I Love You

A dear friend of mine lost three of her family members in a single accident. It’s hard to get my head around this.

I sat my kiddo down when I heard the news. “You know I love you, right?” She nodded and I continued, “Even when I’m a jerk, even when you’re a jerk, I love you every day, all day long, okay?”

…And so this is for all of you: my family, my friends, my friends who are family, my great loves past, present, and future, and even to those from all categories who’ve already left this life. I love you.

I love you on the days we gather to celebrate, and I love you on the days when we gather to mourn. I love you when you’re being an asshole and can’t decide what you want for dinner. I love you when I’m being a jackass and want to eat peanut butter out of the jar.

I love you when I like your posts on Facebook. I still love you when I haven’t been on Facebook for a while. I love you when you remember Halloween is my favorite time of year, and I love you when I tolerate your excitement over snow and eggnog.

I love you when you text me stupid things to make me laugh. I love you when I forget to text you back. I love you when we have adventures. I love you when I’m antisocial and want to be left the hell alone.

I love you even when I haven’t seen you in a long time, even a really long time. I love you when I send you snail mail. I love you when I forget to mail the card.

I love you when you don’t know what to say. I love you every time you say the most perfect thing, and even when you’re eating crow.

I love you for letting me have the apple butter…all the apple butter. I love you for showing up when you say you will. I love you because you don’t get flustered when I want to drive everywhere we go.

I love you for bringing me coffee at work. I love you for your innuendos. I love you for your character. I love you for accepting my weirdness without flinching.

I love you for hugging me even on days when hugs freakin’ creep me out. I love you for knowing when it’s a terrible idea to try to hug me.

I love you for sharing music with me. I love you for sharing books with me. I love you even when your books and music totally suck.

I love you for sharing secrets with me. I love you even though you think I don’t know all your secrets…but I do, and I’m still here.

I love you because we laugh together. I love you because you quote song lyrics and movies right along with me. I love you when we make crafts, food, and messes together.

I love you for taking care of me when I’m too stubborn to ask for help. I love you for letting me take care of you, for letting me buy your coffee sometimes.

I love you when you do stupid things. I love you when you should know better. I love you when I’m rolling my eyes at the dumbest joke I’ve ever heard.

I love you when you achieve your goals. I love you when you fall flat on your face. I love you for encouraging me. I love you for supporting me even when I’ve been an idiot.

I love you when you don’t love yourself. I love you on your bad hair days. I love you on my bad hair days, and there are a lot of those.

Every day. All day. Cliché? Yeah, maybe. You are part of the shiny strands that are woven together to make up the wild and beautiful spider web of my life. Thank you.

It’s Time

The leaves are beginning to turn.
There’s a chill in the morning air.
Pumpkins.
Pumpkin everything everything everything–where’s my latte?
Halloween decorations.
Apple picking.
Fuzzy socks.
Flannel.
Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Fall.
My favorite time of year stretches from my birthday into November. Good time of year for walks outside, road trips with the windows down. A time of change as we transition into the cozy confines of winter.

Thoughts

I know you hated him. I know you, you right there, didn’t like him, either. As I was drifting off to sleep a couple nights ago, I remembered a moment.

We were somewhere lovely sitting in lounge chairs. We were watching the airplanes come in over the bay in the distance. He would identify the airline by the colors on the plane, and if he couldn’t identify it, he was looking them up online. He would identify the type of plane, too, and tell me something about it. That was it, you know, the part you never saw…the eager curiosity, the delight in sharing something he knew with me. It was pure and sweet and one of the reasons we clicked: unabashed enthusiasm for the whole wide world that we lived in.

I hadn’t thought of the time spent watching airplanes in who knows how long. It doesn’t change how you feel or how anything played out, but there’s always more to what you see on the surface. When I love with a love that is more than a love (yeah, I just ripped off Poe there), it’s not worship of empty vessels or attaching myself to any ol’ man. I have my reasons to stay, and I have my reasons to go, and seldom are any of the reasons public and obvious. I’m not a Kardashian, spilling my guts in a reality show in a non-stop awkward overshare. I’m an introverted writer who likes for the feelings to be on the downlow, yo.

a moment of gratitude

i’m sitting in a hotel room, gazing out at the mountains that surround downtown Salt Lake City. i’m here for work, resting in the loveliest of hotels.

i am blessed, and i want to give thanks. i am doing work that i feel good about with a great organization. i have the best of friends looking out for me in the world. i have love and happiness and all the really great stuff that can’t be bought.

the road to this place in my life has been fucking hard, ya’ll. i am so pleased and happy to be in a good spot right now. my gratitude is enormous.

Breaking Benjamin

In between my three jobs, I did manage to go see Breaking Benjamin’s acoustic show with one of my homeboys. AWESOME awesome awesome.
They sounded great! Loved their cover of “Would.”
Someone’s pretty good video from The Orange Peel of “So Cold:”

Next show: Slayer!
SLAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

I should do it more often…say thanks, that is, to the awesome folks who make sure that this website is on a functional server out there in cyberland…to the patient soul who listens to me when I’m like “MY SITE IS DOWN! MY ONE READER CAN NOT GET ONLINE!”
Thanks, James; thanks, Blue Dozen Design. Thanks. You are the wind beneath my blogging wings.

New Gig

Training for new gig.
Still weirdly missing aspects of old gig.
When I run out of yerba mate, I can’t walk down the hall and ask Grumpy Cat if she has more in her well-stocked desk drawer. I can’t visit Daisy to ponder how we can start a side business and work for ourselves. Since I don’t go anywhere all day, I, umm, don’t go anywhere all day, so that’s kind of weird; it’s good, but it’s also weird.
In positive news, I work 8 hours, give or take a few minutes, and that’s it. I am not on call. I get to eat lunch every day. I work 5 days. No one expects me to check emails on my days off. That is pretty dang awesome after about a decade and a half of being on call, on demand, non stop, even on vacay.
Such ridiculousness I endured…and for what? No fanfare on my last day. I kept thinking someone might bring by flowers or something…and nothing. No one walked me out the door. No one waved farewell. The door locked behind me and that was that.

What I Do When I See a Bear

Ever wondered what you might do if you saw a big ol’ bear lumbering around your neighborhood in broad daylight?

Here’s precisely what I did:

Freak the hell out and text a bunch of people. Drive to new place. Text more people. Freak the hell out for a while longer. Contemplate moving away. Answer texts about why I did not take photos (BECAUSE IT WAS A BEAR! A BEAR!). Add bears to my list of fears along with clowns, aliens, dolls. Answer a few more texts (Yes, I am sure it was a bear). Drive back home warily on Bear Watch. Lock doors and peer out windows cautiously so any lurking bears can’t make eye contact with me.