Burlap Soul

My fingers are mush

Can you believe it? The massive vacation recap entry is all finished and posted over at the photolog! Woohoo!

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go rest my clicking fingers for another week just to recover. ;-)

Can you tell that I'm bored?

Lest you think that I am being unproductive and lazy about posting lately, let me assure you that I have spent the past few days working on a massive photolog vacation recap entry that I am hoping to finish sometime before Christmas.

Um, yeah. So anyway... how about a random ten?

1. The Eels - Fresh Feeling
2. Man Man - I, Manface
3. Jonatha Brooke - Fire and Rain
4. Al Green - Here I Am
5. Jonatha Brooke - Sally
6. Stereo Total - LA, CA, USA
7. Caleb Kane - In Your Own Way
8. Survivor - Supervisor (Starbucks Commercial)
9. Tori Amos - After All
10. Jack Johnson - Crying Shame

Ahhh, that feels better. How about you?

Bling, baby!

We just got back from our jeweler. (See previous entry for some clarification.) That feels so weird, saying "our jeweler"... hee hee, I have to giggle to myself. But honestly, I am so glad that we never went to a mall store for this ring. Not only is this thing is a serious custom-made work of art, but the jeweler that we go to is the nicest man on the planet. He's funny and laid back and works so hard to take care of us and give us the best deal that we just love him endlessly. J. said today after we left the store, "I like him so much that I feel bad that we got such a great deal." And he's right. I feel the same way.

But I cannot express to you just how beautiful this ring is and how absolutely surprised I am that 1) it's on my finger of all people and 2) that I love it so much. There is not a moment that this thing is not sparkling. Actually, sparkling isn't even the word, it's more like a chasm of light shining off of the third finger of my left hand. It really is just beautiful. I'm actually sad about the prospect of having to give it up for a few days next week to have it sized. (they accidentally sized it to a 7 when it should've been a 6.)

And yes, we were already planning a wedding anyway, but without the ring on my finger and an official proposal it still didn't quite feel real for us. Also, with all of the financial burdens that a wedding can be, our plans had pretty much been squished recently and we were at a standstill. I almost wished I'd held off any wedding talk until now, because this time it feels a hundred percent more special and completely more authentic. Plus, we've finally agreed on a venue that doesn't just feel so-so, but a hundred percent right. So yeah, you'll get the entire proposal story later and our new wedding plans. For now, let me just say that our vacation was wonderful and not just because of the proposal, but because we got to spend it together and really remember just why in the world two polar opposites like us keep going in the first place: because, despite everything else, when we're together it just feels really, really good.

Forever a Fudgie

After ten long hours in the car and nearly 1300 miles, we're back from Michigan. To say that Mackinac Island was nice would be one of the biggest understatements that I've ever made. All I can think to describe it is just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

On all the other vacations that we've taken together, we were ready to come home on that last day. This one? We were seriously pining for another week on the island and the money to just buy a summer house on the spot. Fudge, horses, bicycling along Lake Huron in perfect weather, fresh air, beautiful blue water, and endless amounts of time together with no worries, no hurries, just leisure and love.

Ahhhhh.... Pure Bliss.

Headin' up nort', are ya?

Man, I'm so exhausted. The migraine is gone, but today has been nothing but calm. I've been cleaning like a madwoman today as my mom will be staying here for the next few days to take care of Gypsy while we're gone on vacation. Wednesday morning, we leave bright and early for Mackinac Island with a stopover in Detroit for a night to hang with old friends. We should be back Sunday sometime, but really I'm not in any hurry. I need some non-internet, non-tv, non-everything relaxation time in a bad, bad way. And J. is all excited to be showing me a part of his home state that I've never seen before. Truthfully though, we are just really glad to be having some good free time together. No responsibilities, no errands, no humidity from hell, no nothing. Just blue water, breezy weather, horseback riding, serenity, a B&B, and some fudge. Mmmmmm, fuuuudge.

See you Sunday. :-)

I certainly wouldn't have picked the left eye twice in a row either

Why must migraines come out of nowhere? I mean, I understand that I have to have one every once in a while, but really why can't they just wait until a more appropriate time? They're already bad enough as it is, why must they be such assholes about it?

Having lunch with your mother? Feeling great? Getting ready to clean the house and get some errands done? Whammo! Ahh, hahahahahaaaaaa! Pbbbt! Not anymore!!

Ass. Seriously, if I were a migraine, I'd at least have some damn manners:

Dear Ms. Staz,

M. I. Graine & Co.

Really, is that so damn much to ask? I would totally respond to that in a nice and timely fashion. What? I swear!

*sigh* Bastard. I'll be in bed with my head under the covers if you need me.

I need to not need

I need to figure out what I want to do with my life.
I need to get off the couch and start feeling like a healthy functioning human being again.
I need to stop letting fear hold me back from all the things that make me feel alive.
I need to stop letting fear hold me back from all the things that are good for me too.
I need to start making new friends instead of sitting inside my head with all the old ones.
I need to stop staring at the greener grass on the other side and relish the feeling of my own grass beneath my own toes.
I need to stop expecting the world to twist itself around me and fit my needs and instead focus on how I can start bending myself to fit within the world.
I need to stop thinking that I am the new prophecy and realize that I am really just a 28 year old girl from Kentucky that is too afraid to leave and too afraid to stay.
I need to start picking up my camera more.
I need to be nicer to my cats.
I need to stop making lists about all the things I need to do and just do them instead.
I need to stop bitching about the heat.
I need to stop making excuses.
I need to exchange words with who I really am.
I need to act on my passions instead of living in my daydreams.
I need to shit or get off the pot.
I need to watch less mindless television.
I need to engage in more social activities.
I need to stop needing so damn much.
I need to try to get my stuff shown in a gallery just once. And --
I need to learn how to do that instead of just hiding behind the fact that I don't know how.
I need to start living my life instead of just getting through it.
I need to start reaching for the things I want instead of just expecting them all to come rushing at me at once.
I need to stop acting like the entitled victim.
I need to quit letting the ghosts be my only company.
I need to be honest with myself.
I need to realize that age is not a death sentence.
I need to realize that youth is not a cure-all.
I need to realize that fame is not what's going to fix everything.
I need to realize that acting is not going to fix everything either, but that it may very well make me happy again.
I need to realize that being realistic does not equal settling.
I need to realize that I am not meant to fit the mold and that that could very well be a good thing.
I need to realize that dreams may change over time but your soul still knows exactly what it wants.
I need to realize that listening to my soul shouldn't be so damn scary.
Even if it is, I need to learn to listen anyway.

Weeeeee, Sllooowww Moooshhuuuunnnnn

Fingers are on the keys, ready to go. Topics are in my brain, but no. Feet are supposed to be walking a straight line, only for me to land face first into the wall every time I try to move forward. My head is bobbing around like it is suddenly too heavy for the rest of my body. Well, not suddenly. I've been like this since about 11am today. You can see for yourself that today was a busy day. My fear of needles is no secret around here, or at the doctor's office too for that matter, so we went with the plan that worked last time: Dope. I've been on about 1.5mg of Ativan since 11am this morning and even though I've eaten something, the world still kind of looks like this - even when I'm standing still. Not to mention the fact that I came home from the appointment, slept from 1pm to 4:30pm, moved to the couch and then slept from 5pm to 8:30pm. It was weird. At one point, it was just me and Gypsy on the bed and J. was suddenly gone (back to work) and then when I woke up on the couch, J. was sleeping in the floor (back from work). It felt as though five minutes of dozing had passed when in actuality I had been knocked out for about 8 hours straight. Nice.

I never thought I'd be one of those people that had to take dope every time I went to the doctor. Then again, I'd never thought that needle-phobic me would end up with a disorder where I have to have blood tests every six months for the rest of my life. There's some serious irony in there somewhere. Of course, if the world would stop spinning for a few minutes I might be able to give enough of a damn to find it.

Or not. Wooooooaaaaaahhhhhh..... Where's the couch?

Humpty Hump Day

I'm getting ready to prepare for the day and then go pick up my mom for our massages! Woohoo! I'll let you know how that goes when we get back.

In the meantime, I've been really wanting to post something over at the photolog, but seeing as how I don't really have much of interest on my memory card, I'm kind of stumped. What do you want to see? Abstract, hard to find or mundane, send me a suggestion and I'll photograph it.

Oh cool! J. just stopped in for lunch and surprised me! Hee hee!

Happy Wednesday!

LOAD "blog", 8

Just for photographic record, our new less-than-snazzy monitor, courtesy of Goodwill. You can read the whole story over at J.'s place. It's quite comical, considering it's maybe half the size of our keyboard. Man, this thing is giving me flashbacks galore.

Hey! Who's up for a rousing game of Gauntlet? (But no Oregon Trail, please. After the great Repeated Sudden Death and Sundry Incident of 1990, Typhoid and I are bitter enemies.)

Oh, and while I had the camera out... gratuitous beagle photo no. 873:

The New Loungemaster 3000! Available in stores now! Ask for it by name!

Inhale, Ow, Exhale, Ow

I cannot wait for that massage on Wednesday. I am having some neck, back and shoulder pain like you would not believe. I've had worse, yes, but this stuff just will not go away or subside at all, no matter how I move, stretch, breathe or bend. I know it's that same old neck-injury-tension that has sprang up in the night, but damn! I cannot get this stuff to ease up already! You should've seen me in the office earlier, breathing into yoga and trying desperately to do shoulder stretches and neckstands while Gypsy kept running over and 'nosing' me to death in the face and the cats all came running to sniff me and stare at me terrified. 'Why are you upside down? Does this mean you're not going to feed us?'

Yes, with four cats and a dog it always comes back to food. Whether it's going in or coming out... well that's another question.

Towers, Teddies, and um.. cake

So let's see. While I'm sitting here uploading my Al Green greatest hits cd into my iTunes, I thought I'd write something. I can't believe that my birthday was a week ago. Wow. It feels like forever and then just yesterday. Actually, all time seems like only a suggestion, as I've been lost in End-World the past few days. I know that people think I take my books a little too seriously, but so what? It's the Dark Tower, people. If you haven't read it, you just won't understand. Or maybe you will... remember when you were reading Lord of the Rings for the first time? Or when you first experience and truly comprehended Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter? And it seemed like a whole other world opened and this one just suddenly wasn't so important anymore? Yeah, it's kind of like that. Not that the Dark Tower series is anything like those other three - well, it is a series, but that's about it. It takes on a life of its own and that, my friends, is why I've been a wee bit obsessed lately. There's a sadness that's come over me now, not only because of the way the series ended, but because it has actually finally ended. Half my life I've been reading these books and not only did I not expect that kind of an ending (though it was really so damn obvious, wasn't it?), but I honestly never expected there to be an ending at all. It's like saying goodbye to close friends after 15 years together.

Yeah, yeah. You think I'm one step away from these people, don't you? Well, I'm not. Though to be honest, I have thought of buying this shirt, just for the hell of it.

Relax.... I'm going to stop talking Tower soon enough (well, at least on the blog), as I know that nearly all but one of the five people that come here every day have no idea what in the hell I'm talking about. So, on with the birthday recap.

First off, let me just say many, many thanks for the birthday wishes, emails, and blog posts. I had a wonderfully busy birthday and coming home to so many nice greetings and cards was just icing on the cake. Thank you again.

It started with various clues written in rhyme and left all around the condo by J. As I followed one clue to the next, I would pick up little gifts along the way (an iTunes gift card here, a funny card there). Finally, my final in-house clue was a gift certificate to the Build-a-Bear Workshop with enough cash on it for both me and my mom to make our own bears and pimp them out with some damn fine accessories. I'd been bugging J. for a long time that I wanted to build a beagle, and my mom was really hinting about wanting to build the pink french poodle, so there you go. The next clue was apparently in my mother's possession, so when she got off work, she came straight over and gave me the clue. I wasn't to open it until after our bears were complete. So off we went to the mall.

Now I cannot begin to explain to you the hilarity and utter insanity of watching two grown women rubbing little red hearts on themselves and making wishes while stamping a pedal and filling up empty bearskins. It was just too damn funny not to laugh and laugh we did. Though one of the biggest ironies is that my mom didn't pick the french poodle, but instead a raggedy old-looking bear and I did not pick the beagle, but the orange tabby cat instead. Mostly because we had decided to make our bears into mini versions of us and these were most appropriate. (To say that our bears resemble us exactly could well be considered Understatement of the Year - but you'll see that later when I can actually get my memory card emptied and take more pictures.) The only way that I can quickly describe to you the insane time we had there is that we spent nearly 2 hours in the Build-a-Bear Workshop and nearly $100. Yes, one hundred dollars - on two bears. Our bears are pimped baby, pimped out fine.

After that, I opened my last clue, which was a rhyme telling me (roughly) to go look in the seat pockets in my car. Voila! Gift certificate for a full body massage, baby! Oh hell yes. I've never had a massage in my life, but have always had neck pain and ungodly amounts of tension in my neck, upper back and shoulders as a result of a very old neck injury, so there you go. I said goodbye to my mom and headed home to wait for J. We ended the day with dinner at my favorite little chinese place, complete with tiny cups of yummy tea and some of the best damn spring rolls this side of the Mississippi. I then received a beautiful bouquet of starburst lilies (my favorite in case you hadn't guessed by now), a mini-cake with a singing candle in the middle and Ta-dah! Happy birthday to me! To put it in dog's terms, I got to use my mind, follow a hot trail, hang with my pack, catch a kitty, eat my favorite foods and sniff some good flowers (though without the peeing part) - ahhh, perfection. Also, J. was so happy with himself for getting one over on me for a change, that he enjoyed it almost as much as I did.

So after my mom's boyfriend decided to chip in and buy her a massage too, we have a double massage session scheduled for Wednesday at 3pm. (oh yeah, what exactly is the proper tipping amount for a massage anyway? is it 20% like a restaurant, because that seems a bit much to me.) In the next couple of weeks, J. and I are desperately and hopefully planning to take a small vacation to Northern Michigan (Mackinac Island to be exact) to see some summer weather that isn't bogged down by 80% humidity and maybe visit some friends and family in Detroit while we're there.

After that, who knows? I plan to start working in the fall, but really my days are a free-for-all lately, and I have to say that I'm liking it a bit too much. Work? Who in the hell wants to work when you can hang with gunslingers, make some kick-ass looking bears, eat cake and live like a sponge all day? Not I, my friends. Not I. ;-)

Fini

So I finished the book. Books. I've been reading these books for nearly half my life and I can't believe that it's actually over, that there won't be a Volume VIII in the Dark Tower series.

*sigh* You gave me a few days to finish reading. Now give me a few days to comprehend everything, ok? My head is still spinning from the ending. (Spinning? Ha! Get it? Ka is like a wheel my friends...)

*sigh again* That's not even funny.

And just for the record I cried a grand total of six times while reading it. Can you top me? I'm sure J. thinks I've gone insane, sitting up at 3am and balling my eyes out over a book - repeatedly.

That's alright. He's starting Number 5 in the series and even though I know it probably won't affect him like it did me, (as he hasn't grown up reading it and cherishing it like I have), he will at least understand why and maybe then I can finally talk to someone about it. You know, someone that knows what in the hell I'm talking about to begin with. As I'm sure many of you think I've gone quite insane myself, yes? ;-)

The Wit - that's my new nickname

I love my results on this one, just because I totally knew which one I would be:

the Wit (60% dark, 30% spontaneous, 22% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais AND FINALLY -- after you rate my test with a sweet, sweet '5' -- you must take this test next: The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Test. It's not mine, but it rocks.

(Stolen from Nicole.)

Yes, I know it's just a book - now bugger off!

You'll have to excuse me if I'm not around for the next couple of days. Last night I was up reading until 6am and even then J. had to force me to go to bed. The reward for all of that reading? Balling my eyes out twice in a course of three hours, horribly sad nightmares and then waking up feeling as though I am being crushed under a giant wave of grief. Two characters in a space of sixty pages? Who the fuck does he think he is?

But now I can't stop. I have to know if all of this misery will pay off, if all of this pain is worth it. Sleep be damned.

I've been reading these books since I was 15 years old. I never imagined I would suddenly be so eager to get to the end.

Asshole. I hate it when a book makes me cry. Twice.

I’ll kick you out of my home if you don’t cut that hair

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes, cards and blog posts. It was a wonderful day indeed. I'm working on a little birthday recap entry, but until I can get my camera's memory card emptied, how about a public service announcement instead?

In one of those rare but pointless episodes of buying shit online that I really didn't need just because I had a visa card and I could, I now have a six month membership to this website. Mostly because J. was wanting a new haircut and we couldn't find anything that we liked and this site had something like 30,000 different looks to choose from, so I decided what the hell and paid for the membership just so we could upload his photo and play for hours and giggle at ourselves with afros and dreads. The irony? J. has a very nice new haircut, but we found it in a book of styles at the salon about 5 minutes before his name was called. Oh, and I don't really cut my hair in any drastic fashion anyway, so the website membership was useless after all.

However, I've got it for six months. So if you're looking for a new cut and want to upload your own pic and give it a go, drop me a line and I'll give you the access info. A note though: this account has some of our personal info in it, mainly credit card/account numbers so Joe Schmo from the street is not getting in. However, if you comment here and I "know" you, then feel free to send that email. I mean, I want to see what you look like with purple dreads too. Duh.

Happy cutting. :-)