past, present, and future participles.

a late night post... because when better to clearly express your thoughts than three-thirty in the morning?

First thought: So, the difficult thing about blogs is you never know who is reading them. Could be no one, could be your mom, could be your boss, could be everyone you've ever met. Apparently, my blog has a following in Iraq (what?), so who knows. Regardless, trying to figure out how to discuss specifics without being... specific.

That being said, something that has been bugging me lately is deteriorating friendships. Not my own, per say, but a situation that was brought to my attention about two months ago based on a situation that started about five months ago... Confused yet? Bear with me. Here's the deal. Two people were dating. Then they weren't. One person decides to turn the other person's best friend against them. Mission is successful. Why? How? This bothers me so much. Mostly because the person I care about most in the situation is the one whose best friend now won't talk to them, but also because I have seen similar takes of this situation in my own life, with friendships, and crushes, and when those things fall apart, somehow people always try to take other people from the situation with them. Why? I understand the need to vent frustrations, but what causes someone who is not involved in the situation to completely turn against someone who was involved in the situation when that particular party didn't do anything that can be faulted other than simply not want to be in that situation anymore? I just don't get it.

My second thought is simply a memory, as I had looked over at my bulletin board earlier, and it includes a multitude of photographs, quotes, fortunes from fortune cookies, pins, coupons (thanks Mom), a postcard, and finally- a label from a Jones soda bottle, which brings me to (ta-da!) the memory: In high school (not saying this was the thing to do or that anyone did it but us or that we even did it that often, BUT), sometimes we would go to the local grocery story (oh, HyVee), get Jones sodas, drink them, then play this game of throwing them into a dumpster behind the HyVee from like 20 feet away to see if we could make it. Why we enjoyed this so much, I just don't know. When I think of this particular memory, it makes me think of two people in particular, both of whom are near and dear to my heart and saw me through a lot of emotionally awkward growing situations throughout my teen and early twenties years. One though, I haven't really talked to since high school, as he got involved with a person who does not like anyone of the opposite gender to talk to him but her... so, sad. The other I still talk to, lived with briefly, and see when I am home. Delightful boys.

My third thought involves the ever-popular "What's next?" question, something I am struggling currently to answer for myself. In dreamworld, I will find an amazing theatre job, or work on SNL (I will get them coffee, I don't care, I want to be surrounded by funny), or maybe work somehow in photography (this will require extensive class-taking, as I do not have the talent of many whom I have evidently started cyber-stalking by subscribing to stranger's photo blogs of brilliance). In dreamworld, I will move to NYC or Boston, or maybe even Chicago or DC. I will get to sleep regularly, workout and do yoga regularly, get to walk all over, listening to my iPod, protecting my eyes from the sun with my oversized sunglasses (a trademark of mine by now, along with my curls that are still mostly chopped). I will get to regularly interact with people my own age, perhaps develop relationships outside of the only three people I get to see with any regularity (whom I love dearly, but still, I crave more people). I will get to live in a place with closet space and a full sized bed (I feel like a child in this twin) and I will for-go the dream of proper air conditioning just to have proper insulation come winter (on the Upper East Coast, this is mandatory). In whatever dream job, I will make enough to be a little bit frivolous, indulgent, generous. In order to accomplish any of these things, I need to not allow myself or my work or my goals to become stagnant, but to work vigorously to maintain what I want and my fire to go after it. By putting this out in the universe, I am making some sort of public vow to do the best I possibly can for myself, and the universe can hold me accountable to follow through. And so help me, I will.

Now who says you can't clearly communicate your ideas at random early morning/late night hours?

X's and O's, peace and love.

thinking before you speak... is for other people.

I've had quite a few 'blonde' moments over this past weekend. Some are just dumb things I've said, much to the amusement of others. "It's a hilarious!" (what?)... Others are more substantial.

For example, I thought my phone wasn't charging this entire weekend. Oh, the battery must be going, time for a new phone. But, no. (Well, it is time for a new phone, but not due to a bad battery.) Instead, when I was in NYC with my folks last week, I was reminded by a banner on the subway about conserving energy that having a charger plugged in when it's not being used still uses energy, so I unplugged mine when I got home. However, I forgot that, so I was plugging one end into my phone, without the other end in anything... wow.

Another, I realize, was from when I was in 3rd grade, but I realize only now I may have gotten what was said entirely wrong. 3rd grade, the cusp of pre-teen life. I was the oldest sibling, so I had no one to look up to or talk to, but a girl in my class, named Jessica, had an older sister- who was in middle school, the epitome of cool. Jessica told all the girls in our 3rd grade class that she had started shaving her arms and legs, because her sister did it. Only now do I look back and wonder if she said arms or "armpits". Or had said arms but assumed everyone knew she meant under arms. Because, after she told us that, and that we should all do it too, I shaved my lower arms, like the tops of them, for several weeks, until my parents noticed and made me stop. I now wonder what my mom thought when she learned I was doing that. I laugh now at the idea of a kid coming up to me and telling me they were shaving their arms... their lower arms. Just me who finds this hilarious? Perhaps. Alas...

X's and O's, peace and love.