Tom in his new car today

I am so in love with this guy. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Technical difficulties

I was scheduled to give a 10 minute presentation this morning in my networking group. I made a PowerPoint that I was so excited about... I went and got slide handouts printed onto bright orange paper (with Tom. late at night. oh yeah. lol jk we were dead tired)

Thank goodness my Mom urged me to have a Plan B...

The dumb LCD projector didn't work! I am sure it was something totally simple and easy to solve, too, because it worked for a second but then wouldn't come back and I didn't have enough time to figure it out. Oh well. At least it got me to finally put together a PowerPoint for my business, but man it was really unflashy and boring doing the whole thing from handouts. I guarantee you people would've been way more attentive and fascinated if I had kept them in suspense from one custom animation to the next! Sigh.

So Tom and I are getting pretty serious. I've had guys say serious things to me before, but Tom actually means it, so that's new. We are miserably sad about having to spend the next 2 weeks apart. We're preparing for it by spending every minute together which is devastating my work productivity - niiice! Well I would say more on here but really this isn't blog material, is it now...

The difference

The difference between guys and girls, I'm discovering, is that when a girl goes to buy clothes... she tries to get into the smallest size possible. She will do everything in her power to be able to buy and wear the smallest size she can.

A guy, on the other hand, has no problem getting an XXL whether he needs it or not. lol

Meeting the fish in the sea

Sorry to all my fans (okay, just Micah) who have missed me lately and caused a big commotion about my lack of blogliness. Honestly I've been busy making out and otherwise negotiating a love triangle. hehe.

Post a personals ad on Craig's list and you are sure to have an adventure.

Blondes have more... sketch

I don't trust guys with blond hair.

Strange but true. lol

Loveology, Forgive-me-ology

Listen to this song, "Loveology" by Regina Spektor. (It will take a minute to download... be patient.)

Oh, an incurable humanist you are.

Let's go to the movies,
I will hum you a song about nothing at all

Let's go to the movies, Let's go to the movies,
Nothing at all, Nothing at all, Nothing at all, Nothing at all.

Oh, An incurable humanist you are.

Let's go to the movies,
I will hum you a song about nothing at all

Let's go to the movies,
I will sing you a song about nothing at all

Let's go to the movies, Let's go to the movies,
Nothing at all, Nothing at all, Nothing at all, Nothing at all.

Sit down class, open up your textbooks to page 42.

Porcupine-ology, antler-ology, car-ology, bus-ology, train-ology, plane-ology, mama-ology, papa-ology,you-ology, me-ology, love-ology, kiss-ology, stay-ology, please-ology.

Let's study class, let's study class. Sit down.

Love-ology, love-ology, I'm sorry-ology, forgive me-ology, love-ology, love-ology, I'm sorry-ology, forgive me-ology, love-ology, Love-ology.

Let's study class, let's study class.

Love-ology. Let's study class, sit down.

Love-ology, love-ology, I'm sorry-ology, forgive me-ology, love-ology, love-ology. I'm sorry-ology, forgive me-ology, love-ology, Love-ology.

Love-ology

Oh, an incurable humanist you are
Oh, forgive me, Oh, forgive me, Oh.
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me-ology

Sad to be leaving

Well now that it's 9:58pm on the night before I fly out of Minnesota, I'm sad to be leaving. I'm really sad. It sucks saying goodbye. Just typing this makes tears start to come to my eyes. I know my Mom will cry tomorrow, just for a second, but she'll cry. And I'll know that it's okay that I'm leaving, but it still sucks living far from my family. And yet it really makes no sense at all for me to be here. I guess I could have bigger problems... I mean I love my family, we're constantly connected by phone, I see them a few times a year, and I have great opportunities that cause me to live a couple plane rides away. I am doing fine. It's just that people are the most important. And... well... I don't know if any of you have experienced this... I know Amanda has... but when you come home and you can visit friends or family, though you really want to visit your friends, there is something sacred about your family. Friends, as they say, honestly do come and go. They let you down. Well family can let you down too, but they don't disappear. Each time I've come back to Minnesota, I've spent less time with my friends and more with my family.

The people you love - be it blood-related family or church family or just true friends or whatever - people are pretty much everything.

A trippy walk down memory lane

Swimming through memories can be a little unsettling, almost like self-induced vertigo.

Today I decided to take down the 8 or so boxes my Mom had neatly packed away in the top of my bedroom closet at home. (There are lots of other boxes with childhood toys and keepsakes - but these boxes were school papers and other more recent things.)

I had 4 shoeboxes completely packed with handwritten letters, mostly from 7th grade (when I first moved away from friends and home as I knew it, from Kansas to South Dakota) to college. It's amazing but the switch from handwritten letters to emails as the predominant or default form of communication took place not very long ago at all. Sure, it depends on who you are, how much you use computers, and what area of the country and world you live in, but for me... the switch took place probably around 1998 or 1999. It probably became official in college when I had to email to keep in touch with everyone in my previous life.

Anyway, looking through these letters was fun, surreal, and creepy. Who is the me who wrote those letters? I'm still me, but so changed.

Also, it's amazing how you forget who the people were who kept in touch with you. It shocked me to be confronted with the evidence that certain people wrote letter after letter after letter to me. From Kansas, there was Erin and Ianne and Amanda. From South Dakota, Katryna of course and Keisha and Katrina. From Minnesota well... no one really, but lots of graduation announcements and parties. Hah. From the internet? TONS of online friends who became "real life pen-pals" to me. Ibrahim from the UAE, Amir from Israel, James from Georgia, Joseph from Massachusetts, Mike from Minnesota... the list goes on forever! Ben from DC wrote me until he got engaged - he had very pretty handwriting. Susan also wrote and still does. Oh and how could I forget Meghan, my coolest internet friend who then came to visit me in Minnesota. I had a ridiculously strong correspondence network the summer I was a camp counselor in Pennyslvania - I had my entire freshman floor writing to me. And from each camp I went to or trip I took, it seems I kept in touch with at least one person for months or years afterwards. What a crazy network of people... and each of them has changed me even if I can't remember or see how.

But really more than fun, throwing away all these letters (and salvaging a few things like photos and postcards) was a little depressing. I don't know why. I guess it's that I don't like to have baggage. I like to travel light on this journey. I like to keep moving forward. I could never have decided to read through all those letters, let alone keep them. They found their way to trash bags. It's hard throwing away your history, but harder still, I think, to hang on to it.

Trust

Trust is a really difficult thing, I mean in the beginning stages of a relationship. I am a naturally trusting person. I not only wear my heart on my sleeve, I kind of throw it at someone. lol I'm trying to be better about that but it's hard. Guarding your heart is very difficult, and you have to walk the fine line between guarding your heart and giving it away to the right person at the right time. I mean, I think if you guard it and hold on to it too much, you will miss life, or at the very least, you will miss the most exciting (and sweetest) parts of a relationship.

I guess I trust people because I want to believe the best about them, and I want to take ahold of the best thing for me. But sometimes, no matter how perceptive you are about people, you can misjudge. Or it may not even be a matter of misjudging a person - they just may fail you or otherwise let you down.

I always thought all these adult songs about being hurt in the past and letting that or not letting that affect a current chance at love were so... over the top. But really that is the biggest thing single people deal with, at least from my perspective.

Do people who get married feel a surge in trust? It seems in our society, marriage is no longer the trust seal that it once was. I'm sure it depends on the person... I hope the relationship I'm in - or whatever permanent relationship I find myself in - gets to the point where Ijust totally don't even think about trust anymore. That would be such a relief. Is it safe to get to that point? Can you really expect someone to offer you unconditional love? Can you really expect yourself to offer it to someone? For sanity, I think we have to find a way to be in that place. At least for me personally, that's a safe place that I can't live without. I have one version of it with my immediate family (parents, etc.) and now I'm at the age of needing it in another way.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on love and trust today. Thank you. Haha. :)

Bring it on home to me

My favorite song right now... I don't care if it's cliche, this is my love language!!! lol

Bring It On Home
(Little Big Town)

You got someone here wants to make it all right
Someone who loves you more than life right here...
You got willing arms that'll hold you tight
A hand to lead you on through the night right here...

I know your heart can get all tangled up inside
But don't you keep it to yourself

When your long day is over
And you can barely drag your feet
The weight of the world is on your shoulders
I know what you need - bring it on home to me.

You know I know you like the back of my hand
And you know I'm gonna do all that I can right here
Gonna lie with you till you fall asleep
When the morning comes, I'm still gonna be right here, yes I am

Take your worries and just drop them at the door
Baby, leave it all behind

When your long day is over
And you can barely drag your feet
The weight of the world is on your shoulders
I know what you need - bring it on home to me.

Baby, let me be your safe harbor
Don't let the water come and carry you away

When your long day is over
And you can barely drag your feet
The weight of the world is on your shoulders
I know what you need - bring it on home to me.

Only one 4-letter word

I think this song is somewhat genius. Haha.

Love You
Jack Ingram

Dang the sun, dang this day
And I'm just tryin to stay outta your danged ol' way
To heck with this, to heck with us
And shoot if I'll ever look back on where I've been
Shoot if I'll ever give away my heart again

Love you, love this town
Love this mother-lovin' truck that keeps breakin' lovin' down
There's only one four-letter word that'll do:
Love you

Love your cat, love this house
Well, I can't believe myself that I'm lovin' gettin' out
Love talkin, love fightin'
Thought of never seein' your lovin' face
There's some words that some words just have to replace

Love you, love this town
Yeah, I'm sick and lovin' tired of all your lovin' around
There's only one four-letter word that'll do
Love you

Love you, love this town
Yeah, I'm sick and lovin' tired of all your lovin' around
There's only one four-letter word that'll do:
Love you

Love you, love this town
Love this mother-lovin' truck that keeps breakin' lovin' down
There's only one four-letter word that'll do:
Love you
Love you
Love you
Love you, honey

Finally got some JUICE in tha hizzy

So after I wrote the last post and continued to play the day away, my computer stopped charging. The power cord got very fussy and had to be held into the back of the laptop at a particular angle. I could handle that, until it stopped cooperating entirely. My crappy Acer battery continued to lose power at warp-speed until like 15% remained. Well, now that I'm in the middle of this story, I realize that it's long and boring so I'll spare you. Suffice it to say my computer has been dead for 7 days while I have waited for Acer to send me the RIGHT power cord! I feel bad I gave the customer service guy such a hard time yesterday but they really were being loserish with me. The whole tense phone conversation made me realize that, in some deep subconscious recess in my mind, all phone calls to corporations involving customer service reps, terrible hold music, and inept attempts to solve problems are grouped together in this massive "I HATE COMPANIES" category. The effect is that whenever I call any company, and have to wait for more than 1 minute, and have a less-than-perfect experience, the most violent and uncontrollable anger is stirred up from within my being. lol I mean I'm half-joking but it's half-true.

It's like in Crash, which Amanda and I watched again the other night. You know how Sandra Bullock's character is such a... and near the end, she realizes her anger is chronic. She says, everyday I wake up everyday like this and I don't know why. I can relate to that 100%. That is my last year in DC. It was primarily my job and the traffic, but it's also primarily the way I handle stress (which is badly). I was always angry. Anything can set you off and make you cry.

Anyway I'm not like that now, though I am struggling to handle normal, everyday stress in a healthy way (but you know that from my earlier post). Honestly I would love like... a 2 month retreat from just absolutely everything. And I do mean everyTHING and everyONE. I don't see how that is going to happen, though.

I'm going home for 2 weeks this month, and I am tempted to make it even longer.

Part of what's been happening in the last month to cause the blog absence is that I met a guy, thought I fell in love, was on cloud nine, and then he fell off the face of the earth. I don't understand guys at all. You wouldn't believe the serious type stuff he said not only to me, but to my friends as well, and yet he just dropped off all contact... so bizarre. I feel sooooooo puzzled. And of course I can appreciate the whole "he's just not that into you" theory. It's probably true in this case. I'm not a stupid or desperate girl... I can realize when the connection is just lost. But the two times I explicitly said, "I guess you are trying to tell me, through your actions, that we are over" ... he pleaded with me saying that no it wasn't, it was just circumstances, and I was the one thing he wanted in his life. Then nothing.

Again, I don't understand guys. I'm just trying to move on from that.... I'm sad for the loss but on the other hand, I deserve much, much, much, much, much better treatment than that.

And work has been really busy...

And also I moved this past weekend. So many friends helped me... I am so grateful. On the other hand though, moving apartments when you live alone can be very lonely. I am fine but the feeling comes and goes throughout the whole process. There are an infinite number of details to take care of when you move, and when you're alone, you have to think of and do them all yourself. I am glad for my independence but there's definitely times of loneliness.

So here I am today... moving on from the love of my life who turned out to not be... lol... and the move which has been exhaustingggggg.... and finally having my computer back after 7 days and feeling very overwhelmed by all the emails and projects staring back at me.

Jesus.

Where'd you go?

I love the song and video for Where'd You Go (Fort Minor). Wow. It's really powerful.

Pumping someone else's blood

This is how it works:
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works:
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some...
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You just do it all again...

(Regina Spektor, On the Radio)

Next time

I will guard my heart.
I will guard my heart.
I WILL guard my heart next time.

:(