Don't Look a Gifthorse in the Mouth

He played my favorite song but I was too busy reminiscing about the past that I failed to dance with him. He texted me to "meet" him for coffee on the beach and I should have called him.

There are moments in my life in which I've made the wrong decision. Maybe they were all part of life's mysterious plan, but nevertheless, someone was extending a heartfelt gesture and I missed out on an opportunity. I say this not to look back, but instead, to make a conscious effort to dwell in the present and look forward to the future.

Historically, I've suffered from the "don't know what you've got until it's gone" and the "always want what you can't have" syndromes. This is evidenced as I reread passionate, yet forlorn past journal entries that agonize over the what if's and the why's and I'm realizing more than ever that many of my past relationships have suffered due to hanging onto garbage from previous ones. I romanticized the tragedies and dragged them on in my head so they appeared to be more intense, when in fact, they were long since dead. Well, no more. No siree. I have been given a gift in the form of warmhearted, scruffy redhead and I'll be damned if I ever lose that as a result of my own stubborn will, fear or neglect. I don't want him to live on as another character in my brokenhearted legend...I want him to live on by my side.

It's amazing what seemingly simple concepts result from an old art deco journal and a wall of flame.

Set Yourself on Fire

The title of the cd is not to be taken literally.
Unfortunately, the flames of the bbq grill got the better of me. I was engulfed by a large wall of fire, lighting up my entire right arm, dress and hair. I reacted quickly and thankfully the dress was flame retardant.

I was embarassed by my human error and didn't want him to see my charred hair and skin, so I toweled off in the bathroom by the pool, thinking I could pass off the accident without him knowing. As the veil of soot was slowly lifted, and the seering pain intensified, I knew I'd have to trudge back up those stairs and let him know that I had once again failed miserably.

However horrific the event of yesterday's eve, the resulting trend in my relationship was entirely worth it. I saw a side of him that had previously been foreign to me, as I haven't really been sick or injured since the inception of our courtship. Suddenly, this caretaker emerged, planting kisses on my forehead and attempting to hug out my affliction.
After everyone had gone home, he confessed his humility and realization of the depths of his love, and admitted that he uttered a thankful prayer in the aftermath, nearly bringing me to tears.

For the past two days, he's helped me change clothes, dressed my wounds and done an excellent job of nursing his little burn patient back to recovery. I'd always wondered exactly how he'd be if I ever really needed him, and he's proven yet again just how incredible he really is. The more I write, the more I'm realizing how inadequate these words express my feelings and how annoying that is.

I incurred 1st and 2nd degree burns to the majority of my right arm and hand and singed off some hair, and I am truly thankful that it wasn't any worse than it was...but mostly, I'm thankful for what's come from it, and for the amazing man that I have in my life.

Hella Good Time

Adam had to run sound last night for his uncle's band at a venue out in Garland. While I'm enjoying a leisurely walk with my dog, he calls me to relay the remarkable oddities of his afternoon and begs of me to join him in his amusement. I don a lovely 1950's-esque brown strappy dress and brown/cream saddle shoe pumps and drive for what seems like an eternity until I burst at the seams with comical mirth. Before me, is a large beige warehouse with the words "Hella Shrine" painted upon it.
I gather up my serious face and as I glide past the glass case lined with shelf upon shelf of ornately adorned fezes, I see a ballroom full of military uniforms, most, relics of time, and a handful of freshly purchased ones, accompanied by young ladies in fancy dress. It is certainly a sight to behold and as the former American Bandstand one-hit wonders take the stage, I am transported through the decades of every soldier in that room.

While peering down my cleavage, the lovely elderly veteran bartenders served up potent and FREE whiskey and cokes, making for a rather difficult time rising on this cloudy morning. Though my mischevious puppy yanking my multi outlet out of the wall (containing my alarm clock) in order to chew my phone charger could have also complicated that matter!

It's a long way from the top

I remember a time when people would hurt me and I never had to blink because I knew I had the best friends imaginable. Crazy, coked out girls would try to weasel their way back into my life, but I had a constant. And now the one doing the saving is the one doing the hurting. Pardon me if I feel.

I wish I had a best friend whom I could call at any hour, who would go shopping with me and make dinner with me.
I mean, I guess I do. I have Adam...and he's excellent at those things...when he's not touring. Maybe that's what it's all about. Finding that best friend to spend your life with.

It would still be nice to have a girl around more though.
Damn flaky girls.

Blah. I'm one of them. I am bailing on my friend's wedding in Kentucky for financial reasons. I hope she understands.

My whole life, people seemed to fade in and out, and friends chose to not include me. Three years ago, most likely as a result of my youth leadership days, I suddenly became part of this "popular" crowd and I was one of the ringleaders, making the plans and trying to include others. Now, I'm beginning to realize that I wasn't missing out on anything in high school. It's a long way to fall from the top when there's no one there to catch you.

Hmph. I guess I'm feeling kind of down today.

Mike Mollsen

The alarm sounded wildly this sunny morning, severing me from my gratifying dream in which the perpetually awkward girl gets the out-of-her-league guy.


Of course, the setting was once again back in the dreaded high school gym class, where adolescent little Tammy held a unilateral crush on the golden-skinned Mike Molson with the million dollar grin. One flash of that alabaster smile would invoke involuntary, pint-sized giggling, the kind that she wished could be instantaneously annulled in order to hamper the entire student body from witnessing her naked emotion. As we join her in her defeated hour as the distressed, artsy outcast who gets picked last for the basketball team, we learn that in recent days, our heroine has inadvertently left her heart on her pastel-stained sleeve and that the object of her affection has grievously dismissed her substantial token.

Taking a seat upon the heavily shellacked risers, Tammy tried to decipher whether the scribbled scrap of paper dictated that she's on team 24 or 29, (obviously a weighty issue for a fifteen year old benchwarmer). Seeing the look of painstaking deliberation on her pale face, Mike sauntered over, sauvely careening one leg after the other over the pine bench above her, hunching closer to read along. He offered a suggestion to toss the slip aside and join whichever team she wanted, which prompted Tammy's further analysis of whether or not she'd like to play on Mike's team or oppose him. He placed a reassuring grasp upon her round shoulders, planting small kisses on her cheek and back of her neck, which again incited the tell-tale giggling. He suggested they go out for smoothies after class and she tried as much as humanly possible to conceal her enthusiasm with her acceptance. The buzzer sounded, indicating it was time to start the game of hoops, but then seconds later, she found herself firing rampage upon the red led screen of the clock.


Funny, I barely spoke to the guy in school and hadn't thought of him in nearly seventeen years. The mind is a peculiar, but sometimes entertaining playground.

Spackle!

It's funny how the smallest soft-spoken words, when coming from the most genuine place of the heart, seem to amplify into echoes across the heavens, returning with just enough of a glimmer of a precise and hopeful answer in a matter of hours, if not minutes.

Most of my worries are spackled, for the time being at least.

In that vein, office painting commences tonight! Woo!

Fear or Fate?

So, I finally regained access to this lovely little wordy outlet and for the first time in a while, I am rather at a loss for words.

Life has been so peacefully coasting along for the past six months or so, but it feels as though there are gears in motion beneath the surface over which I possess little control.

I realize that we all enact a selfish agenda from time to time, but some seem more self-motivated than others, and it puzzles me greatly. My usually giving heart gets taken for granted more often than not, which has caused me to be much more guarded and at times, hypersensitive. In the not so distant future, fate will intervene, and decisions will have to be made by others. As a result, I, in turn, will be prompted to make some tough choices, of which I am not sure I am prepared for the uncertain outcome. Is it truly possible to gain it all by giving it up? Could I be afraid of failure or foward motion? Sometimes I wish it were possible to erase the past and go back to the good, but sometimes too much happens that makes it impossible to forget.

My comfort lies in those constants, who, despite the frequency of visitations, are exactly that...constant. I know that whenever I pick up the phone, they will always be willing to listen, and vice versa. Knowing I'm not alone in such quandries is also an added assurance.

In the interim, I attempt to not as often as I should prayerfully take one day at a time.

I do believe that some avenues are leading to positive change and growth, especially those related to my career. I've been granted more responsibility and creative authority/decision-making power and it's refreshing. I'm overseeing the redesign of approximately a 10,000 sq foot area of offices, classrooms, lobby and main reception of the entire business. It's daunting yet exhilirating.

Hormonal imbalance makes me overanalyze too much. I guess I had more to say than I realized.