Chapter 214: Chelsea

So, tonight I am writing the blog from my Mom's laptop instead of my phone, which is a very good thing. I am still going to keep it brief, though, because the laptop is an improvement but still not the best environment for writing out a full-length blog like I usually do. I'm just not entirely in the mood still because I know that, in order to cover everything that I need to cover, I would be here for several hours. I don't want to be awake for several hours tonight because I don't like the laptop that much and am not very comfortable in any position that I have found to use the laptop in. So, once again, I'm going to keep it short. I did want to touch on one of the many topics I have to discuss about this weekend, though. As you all know, we've had family staying at our house all weekend. Most of these family members are people that we haven't seen in a very long time or don't get to see very often, so it has been really cool to get a chance to reconnect with them all. One person who I hadn't seen in an extremely long time is my cousin, Chelsea. I don't recall any time in my adult life where I have actually been around her for an extended period but I do have many memories of her as a child. As I remember it, we never really got along all that well, although we were very nearly the same age and kind of into the same things. We lived something like 2 hours apart for most of our lives but, in the hustle and bustle of our parents' everyday lives, never really had all that much opportunity to get to know each other. Over the course of this weekend, though, I suddenly came to realize that Chelsea and I have everything in common. We have very similar interests, similar belief systems and spent the entire weekend having tons of those classic "Me, too!" moments. It was really kind of a wonderful surprise to me. It felt really nice over the course of this weekend to have somebody around who was like-minded and who I could talk to about all of the silly, frivolous, fun things the people I hang out with here have no interest in. We were both discussing the fact that it sucks that we don't live closer to one another because we both agreed that we would definitely hang out and party together, etc. It really is a shame because I could definitely use somebody like her in my day-to-day life. My Mom and I extended the invitation to her to come back any time, whether she brings our Aunt along or not, just to hang out with us. One of my favorite parts of this whole weekend and family visits, etc., was getting a chance to get to know my cousin, Chelsea, a little bit better. I am definitely going to make it a point, moving forward, to keep in touch with her better than I have in the past and have every intention of trying to make it a point to get together more in the future. In any sense, as I mentioned before, I need to get to bed and will actually write my extra-length blog mega-post detailing this insane, long, hectic weekend tomorrow. As wonderful as it has been having family here and everything, I am honestly really excited for the last ones to clear out tomorrow morning so I can sleep in my bed and smoke inside the apartment again. This has been my main complaint about this weekend - smoking has been really inconvenient and I haven't really smoked much at all because I have been having to go outside and it is disgusting out there. My second complaint, which may be even bigger than the first one, is that I have been out in the sun far too much over the past few days. It has been a really good thing in the sense that it has made my face this really gorgeous golden brown color but absolutely terrible because it has caused me to break out like mad. I haven't been wearing any makeup on my face or anything like that over the past few days, so I know that isn't the cause of the issue. The only thing that has changed is that I have been out in the sun and on the beach these past few days and the breakout has gotten worse each day that I was on the beach. It's filthy. I hate it. At the same time, though, I really want to keep the golden brown look for the summer. I am going to have to figure out some sort of product that achieves this look for me without all of the sunshine involved. Okay, for now, it is time for bed. Goodnight.