pretty crabby

I never knew any better.

I remember just wanting things to be different. I didn't care if it was better or worse, it just needed to change. To evolve. A new something, a new heart, a new view...change.

I wasn't sure what would happen. I didn't hope for anything because I had been burned. More than once. But you want to touch, just to see if the flame is still on? Still going? Still hot? Something inside says "try again" and so you do, not thinking. The smart part of you is quiet. The part that should protect you (and should know better) isn't loud enough to block out the thing inside your chest, pulling you forward. Always forward, You can't help but want to know what will happen if I just...

Am I brave or stupid? To keep trying, when everyone else would have given up, moved on, grew up? I stayed the same somehow, while others changed around me. I stood still. I waited. I bided my time. I thought. I wrote, I wrote, I wrote.

Life can turn you inside out. It can mix you up and tear you apart. Break your heart, and mend it again. It knows things you don't. Maybe the bad stuff is for a good reason? Maybe not. Maybe there is no point, and everything is an accident, and there is no such thing as fate. There is no reason for anything. We're just hurdling through space and crashing into each other while we fly.

But we keep reaching out, hands in space, just searching for something else. Someone else. We hang on and we don't know what will come next. But we keep hoping.

Because we never know what will happen.

Maybe it will work out and become something else. The way you always thought it should be.

Query

My camera died a few weeks ago and I really really miss it. I even let my Flickr account expire because all I have to post is camera phone photos and who the hell cares?

But now I think I can't wait any longer and I need to get a new camera. THIS WEEKEND! Or sooner!

So, what kind should I get? I probably don't REALLY want to spend more than $200 if I can help it. What are my options? What kind do you have?

Let me have it!

Cracker Jack

Ow. My only real news it that I have a huge unpoppable (new word) zit on the side of my head. Like right where my temple is. What the fuck? I can cover it with my hair (which is getting shortter and blonder all the time, fyi) but it hurts. If it gets any bigger, it may turn into a nose.

On TuesdayI had the crabbiest of all days and went home and basically pouted and sat staring at the wall. I avoided all phone calls (except one from my pregnant friend because I figure if a pregnant lady needs to talk you need to listen) and watched the last episode of Americas Next Top Model (helpfully rerun from last week!)

Do you ever just get so blue and inconsolable for really no reason? I wasn't depressed, I was ANNOYED at everyone and I could just tell that nothing was going to make me feel better aside from maybe just going to bed and getting up the next day with a hopefully NEW AND FRIENDLY attitude. I think being friendly all day to strangers is sort of taking a toll on me and when I figure that balance out perhaps I will stop being a cranky bitch in my "real life".

My morning started with this phone call:
Me: "Good morning, Name of Company".
Strange Man: "Tony (something ineadible)."
Me: "Excuse me?" (no one here named Tony)
SM: "Tony (mumble mumble)?"
Me: "Is that who you're looking for?"
SM: "NO. Tony SIRWHATEVER! That's who this is!" (um, who talks like this?!?)
Me: "Oh. Okay?"
SM: "I called there earlier!"
Me: "Well...are you looking for someone specifically?" (there are 30 people in this office, YOU NUTBAR)
SM: "No. TONY SIRBLAHBLAH. He's a patient there!" (didn't you just say YOU WERE HIM?)
Me. "I think you have the wrong number sir. This is a real estate office."

Yeah.

Is it the weekend yet?

It's all in your head.

To answer the question you haven't yet asked, yes, I cut my own hair.

It started when I was 16 and didn't give a crap about much, including the pile of dead cells coming out of my head (ew) and so I started cutting and dying my hair on a somewhat regular basis. I never did anything CRAZY, I kind of kept it "normal" because, hey, I lived in Vermont and all.

Now it's been some 14 years of doing it all by my lonesome and I am pretty happy with it. Regularly people stop me on the street to ask me WHERE I get my hair cut and I always have to sort of shrug and say "I cut it myself".

I think I know the main reason for this and, actually, there are a few. I will spend $20 on a lipgloss but spending $50 or more on a haircut that a) I probably won't like and b) I COULD DO MYSELF, well, what is the point? I also like to be in control, at least of what is on my head. And have you noticed that hairdressers NEVER listen to what you say anyway? It always ends up shorter, or spikier, or more layered (DEAR GOD THE LAYERS) and I would rather not hate someone I just gave fifty bucks to.

Sometimes I fuck up and I don't like how short I cut that piece or how that back is doing that fucking flippy thing but I also know that in two weeks it will be grown out and no one else will even be able to tell. I'm vain about A LOT of things but I am not totally vain about my hair.

Now, if only I get that okay about my knobby knees and short fat fingers...

Welcome to the jungle.

It has finally stopped raining (at least for the moment - you can stop building that ark!) and I am able to take up residence again in my favorite spring computer spot: on my patio, coffee in hand. One good thing about the rain was that everything is REALLY LUSH and REALLY FUCKING GREEN. My backyard is a jungle! Any minute now I expect Tarzan to swing through, seriously. I just hope it is not the Tarzan from the new Disney production because I bet he doesn't swear or stay up past 10.

You'll be happy to know that I am still really boring, and now that I think about it I can't really remember the last time I stayed up past 10. I am so glad I realized that it wasn't that I was That Girl but actually that I am just tired. I am also answering the phone and many retarded questions ALL DAY LONG so I just don't really want to talk on the phone at all when I come home. So if you called me and I haven't called back, that is probably why. Email me! Although it might take me a week to respond. I am Your Best Friend EVER.

We are coming up on a couple year milestones for me and that Certain Someone and I keep thinking about it. All the shit that has happened and where we are now, well it's just fucking strange and I KNOW life takes weird turns but if you saw us two years ago - this is SERIOUSLY WEIRD. But good! I really wish I could go back and tell that girl two, three, four years ago that it will get better. It will get great and everything will suddenly make sense. God, wouldn't it be cool if everything hard worked out that way? I know it doesn't - so I cherish this even more. I just feel bad for all the angst I WAISTED. All the time I spent SAD and UPSET when, hey, it has all turned around now! I wish I could go back and tell that girl, JUST YOU WAIT.

On Thursday my work was absolutely MENTAL including people fighting (yelling! with swears!) in my office and my actually telling someone to "leave me alone!" Later I gathered my shit together and apologized, but please don't ask me about doing something that you can SEE I AM DOING while you are on your cellphone with someone else who is also asking if I am doing it. Oh my god, ANNOYING. I also had to yell at someone on the phone who was very very serious about not being able to wait EIGHT MINUTES for me to fax something to someone that I had already faxed. This all sounds very cryptic and not that interesting but trust me, it sucked.

Thursday night I came home and laid prone on the bed like a zombie until someone else noticed a giant creepy ass mechanical spider (or one who looked mechanical) running across the rug. I tried to smoosh it, first with a paper towel, and then with my shoe, but it RAN ON! Unfazed! It was one of those small black fuzzy looking ones, which if you aren't aware are the very WORST KIND. I have a bad history with spiders and I guess the rain drove him in because he was UNSMOOSHABLE and (although I couldn't get a look at his expression) probably pissed off. Anyway. I finally captured him in a glass (my regular spider method) and took him outside. Goodbye!

I just spaced out for like three minutes and thought about what I should do today. Laundry? Cleaning? Laying around? Maybe I will do all three! I have TWO DAYS of no plan goodness, and I am so happy about that.

Life is great when you can just keep thinking: "hey, what next?!"

Maybe it's because I'm an only child of divorce?

Observation:

When Elroy pushes on the screen door to try and go out, I don't say "no" or "stop it" or "stay inside".

I say: "DON'T LEAVE!"

Real Men

Hi, Jim Belushi?!

I saw you this morning on Good Morning America talking about your new book.

So... I won't be buying it.

It looks like a crock of shit but also the part where you talked about how men don't go around saying "I'm sorry" except when they were verbally or physically abusive? Well, that's a great attitude! Unless you knock the shit out of the woman you love or call her a cunt or something you aren't going to say your sorry? What if you fuck up and make a mistake and do something shitty? No, not sorry? Alrighty then.

You must be super popular with the ladies. I remember how much Julie Newmar seemed to love you.

In conclusion; shut up.

I think there is an empty spot on your dead brothers coattails. You better get back on that right quick there, Jimmy!

"And again that bolt...stayed where it was, up in the back of the blue."

This week I have been thinking that I'm only really talking to one person when I am not working. And I was horrified because suddenly I realized "I am becoming That Girl Who Only Talks To Her Boyfriend".

This is weird for me on many levels. The first being I've never really been with any one person for so long and I am still thinking I am doing this whole Relationship Thing wrong. Can you do it wrong? I don't know but shouldn't I be more open? More expressive? More...something?

The second reason it is so weird is because of how much I love my friends. They complete me! I'm an only child and my friends are IT. My family, my tribe, my whathaveyou. How can I not have talked to some of them for weeks? For months?!? It was an entire week without talking to either of my closest friends which was not a matter of life or death but it was strange.

Finally though I realized, it's not that I only have room for him. It's partly that I know my friends are good friends, they aren't going anywhere. And I should give myself a break, new job, etc. I want to spend time with everyone but I can't. I'm exhausted! I think everyone understands because they know how far I've come.

I've always thought it was sort of a strange thing; how people couple up. How is one person enough? You want to spend all your time with ONE OTHER PERSON and that satisfies you? That makes you happy and you don't need anyone else?? REALLY?! I remember driving home with a certain person two years ago and having this loud and clear thought which went something like, "this is how you do it". It was all clear and now here it is. It's this feeling like calmness, only different. I used to wonder every time we hung up the phone, "when will I talk to him again?" and now I know, soon. I don't worry about the in between times now, I know MORE is coming, as sure as the sun is coming up. From the inside out.

It's beyond knowing or feeling. It's there.

Sweet misery

It has been raining here since Monday and I am bored. Bored of rain. Like, okay, yeah yeah, I GET IT. I am about to start pruning up like David Blaine after three days of insanity (see below). Everything is green green GREEN and he lilacs are blooming and that is nice at least.

On Sunday, Alex and I went to pick some from this somewhat remote/ghetto area. I stood on an abandoned tire next to a discarded wig pulling lilacs off the bush. You have to work with what you've got, ya know? Sunday night I kept waking up and smelling that lush lilac smell and thinking "yay!" as I rolled over and went back to sleep. Lately I keep having work dreams (which is ANNOYING. I don't want to think about work when I am SLEEPING) and the smell and the dreams all blended into this sort of weird drunken haze. Which may have been left over from Saturday night when I went to a Kentucky Derby party and WAS in a drunken haze.

The Kentucky Derby is a brief ass thing, isn't it? It was fifty people smooshed in a room jumping up and down and screaming for two minutes and I STILL don't know who won. I also got to have a somewhat drunken relationship discussion which turned out rather well. I don't particularly ADVISE having relationship summits when drunk, but it helps if you are a shy bottled up girl like I am. (really, I am)

Lastly, David Blaine. OH, David Blaine. I watched about fifteen minutes of his I AM THE BUBBLE MAN special and I was annoyed. Seriously. First of all, what is the point? Not the point of the holding breath thing because I get it, that is a record (although I have no desire to break any world records except maybe the record for the person who was on vacation the longest or who drank the most margaritas without getting plastered or something) but why did he need to be in that bubble for a week? And he's ALL ABOUT 'oh, I'm in rough shape' and 'it's been so hard' - so, GET OUT OF THE BUBBLE THEN. Your feet are PEELING OFF! You FREAK!! Plus, he has this monotone voice where he sounds like he is asleep and he is saying things like "this is so exciting" in the most FLAT BORED voice you ever heard. Is he sedated? Am I? What is going on?

Finally, a mouse died in my office the other day. Under the floorboards. And man, did people FREAK OUT about the smell! I mean, it doesn't smell good but it's not the end of the world and people were losing their shit like they were about to get the bird flu and drop dead. Also, they are all self employed - they can LEAVE the office at any time. I think people just want something to be riled up about. Anything! Hey, you're annoyed about this - SO AM I! Let's commiserate!

Just do it away from my desk, okay? Or better yet, START YOUR OWN BLOG.

Um. So...yeah.

Hi! I'm back! What a journey I have been on! Okay, not really, although I did go to Vermont a couple weeks ago and I had a great time.

I have lots to say but work has me busy right now. When I am not working, this pretty much sums up my life of late. I will be back soon with many comments! Aren't you excited?! Among items for discussion; street festivals; travel; weirdos at my job; and David Blane - get the fuck out of the bubble if it is so damn hard!

Back soon. Really.