curious.

being home forces me to constantly reminisce about my past life, b/c i am constantly being bombarded with items that remind me of it.

my mom handed me a box the other day and asked me to go through it and throw away the silly things i didn't need anymore.

i found a number of emails from my first "boyfriend" [i use the term loosely here, for i'm fairly certain the extent of our relationship was said emails and misc. notes passed in the hallway. thrilling.]. they complained that i never talked about my feelings, he never knew what i was thinking, i needed to open up, etc. granted, we were 14.

however, i also found notes from my sophomore year of high school from a different guy that said he didn't understand me b/c i never talked to him. what was i thinking? how did i feel?

curious that i would find these things b/c i have always thought myself to be someone that talks almost incessantly about how i feel, what's going on in my head, etc.

is it possible that i used to be so closed off that these relationships changed who i was? if they wouldn't've complained to me, would i not be so... emotional? or, rather, willing to discuss said emotions?

anyone that knows me now would say i'm a talker. an over-analyzer. i'm 98% positive that my last boyfriend would laugh in my face if i told him that i used to never talk about my feelings.

curious.

winter wonderland.

i'm really loving the snow when i have nothing to do, nowhere to go, noone to see. everytime it's snowed prior to today i could never really enjoy it - i was either at work, or had somewhere to be and didn't want to worry about driving in it. however, now that i can call myself a snow day and watch it from my own windows, it really is beautiful.



i can't figure out how people live without all four seasons. seems like a waste.



to grow up without snow days? without the thrill of weekends on hills, sledding until an adult forced you to leave?
















i wish i still had snow pants; i think i'd be up for some snow angels today.

...and to all a good night.

my top three christmas gifts this year:

1. a gps. [!] oh-so exciting. i can't wait to go anywhere at all so i can try it out.

2. a book - the only one on my list this year. "Other People's Love Letters". compiled by a former editor of life magazine, it is a collection of actually love letters - emails, hand-written napkins, typed letters, misc. cards. anyone that knows me understands two things about me: 1. i am pretty nosy. 2. i am in love with love. both are married in this book and i absolutely cannot get enough of it. it's pretty much a dream come true for me - to be able to look at notes written to other people that were never meant to be seen by anyone else. the introduction alone made me fall in love with it. it makes me look at my own letters, both received and sent, in a completely different way. [insert dreamy sigh here]:(

3. my grandpa's story about two 72-ish year old women at the elderly home he lives at fighting over him. he is 91, and got a woman 20 years younger than him to look at another woman and say, "stay away from my man!" i've never laughed so hard in my life. i realize this is not an under-the-tree-type present, but it was a gift just the same. side note: although the story was extremely entertaining, it left me with a sad feeling inside that life really never gets any easier. all my grandpa wanted to do was eat some chili with maryann, because shirley didn't like chili. shirley promptly got angry and called out maryann. i sincerely hope that 50 years from now i find a bit more peace.

merry late christmas. i hope it was grand.

good.

i had a good night.

i say it simply because it surprises me still, after having an hour or so to mull it over.

i feel bad that i didn't give my ex-boyfriend enough credit in my head. i assumed that, like his cordial, pleasantry-filled email, he would be an odd, closed-off version of himself when i saw him for the first time in almost... well, i just looked at a calendar and it's been three months to the day. it feels like a hell of a lot longer. maybe my math is incorrect.

regardless, he was able to remind me why we were what we were; why we got along so well outside of a relationship context. we are good together as friends. we've always been easy friends. it's just that everything else was too hard.

i think the day i saw him fell at a time in my life where i am satisfied and comfortable. if it would have happened any earlier, i'm not sure i would have been able to handle it with such... aplomb. but i believe i have had enough time to start figuring out my life that it was easier to accept, move on, and be happy. for both of us.

i am happy to say i am on my way. moving ahead. i wasn't sure... i assumed that there would be a possibility that all of the work i've put into moving past the past would be squashed by the mere sight of him. alas, i am still alive, in one piece, mental stability exactly where it was prior to paddy's pub. i didn't give myself enough credit either.

it's good. really good. i regret thinking that he would be anything less than what he was. i miss him as my easiest friend. probably will for a super long time. but it's a relief to know that the possibility of an okay status between us exists. and i'm glad i know that if i ever run into him again, it won't be nearly half as terrible as i was anticipating.

i like to think that maybe, now, if we ever reach friendship status, i will get offered the last grape in the bowl if i visit someday? :)

pleasantries.

i am mildly annoyed and not looking forward to the cordial pleasantries i will have to withstand this week from my once-boyfriend.

i know that


he will always be someone different than everyone else in my life, and i hope that i will be the same.







update: the above is a draft of a post i began writing last week. it's mildly poetic, what with the unfinished sentence and all. even though it could all connect, it is simply a half-deleted, or half-written statment. i remember i wrote, deleted, wrote. wrote paragraphs followed by paragraphs before deciding it stupid and unfit to be posted. i was angry after receiving the first email from him in months upon months.

i got an email tonight that made me happy, but also extremely sad. for these conflicting emotions, i post the unfinished pleasantry-criticism above in an act of artistic... angst.

he really always was such a genuinely nice person. it was such a nice email. i will probably love him forever. don't tell anyone.

wallowing in self pity.

i'm tired of thinking about things in my life that i should have done differently, that should have gone differently, wondering why people are such idiots... i'm emotionally exhausted. i need to get over myself. stat.

i'm so over the feeling that someone is sitting on me every moment of my life. i would like to breathe freely for more than one day straight.

i'm tired of having dreams filled with my ex-boyfriend. i would prefer to go back to the scary, disturbing dreams i used to hope and pray went away.

i'm tired of thinking about the future of my life. and people asking where i want to get a job. i have no idea, although i would prefer not to move somewhere alone, for i fear i would have a breakdown if i didn't know anyone besides my coworkers. in a perfect world i would be offered a job in the district i student teach in and not worry about it for a year or two. alas, this is no perfect world.

i'm tired of being angry, which is like a defense against being sad, an emotion i am also so over. i'm sick of being annoyed. bleeccccchhhhhhhhh.

i'm tired of not snuggling! i miss snuggling. i feel like my body is shutting down because it hasn't gotten enough love and affection the past two and a half months. i need a hug.

on an upside, i used the snow day today to watch harry potter 5 on my couch, take a three hour nap, and spend a 40% off coupon online. although all good things, they for sure don't make up for a snuggle-free lifestyle.

highlight of your day?

mine was being told that i was being "played like a fiddle."

amusing while being mildly offensive.

on an unrelated note: i can't WAIT to be done with the responsibilities of school for a while! i had lunch with a couple fellow teachers-to-be and one observed that classes seem silly the more experience we get actually participating in working with students. so true.

i have two classes tomorrow. one wednesday. i have a pass/fail group discussion as a final on friday morning, and some sort of lame story to write up next wednesday morning at 745 that isn't a test, and i am done until january 28th, when i start in new berlin. the only things i have left to accomplish outside of class are: calling my cooperating teacher to set up a meeting and applying for graduation. relief begins to set in...

i'm sure i'll be reading and preparing lessons all break, but it's a good feeling that i will have over a month to do so.

i've been kind of bummed/stressed out about life lately, and i will be glad to switch environments for a while. the end of the semester came at a good time.

directionless.

i asked for a gps for a graduation present in the spring, but i'm fairly certain i should have been gifted one when i passed my drivers test.

i have never, ever, been able to find my way around. when i was in high school it was definitely due to lack of trying, b/c i would stash hand-drawn maps to each of my friends' houses in my glove compartment and rely on them the first 47 times i went to see them, or pick them up, and consequently i never learned anything because i knew i could just verify where i was going on my map.

nowadays i just genuinely never know how to get anywhere, ever. i don't know any directions - if you ask me what compass direction i live in waukesha, as some sunday regulars at kahuna's did, i have to shrug and explain that i can't even point out east unless the sun is rising. if i drive somewhere once, i will not be able to go back home without a map or directions, even though i just drove there.

what is the museum curator's name in the third indiana jones movie? a friend called me by his name for a solid month because that guy was said to "get lost in his own museum."

i went to madison a couple weeks ago and had to hang up my phone mid-drive, explaining that i needed to concentrate on where i was on the freeway. the person on the other end laughed and said it was just an exit off of the freeway, no big deal, to which i patiently explained that i can barely find the bathroom in my apartment, let alone a road i need to be on.

i have no idea how i am so directionally challenged, but i hate it. i hate the uneasy feeling of not knowing where i am or where my destination is.

i got lost in the streets of lacrosse last night, scared that i would be wandering around until i somehow stumbled into the river. i was not drunk enough to not be terrified that i was lost in a random city, and got sincerely upset about it. luckily, i found my way eventually and convinced everyone to go home because i was so traumatized.

on my drive home today i missed my exit. i was probably so focused on passing people, while cursing under my breath at the slow drivers in the left hand lane, that i stopped paying attention. if i had a gps system, at least i would have heard a voice encouraging me to make the next legal u-turn, for i had passed my destination exit.

i drove 12 exits past my exit, because it took me a solid three or four just to make sure i was, in fact, going the wrong way, and that the exit numbers were indeed increasing when i needed them to be doing the opposite.

i was proud of myself for managing to get off the freeway and back on going the correct direction.

i rely far too heavily on friends and people i date. i don't know what i would do if i started dating someone that didn't know their way around. to be honest, i would be annoyed and add it to a list of qualities i could do without in a mate. it's always been a very comforting feeling, most likely because i am unable to navigate three blocks away from my apartment, so when someone can direct me, or knows where i am or how to get me home when i am lost... well, there's a security of sorts in that.

ugh. maybe if i'm really good santa will bring me a fail-safe gps for christmas, and i can start directing everyone for a change.

i like josh groban.

i really do. i am officially a nerd.

i went home today to do laundry and avoid the work that i should have been doing. [like finishing my phase three portfolio, which seems like way too much work with far too much riding on it...] while i was home, i managed to go to target to one-stop shop for things like those new metal removable hooks [SUCH a great invention to start with, and now they're pretty?! fabulous.], a binder, a thank-you card, and a new love actually dvd since my old one, probably purchased the tuesday it came out, has disappeared.

after my target expedition, i began to peruse my mom's cd "collection" [in quotes because her cds number about 25, and include things like whitney houston's debut, hall and oates, about six luthur vandross cds... the soundtrack from cats... it's just not extensive. or interesting.] in attempts of discoving some classic bing crosby christmas music i was in the mood for. i found four or five classic celine dion cds that used to burn my ears when i was younger [and when they were on cassette tape] but i find myself enjoying unapologetic 90s music lately. i grabbed them to listen, and came across three josh groban cds. i didn't even know that he had three cds, let alone that my mom owned them all, although i vaguely remember buying at least two of them for her, if not all three.

i used to find him lame, and perhaps a bit boring, but i think that i just tense up at the thought of being forced to listen/watch/do anything that i have not thought of, and giving him a listen on my own i find myself taking deep breaths and relaxing a little more.

i haven't been sleeping lately due to the stress of a seemingly unmanigable list of things to do and finish, and some of his music calms me down in a way that other mainstream music can't do.

i was instructed to get my mom his christmas cd and give it to her before christmas. i think i may burn that, too. silent night will never have sounded more soothing.

here's to josh groban. and songs like "lullaby" featuring ladysmith black mambazo:)

misc. thought.

a very early sex and the city episode came on tonight about having sex like a man, i.e. casual, emotionless, meaningless sex.

a friend of mine claimed, after bringing up my then-recent breakup one evening, that i would be so hard-up for sex in a few months that i would "bang" anything.

i find it hard to believe that women can ever be like guys when it comes to these things. at least speaking for myself. i understand that not all guys are like this, i mean, i hope that not all guys are like this, and it's obnoxious that my friend tried to convince me they were, but it irritates me more that he tried to tell me that all girls were the same.

i can see everyone missing it a little bit when they don't have it at the ready, but missing it and being willing to take home any "sea creature you find at the bar" are two completely different things.

only one person has ever been in my bed, and i feel as though it's just not a random place. it's kind of nice, because he was the only one that ever mattered, and i can't see anyone else being invited anytime soon.

it makes me hyperventilate a little when i think about all of the guys that actually would stick it into any warm hole they come across.

i can understand those that go through a phase, but i just don't think i could do it, and it irritates me that someone can claim that i am one of them. get over it.

ugg-tastic.

i have officially dusted off my trusty uggs for the season. most people, more boys than girls, have problems with them, and i get made fun of at least once a day when i wear them. alas, they are unimaginably warm and comfortable... like a slipper that is acceptable to wear outside. consequently, as long as there is snow on the ground, i will continue to wear them.

my 68 year old journalism professor asked me today if they came in men's sizes. i hope that if they do, he does not venture out to buy some. "i've heard they're very warm," he said. i looked down at mine and tried to picture him in a pair. it made me smile to myself.

i've been forced to take them off when i visit friends and been blatently laughed at. i once ran into a classmate that stopped me in sentry to chat, whose name i had never learned. he was very nice, and all i came away with afterwards was how bad i felt about the fact that i didn't know his name. i visited friends after the incident and they quipped, "he was hitting on you in sentry. it must have been the boots."

i used to hate the boots on principle, i.e. "those are soooo last season." sigh. i moved on, aquired a pair, and wish i could wear them everyday... with the exception of spring, summer and fall. miniskirts and uggs, i will admit, is a style i've never warmed to.

i will wear my boots proudly tomorrow, as i trek to the library to work on my phase three portfolio, and i will notice eyes move down to judge them on my way. if only their feet were as snuggly as mine will be.


side note: i found out i will be student teaching next semester at new berlin west middle/high school. i have to add calling my new cooperating teacher to my list of things to do. wish me luck - i'm already nervous.