i have never felt as loved and as lucky to have such amazingly good friends as i have this weekend. they have watched me crack but have put me back together again. i am pretty much outright totally effing amazed.
my chest feels lighter. mostly.
it will all work out. it will. it will.

there have been a lot of good thanksgiving memories but never one as perfect as this one. 

i almost cried like seven times. in that really good way...

and my pies kicked fucking ass.

it is thanksgiving. i fell asleep and woke up thinking about the order in which i should make my pies and corn casserole. i am still not positive. i am making butterscotch pumpkin and caramelized apple and pecan. last night i reread the articles and almost shit myself. we will see if i pull these off. it will take time though and i am trying to figure out how i can cram all the things i need to do in the smallest amount of time. i think it goes

prep apples and get them in oven

scotch sauce

roll out pies

one pie goes in freezer one goes in oven with dried beans (?)

make corn casserole

make pie fillings

take corn casserole out of oven

put pies in oven

shower

go!

last thanksgiving was the perfect amount of stress and happiness. we have a video that does not show nick making me cry. scotty making steph cry. my coworker doesn't leave early and you can't tell that everyone was just a little awkward because the mix was just a little too large. the video would make me cry if i watched it right now so i wont. 

my wife wasn't there last year. we had dueling thanksgiving and went over there later but it was the start or middle of some awkwardness.

that is done now and i am glad. i will go to her house with my pies and corn casserole later and i will drink my scotch and create more memories.

this starts the holiday season. which i love. there are parts that suck and annoy the fuck out of me but the optimist takes over and i am reminded that we are all trying. as effing hard as we can.

and it is hard to show people we love them. and are thankful. but we are. and maybe someday we will figure it out.

i like brooklyn.

and new york in generals.

i wont live here. i tell people i wont until i can do it right. which means i barely make a living in chicago and trying to scrape by in new york depresses me because it holds so much and i would want to do it all. and buy pretty dresses.

today was good.

i wrote at a coffeeshop. got super lost and never went to rockafeller center. did make it to bryant park. and central park. i got a hot dog on the street. kyle was grossed out. a cupcacke from magnolia. pizza while drunk. played the most intense game of dress up since i was maybe seven. walked in alphabet soup in a super super hella short dress. drank the equivalent of three bottles of wine. and yeah. oops... i am drunk...

oh and i got my eyebrows threaded. it looks hott.

the experiences that have made me who i am. abridged.

missing recess to go to speech therapy twice a week for four years of elementary school

bonfires at horse creek ranch

my scoliosis hunch

shows at new earth coffee

becoming a vegetarian in england

being surrounded by riot gear in dc while sitting in some famous square

debating religion with mrs. lopez

having the door broken down in my first apartment

shutting down lakeshore drive in protest of the iraqi war beginning

having my identity stolen

basement shows at the house of raw sugar

deciding to move to a city i had never visited

san francisco women against rape

thai brunch in berkeley 

pissing in the bathroom at hatties

my sister in the hospital

six months back in kansas city

learning to make a perfect latte

going back to college

there are more. but i have no perspective on the last five years. maybe when i am thirty i will understand what is happening to me right now. everything above fits like puzzle pieces in my head. they make sense but they didn't at the time.

that means there is hope! there is hope for the future.

i wish i had money to give you, human rights watch

nothing like going to a benefit where people are being recognized for doing work that their colleagues have been killed doing to give you some life perspective.

the world is an awful place and people do awful things.

it is hard enough to recognize and support the people closest to us but what about the people who risk their lives so that others can have basic human rights?

i am in total awe.

and i had a fantastic dinner at the ritz carlton for free.

i think i am going to be very busy soon. i think i will be combining theatre and social justice. which is what i came to chicago the first and second time to do.

save the drama for your llama. some shit is just more important.

booyeah.

if i didn't have my kitties. i would not be able to breath. or live. or anything.

it is so odd how something that cannot talk can provide so much comfort and peace. 

text message sent to me today: you're a mess

my reply: completely

there it is friends. there it is.

today is his first birthday in seven years that we will not speak. i texted him. i had to at least tell him happy birthday. i doubt he really cares as much as i do. he didn't get me a birthday present this year which is not why we broke up but in a broader sense is totally WHY we broke up. i almost sent him a present but thought that would be insensitive.
i have been devoid of feeling for a very large part of my life. i talk about them but i don't feel them. i don't like feeling them. and now i am stuck in the mud. stuck in it.

and i desperately need something to change.
i've been thinking about portland lately...
chicago has fucking ruined me. i am livid with this city. it makes me want to puke. and kick things.

i'm still at work waiting for people to finish with their cone of silence.

i really hate my job right now.

cupcake butt.

tonight i drank boxed wine again.

and watched an episode of gossip girl and it made me cry.

then aj came over (she got a job so highfive her)

we tried on our terrycloth jump suits that are the perfect pony halloween costume base.

and we discussed how to make the ribbons into manes and tails.

we drank more boxed wine (sunset blush).

we took quizzes to see which my little pony we are. i am starlet or something. she is scooteroo.

we watched forty minutes of my little pony episodes and the theme song. 

i watched the theme song again after she left.

my my little pony branding will be a puff painted cupcake. duh. 

blogs and boxed wine.

today is not last monday. today i am burnt out, annoyed, and fucking tired. fuck optimism. fuck it.

and i just deleted the rest of this entry because i might have been letting the sparkling blush from a box do the talking...

xoxo. 

 

i have foil in my hair. it will be different soon.

this past winter i cut my hair in my bathroom all alone with the music loud. playing kinda depressing music.

now i am sitting in my friend's house getting my hair done for some new castle beer. the fun thing about being poor is knowing other poor people who have skillz.

holla.

i am having a good day. a day that i am fine with being scrappy and shit. life kinda sucks and is fucking incredible at the exact same time.

i booked a ticket to new york today. i will be poor but i am sure i will have an incredible time.

where the wild things comes out on thursday at midnight. i will be there. with a garcia. in kansas. and all will be beautiful.

shoulda put a ring on it...

i spent last night with a guy that had born to run tattooed on his chest. we made something that was not love to bruce springsteen albums on the record player. 

i think i am in love.

not really but i like that i can say that happened. born to run on his CHEST. 

fall is for adventure. 

spending this time alone i have discovered something...
i think i actually like myself.
why is this such an epic discovery i don't know. but it is or was or whatevs.

the dialogue in my head is always better than with other people...

being single is an odd duck. relationships would be odder if odder were actually a word.

last monday, on labor day, i found myself inside an apartment that used to be mine. only for just over a month before we split and i began sleeping on a couch in the house where i now live. it was not until i was walking over there, coffee in hand, that i realized that three years ago was the day we (or i) called it quits. really he called it the night before drunk as fuck as we were pulling into the rockwell station. literally yelled: i think we should break up. he does not remember. but i do. i remember that and all the other fucked up shit he said and did (still not remembering) that led to me throwing my hands up three labor days back. he was not there. i had his keys and was only anticipating playing fetch with one of my favorite cats, not dealing with three year old emotional baggage. i almost started crying. i almost kicked things. i almost took back all my dishes that are still in hiding in his cupboards and left a note saying fuck you for emotionally damaging me when i was too young (or maybe just too depressed) to know any better. i spend my life not dealing. it seems like there are two types of people in the world. people who deal CONSTANTLY. and process and talk and freak out. and those who don't. who shut down. block. move on and the only difference is some sort of emotional distance. i didn't have time to break down then. i started school the next day. and then rehearsals. and a new job. and. and. and i just don't do that so three years later i am carrying this tumor inside of me that breaks out of dormancy when i realize that being in a particular place at a particular time can be really fucking hard.

two exes were supposed to fly in on the exact same day. i was thankful that the most recent ex was out of town because the thought of the fantastic four in the same city made me sick to my stomach. i saw the first one for a quick beer on saturday. it had been five years and it was actually great. there was no wondering and no fucked up agenda. no hard feelings or confused ones either. purely really fucking nice to have a beer and talk about what a great time we had six years ago and what the fuck we have been doing since. the second one just facebooked me this morning. i was so relieved that he was not in portland when i was. he is here until the end of october and i desperately hope to not see him. i can't even explain it but the thought of it disgusts me. we hung out a few years ago and it was totally fine. nice even to drink jarritos and talk on some kid's stoop. but that was closure for me and i just hope i don't run into him at a bar or downtown or wherever people are always at when you really, really don't want to see them.

so now there is the ex that has really been my ex for longer than he has been my boyfriend. we are good at it. we love each other honestly and we support each other in this way that we apparently cannot do with any sort of title. we are flawed in some way that poisons eachother. i am a better person outside of US and that is such a depressing observation. maybe someday. maybe someday. but it seems farther away each day. not closer.

some boy brought me an owl figurine from london. and sent me flirty emails. and visited me on his breaks. so i asked him out for beers tonight. just on a whim because if i didn't right then i never would. two beers and two really awful pool games later we walking to the train and he mentioned the girl he is sorta dating. mentioned in this 'i clearly have to tell you' way that was trying to be subtle yet still incredibly awkward. i covered. well even. but omg. i don't get it. stefin told me he didn't think this guy was cool enough for me. i may have to agree...

the adventure is happening as i type.

it is hard to live and blog at the same time. megs makes it look easy. but it isn't. i want apple to come up with some device that will take the thoughts out of my head and put them here without making me stop and transcribe them myself.

not all thoughts of course. just the blog thoughts in the upper right hand corner of my brain. that is where they live.

i had hoped to write everyday about vacation but vacation has been so fun and exhausting that i just plum have not had or made the time for that. i will try from now on but the last five days will be recorded in some sort of mushed banana type way. 

i am sitting on the same porch i used to sit on five years ago. the same exotic flowers grow on the banister. i don't know what they are and have never seen them anywhere but here. the garden in general is larger and i think unrulier than before. she planted a eucalyptus tree out front right after i left. it is huge and confusing to me. they grow fast i guess. there are also two kiwi trees (bushes?) a male and a female. i did not know this but kiwi plants are gendered. the female needs the male to fruit. i had no clue. pot is like that too. which i think at some point i did know but just forgot over time. 

back to vacation:

day 1: escape from chicago

leaving feels crazy. my life and room is a mess but that had to stay in chicago. it was a stressful morning after an awful day. i arrive earlier than i am prone to at the airport. i want to do this right. my flight is delayed. fuck. nobody is at the ticket counter and i am pretty sure we were all not actually going to atlanta but connecting there. mine might have been the most ridiculous connection. flying from chicago to atlanta to portland. when i finally did talk to an agent she confirmed my suspicions. she asked me why i was flying to atlanta first and i just kinda turned my head like really? you think i chose that? but she was super nice and got me the last seat on a flight to salt lake city with a connection to portland. it left me with two more hours to loaf around the airport but i would get in to portland at the same time. or that was the plan. 

we sat on the tarmac in chicago for at least an hour. i wasn't complaining though because that last seat i acquired happened to be in first class. i paid a lot of money for this shitty ticket that sent me across the country and all around so it was nice to get the free meal and booze and television in the back of the seat. i watched a stupid romantic comedy that hit a little too close to home. it wasn't as bad as when i watched that zack braff movie(post gardenstate) the weekend after breaking up with dugan. that was one of the worst experiences of my life. this was just kinda annoying. they also had cable television channels so i got to see some daily show and colbert which i realized i desperately miss even though i rarely watched it when i did have cable. i checked for ace of cakes but no dice. that would have made things too perfect.

we did not make up that hour on the tarmac and the flight attendant warned us as we were descending that all connecting flights had left already (who actually goes to salt lake city?) and basically we were all fucked but the nice ladies at the ticket counter would help us with accommodations and flights for the next morning. i was annoyed but not dramatic since i was tipsy from free wine and feeling like vacation adventures are fine and wonderful no matter what. i prepared myself for curling up in the airport and just dealing but when the plane landed we were told that one flight was left. and that was to ptown. booyeah. i shuffled as fast as possible to find a crowd still waiting at the gate.  

i sat next to a sixteen yearold who seemed to have her shit together better than me. i thought she was 21 and she thought i was 21. she was on her way home from paris. jealous. she asked me if i thought i would marry nick. i told her yes. i don't know why i said that let alone why i was talking about my relationship problems with a sixteen yearold. but i was. go fig.

more on the actual vacation soon....

teaser! floating down the river on an air mattress... 

walter asked me if i had any hobbies yesterday. it was an awkward question and i felt myself trying to bullshit my way into convincing both of us that i do have hobbies. but i don't and i asked him about his and he could not think of anything either so i felt better about it. but still not great. i have felt very one dimensional lately. and i know that i am not but my inability to speak in front of people has finally caught up with me and made me believe i have little to say.

my sister is always asking me what i am reading. i like reading again. my glasses are not reading glasses but they make it easier to read. i think it is because my eyes don't hurt as much anymore. they are not so strained. she is reading all the time and always some fascinating book that i want to borrow but restrain from asking because i know i will let it sit on the shelf for years and she will be annoyed by that and i will just feel guilty.

i started a book on the train this morning. the woman warrior by maxine hong kingston. i first read it when i was nineteen for my first women's studies class. i think it changed my life but i barely remember it. it is a good reread. there are several stories and the first, which i just finished, is about her aunt who killed herself in china because she got pregnant while her husband was away. the village attacked their house and ruined their crops, killed their animals, and beat her the night she was to give birth. She gave birth and drowned herself and her baby in the family well. the author was told this story after she get her period, a warning of what can happen if you have sex. she was told only these details but the story she tells in her book is longer, fleshed out. i find it interesting how we flesh out stories that are part of our history. our need to plug in details to understand what is happening. maybe everyone does not do that. but i do. and i feel like i have grown up around a lot of stories that are just bones. no meat. no flesh. no skin. our imaginations help us understand.

i am really tired. not like sleep tired but hella drained, kinda want to punch a deflated balloon tired. it is going to rain soon and i am going to be stuck in it with non waterproof boots and will have stinky soggy feet for a three hour show. that i am seeing all alone.

my life feels foreign right now and i would like it back.


puke on a pigeon.

did i just say that?

i think i am hitting a quarter life crisis. or i have spring fever. or both. i cannot concentrate in a really awesome and very not cool way. 

i am slightly overwhelmed. and i am realizing that i always am and that is just this feeling that we have that may pass for a day but not a lifetime.

i have entered some dark period where i have realized that i will never have it figured out. that i have no obsolete. there is some moral code that i am standing on but it is inside me and becomes clouded. often. my parents weren't right all the time. still aren't. we all carry too much.

i think going home to kansas screwed with my brain.

 i think i have woken up from hibernation but now i just feel restless.

too much time in front of this square today.

over and out.

no children

dear john m. goat,

i am sorry i did not sing every word, or any word, along with the crowd during no children tonight. i know them. all of them. i sang in my head, moving my tongue a bit, articulating all the words to myself and nobody else. i am not good at showing enthusiasm in large groups. lame, i know.

i was glad i got to see you. there were a lot of people. you have gotten famous. i am happy for you for sure, but it is odd to realize that everyone ELSE connects to you and your songs. sometimes i think you wrote them just for me. i would talk about the smaller, more intimate shows i have seen you play in the past but then i would annoy myself, like that girl in the bathroom line annoyed me. she was there to see the opening man, not you. telling us that gave her scene points of some sort. clearly if she is just there for the OPENER then she knows something. i wanted to tell her that i had closed my heart off to all men with acoustic guitars. that i had enough between sir john, damien j not r and the rocky v. that i will listen to new men on the pandora but cannot let my heart or my itunes out any further. 

anyways, you seem happier. i think you eat now and no, i am not calling you fat. i think i am happier now too and i am eating more as well. The first time i saw you we both seemed distraught. i got drunk and angry and slept in my car. the story is more interesting than that but i will save that for later.

nobody writes poems anymore.

my portland boyfriend was a poet.

which is probably why we dated and also probably why we did not work out.

i have one grand story about him that i will not share just on some off chance that he would find this blog and hate me for telling the interweb world. 

we have a speckled past, we don't keep in contact. i am not sure we like eachother in the least. i am pretty sure we both blame the other one for ruining some part of our early twenties.

two summers back he was passing through chicago from mexico and onto portland. we sat on some kid's front porch on california avenue drinking jarritos soda.

he told me he was still writing. just not love poems.

i told him that was probably for the best.

i got a tattoo when i was nineteen. Actually, i got several but only one was incredibly specific to me being nineteen. it says truth. i wanted to remember what that word meant to me when i was nineteen and why it was important. there is not a definition. more of a feeling. and i can only grasp it if i concentrate and kinda hold my breath...
if i do anything, become anything, make any art worth watching ever in my possibly long, maybe short life, it will be a tribute to that tattoo.

i am spending evenings in a room full of eighteen yearolds. it is pretty amazing. it makes me feel old. or just different. it makes me remember why i was different eight years ago, it makes the last eight years seem so long yet so short at the same time.

i made them make me mix cds about love. they are pretty awesome. i have to make one too....

i just listened to this song three times in a row....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQi8wEHMm5Y

it is very dark in my office. usually it does not matter because one entire wall is basically a window but it is cloudy, like i can see foggy cloudness wisp by me. I got a lamp but it doesn't really give off much light. barely any, actually.
I am eating pot roast stew. almost done. a few minutes ago i started thinking about how i really wished i had a cookie for after my stew. i thought about it and then realized i DID. i took a napkin last night and wrapped up one chocolate chip cookie and one chocolate cupcake (no icing) because i still had desert on my plate when the play was bout to start.
YUM.
is that ghetto? i don't even care. suck it!

i turn twenty six very very soon. five days. i am odd about birthdays. i love them. i love all holidays. and cupcakes. and presents. and drinks and laughter and ridiculousness. but this birthday is odd for some reason. i feel old i think and i have never really felt that. memories are beginning to fog over and i find that terrifying. i was only twenty-one when i was in portland. it seems so recent but so distant at the same time. portland changed my life. it is as straight and narrow as that. but it is odd to be so past those life changing moments yet. still. sorta. there. i was just thinking that it would be so nice to have a person to tell those stories to that nobody actually cares about but you. those memories that are so precious but nobody will ever get it in the same way as you. i guess that is kinda what blogging is for. oh jeez....blogging makes me emo as all hell....

remember...

the mint green house with the purple shutters....

the box car in the backyard....

the boy who talked about the castle in prague....

the vegan scones from pearl bakery....

the delivery boy from pearl bakery....

the blackberries....

stumptown lattes with hearts and a side of limonata....

slabtown....

hip hop the bunny....

the roller skating rink with the organ...

the simplest things are so easily forgotten yet so amazing...

it is several days into the new year. nothing has changed. i think i really believe each year that it might but it does not. i never make resolutions. i think about things that i hope might be different but never laid out in ways or actions that i might take to see that happen.

tonight i sat and drank bottles of wine with a dear friend. i am home now and maude is curled up next to me. she is wondering why the light is still on and i am not focused in our snuggle. if i have any kind of resolution this year then it is probably to get back into this habit. we will see if this happens. it is probably more likely than my thoughts of using the new workout facilities at my job. way more likely.

new years eve was fine. i spent the pre midnight time with some good friends and then some newer but very sweet friends. i have learned not to wait around for the manfriend to pick me up so i had headed to a party in the neighborhood. it was a good thing. it was nearing eleven thirty when he picked me up. we headed to his friends house where i walked in the door and imediately lost any personality i once had. i have realized i have this rare form of shyness that makes me incredibly boring around new people. i cannot think of anything intereseting to say, pose, or ask. i think i make others utterl boring around me as well. at least the manfriend's friends. it was a good night still. somehow. a lot of scotch.

that is enough. relearning how to blog is interesting. i signed up for twitter too. year of the internets i guess......