a good start

can i just say (full well knowing there are still a few hrs left in the weekend and am therefor jinxing it probably) that this has been one of the best weekends i have had in a long time. i feel like maybe i'd forgotten what laughter was like.

friday i babysat, which was a good experience really. i know i can keep up with kids and i know i learn from them, even when by the end of the evening i am frazzled. but a nice glass of coke and bubble gum vodka fixed everything (you'd think this combo would be terrible, when in fact it is deliciousssssssss.)

saturday day was nice and lazy, which was good to just get to hang out with bert and not do much of anything. especially bc the party was wild. if that is how all office parties go, then i will stay with thes company forever. i wore my sparkly dress and my cute heels and just had an excellent time. everyone was so happy and so nice and welcoming. plus there was an open bar, which is always a bonus. everyone was so welcoming that they kept having me do shots. here is where i point out that i was in no way even close to the drunkest person there. when i saw the company president dancing to whitesnake, i knew it was going to be a great night. i won 50k fake dollars playing blackjack and won a real 100 dollars to best buy which was great bc i needed a new dvd player. i picked up that, the 1st season of the Tudors, the 1st season of Boston Legal, and District 9 today, so it was all put to good use. but yes. the party was so much fun that when it was over we went to Big Times and everyone followed us. here is where i should point out i ditched my heels in favor of snowboots and looked like the sorostitutes going out to lazy lizard. but hey, at that point i did not care. i'm mostly just sad that i dont have photographic evidence of this.

but yes. it was just good. i feel good about starting the new job tomorrow even though i am very worried about the fact that i'm not sleeping again and i dont want that to be a problem.

so yes. good weekend. smiling. i hope i can keep it up.

sky update

only for the nerds like myself, but if its clear, run outside tonight, it is the biggest and brightest full moon of the year.

what WOULD you do without me giving you celestial updates?

and it was so much fun

when i was little i had to see the optometrist (which i've had to since i was two and a half, so i'm not exaggerating when i say i was little) my absolute favorite part of the whole trip was when i got to see the plasma ball. you know what i'm talking about, it looks like a clear glass gypsy ball and it has the electrons moving around in it and if you touch the ball the line gets stronger and you build up static electricity and can shock people. and i loved that. i loved watching the electrons move around and that i could control them like a miniature mad scientist. at the time it was officially the most amazing piece of scientific equipment i have ever seen. i may have been as cross-eyed as an extra from Deliverance, but in those few moments i felt like i had all the power in the world between my hands. I was the Raiden of braxton county. (oh thats right. i pulled out a mortal kombat reference. you damn well better believe i was a champion at that game. battling blindness with a 50 dollar science ball, one pair of coke-bottle glasses at a time.)

i dont know why it was important for me to tell you that story. or why i remembered it, for that matter.

aaand shoes.

who has two thumbs and didnt get out of bed until the last minute today? this girl.

it may only be an hr and a half but i am exhausted by the end of it. but i was supposed to reward myself, so i did. with these, for the work party this weekend:
yes, i know your day absolutely depended on seeing a pair of heels sitting on my washing machine. but let me have my moment, ok? i actually really like them, i feel pretty in them, and damn if i somehow cant manage to actually walk in them. no they arent eight feet tall and sexy, but this is about as good as it gets for me. i'm both excited and on the verge of vomiting nervous about this party this weekend bc its my first time around all these new ppl i'm going to be working with (and a few old ppl i know, which will be nice). which means i'll put that extra effort into looking pretty, plaster a smile on my face, not yell at brett, and not get drunk. surely i can manage to do those 4 things for a few hrs right? plus we're going to the bar after the party and then i can.. well.. be myself.

and i'm doing a good deed tomorrow night and babysitting for a friend since bert wont be in til saturday. its his wife's birthday and they never get to do anything together so i'm glad to do this for them. plus i'm really excited to hang out with miniature people for an evening. if anything, it gets me out of the house for a few hours.

i have nothing else to report today, and i realize that is pretty sad. but i got out of bed, talked to someone, and bought shoes. and i'm ok with that.

love.

of course

of course i cant have an all good day.

sometimes i really wish i didnt live alone. like last night at 3am when i woke up from a nightmare and did the couldnt breathe thing again and had to sleep with the lights on the rest of the night. no, i'm not joking. i slept with the lights on like a 3 year old.

it kinda makes me want to have vodka for breakfast.

:(

the burgh

so i went to pittsburgh today with two girls from home, ranae and tiffany. i've not seen tiff in years so it was good to say hello again. and it was actually a pretty decent day. when i woke up this morning i didnt want to get out of bed (whats new) but i didnt want to let them down. and i'm glad i went.

side note before i talk about pburgh, you know that muscle in your forearm, i think in males ppl refer to it as the beat-off muscle, well mine is killing me from pottery yesterday. there are muscles i was not aware of here, kids.

anyway.

so we went to the andy warhol museum first. i've always been indifferent to andy warhol, didnt really get the purpose of painting tomato soup and all, but i really like some of his art, especially some pencil drawings he did that had semi-dirty limericks about famous historical figures. however the featured artist this time is shepard fairey (you know him from the obama hope poster) and oh my god i love his artwork. i dont want to sound like some pompous fucking wanker who says stuff like 'the art speaks to me' but dude, i get it. i want to wallpaper my life in his art. we made the mistake of going during school trip time, and heard gems such as 'andre the giant? was he like, a famous artist?' or 'this andy warhol wallpaper, did he like, come in and paint the images himself?' or 'soviet russia, those were like, bad times for america, right?' or my favorite, 'is this like, a stool?' (it was, in fact, a stool.)

and yes, he did pee on some of his art. to make art. i've been wasting art all these years...

so then we went to the strip district, where i've never been before and ate many delicious things. dear polish cheese pirogi, where the hell have you been all my life. and beautiful homemade bread, and pocky! from the asian market, and my weight in cheeses and mmmfood. and you damn well better believe we stopped and picked up donuts on the way home.

and i saw a rainbow which i really am trying to convince myself is a good sign.

i'm glad i had a good day today so i can tell the doctor tomorrow i didnt spend this entire week in bed. i bought myself matching necklace and earrings to celebrate. is it bad i have to reward myself for getting out of bed? probably. but it's one step at a time. and i'll take that.

pot brownies. no connection

1. sorry about my last post. i went a little incredible hulk ragey. however a lot of people came out of the woodwork today to tell me i'm doing the right thing.

2. i made a bowl at pottery class today that looks pretty alright. i was trying to make a mug and somehow ended up with a bowl. the teacher said we can lie and say i meant to do it. i really like class bc i have to concentrate 100% on the clay and can turn my brain off from all the other shit going on.

3. i got my fucking brownie finally and it was delicious.

4. the CRJ is a total bastard and has this song stuck in my head now. its the long version and this is the first time i've ever read all the lyrics. and i really like them. even if michelle is a total gold digging whore.

5. i just had really intense deja vu. super weird.

6. i'm going to the andy warhol museum tomorrow and am excited.

7. i'm not fixed. but i'm not going to stop. bc i'm trying at least. i really am trying.

things

i had an incredibly vivid dream last night that really unnerved me. i know dreams are what we are too afraid to admit to ourselves in the waking hours, and this one shook me hard.

i never claim to know what the right thing is in my life. but i am for once trying to get help. willful ignorance is a state i've let myself live in for a very long time. do i like the things that are happening right now, no not necessarily. they fucking hurt. but i'm making these damn changes with the hope of fixing myself for once. bc i have spent so much time trying to fix everyone else that i havent fixed myself in a long time and these unicorn band-aids wont hold me together much longer. i'm allowed to be selfish and expect good things for once. and i havent done that in a very long time. hell, i dont remember how to. shouldnt that be terrible? that i dont remember how to be happy???

i'm trying to do the right thing. i dont know if it is. but i know what i was doing before wasnt either, bc i felt worthless. i feel worthless. and words dont fix worthless. actions fix worthless. and i relied and hoped on something that never had action.

i dont know what i'm doing. and i am scared that this wont work. but i'm hoping. i've hoped for a lot of things though. and each time i've been let down. so i hope this time it will get better. bc if it doesnt i dont know what i'll do.

odd numbers

i love jim from the office.

i wish we could speak through music because that would make more sense.

i wish i could have a brownie right now.

part of me, the hopeless part, wants things to go back to the way they were.

the other part of me wants things to be fixed already.

both those parts wish for the same person full well knowing that will not be happening.

i ate half a roll of cookie dough. this was not a good idea.

i've been trying to call home all night and no one will answer the phone.

i have not left the house, or showered for that matter, today. i am gross.

i miss being able to run away to shainna's and have cake waffles.

i feel like a timebomb.

the movie Choke is very very good. yet sad.

my roses are dying.

bert is coming in this weekend to go to my party with me. i'm kinda glad.

i'm not a smoker and i never will be a smoker but sometimes i just want to sit down and chainsmoke a whole pack.

i watched a special on ecstasy and i can totally understand why people want to take it. except for the whole coming down. which is why they take more and more.

i like potatoes.

i used to run away a lot so that people couldnt find me and so that i couldnt find myself.

this whole waiting to hear back from the biopsy people is giving me an ulcer.

i bet my dog is going to go apeshit when i go back to work and am not here all day.

have you seen rachal getting married? do you think my hair would look good cut like anne hathaway's in that movie?

i'm a big believer in signs even though i havent ever seemed to have had one in my life. or maybe they are there and dont see them. i'd really like to see one.

some watermelon would be awesome.

the dog has slept all day. i have read terry pratchett. this should be more awesome than it is.

it is the episode of the office where jim proposes to pam. i like this one. that it isnt a big production, just two people stuck in the rain at a gas station.

when i was little and my hair was really really long i liked to put it in two braids and then wrap it around my head like shirley temple as heidi. i loved shirley temple movies. my favorite was rebecca of sunnybrook farm. i dont know why i just thought about that.

sometimes i wonder if the things i believed without a shadow of a doubt was just me fooling myself into hope.

and a photo

my aunt joined facebook which i dreaded the day it would happen but i couldnt not friend her. (the day they find this shit, i will be disowned. but thats another story.) but i was really happy when she sent me this photo just now, and bc i post everything for the word to see... anyway:
my mommaw and poppaw. i can probably count on one hand the number of photos taken in my lifetime of the two of them because mommaw haaaated getting her picture taken. this one was taken about a year before she died, 3 before he did.

and this photo is what i always think of when i remember them. they have always been very old to me, where i can remember mammaw and pappaw being pretty young. but mommaw was in her early 40s when she had mom, who was her 10th kid (the 9th that lived), so by the time i surfaced, well she really was old. i love how she dressed in her little pastel church suits and pearls. she left me her pearls in her will for me to wear on my wedding day if i ever get married. at my age, she had already had 4 kids. and i dont think pop ever wore anything besides blue jeans. he did wear a hat a lot and i can see that it is in his hand in the photo and i wish he'd had it on, but oh well. i liked to play in his hats. they smelled like woodsmoke and pipe. if i would ask really really nicely he'd play the fiddle for me.

i was never as close to them as i was to mammaw and pappaw, which i regret now. but any time i miss them, and this will sound silly, but i will go to outback and order the mac and cheese off the kids menu bc with a dash of pepper it tastes exactly like how she made it.

i dont know why i posted this. i think i'm just trying to figure out who i am.

whimpering

this is me writing this while in the fetal position, trying not to boot. i wasn't aware that i was sick, but each time i move around the world gets a little sloshy. and no, i'm not preggo. i can verify that with eightyfour thousand percent certainty. if i were, this would be an entirely different blog, eh?

i had plans today. well, i was going to make

myself get out of this house. i need a bucket for pottery class. i need to sign some crap at us cellular to finally shut the old phone off for good. i keep reading texts on it, wondering what they really mean in the grand scheme of things. it looks like they point to nothing. bc if they pointed to something thing thered be something. but again, i'm not so good at math.

the new phone i did. and i figured out that my last 4 digits spell something and it made me laugh bc its something i do and love, but i cant put it on here for obvious reasons. the positive thinking assignment i have clearly not mastered. i think bc its hard to hear an outsider say the same things your friends have been telling you for years. and even though you know your friends wouldnt lie to you, you still hope they are wrong. two minutes into a story, and they are apparently dead right.

and ok. i know most of you know it, but lets put it out there. i'm going to therapy. i started last week and i go again on thursday and probably once a week for the foreseeable future. and it isnt just bc of the Situation but bc i've just been a mess for a very long time and btwn that and the job and the biopsy and the identity theft i lost my shit. and at least this time, unlike the time my sophomore year of college, i recognized that i lost my shit. and i know i'm going to continue to hide in bed and sleep a lot for awhile, but i'm really hoping this time i'll get things worked out instead of just having pills shoved down my throat, bc they didnt help me and i just buried everything deep down. am i completely embarrassed by all this, very much so. bc i'm the one who is always supposed to have a plan and be in control and help everyone with anything they need. but apparently that is part of my problem. i picked the teddy bear with one eye when i was 6 and i pick they people with unfixable problems when i'm 26. and its amazing that in a 2 our period she managed to completely break me down til i questioned everything i th ought i knew without a doubt for the past three years of my life. and for reasons i've always said too, that nothng ever happened. i'm equally excited and afraid of what will happen this week.

so anyway. i still feel sick. i think i'm going to go back to sleep.

why i dont like math

if you take this monsoon rain and add a bottle of homemade blackberry wine and Dear Old Love then the outcome will be a panic attack. which in turn somehow results in taking tylenol pm.

i was never good at math.

i am not a bear

i had an acid flashback today (which is a joke, kids. the closest thing i've come to acid is the wash in my jeans) while i was hiding under the covers to first grade. maybe i've told you about this before but it still makes me laugh. but our first grade teacher gave us an assignment to pick out our favorite animal and then draw the best possible picture we could of it bc she was going to have them put on transfers on a tshirt for us. a lot of girls drew dolphins and cats, and i remember chris bailes drew a crocodile (which was amazingly well done for a first grader) and i drew a koala. i was very impressed with myself frankly, i drew not one but two lovely koalas clinging desperately to two separate trees. but the best part to this picture is that one of them had a little speaking bubble, like in a comic book, that said 'I AM NOT A BEAR.' and this absolutely cracked me up at the time, bc obviously a koala is not a bear, its a marsupial, but people always called them koala bears, and my first grade self thought these people were obviously morons and they probably didn't even know all the names of the ninja turtles. and everytime i would wear my shirt i would look at myself in the mirror and yell in all capital letters I AM NOT A BEAR and then just laugh my annoying laugh til i cried. this was before i mastered my second language of sarcasm, but even now i can recognize what a smartass little shit i was even then.

and i dont know what the point of this is. its like... i know i am not a something, but i havent quite figured out what that something is. and it should be obvious and it should make sense. but i dont know what it is. am i not a statistic? well, in some instances i am. am i not sad? no, i definitely am that one. am i not a fool? the verdict is still out on that one, but signs are not pointing in my favor. so i dont know what i'm not. bc i am scared and i am confused and i am lonely and i am really good at making fun of myself to cover up how much i'm really hurting.

but then, i guess i'm not a bear.





(and for the record, i always like Raphael the best bc he had the best dry wit, but eeeeveryone liked Michelangelo, so i claimed to like him best too.)


p.s. the notebook is on. i equally hate and love this movie and will now have to take tylenol pm bc of it. but the part i like most is his last letter to allie. bc thats what everyone wants. maybe thats what i'm not. i am not awake.

my horrible sense of humor

i love the A Softer World webcomics. they are dry and bitter and sarcastic and hopeful and everything that I am.

I saw this one today and laughed til i cried. and then cried some more. that comic is my damn life.

and also this one, just without the laughing.



so. yeah. i need to change out of these grey sweatpants that are my life.

more things

sorry for the emo post earlier. i live in an emotional swamp. or maybe more like the princess of the land of stench. (Mumble mumble mumble! You're a wonderful conversational companion!)

so. i didnt get out of bed til noon, and the sun is out and its so nice outside and when i went out earlier it just smelled like.... well, like hope. i love the smell of sunshine more than anything in this whole world. yet somehow even today i just didnt buy it and i am back in my dark dark living room.

i really am trying.

i just dont recognize myself in the mirror anymore. and not just bc i'm wearing a tshirt that says 'i <3 fat bitches" (referring to the sandwich at that sandwich shop downtown) but bc i dont eve have sad eyes. they are just blank. and the better part of the bottle of vodka i had for dinner last night didnt change that. (dont worry, i wasnt drinking alone. i'm not there yet)

i think my life just needs more cowbell.

since i slept thru shopping today i'm going to have to locate myself some shoes for the party at some point this week. i'm trying to find at least one thing each day to get me out of the house next week, even if it is just going to doctor appts. after barely leaving for the past two months (and theres a side story of irony that i really did end up working remotely for two months to the day) i hve just got to get out.

the stupid iphone is addicting. i like checking the compass to see which direction i am pointing. i am currently facing 53 degrees east. i also have an app for solitaire, motivational quotes, a light saber, the nasa photo of the day, word scramble, and pandora radio. i'm sure there are more nerdy things i have not found yet.

so. ok. again, these posts are going no where. i just need to ramble. one day i swear there will be one full of jokes and laughing and sunshine and good things.

lovelove.

thinkin

its 7 am. this wouldnt be bad to be awake, but i've been staring at the ceiling since 4. the sky is slowly but surely turning grey.

and i know we cant always get answers to the questions we ask, no matter how loud we scream. and i know everything happens for a purpose, but i feel like i've not had one in a long time. i dont like when things dont make sense. i dont think anyone really does, but i also dont think people sit awake staring at nothing hoping to see the stars just because they are a constant and even though we spin, they are there. even though really they arent and all the stars have died their beautiful death forever ago. but for our tiny blip on this radar of time, they are there and you can count on them.

i dont know when life got so cloudy.

i went to a doctor and she asked me what i saw for my future. i said i dont.

and then the guilt kicked in bc i have a roof over my head and food in supply and even people to talk to a phone call or short drive away. but if you think i wouldnt trade any of those in to feel like i had a purpose, a future, a anything, you'd be mistaken.

i had a fortune cookie today that made me laugh in its misspelling. it said 'do onto others as you would have done to you.' what would i do onto someone. hug them perhaps. the real kind, the kind where you just dont let go. thats onto, not unto.

the things i knew, or at least thought i did, i dont even know those things anymore. not really. i dont know what i know anymore.

step one

do you know how hard mentally it is to change your phone number after youve had it for 9 years. i sat in the car and stared at the store for a good 15 minutes. but i did it. and here is my pretty new phone.
changes make me want to barf. but thats on my list to work on. if. to get further out of the rut i bought that dress you see sorta in the background, for the winter party at the new company. they went ahead and invited me even though i dont start working til the monday after. so i found a very un-andrea dress (WITH SEQUINS) and i think its actually cute. and i'm going on an exploration adventure to find some very un-andrea red heels to go with it.

do i feel better, no not yet. i feel like my chest is caving in. am i medicated yet no not yet. but maybe eventually. do i still want to go hide under the covers in bed, very very very much so. very very.

i had to call my grandmother and tell her i changed my phone number. she thinks i do silly things all the time anyway and didnt ask questions. i'm glad, bc i dont want to have to explain the answers.

it's dreary outside. but. it's winter. and i'm hoping for the spring.

um

its been an emotionally exhausting day. but i know what i need to do and need to work on. its not at all going to be easy. but... if i dont things wont change.

so i have to go change my phone number, so i'll update some of you on that.

and i found out ben folds was playing with the pittsburgh symphony orchestra on feb 13 and i love ben folds and i love the orchestra and together i think it would be amazing, so i bought 2 tickets. i dont have anyone to go with yet, bc not that many people like ben folds and/or the symphony. but even if i just leave it for someone for free, i have decided that i am allowed to treat myself to this. ben folds music means a lot to me. i can pick out one of his songs for each one of my ex boyfriends. haha. but so much more than that. i met him once. and he's awesome. so i'm hoping this was a justified waste of money (the bank situation is fixed by the way). and i got 10th row seats completely by accident which is fantastical.

anyway. i have towork on not being such a downer. and to get out of a rut. bc i am allowed to be loved and be happy. dammit.

watch this

found this on twitter. these are amazing people. we need more people like this in the world.

No, I don't remember Drop Dead Fred at all.

so i woke up this morning thinking i was having a heart attack. after i woke up enough to realize that my left arm wasnt numb, i put together that it wasnt a heart attack (even though i ate a whole pizza myself in the last two days) but a panic attack. i have not done this in quite some time. once the PIERCING PAIN stopped i made myself get up and shower only to then notice that my left eye is swollen nearly shut. one would think this would have already come to my attention, but no. and it only does this when i've been crying too much, bc i rub my eyes like a 2 year old and it gets all weird and gross and you dont need to hear this, do you. the moral of the story is that i am a mess.

i'm going to the doctor this afternoon and then i am promptly going to the mexican restaurant and ordering a pitcher of margarita flavored tequila. i already know what the doctor is going to say, i just dont want to hear them say it. bc then i'll have to do what they say. and that will be hard.

i couldnt sleep last night, possibly bc i slept all afternoon, and read a book. My Sister's Keeper is depressing. dont read it.

i'm tired of whining and i apologize profusely for it. this is not where i want to be.

dear blogger

i'm fairly certain if one more bad thing happens this week i'm going to need to be shut up in a room with padded walls. so since i like to be mean to myself, lets set up that game of seeing what disease i'm going to end up with. i figure we should go with family history here, so your choices are:
-diabetes
-thyroid problems
-heart disease
-depression
-cancer (breast, cervical, lung, skin, prostate (guess i'm out for that one, harharhar), and brain)
-alzheimers
-alcoholism related things (liver failure, etc)

i think thats a pretty good mixed bag of choices there. place your bets. who knows, you could have a quick payoff!

so after dealing with the bank and after spilling my mtn dew slushy on myself, i tried to think of the thing that has made me the happiest in a long time. and the only thing i could think of was in spring 2006 working for the Univ Press. I usually did editing, which was great by me, but one day my boss asked me to read a manuscript and write down important images and how things made me feel. i thought it was a strange assignment but i did it anyway. so i sat out on the columns by the steps on white hall overlooking downtown and sat in the sun and read this whole book. it's a very captivating, if not depressing book. and by the end of it i'd filled two legal sheets with notes. so when i was finished with that my boss sat me down at a computer to look at istockphoto and find images that made me feel like the words i wrote down. i didnt know it at the time but he was having me try to find something to put on the covers of this book bc the author hadnt liked anything that he'd come up with. so i found a couple standard images that directly related to the story. and then i found this image (have i talked about this before? i feel now like i have..) and its a blurry photo of a man dancingn with a flash of blurry fireworks in the background and its so powerful and amazing. so i added it. and as it turns out that is photo the author chose and he wrote me this great email (that is now lost forever bc MIX didnt tell me they were deleting me yet) that he was so glad someone felt what he felt about the story and i just felt so great in that moment knowing i'd helped bring to life this book and seeing my name on the copyright page. and i want a feeling like that again.

and i dont know how to find it. the last three years of my life i've completely lost track of my life. i thought i was building a future and as it turns out i was building it on sand.

and this is gross but i was cleaning my wounds today and it is super gross and blood and i'm sorry i even started this train of thought and all i could think was that i have these holes in me and they'll never be the same again and and i just dont know. i dont know where i was going with that. other than i feel empty.

thats all i have to say right now. i dont know what else to say. i've run out of words today.

sorry for being so fucking depressing.

trying to be zen

ok. so after i had myself a little (big) cry, and switched my bandages (which lead to more crying but i tried to make it as funny as possible and use majestic pink princess unicorn bandaids) i told myself to man up and get shit in perspective. i know doctors always have to give defcon 2 worst case scenarios and scare the hell out of you (seriously kids, use sunscreen, for me.) but that doesnt mean necessarily what it boils down to. and while i am a debbie downer, i've got to try and pick myself back up for the eightyfour thousandth time and try and just deal with it. they gave me an Elmo juicebox when i started crying at the doctor, i just need to find my life Elmo juicebox.

so virginia is out the window. pipe dream anyway. i may still take a couple days to myself, but i just cant disappear like i so badly want to. and not only bc i have 2 appointments next week and one the week after, but bc in a moment of needing to get out of my head i signed up for a pottery class. can i afford it, no. am i good at it, i learned this evening thats a big hell no. but if i dont do something i think my head will explode.

and i guess its a good thing that the other company never took their offer off the table. they have better insurance. so hello new job Feb 1. i'm hoping that was teh right decision. i wanted to leave here so bad, but i want to do it for me, not running away from life. bc i know even if i run away all this shit will follow me. there is nothing of this that i have control over, so i need to have at least something, like the pottery, that i can control. although i wasnt good at controlling it tonight and have now ruined my favorite jeans.

i'm scared. i'm sure i dont have any reason to be, but i am. and its times like this, and when i had to go to the dr every three months before (and i just realized that this is 3 months since my last of those appts and i am not appreciating the irony here) that i wish i had someone here to hold my hand. bc i can joke about it til the end of the day (and fast fact, if i'm joking, that means i am really damn scared) but i still would rather have someone around. it's hard keeping myself standing sometimes. and i know all of you would help me if i asked, and i appreciate that more than you know, but it just isnt the same. i thought i knew what i wanted, and that disintegrated before my eyes, and now with this, this just doesnt help it.

i'm just very low this evening. when things fall apart, it's like the hiroshima bomb. sometimes i wish i drank a lot or had some terrible habit to escape from all this. but i'm straight edge and boring. and sometimes, boring is really fucking lonely.

flowers

someone sent me flowers today. i dont know who. it made me cry. i dont think that was the intention. thanks to whoever you are. they're pretty.

swiss cheese

i'm in a really foul mood for totally new and unrelated reasons.

i'm just frankly trying to figure out how many biopsies i'm going to have to have in my 20s. we should start placing bets on it. like the celebrity death pool. at least we could have some fun and maybe make some money with it.

i'm tired. of everything. 2010, so far you can kiss the fattest part of my ass.

I have this theory

i have this theory that you only get one chance in this life so you shouldn't waste time. it's funny bc in certain contexts i believe it completely. in others, i have completely disregarded it and been a bum and wasted a lot of time. i think, however, there are distinct differences. call it gut feelings, but some things you just know wont happen again in your lifetime and once you lose it the whole course of your life is shifted. and lately i feel like those crazy evangelists who stand infront of the Lair, screaming this at people. Some people agree with me completely, others walk on by and make comments about that crazy person, and then some claim to agree but try to brush it off with the fact that they have prior engagements. literally.

i don't know what the point of this post is other than i just want to scream at some people. and bc i'm scared. but, i've done what i can, and thats all i can do. time to get off my soapbox and go sleep in it.

twitter tells me this mornin that 'Fear can derail even the noblest of efforts. But love overrides fear.' and i believe that. i wish everyone else did.

dear blogger

we are not amused. the next time, if i dont listen to you, punch me in the face. i'm serious. haul off and punch me in the face. bc that will hurt far less than being lied to for 3 years.

something something something darkside

i've been drinking and i'm about to go continue drinking but i found a guitar and i did this and theres a good chance i wont remember how i did it in the morning but i wanted to share this for posterity and i'm sure i'll be embarrassed and oh well thats ok bc my life pretty much is one embarrassment after another, i mean come on who falls in love with someone who cant be with you because they think its a disappointment. also, i'm probably going to leave for newport news, va soon bc i need to not be in morgantown for a bit bc it makes me sad, so dont miss me too much. also, here is this lovely song i just played and now my hand hurts and its only like five notes but i'll give you a dollar if you can tell what it is. be lucky i didnt have a computer around me to record singing audioslave 'i am the highway' as i was attempting to drive a little bit ago. ohyes.

i left morgantown for awhile. i'm hoping it was the right thing, though sitting here i might as well be sitting there.

as i was driving i noticed that my hello kitty keychain is missing. this upset me more than it should.

but maybe thats a sign.


here is an interesting story.

when i cant breathe

so i'd managed to keep my shit together, functioning in a very robotic manner of brain shut off until sometime in the night when i just lost it. completely i couldnt breathe bc i was crying so hard lost it. (side note, i dont tell you these things to make you feel sorry for me or anything. half the time i'm putting them on the page more for me.) and i didnt want to bother anyone with all this crap going through my brain, but i knew good ol joel would still be awake bc he sleeps less than i do. and i was in hysterics on the phone with him for the better part of two hours. but joel being joel does not sugarcoat life when i'm upset, and i appreciate that. and the thing that surprised me the most was that he said he was proud of me.

proud?

i mean. it is notoriously known that i do not make decisions. i just float where life takes me and if i dont like it i generally dont do anything about it. but in one day i made not one but two major life decisions that both had the endgoal of that i just couldnt do this anymore and i have to make a change. while i dont necessarily feel great at all about all this and what has transpired, he told me that while i cant see it now this is the best thing i've ever done for myself. that hell, its probably the only thing i've ever done for myself like this. it may not be on one hand at all what i wanted to do or what i thought would happen, but i've made a choice to actually change something. and thats true. one of the decisions was much harder than the other, much more painful. but it was going to happen eventually and not bc i didnt try enough, didnt help enough, didnt love enough, didnt fight enough. and even if i made the choice with the tiny hope that it would in turn fix things the way i wanted them, even if it didnt, i still made it, and i'll stand by it forever. and i will.

but i have some things to do, so i'm going off the grid for awhile. i said that before and yet continued to post eightyfour thousand times. this time, barring any major life altering news, i'm going offline.

hugs to you all. the kind that are real and comforting.

i am really trying not to be a downer here, i've left the worst of it in my other blog so that no one else has to read it. but what the hell do i do now. i really and truly believed in something, that if i tried hard enough it would all come together in the end, that if i showed how much it was worth it to me that things would fall into place and things would be ok.

and now.. i cant even put into words what i am feeling. or not feeling. i dont even know. and you dont know. bc most of you dont know the half of it bc i stopped telling you most of it bc you were tired of hearing it and thought i was an idiot for believing in the first place. well i guess you were right and i was wrong and now i dont even know.

i cant even ramble in circles bc nothing makes sense.

help haiti

seeing the devastation of haiti has not helped anything in my world. this is the weltschmertz on a real level. please take the time to donate somehow to the relief effort. the Red Cross or Wyclef's Yele Foundation are both very important right now. i just emptied my bank account. i would rather someone else be able to get the water they need to sustain life. watching this on television is so very very sad.

there is a better part of 60k out there that can be refunded (and lets be honest, it could be) that would be less of a sham if it went to haiti relief.

i have a migraine. i'm going to go take an assortment of drugs now.

if i were to start a club of people who quit jobs and dont really see what their future holds, who also owned too much black clothing, the required dress would be this:

smile attempt, fail. but that is lovely black nail polish.

so um

so blog. i know i said i wasnt going to be on here for awhile. i guess i was wrong.

how was your day? do anything fun?

I didnt. i made a promise i never wanted to make, i watched a 3 hr movie of blue people that gave me a migraine, and uh... oh. i quit my job.

not lying. quit my job. seemed like the thing to do at the moment.



oh, and i'm told that i am in fact worth 60k. however a life with me is not. so theres that.

and yeah. quit my job.

you know those websites that will calculate how much you are worth?

as it turns out, i didnt need one of those. as it turns out, i am worth less than $60k. in some instances i would say, wow, that is a lot of money. but then, it's just money. money isn't life. money doesnt have feelings or love or grow old or cry. as it turns out i might not have several of those things either, but not the point. the point is i'm worth less than $60k.

i know how caeser felt when brutus stabbed him in the back. brutus was a coward.

i'm just going to warn you now, any blog for the foreseeable future, if there are even any blogs period, will not be a happy or positive one. the cycle, the mess i have fought and fought for for so long is over. because of 60k and the possibility of disappointment.

i'm going to be dropping off the radar now. i made a promise and i will keep it even if it kills me.

sorry for being mopey.

i could really use that hug machine right now.

you're really going to think i'm crazy now

i know i have some crazy thoughts. and i know that most of them are bullshit. and i know most of them probably make me sound like i'm three steps from being locked up. but lets go with this one for a minute, shall we?

you remember the several times i've been convinced (thanks to an episode of House of all things) that i had asperger's syndrome. i'm still not completely buying that there isnt something chemically or genetically messed up about me, but thats a whole other story. it would explain the repetitive patterns i put myself in, but that is neither here nor there.

i was reading aboutTemple Grandin, who quite frankly is one amazing woman, and saw that she invented the hug machine. and thanks to the wonder that is wikipedia i then read up more on this machine. and i think it is brilliant and i want to build one of my own. i think at some level we all need that physical pressure to be able to calm down. i know i do. which is why i often when i'm upset have to pile like 5 blankets on my bed. the heat kills me but just the weight of all the blankets helps me stop thinking in a thousand different directions and get some sleep.

sidebar. since when does the RealSex specials come on hbo in the middle of the day. that was incredibly unnerving, going from sobbing over P.S. I Love You to... well.. real sex.

ok back to being crazy. no. thats really it. i want to build a hug machine so i can calm down my mind. bc i think i'm going to need it shortly more than ever.

lovelove

soundtrack of my life

so i was thinking, bc i have way too much time to think about stupid things as of late, what the sound track of each period of my life would be. this train of thought came about bc i found a new radio station that plays a lot of mid-to-late 90s stuff. I hear marcy playground's 'sex and candy' and i am immediately taken to my whole angsty andrea stage. or catch-22's 'alone in a crowd' would have been the punk/ska stage. which was conveniently right after the angst stage and i didnt have to get rid of my dyed black hair or flannel. just had to put a few more strategically placed rips in my jeans (bc come on, you know those rips right there below the butt cheek, those weren't accidental.) or if i hear 311's 'amber' i think of my freshman year of college where i wore a whole lotta tiedye and drank too much everclear and tang (surprisingly delicious). grad school was way too much jack johnson and him asking me 'do you remember.'

so i was thinking what have i been listening to lately. what do i feel like right now in 2010. and i feel like david bowie in portuguese. no really, go with me on this one. if you've seen The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, you know the deckhand that plays guitar. That is Seu Jorge. And he did a whole album and it is wonderful and Life on Mars is my favorite. i loved the song before but its like hearing it in a whole new way.. it is both happy and sad. i'm strange, i know.

also strange and nerdy and awesome, did you read about this sea slug? its part plant, part animal, all badass. that is, if badass means you can produce your own chlorophyll.

useless post. but i figure, talking about music is better than being mopey, eh?

of no importance

i check the website The Fucking Weather about a billiondy times a day. Not so much for the weather (bc I mean seriously, i get it. it's snowing. again.) but for the tiny italics sarcastic commentary. And the one I just got was quite possibly the #1 best comment I've received:

21 degrees?!? It's Fucking COLD. Where's a Tauntaun when you need one?


i feel like poo. for about a thousand different reasons. partly bc i woke up with a nose bleed like i was an extra in the Exorcist. (now there's an image)

thats all.

lovelove.

the dude abideth

dave ryan sent me this and it is quite possibly the most brilliant thing i've read this year.

sunday blues

so i officially sent brett off into the wild blue yonder that is Washington, D.C. we got all of his stuff packed up after 1am last night and cleaned this morning and hung out til the movers got here (over an hour late, no surprise there). it was all very sad. sometimes i feel like everyone in the world i care about has to move far far away from me. i just keep shipping more and more people off and somehow i'm still right here. at least i got my favorite sweatpants out of it.

so whats on tap for this week. reevaluating my whole life. (more on that at a later date. some of you sorta know about that, but the proverbial shit may hit the fan soon.) changing my hair (whats your thoughts? chop it off again? emo black? if i have no opinions i'm just going to do what i always do and tell my stylist to do whatever she thinks.) writing things and then discussing them further in parenthesis (bc its how my brain works. in circles.) maybe go to the wow factory and make something since i have a gift card. go to the grocery store (which will be lonely without anyone to argue about low sodium cheese with). what else. hopefully go see avatar this evening. (i'm told the smurf sex scene is not in the theatre release but will be in the extended dvd.)

i keep leaving the blog to do other things. this is the longest taking blog i've written ever. that sentence didnt even make sense. i'm halfway through another nursing home blanket (green and cream) and picked up yarn for the next. since mammaw said they like the bright colors best, i got hot pink, orange, and teal. i'd say that's pretty bright.

oh and i never wrote my review for my new laptop. if it had male parts and would spoon me at night, i'd probably marry it. it's only been a week but sony vaio has my vote. which reminds me, someone remind me to take frankenbot to the post office. i wrote them a letter of all the things wrong with it, including how i cant get the username Whore to go away. i'm sure they will be laughing at me.

another new gadget that i'm fascinated with is my solar powered ferris wheel that brett got me for christmas. you know how much i heart ferris wheels. and how easily amused i am. and how awesome solar power is. so yes. its awesome.

also on scrubs, janitor is singing barbara ann and i love it most muchly.

ok. this has been a useless post. strangely i feel like painting. and not a canvas but my walls. paint over all this fake would paneling.

hi, stranger.

I am Asneeze

it's going to snow soon, i'm getting a migraine. What terrible medicinal concoction can i come up with this time?

so i went to a meeting today at that government place i work for. everyone wants to know when we will get our offices. turns out it might be even longer now bc someone forgot to order our computers.

how does one forget to order 100 computers? it boggles the mind.

so i was reading CRJ's blog, which you should check out sometime bc it's much more interesting to read than this drivel, you can find it here. and he is doing a year in review of 2009. and i thought, maybe i should have me one of those too. but the more i thought about it it would go like this:

i worked. i was busy and then bored. busy and then bored. i almost took another job but didnt. sometimes i question that decision.

i made new friends. some have come and gone, and some are completely amazing and i'm a billion times thankful for them in my life. some i've never even met face to face but i appreciate them so very much for the positive energy they bring into my life.

and then The Situation. the situation has been a continual shit cycle. i start to be ok-ish, it comes back. i get my hopes up even though i have sworn i wont again, only to be (surprise!) let down and disappointed and depressed all over, only to swear i'll never do it again, only to repeat it all. joel tells me the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and over and thinking there would be a different outcome. looks like i've been a nut job for quite some time. part of me still wants to find that magic word combo to fix everything. but the other part of me realizes i've dealt with more than my fair share of bullshit and should have some saint or at least a street named after me for putting up with such garbage. sometimes i thought if i put up with it long enough, it'd be fixed and i'd live that happily ever after that everyone deserves. as it turns out, prince charming is a coward. and a liar.

a high point is the charities i have helped, and that makes me feel good. The Children's hospital, the relay for life, the heifer international foundation, the salvation army kids, that guy in NY who drives a bus but feeds the homeless everyday on the side. i know there have been several more since i try to do at least one a month, but those are the ones off the top of my head. if i cant fix things in my own life at least i can help out other people.

so that was my 2009. there's going to be good changes this year. bc i demand it. things are going to be fixed in better or completely cut out of my life like getting rid of a tumor. bc i dont need the anger and hurt to grow any further than it already has.

so there's that.

no love here

my sleep patterns are all sorts of messed up lately. i actually really want to get back in an office setting just to have routine. that way at least when my brain gets too busy i'll have a reason to shut it down.

why is it that every person you know tells you exactly the same thing but you choose not to believe them. that you're sure you know better, you know how things -really- are. but you dont have any solid evidence to prove it, which just gives everyone else fodder to justify their judgment. do i give up? it would be the logical thing to do. have i ever been logical? well, yes. in pretty much every thing else i've been the pillar of logic and boring. so why do i bother about this. i've not gotten anything good out of it. i think it is bc i see what -could be- rather than -what is currently.-

new years resolution. not going to waste another day. but which is not wasting, keeping fighting for i know what's the right thing to do, or being logical and getting out of this situation.

hrmph.

today i feel no lovelove.

the one in which i realize i'm a total idiot

i am a dumbass. let's just put that out there.

yesterday morning i remembered at the last minute that it was trash day. i hurried around the house trying to gather up all the trash, there being a lot since i'd ordered some stuff with christmas money. i got the trash out no problem bc it ended up not running yesterday and didnt come until about 15 minutes ago.

you know what i realized 14 minutes ago? one of the bags that i threw away still had stuff in it. about 75 dollars worth of stuff in it.

its my own dumb fault too, so i cant be mad at anything but my own stupidity.

hrmph. i'm going back to bed.

um

so my sleeping is getting stranger and stranger. i dont remember what i dreamed but i woke up sitting up and gasping for air. i'm 82% sure i was choking. and that is one of my top ten biggest fears. (thats a blog for another morbid day, but dying alone is #1 fear and all other fears seem to somehow connect into that.) after i finally got back to sleep i had even crazier dreams. i usually only dream this intensely when i take sleeping medicine but i was a drug free kiddo yesterday. i cant even put it all together. at one point i was lost in the woods. and at another point i had to find a phone bc i was waiting for a very important phone call only everything was keeping me from finding the phone. i dont know. its all a swirl now.

i feel sick today, and everything is a little off kilter. i'm trying to think positive.. my new laptop is supposed to be here today. good thoughts. good thoughts.

love love.

if i were an artist

so i was trying to think of all the things i said 'man i wish i had a camera to show you' in here and am trying to make up for it.

side bar, that episode of the Office where Jim tells Pam he loves her is damn heartbreaking. I love Jim in all his sarcastic nerdiness.

ok back to this.

so this is that there thing i drew. it't nothing exciting, just a canvas and a fine point sharpie. but i think it looks nice on my red wall.

so whatever, thats a tree. however this may be even cooler to me, when i was trying to take the photo and i must have the shakes or something bc i could not get a clear shot. this is the coolest one:it's like ghosties.

anyway. things are weird. aren't they always though? why is it that when i stop talking in circles is when i stop making sense.

that is all.

lovelove

Love is a Mixtape

If I had to try to explain myself to a stranger, I'd hand them the book Love is a Mixtape.

i was discussing with CRJ (can I link you? do you want to be linked and forever known as someone who reads this blog and who has your blog read by the likes of me?) how i am rereading this book for the bajillionth time. It's depressing as hell, but also funny and happy and music filled and wonderful.

It's someone elses memoir written about my hopes and dreams and fears all set to music i was too young to adequately appreciate. I could fill in my own songs and create nearly the same story, to a point. Right down to the dyed red hair, strong Appalachian roots, and need to express feelings in ways that are best said through the tunes of others.

i would say probably 8% of people would even like this book and of that 8% only maybe 2% would understand what i'm trying to say. bc i still to this day feel like i can never quite say what i mean. i hate that i always end things with 'does that make sense?' bc by asking it, i know it doesnt.

"It was just a temporary technological mutation designed to do the same thing music always does, which is allow emotionally warped people to communicate by bombarding each other with pitiful cultural artifacts that in a saner world would be forgotten before they even happened."

apologies

So i was looking over the two posts yesterday, and they came off so much.... bitchier.. than i meant. i was just incredibly tired at that point, and i still hadn't really thawed out yet. i am sick today from having spent so much time going in and out of the cold. i am a weenie to the mega tense. so i took some vitamin c and am bundled up here on the couch with the dog at my feet to do my work. i opened the curtains so that i could watch it snow.

i wish i had a fireplace to curl up in front of.

so there were more good bits than i wrote about. and more bad, but do we need to read those? no. the good bits include: the metro system makes sense to me, as does the street naming system, and i got us around better than brett did with his iphone. i have determined that i actually dislike iphones after all. you come to rely on them too much and more often than not they are wrong. we walked a block 3 times back and forth before i got angry enough to take the phone and find the street names and find our way to where we were supposed to be. Matchbox, by the way, is still one of the best restaurants i've ever been to.

and the hotel, for all it's weirdness, was fun. in hindsight i liked its quirks. a flat screen tv right beside an intricate scrollwork headboard. a rainwater showerhead thingy in a deliciously huge old tub (so tall that i have bruises on my leg bc i kept tripping getting in it.) all the staff were accented old men that you couldnt tell if you wanted to run away from or hug.

and it was nice that the exhibits and museums and memorials i wanted to see were ones that brett at least knew stuff about and we could discuss them. he knows a disgusting amount about planes, so that was actually nice, like having my own tourguide. even though he made fun of me for liking the cheesy souvenirs. i didn't get one of those squashed pennies with the impression of mt. vernon on it bc he made me feel stupid about it. i wish i had now. oh well. there's always another time.

i feel like somehow this is the calm before the storm. i don't know how i feel about that.

my new laptop and other assorted things i dont need but am a sucker for a sale should be arriving tomorrow. i'll be glad to get everything transferred over so i can ship this one off.

i like the movie Death Becomes Her. It is on as we speak.

at this point, i'm just writing because i dont want to get back to work.

lovelove

the beginning of 2010 part 2

so after i mooned over the WW2 memorial for forever, we walked back around the washington monument to the holocaust museum.this is the only photo from the holocaust museum:
they didnt allow photos once inside. i was kinda let down by this museum. not that i'm wanting to see ten foot images of piles of dead bodies or anything, but what was there was not very much. there was an exhibit geared toward children, the rotation exhibit which was on nazi propaganda which was actually very interesting, and then the memorial hall. all the rest was just walls with lists of donors. i understand that they must thank the donors. but there was nothing that we saw that had any information about what all happened. how can i remember what i saw if i did not see anything? still, the memorial hall choked me up. everything chokes me up bc i am a sissy.

after this we metro-ed back to the hotel. i love the metro. i think it is a great way to get around and call me a dork, but i think the platform area is beautiful:

we went to dinner which was -ok- but at that point i'd walked around all day half frozen and all the sad and depressing things i had scene were really getting to me and i wasnt feeling well and and and. i ended up spending most of the evening back in the hotel shower trying to feel my toes and brain, for they were very very cold and tired.

so this morning after we checked out of Bates Motel we went to Mt. Vernon. As usual, it was COLD. COLD COLD COLD. there were no photos allowed inside, but we did get to see the 3rd floor area, which is only open 4 weeks a year. it was 2 guest rooms, a storage room, a china storage room, and martha's bedroom where she died. the rest of the house is pretty cool. Ol' Georgie really liked to paint the walls in Tiffany Blue and a weird minty green color that i cant quite figure out what to relate it to. guacamole? at any rate, even though it was cold i loved being able to see this place. to see the river and the house and know that so many important things happened here and so many important people have stepped through those same doors. yes. i am a nerd.


so that is the end of the photos, but there is still the drive home, right? it's not raining so it should be good, right? uh yeah. 1. lets just state it. i sing in the car. i sing or at least hum to myself most of the time. the shower, the car, while i'm doing dishes. i dont realize i do it half the time, but at least i can carry a tune. apparently this does not fly with my traveling companion. so i got angry and just went to sleep. until. we got to that lovely part of the journey called the Garrett County, MD line. you know, that part from g-county to the wv state line? that part that i fondly like to refer to as total bullshit? it got all icy and snowy and slushy and scary. brett, as mentioned before, has shit for wiperblades, and as we found out, no wiper fluid. we had to stop at every single exit to go to the gas station and clean off the windshield for the ice/salt/cinders. i was absolutely terrified and sat wth my eyes closed half teh time. the other half i saw at least six people wrecked. one happened right behind us and i watched him spin and go in the ditch through my side mirror. by the time we finally crossed the line and it cleared up, i was a mess.

and now i'm exhausted.

the weekend gave me a lot to think about. i'm trying to start this new year in a better way than i have the past. there are certain things i know i want out of my life, and i have to do my best to attain them. but i also learned i have a lot to let go. and that i have a lot to stew on.

thanks for joining me on the magical mystery tour that was my weekend in photos. i hope you all had a good weekend.

oh and before i forget. my uncle is doing a little better. the bleed has stopped and since there isnt really anything they can do further, they sent him home. so it's reallly like an extended waiting game now. so who knows.

i hope you are well. happy new year everyone.

lovelove

the begining of 2010

this is going to be a long post. i apologize ahead of time. there will be photos to break it up, i swear.

so. i went to D.C. for the long weekend. if you asked me thursday or friday i would have said it ws pretty much bullshit. saturday and today were emotionally stressful. and overall, it was as cold as a polar bears testicles. (i'm just assuming here that they are like frozen marbles. i've never really examined them closely and so the previous statement could be total bullshit.)

but i digress.

the drive to D.C. was terrible. it rained. the whole time. and not just a little rain, but torrential downpour. brett hasnt bought new windshield wipers since oh, before he was born, so they were useless. plus i'm pretty sure we argued about every topic known to man on the way there. getting into town wasnt as bad as i imagined, but finding the hotel was horrible. the following photo is of the hotel in the daylight:
now. you see that awning that says in barely legible letters 'hotel lombardy'? now imagine trying to find that in the pitchass dark and rain. needless to say there was some screaming as we drove past it probably 3 times. side note, the redbrick beside it was the home of james monroe.

so we finally get in there and its all sorts of creepy. it was advertised as a historic, accurate to teh 1920s type hotel. they weren't shitting. it had a manual elevator with an old man on a stool running it. i dont know if he spoke english.so ok whatever. that was kitschy but mildly embarrassing. so then we get to our hallway and it looks like something out of the Shining:

dont you just expect a river of blood or two creepy twins down there? our room wasnt bad though, except for the fact that i could never get warm. though i'm sure that had to do with the temperatures in the teens and the 40 MILE AN HOUR WINDS ALL F'ING WEEKEND.

so bc we couldnt agree on anything, ever, we ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. and it felt like a scene from the Godfather. it was us, and 3 very italian men in business suits in hats discussing things in hushed voices. if a mafia don comes up missing in the next few weeks, i swear to you i think we witnessed it going down. the hotel bar was just as creepy.

we ended up going to a nice casual bar in dupont circle to ring in the new year. we were supposed to meet up with berts new roommate, but he didnt show, which i'm actually kind of glad. the bar was like a bigger version of gibbies. there was more arguing over stupid things, and if you ask how i rang in the new year it was listening to brett bitch about how NYC tax players had to pay for the new design of the ball that drops. personally, i think the celtic knotwork was pretty. needless to say, i drank a lot. so much that i apparently had a conversation at (at, not with) a stranger about clubbing baby seals and then proceeded to sing all the verses, word for word, of What Would Brian Boitano Do. i think ate 12 dollars worth of stuff from teh minibar (a stale sprite, a snickers, and one of those tiny cans of pringles)

so friday was wvu game day x2. so we went to a bar in arlington that is owned by a wvu grad and hosts all the game parties. here i am hungover and dressed for mountaineer success:there was no mountaineer success. it was miserable. the whole event lead to, yes, you guessed it, more arguing. i frankly dont know if it is possible for brett and i to not argue. not the point. so we went to see his new apartment, and for the location it really isn't bad at all. and then we went to dinner with friends and then argued some more and then while bert dealt with the fact that he'd been drinking since 11am i watched 4 hours of apocolypse specials on the history channel. and not that i necessarily buy into all that stuff, but being new years and everything that i've been worrying about lately, i realized that i'm not living my life the way i want to be when we dont even know really how long we have on this planet. i have to stew on this more, but i'mma making some changes.

so then saturday my part of the adventure started and i got to be a nerd. we went to the air and space museum and it was great! this is the 3rd time i've been there and each time i take photos of the same thing, but i do not care. i love planes and things. so here are some planes and rockets and other things:

me-262
skylab!its official. my ass is bigger than john glenn's. sigh.
i found this to be the most informational exhibit i saw all day.
this adorable little kid got all excited at this exhibit and ran over to his dad and yelled 'hey dad! they named this guy after that pizza mom makes!'

me-109

there are an embarrassing number of pics i wont bother putting on here (and i mean like 100) but you get the idea. i did also get to mark something off my 101 Goals list:
it was super awesome.

so then we walked down the Mall which was BALLS COLD. if balls were cold. we've already established this is a poor metaphor. anyway. we went to the other thing i very much wanted to see which was the WW2 memorial. it was beautiful. i got all choked up and emotional. so here are images of that (again, only a few of the tons i took):

brett took this one. making fun of me crying. i swear that at least 87% of it was really from the 40 MILE AN HOUR WINDS THAT WERE COLDER THAN....WELL.. IT WAS JUST COLD, OK?


this is getting long and i'm afraid of losing photos. i'll make a second post here in a sec.