I Know This Much Is True

I am content.

Content for the first time in a long time just to let things be as they are. Maybe I've finally embraced the world around me. Maybe it's the sunshine. Maybe it's realizing that when it comes down to it - no matter how much drama, no matter how little money I have, no matter how many mistakes I've made (or continue to make), no matter how many times I mess up, no matter how few or how many men love me...I am still okay.

I've learned so much in the last year I can't even begin to start. That saying that life is a journey, not a destination resonates profoundly in me. Where I've been, where I'm going and who I'm becoming has never been more apparent than at this very moment in my life. Sometimes it's weird how truly conscious you can be of the things in your life you have control over. You can make the decision to stop smoking after 15-years (or at least when alcohol isn't involved). You can make the decision to just go to the gym or walk around the neighborhood just to not sit in front of the television. You can choose to be happy. You can choose to take things for face value instead of spending time wondering what is implied. You can be happy with what you have. You can be happy with what you don't have.

I don't remember the last time I felt this peace. I don't know if it will last long or if it will be gone tomorrow. I am just thankful that I feel it today.

con·tent

Pronunciation :: kun-'tent

Noun ::
1. content - the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.

Verb ::
1. content - make content; make happy or satisfied; "I am contented"

Adjective ::
1. content - satisfied or showing satisfaction with things as they are; "a contented smile"

Taking Bets

Kate - this one is for you...I know you will appreciate this...seeing as you recently have experienced this and all...

I've got $46.55 in my checking account until midnight on Thursday.

If you do the math, that averages $11.62 per day. See, it wouldn't have been this dire had I not spent $21.00 at lunch with a friend (my turn to buy) on Friday. It would have been even less of a problem had I not spent $50.00 at BW3's on Carribean Jerk chicken buffalitos, potato wedges and a plethera of beer that evening. Well, sometimes ya gotta splurge. I hadn't been out since vacation and all.

And I was in a stellar mood. With happy beer drinking mode came the new t-shirt I picked up in Vegas...

A girl's gotta be up front with the priorities...

Anywho, I am thinking that besides dog food (-$6.00), I won't really have to go to the grocery store this week. So that should allow me to tan (-$2.00 x 2), lunch at no more than $7.00/day (-$28.00). That should leave me with $8.55. Now, I've got a half a tank of gas and no real plans to go anywhere other than to work, the gym, and dog park. I could move the $5.00 I have in savings over to checking if I need to get gas. Or, I could theoretically skip lunch on Thursday and get some gas. Or, I could wait until after three on Thursday (NB-C told me this neat little trick that you are safe from the bank if you wait till after three o'clock) cause at midnight I'll have the fundage.

I think I've got it all figured out. I hope I don't hit any snafus this week. That will throw me into a tailspin and I'm not sure if I can cope.

PS: Big hairy brown bug with one billion legs has invaded the Hobbit House. Saw him this morning and by the time I had a minor freak out, went to find somethings to kill it, and returned, there was no sign of this horrible horrible creature. God, how I hate bugs. I have resigned myself to know that somewhere inside my apartment is a pre-historic alien waiting to eat me for dinner.

I swear, the only reason I will ever need a man again is 1) car repairs 2) killing bugs and 3)..... Well, I better just let you insert whatever you would like to imagine.

Don't You Wish Your Girlfriends Were Hot Like Mine

These are the best friends any girl could ask for...I am so lucky.

SEDW, Vee, Julia & NB-C

I am procrastinating today, more than usual. Ever since my whilwind vacation/Vegas trip I haven't been able to fall asleep very well and thus, haven't been able to get my arse out of bed in the mornings. I was doing so well before. I was getting to work before 9:00 a.m. and I was feeling pretty good about it. Not so much this week. Snooze is my friend this week. Maybe I'm just more out of whack than usual...

Anywho, that damned old myspace.com is going to suck me in. Mostly I have a real problem with it. Mostly I like to argue the cause for today's pre-teens and teens who use this to find everything like drugs, sex, or dirty old men who will surely rape and pillage them. Shit just ain't the same as it was back in my day. I remember when you had to write notes or letters to people. And if the telephone was busy, well, you just kept calling until it wasn't anymore. Nope, now you can put your ass out there for all the world to see. Baffling. However, somehow I have a myspace account and I'm not sure how I got one. I got lured into it's evilness this morning after recieving a request to be my friend. This is all very strange. The girl who had requested to be my friend I hadn't seen or talked to since, oh, about 1991 I'd say. So I start looking around and low and behold find a few people from High School. One of my first crushes, I think I can remove the question now if he was gay, cause, after the video post on his myspace page of Colin Farrell eluding to performing oral sex on a male, I am pretty sure he is.

I also happened to find the first love.

Ah yes, the one who made it big. The one that got away. The one who moved to my beloved New England. The one who stole my heart and never allowed me to give it to anyone else. Looks like his girlfriend is a cute, pixieish little JAP brunette who I'm sure is keeping him company as he travels to Asia and designs shoes for a well known athletic shoe company. Awesome. The funny thing is, he looks pretty much the same. And I don't know, maybe he doesn't really look that great anymore.

Then again, maybe I just look better.

Ha ha. Sucker.

Have You Heard

About the Snakes on the Mutha-effin Plane?

Vee has.

And she can't wait to see this much anticipated film about what else? Snakes on a plane.

This is Buzz and his 65-year old hooker clothes wearing girlfriend. Buzz likes to sing karaoke versions of "Cotton Eyed Joe." He is our new friend from vacay. This is what Buzz wears when he get's into his groove:

Captain Curt's is the mecca of Siesta Key karaoke entertainment. We made lots of friends. Well, we made fun of some of them and they probably hated us, but you know how that goes...

It's so unlike us to gossip. About anything or anyone.

Really.

A Couple Observations for a Monday

Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

A friend of mine once told me that was his philosophy (I.I.B). And at the time, I didn't really understand how true that really is, but a recent string of events has thrust me into a place that I wasn't prepared to be in.

ORIGINAL NOTE REMOVED BY AUTHOR

It can really only be categorized by me as "shock and awe" (one good phrase to come from our the lovely El Presidente of ours...) NB-C pointed out on Friday that I am a very naive person and she is right - I can't ever seem to wise up. So now I'm potentially in a very bad situation that I have probably festered just, well, just by being me. Clueless, unassuming, and unaware.

Always full of drama.

God, how I hate the drama. I am like the poster child for the "can't lead a drama free life - here's how to make it worse!" campaign. It always seems to find me or I always seem to find it.

For right now, that is all I will say about this particular subject. And to those of you who know the situation at hand, please refrain from commenting directly about it. You can certainly comment about my naivite, but not about the person/persons or other related events...

So the other observation I have from this weekend goes along with my ever constant struggle to define that place I still refer to as "home." If you haven't already, I'd suggest you read this in order to understand.

I attended a baby shower for my oldest and dearest friend, Slimy, on Saturday. She and I have known one another since the 6th grade, and have been like sisters ever since the 8th grade when we discovered our mutual love for NKOTB, food and shopping. I hadn't seen her in almost 2 years - since her fairytale wedding - despite being only 70-miles from one another. And yet, all the time apart never has changed the kinship between us. I realized something for the first time.

She feels like home to me.

Perhaps home isn't the actual place but the people who love us along the way. At any rate, it made me once again long for that imaginary place and the friends of long ago and far away...something nostalgic and yet real enough you can almost touch, as if stored safely in a place where no time or distance seems to have passed.

Thankfully.

It's Alive! It's Alive!!!

So I was thinking about what to blog about on this, my first day back to LexVegas in almost 10 days. And I thought about blogging about our fantastic trip to Siesta Key, but I thought NB-C said it pretty well and so I thought I'd give a synopsis on my trip to Vegas this past week.

Now I'll remind you that my trip was for work, not for pleasure, and so that should sum up my lack of anything real substantial on the good story front (aka there is nothing that need stay in Vegas) but there were some things I thought I should note:

• Running down 3 terminals in the glorious Atlanta-Hartsfield airport with a 20 pound carry-on strapped to your shoulder SUCKS. Running up two escalators and one international terminal where your gate is the VERY last one is even worse.
• Arriving in Las (not Lex) Vegas at what amounts to 1:00 a.m. Eastern time only to find that your 60lb suitcase has not arrived with you BLOWS.
• Wading and Waiting through a mile long taxi cab line is enough to make this girl who has only had a few drunken cigarettes want to begin to smoke again...
• Alas, arrive at beautiful Mandalay Bay hotel two hours after landing in Las Vegas and go to hotel room that 1) is handicap 2) has an adjoining door. Of course! (This is pretty much the defacto for me when staying in any hotel).
• Participate in tradeshow during odd hours : 8-10 p.m., 8-9 a.m., 12-2 p.m., 5-6:30 p.m., repeat.
• Eat alone in restaurant. Twice. (Not bad, next I must try the movies)
• Observation: alongside our conference was a conference for eBay-ers. This conference would have been the perfect thing to attend had NB-C and I ever started that little business of ours. I digress...eBay-ers are weird. They wear funny hats and their badges have ribbons that touch the floor. They quit their jobs and find bubble wrap out of the trash. No lie, I heard someone say that.
• Why do people bring children to Vegas? I stood outside the tram station at MB and literally was subjected to a gnarly-9 year old at the top of her lungs going "AND THEN we we went to see the sharks! AND THEN we went to...AND THEN...AND THEN!!!" It was the most infurating thing I've ever heard.
• I averaged only 2 cocktails a day. Except my last night where I had 3.
• I spent only $3 on slot machines and won, here's a surprise, no money.
• Finally made it to the pool, glorious pool, on Wednesday. Had fruity drink that cost $12.00. Times two.

• This is the type of person serving fruity drinks by glorious pool. This is also why we wear one pieces.
  

• Took a stroll down Las Vegas boulevard (from MGM to Ceasar's - that's a long F'in way) and didn't take one picture on my real camera but managed to capture this image outside of Paris for NB-C as a reminder of her wedding...

• After walking a bizillion miles between my room and the Mandalay Bay convention center for three days and then up and down the strip, retired exhaustedly to my room where I was reminded of how fat and out of shape I really am.
• While I am sort of enjoying solidarity in my roadtrips I have concluded that Las Vegas is not a place to go when you are traveling alone...

And so friends, I'm back if only temporarily. Heading back up the I-71 highway to the big Columbus this weekend yet AGAIN (um, we're up to like 4 trips in 6 weeks or something un-natural like that) to get My Girl. She's been vacationing with her grandparents while I've been away and barking a lot, so much so the neighbors complained about her and her friends Nicki & Kayle. Good times, she's going to hate coming back to the Hobbit House.

Anywhoooooooo...that's all I got.

Wasted Away Again...

There are times in your life when the only thing you are quite sure about is that you need a vacation. Well, this happens to be one of them...and well, thank God that I happen to be leaving in less than 8-hours for mine.

JULIA, NB-C, Vee, SEDW & I are off for a few days of fun in the sun...don't worry, I'll drink one for ya.

(and yep, I'm still officially the quitter of the best kind...no smoking for me...now one week plus two days)

Jimmy Buffet, make room for me in Margaritaville.