It’s the easiest time to get thoughts out and whip my fingers into a frenzy of flow. But before I started writing I thought, hey you know what self? Yes self? I think I should have some ice cream! Some really delicious, full fat, creamy ice cream. That sounds like a great idea self. It’s Friday, it’s ok to not have your usual dessert of frozen berries in a glass of soy milk. I rationalized that I started a bootcamp class and I was sufficiently sore, indicating that I had worked out at a pretty severe level and therefore deserved ice cream. So up I got to get my reward when guess who woke up? Yup that’s right, the cat. Who then woke TBU up. Now I’m typing this and he is all, whatchoo doin? He’s fixing his sound system so he can play his XBox and one of the cables isn’t working and he is narrating every thought to me. Knowing fulling well that I don’t give a shit about his game playing experience. Maybe it’s this cable. Oh. Wait. Now it’s working. No it’s not. Oh! It WAS this cable! I don’t care!

ANYWAY!

So there has been major wedding planning drama. It all started about 16 years ago when TBU’s parents divorced. Fast forward to last Monday when we met with the wedding planner that TBU’s dad wanted us to meet with. We went knowing full well that she is a crazy ass rich person’s wedding planner and that we could never afford her. But we were playing his game. The game he plays when he is dangling money in front of your face. After looking at the planner’s portfolio and drooling over these amazing weddings we found out that it was juuuuust out of reach. It turned out to be a much more reasonable number we were looking at.

Let me clarify something right here. I don’t need a crazy ass rich person’s wedding. I don’t need lighting effects, to be paraded in on an elephant or for doves to be released. I was, and still am, mostly concerned with everyone having a great time. What I found most appealing in a wedding planner was that someone else would deal with all the shit that goes into putting a wedding together. You know, someone to decorate, to clean up and to generally make sure everything goes as it should. That’s all I wanted. Really.

Ok, so now we’re looking at a much more manageable number with a planner but we’re still short just a bit. And we’re thinking, hey maybe throwing this party doesn’t have to be a huge chore, maybe we can hire someone to do the hard parts for us, leaving us more time to drink and get ready. So we go back to his dad and tell him the planner told us the bill would be no more than $1. And his dad is like, great! I am comfortable with that. He does some math and, in addition to what we’re going to contribute, he decides that he will give us $0.35 if AND ONLY IF, TBU’s mom will also contribute $0.35. He mentions the alimony he had to pay her for 15 years and how his resources are not unlimited but that she has resources and money money money. Then he asks how much my family is contributing (a far larger percentage of their annual salary than you are, thankyouverymuch). Mind you this is a man of means, significant means.

So, we take this news back to TBU’s mom, we haven’t even asked her for more money (she has already commited to about $0.25 at this point, a generous and appreciated sum). We just get to the part in the story about how we liked the wedding planner’s portfolio and how, if it were possible, we’d like to have her do the wedding. THAT’S ALL WE’VE SAID when she starts bawling and screaming that from this point forward she is no longer involved in the wedding at all and that she will absolutely not give any money to a wedding planner. She said she would go to the wedding and support us and whatever but she would remove herself from any pre-wedding activities. And we are like WHAT. THE. FUCK. just happened?

She’s crying and telling us that her ex-husband is trying to control her (it’s probably true) and that he’s dicking everyone around with his moeny (again, true). Her current husband starts yelling at us, asking why we would even want a fucking wedding planner. Uuuuummm I dunno, how about not having to do any manual labor before my fucking wedding day? And then he drops the bomb (it was a bomb for me at least, others were far less affected). He says that it’s ridiculous that a groom’s mom should have to pay any money for the wedding. I immediately feel ashamed (that’s not accurate, but I don’t know how to accurately describe the exact feeling I had, however, it was terrible). So I start crying. I’m upset because the underlying theme of both of these conversations is that these people are giving money for a wedding they shouldn’t even have to pay for because my family doesn’t have the money to do it themselves. So here I am, this poor kid sitting on the patio of an extremely large house that resides on a man-made lake, where you have to pass through security gates to even get on the man made island. And not just a security gate where you enter a password, no, you have to talk to guards and they have to check your name on a list, like it’s the fucking Warner Bros lot or something. Now I’m crying and TBU’s mom thinks I’m crying because she won’t give us anymore of her money. Which is not the case. Truly, not the case. I am crying for two reasons 1. she is crying and I have a difficult time dealing with my and other people’s emotions and 2. I am being yelled at by a rich New York Jew about how my family should be paying for this and how I have to make a decision to settle things.

Oh yeah, did I mention that? That TBU’s step-dad started yelling at me to make a decision? No? Because he did. And that didn’t help me regain composure, not even a little. So I sit there silently, with tears rolling down my face, my lips quivering and trying desperately to regulate my breathing while TBU and his mom are screaming at each other and step dad is berating us for even thinking about getting a wedding planner and how I have to make a decision. Well it was pretty obvious that the decision had been made when TBU’s mom started screaming that she wasn’t giving any money if there was a wedding planner involved. They get up and walk to the end of their yard that meets with their dock, where their boat is waiting for them, bobbing up and down in the man-made lake they live on, so they can go on their nightly boat ride. We leave on our trip back to San Diego.

TBU calls his dad and says his mom won’t match his dad’s $0.35. Dad says that’s too bad and that is that. Now, I’m not upset with TBU’s dad because he won’t give us as much money as we’d need to hire the wedding planner. No, it’s his money, he worked for it and I see no reason that he should just give it away. But I am upset with him because he used our wedding as a way to control a situation with his money. He used our wedding to piss TBU’s mom off. He was being an asshole when I thought he would be excited for us. It’s complete bullshit that we know he could afford the whole cost of the wedding and has in fact offered to pay for a significant portion of it, only if TBU’s mom matched him. The only thing he was ever excited about was the opportunity to wield his bank account, probably because that’s the only thing he could wield that would cause a reaction. Fuck him. I guess (obviously) I was being naive when I thought he could rally and just be happy that his son was marrying the person he loved and who loved him back. Nope, this man is as creepy* in his head as he is on the outside. I never really liked him, but now I’m just going to avoid him. At this point I really don’t want his money, it would just make things mucky and gross. Like really, he won’t give a measly $0.35 when he was comfortable with $2 beforehand? You’ve played your cards dude now the only thing you’re doing is confirming that you’re an asshole. Congratulations! No one fucking likes you! There are more infuriating details but that is enough for now.

*One of many, many creepy things (including repeatedly commenting on my looks and staring at me like a pedophile) he’s done happened the day before this all went down. He came in from the pool in his speedo and sat down on the arm of a chair so that I was eye level with his geriatric junk. Then after a series of unfortunate inquiries on TBU’s part he went out to the street STILL IN HIS SPEEDO and put on a helmet, wrist guards and a fanny pack (we still don’t know why the fanny pack) and proceeded to demonstrate this device for us:

So please imagine a 70-ish man, in a speedo, a helmet, wristguards and a fucking fanny pack doing that in a rather upscale neighborhood. I could not make this stuff up I am not nearly creative or high enough. This man is a fucking loon.

Oh yeah and the wedding theme is Dirty Dancing. No joke, the best movie ever is the theme of my wedding, we have invites and shot glasses and everything. It’s going to be awesome, a little low budget, but awesome.

First dance to this? Or this? I love the chola clowns in the second one. You don’t really think this one do you? You fucking purist, although it is a good one. If Swayze dies before the wedding I swear I’ll include this one

- apparently

What the hell Irish Times? I’m not sure if this publication is more like the Daily Mail or the New York Times, but I don’t think it matters.

Some choice quotes from the mercifully brief article:

Of course there will always be a place in the world of business for exceptional women. Women also have an important role to play in jobs that are too demeaning for men, like teaching.

**and**

Women are twice as likely as men to work in the public sector. They account for two-thirds of the Civil Service and three- quarters of all public employees.

Yet they are barely represented in the useful public services of firefighting and arresting people.

I’m really sorry, World. You caught me Irish Times, I really should just stay home and do – well do what exactly? Just stay home and not bother anyone I guess. It would give me more time to blog.