Friday night at... work.

These are the evenings when, if not careful, I feel a little sorry for myself. Can't let it last too long.

A foggy, cold evening. Friend staying with me while taking a break (?) from her boyfriend, which is nice except that I'm not sure quite what our boundaries are all of the time. Slowly learning that everyone feels alone at the gaps in their lives; that everyone is reaching out for those ridiculous little connections that we think may change us for the better.

And, despite the fact that said friend staying with me sort of gives me a built-in social life for a week, which is fun in a slumber partyish way, I miss my evenings alone at the house. Good to know, perhaps, that I won't be willing to give them up for just anyone anymore. Hallelujah, maybe our little Ester is growing up.

Lonely last days of summer

Chaos seems to seep from everyone's pores these days. The last days of summer falling away, school starting, a wild energy in the air, the girls on campus so dressed up I have pangs of something close to lonliness remembering when that attention was just that important for me, too. Then maybe somewhere feeling like at times it still is.

And now I hear that there's coke everywhere in this town. I go on one little vacation and suddenly it's tearing through a corner of my group of friends. We're all connected in one way or another, through dating or work or whatever, and I find myself standing back going HOLY CRAP how did these people get so lost so fast? Most of them I don't hang out with anymore, but some of them still date or are close to people I'm very close to. Crazy, crazy stories of hotel rooms and crackheads and wait -- these people are in their mid-20's and they're doing WHAT? Christ.

I had my own experimentation with coke back in college. Had some of the darkest mornings of my life waking up from it. One of my closest friend's boyfriend stole money from her and hasn't been home for 3 days. Just like that. And those of us that aren't involved are suddenly distanced from them through the withusoragainstus drug thing, compounded by the fact that my ex is on that other side too, and all of us over here are bewildered, sad and angry. Lies are popping up like daisies and everyone just wants to cover it up and make it go away, but it doesn't seem like that's a possibility anywhere.

And my ex? The good memories are slipping away and all I can see is the angry person that was in front of me on Monday night, telling me how horrible I was throughout our relationship. Saying, "I'm FINE now, I'm GREAT," while wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

Even at work on a Wednesday night...

Even at work on a Wednesday night

there is something, somewhere to believe in.

Can't think of a good heading.

I'm eating cottage cheese, and I can't tell if it's slightly rancid or just tastes funny. This is very sad to say, but I've been looking forward to this cottage cheese for a few hours now and am feeling a bit peeved that it's not just the most amazing cottage cheese in the whole wide world.

Today has been hard. I'm still recovering from a big old fever/ache-y sickness thing, but have, for the most part, actually been in good spirits as of late. Had just the best time out last night with a few friends, even though I knew I was overdoing it a bit. This morning a friend calls, she's going through the same crap that I was a month ago. Boyfriend is being irresponsible, making bad decisions, turning a cold shoulder on the relationship and consequences of said irresponsibility. She's trying to decide what to do. After a long talk we head back to our cars; hers has a flat. And, of course, neither of us can remember how to change a tire from experience, because we're AWESOME, so we have to have a guy-friend walk us through it. I learned how to change a tire when I was just starting out driving, but that was over 8 years ago. And the only flats I've gotten were slow leaks when I was only a couple of blocks away from a mechanic. But now I know. Just wish it hadn't been really, really hot out while the lesson was being conducted.

I've loved cottage cheese ever since I made the childhood connection that my bedroom ceiling and my lunch looked exactly the same. Perhaps I was just looking for that simple bond of familiarity today, but no such luck. Good thing a co-worker *just* brought me an apple from the tree outside of her house. That's so rad. My day, it turneth around.

Yipes!

I have just realized that I, like most of my female friends, am starting to notice things about me that are EXACTLY like my mother. I know this is probably a gendered topic worn thin, but it is *scary* when it happens to you personally.

Case in point: I have a compulsion to eat free food, even if it's really weird or icky. I haven't even eaten half the food that's been in my cupboards since I graduated college. When I moved out of my place with M, I was picking through cans of chicken soup that had come with us from California a year before. And yet, if someone is going to throw out some leftover chicken pesto pasta thing, I am ALL OVER IT.

We get a lot of scraps from events at my work. Fruit trays with only the grapes left, half-soggy cookies, 6,000 cheddar cheese cubes but no crackers, etc. And I will pick through all of it. Even if I brought something totally normal for lunch.

This freaks me out because there's something both cheap and creepy about this compulsion. Like an "I have to eat that before someone else does" thing. As the eldest child in the family, I think you take on this weird survivalist mentality when a younger sibling enters the picture. My mom was a first-born, too.

Bad realization: Now that I am staying with my mother, I may be more susceptible to taking on her OCD behavior. Help.

Good realization: I refuse to get into her "calories don't exist if you're eating off someone else's plate" crap. Or any of her weird stuff like that. Diets freak me out. Such feminized bullshit crap. Half the country is going through a drive-through for breakfast and the other half feels guilty eating a waffle.

Huh. I sound pissy. Kind of out of nowhere. I don't really care that much if people diet as long as it's not some big fad thing, or motivated by the wrong reasons. I think this break-up is bringing out some bitterness. I hope it's not my belligerently feminist past back to haunt me. I saw enough of that me in college.

Speaking of, I saw a lot of college me memories the other night. A lovely friend and I traversed our old campus, "breaking" (okay, just wandering) into buildings and seeking out freshman year dorm rooms and the like. Too bad I'm too messed up to date right now. It would be awesome to have a make-out session in a dorm room again.

It's all about defining definition.

Okay. Here's the story. This is my third goddamn blog. I am 26 years-old, just out of a long relationship and trying to keep my sanity via writing.

My ex knew about the first blog, and I accidentally linked the first to the second, so for all I know he's read that one, too. There's nothing wrong or evil or bad in them. But he's looking to be angry at me, and hearing that some days I'm okay and amazed at some little thing that happened in my life and that some days I'm just not up for rehashing the knowledge that I've hurt him, well, it just all gets a little complicated.

Relationships are all about definitions. I'm just now trying to work out what mine are and which ones got all mudded up by someone else. We humans are all ridiculous, eh?

Amazing thing of the day: my dog. She's so rad. When she smiles she gets dimples.

Another day

Another bloggah.

Discovery breeds discontent, it seems. And I never meant to hurt anyone. I am only looking for a space to call home. For the me that spills from my fingers and writes in bad poetics and is tired of apologizing and just wants to laugh until my head falls off.

So there. Yah. Hooah.