A secret, some business, a silly thing, and the quest for a lasagna recipe worthy of Garfield...

Today, I went to the park with my friend and her son.  It was a beautiful day, made even better by the fact that I now have a phone that does its job.  Namely: it remains alive for an entire day, is vaguely fashionable, allows me to surf the Internet, and has a minimum of special features.  Is anyone else concerned with the fact that phones come solely in touch-screen varieties now?  I don't mean to be old-fashioned, but the touch-screen technology isn't nearly well0developed enough yet to work properly for more than a year, and once the phone breaks, or the ridiculously-flimsy screen cracks, or the screen becomes slightly less sensitive, you're SOL and have to shell out another 300+ dollars for another stupid gadget that didn't need all these ridiculous additions to begin with.  Who cares if your phone can recognize a song it hears for thirty seconds?  I could even do without the Internet.  I have a computer, and it's virtually impossible to be completely without wifi these days.  Is it really that necessary to have facebook in the palm of your hand?  I digress.  This entire paragraph reduces to a very simple conjunctive statement: my phone works, and I am happy.

I haven't seen the bf in a few days, which upsets me slightly.  I know that we saw one another six days in a row last week and were somehow not sick of one another, and one shouldn't push it when things are going well, but I still miss him and it makes me very sad to know that I can't reach over and hold his hand whenever the fancy strikes me.  However, his presence elsewhere has allowed me to get some things done, so that's a positive.  I've officially completed three loads of laundry, accepted a business proposition, bought a bicycle (yay!!!!!), and fixed my phone.  All these things are important, and difficult to do when you have an affectionate distraction attached to your hip.  We have talked daily, sometimes multiple times, which is a vast improvement over the former state of things.  We'd dated briefly before I left for Europe, and the main issue I had with everything was the fact that we didn't communicate.  At all.  That's the problem with having friends in common, I suppose: that you end up complaining to all the same people, and news travels quickly between friends, and you secretly begin to resent each other for reasons that you can't mention because of the giant elephant in the room.  It's not like that any more.  In fact, I'm excited and very frightened by how severely non-luke-warm my feelings as they relate to him are at the moment.

Wanna see my cool bicycle?

It's super awesome!

All it needs is some streamers from the handlebars...

Okay, I'm unreasonably excited about the prospect of a bicycle that I might very well kill myself on, but it's seriously cool and pretty and awesome and will save me untold amounts of money on transportation, so bear with me.  And it's teal.  Which is obscenely BA.

At the park today, Lacey and Gregory and I played with bubbles and the fountains and spied on unbelievably immature Middle-Early High Schoolers, who decided that the children's park was a great place in which to curse like sailors and take off tops to reveal brightly-colored sports bras and take pictures for Myspace.  It was annoying, but got me to thinking about what an awkward age that is.  Right after puberty for the girls, and right

Sidenote: Watch Grey Gardens, Workaholics.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's really difficult to find time to blog between life things.  I spent some more time in Greeley since typing most of this post, and am planning a strange change to my entire life.  We'll see how well it goes, but based on what I know of the Law of Attraction, I'm sure it'll be perfect.  Things will work out the way I want them to, because I know that they need to.

Speaking of things working out the way I want them to: I received e-mails from the people I interviewed with a few weeks ago asking for second interviews.  I'm extremely excited, because that's exactly what I wanted: a decently-paying job that doesn't involve an over-abundance of effort on my part.  Hopefully, they'll let me work from home, and I'll be able to do work even in Greeley and bypass a few potential issues.

I feel a little crazy, since my life is more or less revolving around my relationship.  It's difficult to think about anything else with any degree of excitement, and that's frightening.  But things work out the way they need to, and I believe that.

This title isn't particularly appropriate any more, but I was looking for a lasagna recipe to prepare while watching The Godfather.  David and I ended up watching it yesterday, but without any Italian food.  We'll have to have a marathon with excellent Italian recipes one day.

I also met his mother, her father, boyfriend, and other son the day before yesterday.  It went as well as it could've gone, all things considered.  I made bread in a shameless attempt to impress them with my homemaking skills (totally worked!) and played lots of Rummy and Durak.  Saw some baby pictures, and had a discussion or two about pure-hearted philanthropy and factory farming.  On the way back, it rained, and I realized that Greeley can actually be a pretty beautiful place.  Also, it's close to Danielle, who ate the sandwich.  She lives in Loveland.  Not that I'm stalking her or anything.  I'm not stalking her, but if we happen to meet in the same coffee shop, and strike up a conversation, and happen to become BFFs, I wouldn't object too terribly.

A strange realization

The last few weeks have been a little strange for a plethora of reasons, most dominant amongst them being the fact that the wifi in my mom's apartment mysteriously stopped working.  So I have no Internet access, and no way of updating at home, which is where I usually end up writing because there is never any time when I'm elsewhere.  And my standard setting is 'lethargic,' so I have little motivation to leave my nest at the best of times, least of all when it's rainy and cold and very unwelcoming out in the real world.  It's been that way for the past few days, but that's not really an excuse.  In fact, I have no excuses; I simply feel as though it's easier to stay in bed and do absolutely nothing day after day.

The cleanse didn't turn out precisely as expected, since I have no wifi, and other things occurred that impeded my progress as a healthy, happy hippy.  These things will be explained in due time.  Let me begin with what I think is most pertinent, however.

The book situation: bleak.  I'm still working on The Name of the Rose.  Not because it's boring.  In fact, I'm finding it one of the most interesting books I've picked up in some time.  I just have very little time to myself right now, and that small amount of time is being taken up by other hobbies that I've been collecting.  I decided to make bread for a full week a while ago.  After that, I decided I wanted to knit again, so I started knitting a scarf before making anything for anyone I know.

I've been spending a lot of time in my head recently, thinking about what I want to do with my life and whether I'm going anywhere worthwhile.  I think I am, but there's no way to know for sure, of course.  I try to lead my life so that I won't regret too much when I'm done, but things always slip through the cracks.  I still haven't gotten my cute Dutch bike, which is a little sad, because I definitely don't have the money to pay for gas right now.  And on top of the money issues, my phone has stopped working normally altogether, so even though I've gotten phone calls asking for interviews, I haven't been able to respond to them since no one leaves voicemails.  And when they e-mail me (because that's on my resume, as well) I can't read the e-mails until about a week later, because I don't have wifi, and have a work schedule, so I can't find Internet when I need it.

The last few days, I've been playing house in Greeley.  I remember writing that I spent an amazing day with a friend last week, and that some things happened that I'd rather not think about.  Since this is about the most private place I can think of (ha!), I thought I'd take the opportunity to vent about my emotions here.

So, this guy and I dated before I left for Europe.  It was an exceedingly vanilla relationship.  We did things, had some similar interests, and some vaguely comparable outlooks on life, but that's where the resemblance ended.  We had fun sometimes, but it was like a large wall stood between us.  Like at school dances, where the chaperones put a giant balloon between the couples to ensure Puritanical morality is upheld.  I broke up with him shortly before I left because it wasn't fair to him to have a girlfriend half a world away, and in part because we had nothing to talk about during the few instances when we did converse, and the phone would fade to utter silence.  Also, on top of everything, the relationship was long-distance.  It was a bit comical.

After I came back, I met him halfway between our homes, and we spent a day together.  I knew he had a new girlfriend since we'd seen each other last, and that depressed me a bit, but there was nothing to be done.  He was taken.  And I was so ridiculously frustrated because he finally opened up to me.  It was as if there was a switch in his head that read 'relationship,' and when it was switched off, he was an actual person.  It was kind of glorious.

We planned on going to concerts together over the summer, and all sorts of random hangouts.  He confessed that the main reason he was with his girlfriend was to get over our relationship, and I encouraged him to attempt to make the best of it, kicking myself in the head the entire time because what I really wanted to say ran something along the lines of "break up with her and ask me out now, k thnx bai."  But I'm a generally nice person.  So I told him to make the best of things, and that there was a reason that they were together, and all of that good stuff, because everyone knows that people deserve chances, and things happen for reasons.  And we said goodbye.  And I drunk dialed him, and obsessed with all of my friends, and thought about facebook stalking him, and maybe looked at their pictures together and was upset because I didn't know if they were serious or not, and finally he came to see me and we had another friend date day.

Thor was amazing.  Freaking epic.  I made fun of him and almost got him to stop talking to me because I suggested a cross-over with the Green Lantern (DC Marvel cross is sacrilege!) and he walloped me soundly in chess.  Thrice.  And it was amazing, again.  I played him the playlist I made when I was really sad about the fact that he would never be with me again under the guise of a random casual playlist, though I think the message came through.  And then we went into my room and cuddled and one thing led to another and we kissed.  A lot.

I feel like a terrible person, because I knew that he had a girlfriend.  I knew that said girlfriend hated me (with good reason, it turns out) and that he wasn't as into her as she was to him.  And I still went ahead and did what I wanted.  Though I felt guilty, he didn't ask me out immediately.  That assays the terrible bad person-ness I'm feeling regarding the entire situation.

From there, I made plans to go see him and help him and one of my best friends move into their apartment.  I went up on Sunday night, and only came back yesterday night, in all spending four days and three nights with him.  Straight.  And I'm not sick of him.

Putting an apartment together is a lot of fun.  Especially when you're in the phase of merely adding, instead of finding a way to store things.  I cooked every night, and felt like their kitchen is entirely my place in the house.  I helped decorate all of the communal areas, starting from the bathroom and working through the living room and kitchen.  I picked out artwork for the walls, and put together a bookshelf from wood planks and cinder blocks.  I played guitar and knit and felt like I was home.  I didn't want to leave.

While this entire experience might very well be a pathetic and juvenile attempt at escape from my life, much like reading, or the trip to Europe, I think there's something real here.  He came down to see me last night, and I realized as soon as I saw him that I'd missed him an unreasonable amount.  We went to see my very good friends and stayed out until late, then came back to my house, and this morning woke up very late.  He brought one of my best friends (his roommate) along, and we spent the day together in the rain, speaking, and eating, and bike shopping, and visiting puppies at the mall.  Now we're at the book store, and my friend is talking about her relationship issues, and I'm writing, and he's sitting nearby with a book, legitimately concerned with her life, and offering the best advice he can possibly consider.  And I love this man.  I can't believe I'm that girl.  Maybe being soft and vulnerable isn't as bad as I always thought it was.

A photo shoot taken at Village Inn

We're a very attractive couple

These are pretty amazing

Oooh yeah

I saw what was going on, and it got too intense

And he kept going

And going

And going <3

I need to make a flip book out of these.

What the lemon juice taught me

Over the last two weeks, I've fallen back into some bad habits.  Most prominent among them are: boredom eating, overeating, oversleeping, antisocial moroseness, general misanthropy, chronic overspending, desperation in romantic matters, cigarettes, and poorly-masked alcoholism.  Basically: all symptoms of an underlying condition that probably needs serious psychotherapy to set right.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, I haven't yet admitted any of these things to anyone outside of my own head.  So for the moment, my mini-dramas remain my own, and I can deal with them as I wish.  And I decided that this was the perfect time to cleanse again. 

I'd bought lemons in anticipation of this event about a week ago.  I bought maple syrup from the health food store a few days ago.  I still had cayenne pepper, so I was just waiting until I would stop putting off beating my numerous addictions to start the process.  It isn't about weight loss.  That's what I always tell myself.  It's not about weight loss, or the slight (who am I joking?  Massive) ego boost I get from being able to affect my body so drastically in such a short amount of time.  It's about being healthy.  It's about being comfortable in my skin.  It's about exerting some modicum of control over my downward-spiraling habits.  It's about not admitting that I probably have some form of eating disorder at this point.  Scratch that last.

So this morning, I made my 72 ounces of daily-allotted food/drink and went on my way to work.  Did I mention the mensies are back in town?  Joy of joys.  I have a few rituals about starting things.  I've heard that weight-loss regimens, or serious commitments, are best kept by women if they make the resolution shortly after their period.  I don't know why that would help, but it can't hurt.  Also, Sundays seem like good days to start things on.  It's technically the first day of the week.  And stuff.  Those are my only two rituals.  What, were you expecting a full-moon dance (bazinga!) with burnt offerings?  Perhaps a visit to the local charnel house?  Nothing nearly that dramatic, I'm afraid.

In spite of the stomach cramps, general fatigue, and weeks of poor eating habits, I launched straight into day one on a day when I had to work for five hours on my feet.  It was ridiculously hot and bright and unreasonably cheery for April.  I almost miss the winter already.  Work was fine, in spite of my half-hour early arrival.  I finally picked up Shantaram, though I can't actually read it until I'm done with The Name of the Rose, which I put on hiatus during my day of rest (Saturday) for the Fables graphic novels.  I've now finished Fables, and expect to breeze through the end of the Eco book by next blog post.  I took a sneak peek at the first ten pages of Shantaram, and am undecided, but it seems decent, and comes highly-recommended. 

In other news, I have a splitting migraine, and throat soreness.  And a lot of books to read.  But I decided that I would document my days on the cleanse, so look forward to more frequent updates. 

So far: I feel crappy.  I had a few cubes of watermelon when I came home because everyone was sitting around the table and it's my favorite, plus I haven't had my day's supply of the cleanse drink yet, and probably won't at this point.  The headache might very well be caffeine withdrawal, which I go through every single fucking time I stop drinking it after a week or so with coffee and normal tea.  Now, I'm back on the herbal sissy stuff, and feeling like a small flock of fairies decided to crawl on my face and stick tiny, invisible needles into my eye sockets during sleep.  I also had lots of water, and some chamomile tea, but I still feel like a warm piece of poop.  My metaphors have never been tighter.  I adore waking up earlier than I ever wanted to.  I also love feeling every tiny little cut on my hand as a result of the constant lemon juice I'm squeezing.  Nine more days of this shit?

More coming soon.  If I recall, the first three days are always the hardest. 

A child's dilemma

Today was a lovely day.  This past week hasn't been too busy at all, but in looking for things to write about, I invariably come up short.  It's strange to look at your life retrospectively while in the process of living it, with a mind to the events that could be useful or insightful.  I finished another book before the month changed, bringing my total up to 12 for the month of April.  I'm pretty impressed with myself, and will review the last book of the month shortly.

I've also been playing the guitar fairly frequently, (I'm sure) to the chagrin of all my neighbors.  I don't know if they like hearing She and Him and Deathcab for Cutie mutilated frequently with great abandon several times daily, but that's what happens when you live in an apartment.  I've also been going to the gym religiously, and using the time on the elliptical to digest various texts that have been on my To Read list.  I also made enough bread to feed a small army by the recipe detailed in the following video.  The bread turns out light and moist with a pleasant crust every time, and the recipe is super easy.

Go here for the recipe.  The video is pretty awesome, too.

Today was about as close to a perfect day as I could imagine, which is why I'm finally finding the time to blog about everything.  I met up with a good friend at one, and we spent the day together until around seven.  We went to the book store, did some shopping, got crepes, and talked for a long time in the sunshine.  It was super comfortable, and I feel as though we've never been as close as we got today.  I had an amazing day because of it. I also learned the American idiom "getting one's Irish up," which apparently means the same as "getting one's ire up."  Etymological similarities, anyone?

After meeting up with him, he needed to get back home, and I needed to meet my dad, which I've been putting off for one reason or another for about a week.  I finally got there, and found my little brother there as well.  Dad and I set out my brother's homework for him, and explained some aspects of it to him while sitting down to tea and conversation.  Within moments, there was an issue that involved throwing the homework to the side and staring blankly at the television, which was broadcasting some hockey event at maximum volume to drown out the ridiculous rap music of the neighbors'.  I don't understand why it's necessary to blare a rap song whose words are literally "I don't give a fuck" after dark.  As if that weren't all, they were intent on singing along, if you could call it that.  I digress.

After I attempted to explain the assignment to him one more time, he threw his cell phone at the floor in a huff, and stormed off to the other room.  I took the opportunity to relieve him of both his cell phone and his DS, which prompted an hour-and-a-half-long temper tantrum, the screams of which I refused to dignify with any response aside from "I can't hear you.  When your voice is as quiet as mine, we'll speak."  He took my car keys in an attempt to bargain, and if I weren't so caught up in the insanely psychotic silliness of it all, I would've found the opportunity to study the stages of grief fascinating on a micro scale.  Sometimes, I wonder about my own humanity.

Eventually, he calmed down enough to deal with the situation, finished his homework, and received his phone and gaming system back.  This was after he probably woke up every person in the neighborhood, threatened to kill himself out of desperation, and ran around screaming in pure frustration.  It's difficult to be a child, and from my experiences helping with the raising of my little brother, I think I've found that I either never want children, or will raise them in such a way that they'll never be exposed to video games.  Or caffeine.  Maybe I should convert to Mormonism.  Even better: I could be Amish.  I'd have to learn how to quilt, sew, and see without corrective lenses.  Maybe I'll get Lasik and then become Amish.  I have always wanted to learn German.

After playing my dad in chess, I drove home to watch The Green Hornet, finish off the last of my bread, and speak with my mom when she came home about the Jerry Springer episode my brother had pulled at Dad's.  Not that we discovered that anyone was sleeping with anyone else's cousin, farm animal, or blow up doll with the caveat of a pudding pool added for no particular reason.  At all.  Why would anyone assume that from the terminology I just used?  I just don't know about children these days.  The well-behaved ones all seem to be seriously disturbed, and the poorly-behaved ones are obviously flawed.  There are no perfect people, and no perfect children, but it always seems as though a little nudge in the right direction will get them where you want them to go.  I honestly don't know what to do about it.