Buena Vista At Night

How long do you think you can lie awake, staring at the lights glowing up from the town below your window, and contemplate what, exactly, you are supposed to be doing with your life?

How long, I mean, without swearing, crying, or resorting to immature name-calling.

The lights really are peaceful.

Because This Might Embarrass Her

A copy of the letter Bree left on my desktop before she and Kyle left on Spring Break (I offered to babysit their little love ferret):

"Betharoonie-


The Cheetah print key on your desk is the key to Kyle’s house. You know where he lives…

The furry fairy is in the first room at the top of the stairs. He is in the closet. You will see/smell him instantly. Please do not clean up any poopsies or anything. I seriously DO NOT expect you to do that. Just play with him for a bit, let him get some exercise. His food is in the closet too. And just make sure he has water. Like I said, if you miss a day, it is not the end of the world.

Kyle and I seriously appreciate this! You can call my cell if you have any questions…

Love your face off!!


Bree"




Things I Love About This Letter
1. Being addressed as Betharoonie.
2. There seriously is an honest-to-goodness cheetah print key sitting on my desk. It is just too perfect.
3. Poopsies. With the chinchillas it was "EWWWWWWW, POOOOOOOOP, get those monsters away from here, hiyah!" with that last exclamatory being made as we hiked them through the window. Without even waiting to open it. But now, poopsies. So cute.
4. She loves my face off. And there really is no better place for my face to be right now than off. (I may have been so tired I fell asleep without washing off my mascara, and now it may be caking the entire cheekular region of my face. Maybe.)
5. The ferret will probably die under my care.

More Personal Than a Face Shot

I really like the way dead wildflowers look.



Some other items of note on my desk:

The bottle of French mineral water Mike gifted to me.

The box of band-aids Mom bought for me that I've half used already.

A snowman cookie cutter full of plastic cases for the trinkets you get for a quarter from vending machines. Audrey and I spent something like four dollars on those.

A corner of the paper on my wall that says "Art was here," because he was. Once. And I was in the shower and missed it.

The Steelers bear Doodoo (nickname, seriously) won for me out of the Claw from my old job.

I've Got One Hand In My Pocket

I've been staying away purposely. When I'm too overwhelmed the very worst thing for me is to be confronted by a webpage that is quite thoroughly me. I want to avoid more me, and so with every line written by me, the progress of thoughts dictated by my whims, avoiding me on my blog is hard. And I've been a bit overwhelmed lately.

What with the fear I was going to be fired, and the fear I was going to be thrown in jail, which fear was supplanted by a newer, realer, and highly more irrational fear that I was going to be thrown in jail, and planning and cooking for one hundred starving, young people - but get this, I wasn't allowed to actually cook anything on location, only warm it up; yeah, it was a logistical feat, and tangling with a mother/daughter team at work who are so backhandedly mean to me that I'm torn between an intense desire to fire them and a very actual fear that they will corner me one night and beat me bloody, because that's how they roll, and I was agonizing over the situation with my boyfriend and finally broke up with him - and this was all in the last week and a half, or so.

But some happier things have happened, too. I didn't get thrown unceremoniously in some dank prison - so no file had to be baked into a cake for me, sadly, but my future also remains unruined, so, bonus. I have a new computer on its way to me. I found pants that fit me.

Little triumphs fit together keep me going. I was so looking forward to today, to an end of the almost crushing stress that I couldn't even talk about, couldn't let anyone know that I was so scared and probably going crazy, and then two hours into my freedom, something else comes along and smacks me off my feet.

To which I say: Do your worst. But not really, because spring break is coming up, and everyone will be in the warm, swarming beaches, and I will be begging and scrounging the way only I can beg and scrounge, and I just want to feel a little of that sand-between-my-toes-nap-on-a-towel-warm-ocean-breezes feeling. So. Do your sort of worst, but then stop there and maybe hand me an ice cream cone.

Sweet, I just found a Twix in my coat pocket.