you're back

wait.. i'm back.

i've been on hiatus. it's a long story. you should know that it's not you... i promise it wasn't about you. it was about not being able to post. really. it's a long boring story without a good ending.

but let's not talk about the past.

let's talk about what i'm currently in LOVE with....

drum roll please....

lowercases and capitals

it's pure awesomeness. if awesomeness was hot, had great music taste, drank jameson, a great sense of humor and could write amazing posts.

go there immediately and read everything. everything i tell you.

and then come back tomorrow and i'll have something for ya.

nick rallis and these united states save the day

my ip0d is sorely not me anymore. i hate it when that happens... when suddenly everything you listen to seems to just fit another person or another life. when all the songs remind you of how things used to be like something else or of someone else. suddenly it seems that you have outgrown yourself and you spend a few days wondering what you're going to listen to instead. in truth there is a whole lot of soul searching right before that point but the ip0d is where it's noticed... as if everything was fine until you just can't stand the music you used to love.

i have been on a quest for new things and new ideas... i've been combing hypem.com and every music blog i can find... it's tough going though... not everything is made for loving.

here are some things i have found...
Drag the River - Jeff Black Song

i fell in love with these united states again... specifically the song so high so low so wide so long...
i mean for real... i have a heart pounding sugar coated love thing for them.. like how i feel about mango ice cream. i don't even like ice cream... and yet i love it. i digress...



and if that's not enough to make your heart pitter patter and your face light up at the sheer genius then go here and watch them in the secret garden video:
Hoovesontheturf.com

the music search is probably temporary but while i'm in the throes of missing good tunes feel free to make your suggestions... i'm gettin' desperate here. which i suppose is indicative of more crucial things...

i guess it's something about getting your heart broken... i mean really broken. the kind of heart break that leaves you feeling sort of empty and wondering when it's not going to seem dark. the kind of heart break that only comes from realizing a friend that has been in your life for years has become the worst version of themselves. sometimes addiction and heartache break people and those people just can't honor the good things in their lives. they become thieves and liars. and initially i thought i could forgive it. forgive the theft and the lies. but i cannot. and i don't know what has me so in a funk... i guess simply the loss of the friendship. just in case you've been reading along these past few weeks and wonder what i'm on about lately... i've had to face that a friend is so addicted to their negative vices that he is not able to be anything but a liar. and it has broken my heart.

not like "that"... i have a boyfriend. i always have. we have been on again and off again for years. he's a really good boy. the best kind. he allows me to fall in love with bands and to have my own life - blogging and talking about all these obscure things, to raise my child, to be the person i want to be, to make mistakes, to succeed, to have male friends that break my heart. he supports me and sends me sweet text messages first thing in the morning. he writes me poetry, sings to me (well, he would if i asked him to and does spontaneously sometimes) and if i let him he would even make me banana pancakes. it's so strange that being loved by my best friends, my lover and my family doesn't change how crappy i feel about being betrayed. i suppose all i can continue to do is study for my calculus exam and then wrap myself up in my covers and listen to nick rallis. up loud.

loud enough that it doesn't matter that i found out last what everyone else seemed to know... drug addicts and alcoholics that don't want recovery cannot be saved no matter how much you love them. and while they are stubbornly un-recovered they are ticking time bombs waiting to go off and then lie to everyone to avoid taking responsibility. jameson anyone?

just for the record

if we're keeping records... just for the record... blue october is genius...

here is the playlist for those of you who are musically challenged and don't know about things that are good...

'movies in my head that make a porno feel like home'
'i'm sinking to the bottom of my everything that freaks me out'
'making sense of all mistakes and my stupidity'

oh... just genius... for so many reasons... because just when this journey that once took me to alaska takes yet another surprising turn i find that i am not at any decision making point... this is just where we build from. just when i got tired of building i figured out we haven't built anything yet. just when i thought it was a race i figured out it's about longevity not speed. just when i thought that i had a few things figured out i realized i don't know anything. when i think that we are at the bottom... and i can't go any further i find that i am nearly emotionally indestructable. (we thank the gillmore genes for that... sheer tenacity and a seeming inability to realize you're screwed... and the ability to manage it sober or drunk)

so cheers to building, going longer, going stronger and being in the game long enough to realize that it doesn't matter if you're in the running... it only matter what you decide to do with what you're building.

with that... i bid you goodnight..

oh wait... first i threw some cyanide valentine in there because.. well i felt like it and it's a brillant song as well... don't be a baby just listen.

the title of my life right now.... and a new tattoo

Corinne Bailey Rae - Steady As She Goes

it's an alright day when you can give your life a title while deciding what your next tattoo will be... that's pretty much the highlight of the day... and the last 7 days for that matter. and let me tell you saying "things pretty much can't get worse" is just about the stupidest thing a person could say... if stupidest was a word (which it might be unlike stupider... which still makes a great political campaign slogan "Everyone is stupider than me") and a person was so inclined to say something more stupid than the statement that comes right before that which is "i think this might be manageable".

what a person should say is... thank you dave kwant for always being the man with the love and the balls to "do" EPIC it's boys like you that make girls like me happy.... i have given more than enough warning that i will be making a fall appearance in ct which means take the weekend off of work, buy some jameson and start stealing firewood.... and last but not least "do i look worried?" and if i do by some odd chance don't worry... steady as she goes.

and here you are

ever have that moment when social distortion, ayn rand and the man who invented jameson all seem to come together and make perfect sense?

no?

well... i don't know what to tell you about that.

i, on the other hand, have a very clear picture of what they look like together and it goes something like this:
if you find a contradiction go back and check your premise.
it was me against the world, i was sure that i'd win.
and last but definitely not least: the Jameson family's motto "Sine Metu"

perhaps that is enough for today... for now.... but i'm back in the world of the blogger... with a new perspective and big questions... like... what if i just moved to india? for no other reason than it would get me hell out of this place... wait... can i get jameson there?

the chorus of the universe

i was going to write a lot of things tonight.... but i am reminded as i sit down to this very public venue that not everyone likes their life to be read on the web. not everyone likes to throw their emotional guts out there and have others feast on the sweet meats like some internet hannibal lecter enjoying the salty and rawness of fresh destruction and death. so out of respect for the more squeamish i will abide to my first rule and only divulge here what is mine to divulge. i may be a cannibal and a voyeur but i'm not an asshole...
instead of the original post i wrote another post... long and poignant and deeply personal and then realized again that it violates the rules of opening up others to the public living that a daily blog can create... so i had to censure myself again.
in the place of those two things i can only give you this brief something..... something about making mistakes and having the opportunity to be forgiven, something about finding out once and for all what a person you love really (i mean no holding back REALLY) thinks about you, something about deserving that accurate and pointed judgment, something about giving up and then deciding i'd rather give in, something about being flawed and imperfect and finding out that it hasn't changed, something about how if jameson can't fix this cluster fuck i've created we're all in serious trouble, something about anxiety and the restlessness that comes from being on the cusp of failure and success all at once and lastly i was going to write something about the beauty and dichotomy of stark contrasts.
that last subject matter is the only thing i can manage for right now because the rest of it is a rat's nest of stupid emotional rawness that i still haven't had a chance to figure out... do i cut the blue or the red wire? will this shit blow up no matter what i do? this is officially the scariest environment imaginable... but that is not the point.
here my dear friends is the point.....
as my plane glides over clouds, not the puffy ones but the ones that are stretched out and thin as gauze over the landscape, i see beneath me a mountain range. i identified in the landscape the beauty of contrasts - the elusive wonderment in only seeing one thing because you've seen another - light for dark, life for death, love for hate, smooth for rough and internal fulfillment because you've been through the void. i have seen and felt all of those things, sometimes it's all the good ones, or all the bad ones, or in the good moments they come in paced intervals one after another in waves that i can breathe through. stark contrasts illuminate what we want to see and what we like about the picture of ourselves and others. i myself have seen the dark overwhelm me and the light fill me in the space of 2 long days, been loved and honoured and cherished and then discarded in the space of 24 hours and have felt the smooth feeling of flying and then the rough realization that flight is no longer even an option. now i suppose it's up to me to find that ever escaping and twirling and curling mythical beast called fulfillment because if we're all being honest and i don't know why we wouldn't be here... i've seen the void and i'm frustrated and sick to death of it.
funny how different things can come together to say exactly what it is that you've been searching the dictionary of the universe for the chorus to...

i've been wondering how we got here....

the royal "we" of course. the "we" that speaks of uncertainty and never fingers a victim or a culprit or points at anyone in particular. the "we" that is palatable and comfortable and avoids confrontation and bad feelings and uncertainty. it's a nice "we". it's so sweet and innocent and innocuous.... it's something i've built a lot of my life on. that fear and avoidance of confrontation has become a whole piece of me that i use to maintain what i've built.... and oh have i ever built a glass house. it's one that several people have thrown stones at... and throw away. i've got plenty of glass to repair the things that you shatter with your ill chosen words, your inconsiderate judgments and your general misunderstanding of what i think believe and feel. i know myself and my life and my path and i know how we got here... and i would like to say that it was one big bar tab after another, you know crummy airport bar after crummy airport bar and seedy motel after seedy motel in a string of happenstance occurances that took hold and steered the vessel into the port that we're in. i would like to say it was some version of a hard luck story and that i wasn't to blame.. i had excuses or reasons or justifications. but i don't. it was a series of decisions made with the best intentions and the worst planning. it's strange to believe that we've gotten here - to this junction in the road through thought and discussion and planning. it's almost silly how something rooted in love and hope can take a turn into such a tawdry little one horse town filled with desperation, loneliness and angry hurt feelings.

i guess it's easy to just sum it all up: the road to hell is paved with good intentions and you can throw stones at my glass house right here on the corner of hell avenue and ill-remembered love way.

how to stay alive forever

it's two for one day... it's two blogs in one day... it happens sometimes... and i'm going to say that it's because i'm fucking awesome but what it's really about is that i've been on my china / tibet / political awareness soap box for a week and i've got some other things to say... just a few things... and in fairness i found this awesome website and i laughed out loud and i thought that as a reward for continuing to read despite my affiliation with very liberal views and world peace diatribes you should be rewarded by something fabulous:

1000 Life Lessons or HOW TO STAY ALIVE FOREVER

seriously... spend some time reading it. it's genius... then come back here and hear all about how my life has changed drastically in the past 7 days. no really it has... i'm not just saying that as some abstruse carrot dangling before your pretty little head.

first let's start with the playlist cuz listening to greatness while reading how things are is always lots of fun.


so i've been learning and growing and changing in this past week... on the eternal road to self knowledge, self awareness, forgiveness, patience and love... it's a pretty big mission statement but i get up everyday and i give it the good old college try. i don't even really know what that means but i know i try. so here is a recap of what i've learned....

1. sweating the small stuff is still a really bad idea. let go of the things that are inconsequential or can't be changed. it will change your perspective, a bad hair cut and your perspective on friendships and lifelong bonds.

2. anyone who is involved in a miscommunication is 50% at fault. yep. even you. you were there and so you were involved and so you either didn't speak clearly or you didn't listen fully.

3. lessons in life are hard to learn sometimes. that doesn't mean you are stupid or on the wrong page metaphorically speaking. sometimes you're overthinking it. sometimes you aren't thinking about it enough. either way once the lesson becomes clear embrace it, take note of it and move forward with confidence.

4. people that blame and get defensive have something to hide. they aren't being forthright, they are making excuses for inexcusable behavior and you can let them go. it's really a moot point once you get into the phrase "i did it because..." all you need to hear is that they did it. when a person doesn't take responsibility for their actions everything else is pointless.

5. everything in the world and in the universe starts and ends with love. it is the purpose of life, it is the purpose of death, it is the purpose of living and it is the thing that defines us. it is the only truth. it makes sense on every level - science, philosophy, religion and emotionally. everything ever worth talking about or experiencing is about loving and the feelings that come from that love - positive or negative - it's all from the same beginning.

6. good music is still good even if no one else loves it like you do.

7. if you wait for external validation for your thoughts and words and emotions you will be waiting along ass time. go ahead and validate yourself.

8. six year olds are capable of understanding human interaction in a simple and perfect way. they are also sometimes difficult but they give really good hugs and take awesome naps.

9. bad things happen to good people. good things happen to bad people. it all comes out in the wash. additionally it's not always apparent from the outset what the outcome will be - sometimes bad things end up being good and vice versa.

10. jameson and ginger ale fix almost all that ails a person.

not overheard but definitely said

today someone said: "i'm going to read your blog... i have the sticky note and i'm going to do it tonight... i was planning on stopping to get alcohol anyway."

1. the person who said this lives in constant fear of saying something to offend others
2. in fairness drinking probably makes this blog better
3. i laughed really really hard

so while you read tonight have a shot or two of jameson... let me know if things make much more sense.

monarch white

the nice thing about having my own blog is i get to vote for whatever i want... i get to call attention to the things that i believe are worthy of attention and praise.

i give you the latest example of something i love....
www.monarchwhite.com

please go there and give a listen and even be their friends on myspace if you do that sort of thing... the social networking thing. i think that we should all put our cards on the table here - yes i do the myspace thing you can find me here: http://www.myspace.com/lexasaurusrex
and you should also know that it's one of my cousins that belongs with the monarch white project. he's an amazing musician, a hell of a friend, a wonderful man and he even has a cameo in the upcoming novella that still isn't really finished... i'm proud of what is on his website and i am proud of the things i hear in his voice.. the changes and the years have given him the wisdom to produce something worth listening to and that my dear reader is what this life is all about.

while you are there don't leave without listening to #4 - Railway Man. it's a personal favourite of mine and it has deep sentimental meaning and is a part of my personal history... it had been at least 9 years since i had heard and sometimes when i dreamt of my grandfather and of a time of painful change in my life it echoed through my subconscious.

and not to diminish the greatness that exists in the music but i want to say... as a talisman of hope and of love... there is nothing that cannot be conquered by good whiskey, a sunrise and an open heart. there is nothing that cannot be understood in hindsight if you are willing to see things for what they are. there is safety in knowing that your past will always be your past regardless of the shine you give it and the only thing you can change or affect is the future. we... as the latest generation of gillmore children are proof that dysfunction won't kill you and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

little known facts

some little known facts about me:
i love the smell of morning and flowing streams and rain and irish spring soap...
i really love jameson, reading emerson, naps, the sound of the ocean and taking pictures of trees
i daydream of falling in love with a man that can live with me a cabin in the woods, sings to me in the morning and at night, will make me banana pancakes for breakfast and is willing to be honest with himself and others and live with integrity... everything else we'll work out.
i watch movies that are period pieces or historically based... i love great costumes and the feeling of being carried away... i also love foreign films and subtitles and quirky indie films
i don't like french toast or gin or any kind of carnation (even the milk)
i hate feeling frustrated or misunderstood and the idea and practice of karaoke
i write everyday here on my blog, in my personal journal, poetry and in what we're currently referring to as the novella of sorts
i never know what is going to come of those writing sessions and i never plan them ahead of time... i start by finding the playlist and then write how i feel based on what i wanted to listen to.
i find that my life revolves around music more than i ever knew... i have a soundtrack to most things in my life.

sometimes in my life i think about missed opportunities and the things that i didn't give enough time or effort to. i wonder if i had been different in the moment or ready for different things if my life would be different or if i would have gotten here regardless of the path that i took. sometimes i ache for the days back when i was just a child and everything was unwritten and unstarted and unknown. sometimes i long for these moments to be over so i can just be past them.

i worry (sometimes daily) that i am supposed to be doing more, feeling more, committing more, growing, learning, changing and experiencing more. sometimes i feel stagnant in the middle of change like a person feels in the eye of the storm... sometimes even with my life in upheaval things are so quiet and calm at the center of me. i wish that i needed less change and adventure. i wish that i would be content with a small life that involved less time on the battle ground.

i have become weary in the past few days of being on the forefront and wish that i could apply for furlough although i know there is no rest and there is no leaving the front lines. i hope for a person that can accept all the things that i have come to understand and own the battle with me. there are days when i wonder how i'll ever explain to someone how i got here and what the purpose is for continuing. more and more i've become afraid that there will never be another night's sleep without worrying about the things i've come to know and there will never be another moment of sanctuary or peace that i don't have to fight tooth and nail for. i find that in this particular time of beginning to understand and finally open my eyes that i hold certain people even closer to my heart... they have become an indelible part of my past, present and future. i could never release that bond because without the role model of living in love i think i would forget easily... or give up when the fatigue and the frustration at the state of the world became too much. they are my reminders and my talismans that true north exists, that there is a standard of gold and of love, that sometimes there are people in your life you are simply meant to love and lastly that all the answers are here if we are just quiet enough long enough to hear what our hearts are telling us.

tonight my heart is telling me to make tea, put my feet up and relax.... i don't have to do everything right now... just breathe and relax. and since my heart has had years of practice listening to that very sound advice i'm going to take it once again... while doing that i'm going to reflect on this:
"If we look wider, things are all alike; laws and letters and creeds and modes of living seem a travesty of truth. Our society is encumbered by ponderous machinery, which resembles the endless aqueducts which the Romans built over hill and dale and which are superseded by the discovery of the law that water rises to the level of its source. It is a Chinese wall which any nimble Tartar can leap over. It is a standing army, not so good as a peace. It is a graduated, titled, richly appointed empire, quite superfluous when town-meetings are found to answer just as well.

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever.

The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. He who sees moral nature out and out and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth. The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and schools, for erudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One sees very well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle point whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason. He is old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He hears and feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-peddler. There is no permanent wise man except in the figment of the Stoics. We side with the hero, as we read or paint, against the coward and the robber; but we have been ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be again,--not in the low circumstance, but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul." Emerson

today was the greatest day

today was a good day... running around town trying to get some errands taken care of.. listening to 98 KUPD and i heard some gems... some real gems... and i'll admit it i should be cooler than these songs... they may be my guilty pleasures. i was definitely singing along and i don't care who knows... no really i don't care one bit.

before i moved here i said i needed cooler hair and many more tattoos... and i took care of the hair (well caroline took care of it because she is AMAZING) and so one thing down and many more tattoos to go. i made an appointment (ish) for a new big piece that i am super excited about - i won't disclose the details but i will say that it will include my religion, cupcakes, candy, the color pink and BLING. yeah i said it bling... turns out the newest punk rock retirement plan is something to do with faux glamour - like leopard print from the nineties got into steroids and now it's retro, campy, dressed up and hip. it involves fucking bling and pink hair... i was way fucking before my time.

then hayden and i went out to play pita jungle and we might even go do something else... we might play something else like jameson and the roadhouse even though the street lights are on.

does this make me a double agent?

so i'm going to let the general public in on a few secrets and it may make me a double agent... or a whistle blower... or just an asshole... all of which i am completely comfortable with.

next let's get down to business and then relate it back to you and me... because in fairness that's what we do here. i talk about me and you read and see if you agree or disagree with my words. i get the big box because i made the page and you get the small box to say whatever else you would like. i think that's pretty fair.

so the truth of the matter is that women, girls, females, members of the species with vaginas and boobs are crazy. they crawl down into this canyon called the canyon of crazy and then they cry about things that are not logical. sometimes they can't help it - it's a hormonal thing or they are having a moment of stress. just like when boys, men or members of the species with penises say really stupid insensitive things... you don't mean it and we try to forgive you. i hope no one reading this is surprised about these statements... and save your comments about how you are the exception to the rule because there is no exception to the rule. honestly. this broad generalization includes even me. now i know you are shocked that i am not perfect. i know you are surprised that i don't have a track record of perfect actions, thoughts and behaviours. yeah. i know. i'm disappointed too. so are my parents.

so my particular brand of crazy... which i've spent years working through with a laundry list of not very qualified therapists, boyfriends that hurt as much as they helped, friends that listened and had no answers for me... since they're all crazy too and lastly a weird mix of strangers and acquaintances that happened to see or be involved in my climb into or out of the canyon of crazy.... anyway, my particular brand is an especially nasty version... and every once in a awhile it pops up it's ugly dragon head.

sometimes i'm even filled with the urge to drunk dial in the middle of the night or write long blogs disclosing all of my problems and issues and the roots of them... sometimes like right now when i am five drinks into my snow bound evening in kearney, nebraska i actually get a twinge of an emotion i don't have much experience with and i certainly don't understand... envy. (different than jealousy mind you...) on that note i will leave you with this little nugget of awesomeness:

know what's fucking awesome?

there are a few things lately that are fucking awesome so i'll list a few of them for you....
1. crushed ice, sunglasses, jameson
2. this amazing amazing website... seriously check it out http://www.fezlab.com/soundtrack/
3. that once my dear friend craig liked a girl who chose the guy from the neverending story 2 over him... that story is always funny
4. that after a sufficient amount of time has gone by we can effectively recreate the past. here's a great example: wanna do something shitty and then pretend an undisclosed number of years later that you didn't do it? go right ahead. pass your shitty actions off like a silent and stinky fart. then blame everyone else around you... cuz whoever smelt it dealt it right?

which leads me to what is really awesome in relation to #4. i have friends (yes i have friends and more than one of them) that don't do shit like this. i have friends that have integrity and honour. they admit when they are wrong and they learn from their mistakes. they support each other and me through anything. they love and accept and are fucking great human beings. i am proud of them and i am fucking proud that i can call them friends.

now before you climb up on your high horse you should know that i am by no means saying i'm perfect. what i am saying is that i hold my core values within myself. i honour, respect and love despite what others do. i chose what is right because i know that i am above blaming my shit on other people. i am flawed and sometimes i think i am so flawed that there is little to love about me.... but i know that based on the company i keep and my actions that there must be something good about me. you can't judge a man by his shoes or his job or the books he reads or the music he listens to... but you can judge a man by whether or not he keeps his word, tells the truth and the friends he keeps.

this is the measuring stick i hold up against my actions... whether or not if i was being completely honest with myself and others if my actions would be the RIGHT thing to do.

so here is what i'll do... i'll do the right thing not because other people deserve it but because i deserve it and because i have morals and because my friends and the people i love would have it no other way.

ps - the who ever smelt it dealt it thing never works. never. we all know you farted and that your shit stinks and that you are trying to blame everyone else. we just let it go because we see through you. we're not judging... we're just saying...

five days backwards in time to a period that makes sense....

5 days in connecticut and i feel like i have gone back in time. i feel refreshed and quieted. ready for the things that must come next. in all fairness i may feel that way but i look like absolute shit. i look like i've been drinking, sitting by a campfire, smoking like it's going out of style and not showering... and i have. sleeping 4 hours a night to wake up the next morning to make breakfast as a segway into the next day's drinking. watching movies we've all seen a hundred times and telling stories that we all know the ending to... going to the shooting range and drinking scotch in the truck instead of going inside. making friends with an old adversary and then deciding that we have so much in common we should seal the deal by getting way too drunk together in the afternoon. i can't tell you how i've missed my old self. hello old friend.... hello to being one of the boys again. i missed it. i missed everything about it.

moving all the time may seem glamorous but i can say after one weekend at home - and that's what the chester house and connecticut are - that i am lonely sometimes out there without a hand to hold or a face that knows my own. i suppose that these are the things that we struggle with... i suppose the adventure portion of my life justifies the rest of it. i suppose that meeting new friends and finding myself in new ways is just as fulfilling and should make me just as happy but it doesn't. thats just it. it doesn't. sitting in the airport and getting ready to go home i realize that i don't want to leave. i don't want to move forward. i don't want more change. i am tired and i love my life here. i love having people that aren't judgmental. i love knowing that the sum of me is more than the parts. the rest is so so so hard to accomplish when i'm so tired. i'm so tired these days. i seem to not be able to hold up the world that is required of me. it seems that even when i am the best version of myself that the sheer straight up climb required to get to the next step is so high i can't seem to pull myself up. i'm tired of fake friends. i'm tired of people that are unpredictable and uncertain. i'm tired of being friends one minute and then without warning everything is different. i'm not asking for much - predictability and certainty. i just want people that know who they are and don't mind who i am - at the core of me. don't they see that i realize my flaws and all my shit is fucking heavy and sometimes cumbersome? i know what i am, i am not blind nor am i stupid. as my new found friend / former enemy says - we all have our shit. no one is fucking perfect but we can either learn from our mistakes or we can stay the same. so nice to hear someone just admit that they aren't perfect - they aren't striving to be perfect. just taking it one day at a time and doing the best they can because THAT my friends is what people do. they just do the best they can... and for now... so do i....

oh oh oh missoula

there i am waiting for anneke to get off work and catching up on some reading... some suggested and then newly purchased richard bach. i'm in a bar and so i should have expected what would come next... i should have known.

there he is. the man women move to montana to date / sleep with / marry / make pancakes and music with... he's there and he's talking to me. eyes lined from smiling and time spent outside. beard and hair a little long and curly and somewhat dirty and messy but oh oh oh.... and he's talking more and smiling. those lines are deeper and there are more when he laughs. i glance down and one of his pant legs is still rolled up from riding a bike.... oh oh oh. then it happens without warning... he says "can i buy you a drink?" and i'm looking right at him. i want to say yes. i want to take whatever it is he's going to give me (not like an STD but you KNOW what i mean). instead i say no. i say no and he seems sort of confused and then i say you can buy me .... (10 second pause) a soda? i end anti-climatically. it's clear he doesn't want to buy me a soda. i want to explain that i'm a jameson and ginger girl. a girl HAS to have standards and irish whiskey in a pint glass that i can drink one after another is my standard. i want to explain that i used to drink but it's awkward and he's looking at me with a question in those eyes. i simply say... "i don't drink" and he gets that glazed over look... the disinterested one. i almost relent... i'm seconds away from falling off the wagon... gimme a big drink, a pack of smokes and a huge dose of irresponsible. i want so much to avoid reality. i want to avoid being a grown up. i want to avoid everything i'm facing. instead i smile and try to make small talk but instead he says that if i change my mind he'll be at the bar and turns and leaves.

see, the thing is that i already HAVE changed my mind. thats how we got here. this is my mind. i still want to change it back... did i mention that he has an amazing butt as he walks away? oh oh oh.... there goes the first bad choice i didn't make. there goes the last of my old life and old self. at least it looked fabulous as i watched it leave...

zuiderdam thursday

it means nothing in the lower 48 but today is zuiderdam thursday. the only things you have to know are these three facts:
1. drinking is required on this day
2. it is work related
3. in the past it has involved a mini-series: bad choices brought to you by alexis

tonight i made it through without:
1. alcohol
2. smoking
3. making out

i did suffer through the following:
1. peer pressure
2. a 3 hour strong urge to smoke
3. a make out proposition (which i replied: thursday is a difficult spot to fill... friends used to be on that night... p.s. i'm fucking HI-larious)

i'll just say out loud that i am proud of myself. i did not waiver in my decisions. i did not succumb to temptation simply because it was available. i made my choices and stuck by them.

today is a good day.