27 posts tagged “love”

i am the worst blogger ever.

Sep 30, 2009
6 comments

I think you'll find that since i joined facebook, my blogging quality and quantity has dropped about 7000% from the mediocrity of before.

see i don't even know how to phrase that, but you know what i mean.

i started one yesterday, not about much, but i 'paused' it and never found the inspiration to pick it back up. which is fine because mostly it was lamenting the same thing this blog is. namely: i am a lazy, narcissistic bastard, with no actual friends.

i have SO much i should be doing. fiance' and i are moving into A Real House* in october, which means, in theory, all the boxes i have brought home from work should be packed up and labeled and left ready to be loaded into a truck. however there they are and here i am, and no packing fairy has arrived to take care of that particular task for me.

similarly, i should be studying for my Cisco bootcamp** in October. I'm dead set on passing that CCNA test. However I haven't actually channeled that desire into any amount of opening of books or note taking. My most involved effort on that front: purchasing graph paper.

i don't know. i feel like success starts with graph paper.

or at least, it helps.

the aborted blog also addressed my recent mood swings. No i am not pregnant. Yes, i have mood swings. I have been happily off crazy-pills for.. .. uhh.. since april, and i'm now able to explore all the heights and depths of the human spirit as god intended.. or something. no actually, it's probably nothing like that. commercials make me cry, ok? especially the ATT commercial with the kid and the LOST DOG posters. omG. Niagara falls, frankie angel. and there are other things. stupid things. that make me mist up ridiculously and at inopportune times. it's probably hormones. here i am in the peak of my breeding years, spending all my nurturing, diaper changing, cookie-baking energies on a (totally empty-- c'est la vie) farmer's market dance.. and Mafia Wars.

it's all a trick, you see. when you hit 30, your body makes you think you are empty inside, so that you will fill it up quite literally with a Baby (and thereby ensure the survival of the species).

tricky nature. i'm not having it. or Having It. get it?

tomorrow is my mom's birthday... 50. I sent her a gift (on time, if you can believe that) and she left me a sweet, happy, totally normal and bubbly voicemail. i saved it. i havent' heard her like that in a hundred years, and it's nice.

also tonight, i miss paul. I was talking with a sort of guy friend and i was reminded (by the contrast) what it's like to have a Lifelong Friend, who knows like everything, and there is history and rapport. history is so crucial. and love and concern, and respect and honesty, and i just don't see those things spawning naturally these days. there is just something about adolescence that cements that. there's all the things you don't talk about but you know about, and knowing is sometimes enough.

paul was very special and i'll never be able to replace him.

So it's time for bed. time to love (and i do love) what i have here and now, here and now.

goodnight moon.

*rental.

**i don't even know why i astrisked this.

three minute blog--GO!

Aug 2, 2009
Post a comment

Just made flight reservations for VERMONT this winter.. out to see the almost-in-laws... should be a fun trip!!! was able to use my rapid-rewards, at least one direction, HUZZAH for saving money.

because one day, i'm going to buy a house. one day.

Friday night was THe Giant BIg Huge Project at Work, Part 1. it went off without a HITCH.. i wish every night could be like that. I am awesome at what i do.. we all are. lucky to be working where i do.

C is sleeping. Jonas is soft and amazing.. laundry is in progress. mexican food tonight. reading tutor 'interview'.. tomorrow.

Life is good.

three minutes are up. :)

blog about nothing and everything..

Jul 20, 2009
4 comments

Last weekend C proposed to me, in a very sweet and ordinary way. I said yes. we'll be a sweet and ordinary married couple, someday soon, and i'm very much looking forward to it. being ordinary has never seemed much fun from the outside, but it sure as hell suits me. i could lay on the couch with my head on C's lap, watching Cold Case, or Poker After Dark, just about forever. I could die that way, and it could be ok.

man there are so many things i want to be doing on my deathbed. i'll have to die a thousand times!

everything else is just dreamy. Farmer's market dance was a success, as always. even though it worries and frustrates the crap outta me, somehow it all works out. People show up. and i'm getting the (sort of liberating) feeling that it's not really because of me. they just like the dance! Which is great, because it takes a lot of energy to be me just in general.. but to be me on facebook, and posting events, and emailing about events, and at dances, and socializing, just networking like crazy... is doubly, super EXTRA exhausting. I think i'll just give it what it needs, and let the scene carry it. not stress so much.. not.. stress...

ahhhh

I had a brilliant sci-fi idea the other week about a drama engine.. some sort of machine that could harvest the energy generated from personal and social drama, and use it to power large cities. It came about when i was stressing about someone being late, to something, and the anxiety that caused me, and the other people who were affected by said lateness. SO much stress from one, tiny little event! as long as there are humans around to obsess, drama is a bottomless energy source.

it's genious, is what it is.

So my drama-engine will be some looming, massive, mechanical and electrical contraption, with wheels and whistles and jets of steam puffing out. and maybe one of those not-quite-digital numbered displays like the Numbers in Lost. and built on the backside of it would be a hip NYC loft, or something, with a pool table and a hot tub, for hosting Reality Shows.

people like me better when my shoes have no laces

Apr 19, 2009
3 comments

Or: i had a fucking amazing day, yesterday.

So... okay!

Background: i took the laces out of my keds. I really don't have a reason why, i just wanted to see them without laces and feel 12 years old again. i did and i do, and it worked, and i recommend this to every ked-wearer. Upshot is, i think it's seriously impacted my mood, or how people see me.. or .. something? How else to explain what a fantastic day i had yesterday?

1) got off to a great start with the farmer's market dance. we do this every third saturday at the nashville farmer's market.. this particular third saturday, a good chunk of our regulars (yes! we have regulars now) were out of town for one or another dance event in another city. Not to worry! i made sure to publicize the dance well enough in advance, and with the incentive 'bring a lead, get a candy bar'. we ended up with probably half the volume of our normal dance there, but all really fun people, and we were actually lead-heavy at one point. My newest friend here, Mama-L, brought her girlfriend and kids, and we all danced and hugged and watched the little ones play... and this inspired at least one other parent to bring his daughter out for a dance, while mama took pictures.

which was probably the cutest thing ever. painfully cute. In fact, so cute, we actually discussed holding a 15 minute 'lesson' at our future dances for any little kids who want to participate. they just look so excited; they've probably never seen grown ups dancing around in public, before.

I think kids are born dancing. life teaches you how to stop dancing, really.. society is repressing all those natural and beautiful impulses to spring up where you are and celebrate the joyful things in life.

overall, i'm way happy with this dance. for the last 5 third-saturdays, and yesterday in particular. we have an amazing, friendly, social group of swing dancers here, and i'm proud they come to an event i put together. I can't think of better people to represent me and the farmer's market and Nashville lindy hop.

2) BUT WAIT.. there's more... after the dance I drove up west-end to hit the earth day festival going on at Centennial park.. thinking.. OMG! Hippies! i'll be surrounded by like-minded recyclers....

It was fun.. people smiled at me. it was the keds, i'm sure.

I walked around the booths, picked up some flyers about vegetarian and other earthly things going on in nashville. I got information about Team Green (which i will probably join), and managed to promote our dance at the Market to the Bridgestone representatives at the Team Green booth. I think they may drop in on us at a future dance. (forgetting to take off your nametag has its benefits)

They gave me a tire gauge! (daddy, i told them how happy this would make you.. someone is looking after your baby girl!)

next i hit the Recycle Nashville booth where i asked the VERY accommodating Recycling-guy, Keith, all kinds of pertinent recycling questions. Such as:

a) what is the deal with clamshell containers?

b) what's up with starbucks????

c) do you have a list of other irate-persons living in apartment communities with no recycling? can we form a group? or perhaps a coup?

d) [and etc]

Keith answered every question, and gave me his email so i can ask him the other four questions i thought of immediately after leaving the booth. that will be my next project today.

In honor of earth-day-is-every-day-but-especially-sometime-in-Mid-To-Late-April, I will be compiling these questions/answers into a FAQ, which I will print out on reused paper at work, and which I will post on all my online presences.

I know, i know. you can hardly wait...!

On my way out of the festival, i passed a sort of nondescript booth for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Small Business Environmental Assistance Program. On a hunch I stopped to ask some questions about environmental efforts at my office (which while it is not a 'small business' might still benefit from the information they can give me). Sharon and Ali were kind enough to answer some of my questions, and Ali gave me his contact info. He'll be getting a call from me bright and early on monday to address my specific questions. He has no idea, yet, how much he's going to help me and our office 'get green'.

3) I dropped off half of the items we chose for donation after the clothing exchange a few weeks ago. This stuff has been SITTING in my car; i just didn't have time to drop it off with all the work/tornados/dance lessons/hurt neck/travel to charlotte/etc/etc/etc/ad nauseam. Finally, this is done; i have a back seat again.

4) And then, i went grocery shopping, came home, and had tacos with the best boyfriend ever.

Ok i'm done blogging. Off to make today another great day :)

yay ya ya yay yay.

me

you can't buy those shoes, because it will kill me, inside.

Aug 23, 2008
1 comment

Growing up poor sucks. Growing up poor and KNOWING you are poor, is probably one of the worst things that could happen to a girl, to a young girl, a teenage girl who wants nothing more than a 'Guess?' label on her backside, and a real jansport backpack.

I remember the shame of 'school shopping' at YellowFront and Pic-N-Save, hoping no one i knew would see me, in order to stretch the last mile out of my single-mom's meager wages. Every 'irregular' tee-shirt, cheap as it was, was a gallon of milk and a box of cereal, and my brother and i knew that as well then as we do now. we looked at the cost of things like this in terms of.. packs of ramen noodles, and school lunches (reduced, in case there was any question-- yes we were so poor even the government noticed.). we measured our lives day to day, rent check to rent check, and meal to meal.. everything else was a luxury.. (but never luxury.)

All i wanted was a pair of Keds. REAL keds with the blue label... like everyone else. I knew how to do the laces up and everything, I knew how to be cool, if I had the keds to be cool with. If i had keds, I would run through the yard a few times, so people, so the girls, would know they weren't new and I wasn't showing off! .. no! i'd had them like, you know. for a while. I don't know! i mean, I have so many pairs of keds it's not like i keep track..!! DUH!

Keds are 30 dollars now. they were closer to 20 then, but they may as well have been a million dollars, because there was NO WAY I was ever going to get $20. There was NO WAY mom could afford it, and even if she could there was NO WAY I could justify something like that to myself, when my brother didn't have a twenty-dollar-shoe of his own. How could I be so selfish??? So I never dreamed of asking.

A few times, I got almost-keds. We'd spend five bucks on a pair of something at yellow front, and the seams would bust, or the lace-eyelets would snap out and worst of all, once the entire sole came off and I spent weeks? months? gluing it back together with epoxy because almost-keds were better than whatever else I had. (by the way, epoxy doesn't work so great on rubber)

My first pair of legitimate, blue-label keds, came to me as a blessing from fate and the heavens. My mom picked up the wrong load of white laundry at the laundrymat. I started to get upset but found that the laundry we ended up with was way cooler than anything I had sent off. A few really cute shirts fit me, and ONE PAIR OF WHITE KEDS, perfect, in my size.. I felt bad for a second, taking these things that didn't belong to me, and feeling bad for the girl who lost the shoes and ended up with my crap..

But then I figured.. she had keds!! She has enough.. she could have anything or everything and the whole world, and cable tv and a private jet, probably. She won't miss one pair of shoes. She probably has a hundred more just like them, and Guess? jeans and a real trapper-keeper and an 'Esprit' bag. I don't feel bad for her. and anyway it's not like we could find her if we were looking for her! it's a laundrymat.

...

Time passed. I grew up a lot, fueled by a fiery desire to finish my life a lot better than I started it. I went to college, got great jobs. I have the things I want, and money to save for the things I want later... I have enough. i have plenty. I have a pair of keds (bought and paid for!), and about 15 other name-brand shoes to fill the gaping void in what's left of my thirteen-year-old heart. I can buy whatever I want, whenever I want, and I don't have to feel guilty or ashamed of it..

... But..

when I see a pair of cheap discount shoes pretending to be something they're not, it brings me right back to that sad, insecure little girl in Pic N Save, afraid that everyone will know I'm poor, desperate, pretending-- and not even very good at it.. It reminds me of the years I went without, and the promises I made never to let myself or my loved ones feel that way-- we will not settle for less than we deserve. I have worked too hard to allow it.

So, my love, my one true love who doesn't want to see my cry, please don't buy those shoes. they're poorly made, and they will dissapoint you. I don't want to imagine for a second that you feel as obligated and ashamed and as destitute as I was when I had to wear them. I can't bear it. we deserve better.

i have a boyfriend who writes songs...

Aug 11, 2008
4 comments

... i mean, maybe it's no big deal, but this impresses me soooo much. Considering how long I dated guys whose biggest skills comprised a) flying a giant kite b) karaoke c) binge drinking d) beating XX level of $someLameMultiplayerGame .. i think this is probably a big fat WIN for me. for us.

Bf showed me two chords on his guitar. E-minor and.. a different one. I remember neither of them, really. I'm not really a music-person, and although I talk about getting a little tiny pink guitar of my own to bang around on, really I just pick his up every now and again because i like the look on his face, sort of a cross between wonder and mild amusement, and yet still worried that i may fuck it up. the guitar, that is, not the music. You'd think it was a beating human heart... There's just this look like i've got something sacred in my hands, and he thinks i have no idea.

I have some idea.

So anyway it's 4:30 am, and i'm making efforts to stay up, again. I've watched 3 episodes of dexter, and bought/burned some disks from i-tunes. Now, I think i'll go take a nice bath, then flat iron my hair in preparation for another day.. another week.

Jonas is laying on the vacuum (love-hate thing) and snoring. gawd he's cute.

dear gomez

Jun 18, 2008
3 comments

I will pay you cash money to quit that internship. (and no 14+ hour days!)

I love you. come home safely.

PS we need dishsoap. is it supposed to be that color? khaki?

See you tonight.

mwah.

me

let there be post

May 4, 2008
3 comments

we got a wii. i created my mii. it's named 'piij'.

my dad feels lonely because i'm not posting enough. the truth is, daddy, i'm happy. I like to swear too much to make a post of just-fine. maybe something will piss me off, maybe tomorrow?

Sweet crashtast is back on facebook. yay. as we speak she's commenting on all my pix. i wish she was closer, i think we'd have good times. I'd give her my sephora smokey eye pack. I just don't use it.

I drank a (gin) martini with my dad.. remote. we're good like that

got to dance this weekend... top notch.

i'm spoiled.

not even Jenny Lewis. Not even Zooey (Omg ZOOEY!) Deschanel.

Mar 27, 2008

In 13 minutes it will be my 32nd birthday. If you had told me 10, or 5, or probably even 3 years ago that I'd be 32, living in Nashville with a FANTASTIC guy, training for half marathons and being vegan, I wouldn't have believed it. As far as I knew, life stopped at 29.

I can't believe I'm this girl. What did I ever do to deserve the kind of awesome I get to wake up to every day? I talk to all my parents and associated parent counterparts, and they all love me. My sister and brothers return my calls. My boyfriend's parents seem to like me, for no reason i guess other than i sort of treat my man right. My cat is uberfantastic. My friends are amazing, and are constantly reminding me how many good, good people there are on this planet. They give me hope. I really love the work I do. I can dance, I can sing. I find joy in silly things... which may be silly, but it is first and foremost, joyful. I have great running shoes. I can do more today than I could last year, or in my 29th year, or possibly any year I've been alive. I have nothing but high hopes for the future.

I mean.. i know I've gone thru some drama this year.. but.. really, right now, i wouldn't trade who I am and what I've got for anything.

I wouldn't be anyone else today.

yay me, happy birthday me.

GO Pugs! where's your ball??!? Go get your ball??!?

Mar 27, 2008
5 comments

My daddy told me today that the family came together to say goodbye to our beloved Pugsley, aka, Pugs, aka Pugser-wugser-nugser-bugser-mugser. Since everyone's divorced and run off to college and spread to the four corners of the earth, this is not an easy feat; I wish that I could have been there with Pugs, daddy, grandma, my sister, and my ex-and-yet-forever stepmom, saying goodbye to our little pug. Who was not actually little. Nor a pug.

Pugsley was a pitbull-shepherd-mix (or something). She came to us ...gosh.. I would have had to be in late high school or early college... Pugsley was a recovering rescue dog; as I hear it, she was found tied to a park bench in the park, left for dead; someone had clipped her ears and tried to fight her, but Pugs was smaller than a real pitbull and probably not as strong. She didn't have a violent bone in her body, and she lost that fight. My parents took her home and she made herself a member of our family. I don't know who came up with the name 'Pugsley', but it suited her. There was no question, 'Pugsley' was her name.

Pugsley was not especially attractive. She probably wasn't destined for great beauty, anyway.. a little goofy and bony in the face, the fierce-ish crossbite of the pitbull and sort of a taut yet wiggly roly-poly body. Then someone clipped off her ears -badly- and left her looking kind of menacing. But she had tenderness, depth and soul behind her eyes and the softest fur, and she had a lifelong habit of wiggling herself into tiny spaces in arms, laps, and legs in order to be close to her people.

You could leave a room and enter it again two minutes later, and her tail would thump in welcome. Any homecoming was a celebration for the wiggly Pugser.... 2 hours, 2 days, 2 years.. Even when you were crawling through the doggy door in the dark at 2 AM because you forgot your keys, you could count on her to lick your face and wiggle her bottom in sheer joy.

She was a champion ball and cat chaser... and catcher. Incidentally, only one cat has ever survived an altercation with the jaws of the JabberPugsley, and that's my sweet baby kitty Jonas. (i cannot speak for his peace of mind or anything that haunts him in his dreams, however).

As she aged, she grew grey, knobby and arthritic. It took her longer to bounce up and wiggle a happy hello, and she didn't catch anything anymore, but she loved nestling into the bean bag chair with her family, or nuzzling them awake in the morning. She was still soft. Her tail still thumped. She still wiggled into waiting laps and open arms.

After so many years of making us smile and snuggle, my family said goodbye to our Pugser-wugser-nugser-bugser-mugser this month. Dad said she was happy and wiggling, and loving the attention as she was showered with love, hugs, kisses, tears, memories, and many many thanks for being such a sweet, unforgettable part of our family.

Good girl Pugs!! Who's a good girl!!?!