plus/minus

When I was in San Francisco in January, I was sitting in my rental car getting ready to go somewhere and it hit me...my hands and feet were not burning. You know what I mean, that painful burning that happens when you're outside or in the car in the winter in Chicago. It happens even after driving for a while, that burn never seems to stop. That is missing in California. It's a feeling that I would love to never experience again. So that would be a plus.

Tonight I had a little 'I'm leaving the country for a month' dinner. I tried to keep it small, just the people in my life that I like a lot and see often. There were 15 of us, and three people canceled last minute due to illness. I wouldn't have that there, the large web of really excellent friends that I have here. That would be a minus.

Just some things to think about. Right now all I can really think about is trying to make everything go smoothly while I'm gone and make sure that I have everything I need for the trip. I can buy anything I forget, though. I'd just rather not have to.

snowmageddon

so we got about a foot of snow on tuesday/wednesday. they always make it seem like the world is going to stop when that happens. they got like three feel on the east coast and things really did get shut down and people lost power and weren't allowed to drive on the roads. i just had to shovel three times and lola got to play in the snow. i hate how our news makes everything out to be such a big deal. it only took me ten minutes to get my car cleared off and i have yet (and should probably knock on some wood) to get stuck anywhere, like last year. it is pretty here when it first snows, when it's all clean. at this point, though, everything is dirty and peed on and you can see where all the drunks puked when they left archies. where there isn't dirty snow there's slush or ice. weee!! lola isn't even enjoying it anymore. she doesn't play in it. she doesn't get excited about it. it's kind of sad when my chow is over winter.

i think i'm ready to thailand. i have to buy some pet supplies today, but my brother has all of his instructions, i have packed everything i think i'm bringing, there's a pile on my table of things that i'm bringing on the plane. i need to stay awake for the first 5ish hours of the flight so i can get a good night's sleep at the right time. i get into seoul at 6am and would like to be awake all day so i can see the city.

i thought about leaving lola for the month yesterday and almost cried...about a dog. imagine if i had a boy how sad that would be. i'm just nervous. i've never left the country for so long before, especially not alone.

joshua backed out of coming, he can't get any weekends off. i decided that i have to do the elephant thing anyway. i sent them an email today requesting a date. so hopefully on march 6, i'll be here http://pataraelephantfarm.com/index.php?file=brochur caring for my elephant.

where did the time go?

It's February and I can't believe that I haven't posted anything. I've done so much since I was last on here. No decision about life have been made, but things are definitely in the works.

I went to San Francisco in September and visited the Google headquarters in Mountain View. It was amazing. The campus kinda rules and I would love the chance to work there. I've drank the Google koolaid sometime between starting this job and now. It's kind of weird. I still never look for jobs, a completely new concept for me. I used to look all the time before. I guess that's what happens when you're treated relatively well and make decent money. You become content. I still sometimes wonder why I am ok with all the officey stuff that I end up doing, but it's a small part of the job so that's ok.

Anyway, this trip...I got to meet a lot of the other therapists, the New York ones are my favorite. We spent some time in Napa, I met a very cute boy whom I hung out with in San Francisco. I spent some time with Kristine, Shawn and Nicole. I went kayaking in the bay, which was awesome. It was overall great.

October was Portland and Dale time. Portland was beautiful and it was nice to get to spend time with my friends there.

The winter has been not as terrible as previous winters, or at least last winter. We've had a handful of single digit days, and I can't think of any where the actual temperature was below zero. I went to California again for two weeks around Christmas/New Year's, and I guess I avoided a boatload of snow and cold. I'm glad I missed it. It was light jacket weather in San Francisco, where I spent most of my time. I could really get used to that and maybe can soon.

My Dec 1, 2009 move goal came and went without me moving. When the day arrived I felt like a little bit of a failure. I also failed at my savings goal, but in my defense I paid $4000 to a credit card and then bought a trip to Thailand to study Thai massage. I think that it's a perfectly acceptable thing to use my savings on since it's something that I've wanted to do for the past six years and it will help me at work, hopefully.

I leave in a little over a week. I'm getting completely nervous and excited. I've already packed pretty much everything. I just need to throw shoes in there. I'll have a full day in Seoul, South Korea on the way there and back. I've been in contact with Paul Kim and Emily to see if they have ideas/can hang out for the day. I think I'll be able to hang out with Paul but not Emily, which is odd since I've known Emily forever and have hung out with her quite a bit and hardly know Paul at all.

There's basically a blizzard outside. Sigh. They've also cut the number of buses so I'm sure it will be a long wait for a full bus that goes really slowly through the weather. At least Lola loves the snow and all the shoveling makes my lack of gym visits less of a problem.

the gift of memory's an awful curse

memory is a funny. it distorts things, get fuzzy almost immediately. they try not to use eye witnesses in criminal cases because they are so often wrong, remembered it wrong. "i guess i remembered it wrong. i was thinking my memory's strong but whatever you say"

i think about this because last night i saw a little boy on his bicycle get hit by a minivan. i rode to friendship to meet beth for dinner, and i ran into pete palasch as i was locking up my bike. we were talking and i heard a skidding and looked up to see a bike flying through the air. in my mind i can see the little boy fly through the air too, his little limbs limp and he tumbled to the ground, but then i can't tell if i just added that or really saw it. i know i saw the bike tumble in the air. i think i saw a shoe (he lost one when he was hit) i know i saw him lying on his stomach on the ground in front of the van, one leg straight the other leg bent. his feet weren't quite right. his arms up by his head. i think the bent leg is the one with the missing shoe. i remember the blood by his head. i remember his little cries as people tried to calm him down when he finally woke up. i remember telling the women on the phone where we were, that a little boy just got hit by a minivan, that she probably already had calls in. i remember his little face being bruises already and the cut that ran from about his left eye all the way around his forehead. the blood dripping from it. the older woman yelling at the man who hit the boy. the man who hit the boy saying 'oh god. why?' as he got out of his car, devastated that he hit a kid. i remember thinking 'why was a little boy riding on such a busy street? where are his parents? i bet he's scared to ride in the ambulance alone'. i remember the bandage around his head and the little neck brace they put on his to load him into the ambulance.

but i can't remember if i saw him in the air. such a small little detail, that doesn't even matter in the long run, but i keep going over it in my head. when i close my eyes, i see the bike in the air and his little limbs waffling around as he floated to the ground, but half of that might just be made up in my head.

i think we do this with everything. remember pieces and make the rest up in our minds. fill in the cracks with details that we wished happened, or would have preferred to have happened, or even didn't want to happen but were convinced did anyway.

did i really remember that look that he gave me? was i really right about what i saw? did i really say this or that?

memory is very deceptive. they say you only remember certain things after some amount of time passes, which is completely true. some people only remember the good things. some people only the bad. it's a tough thing to do...remember things correctly.

i'm wide awake its morning

this morning really was one of those mornings where i didn't want to get up. i didn't sleep well, and for no particular reason at all. i must have woken up at least three times last night. i didn't have bad dreams. i wasn't upset when i went to bed. i was tired. i had fun at darts, nothing serious had been happening. i watched project runway. how can you be sad after watching all those fashion designers fuck things up? the answer is, you cant be

so i've drafted a response to meaghan's latest email and i bet it will be the communication that we have, as i told her that she didn't respect our friendship and that she treated me like i was disposable. it's weird to sorta come to a decision that something that was so important to you at some point just couldn't be anymore. it doesn't even make me sad, really. i have a lot of best friends now, friends that are family. friends that i would do anything for. i wish they all lived a little closer, as lanny and erin armstrong are the only ones who live here in chicago, but then it gives me reason to go to la, san francisco, new york and las vegas. good thing i like to travel and have been lucky enough to be able to so far.

i have a client now.

oops

i guess summer happened and i forgot all about this blog. i also changed my plans and they keep changing because i'm fickle when it comes to this move. i love love love chicago, and the summer is when it becomes most apparent. the winter is so hard. i don't know, maybe this one will be easier. i leave for la on friday and i'll probably come back with renewed desire to move there. but who knows.

i met a boy here, a potential, hang out a lot boy. it's a slow process, though. i wish things were easy or that i could read minds, or that he would make a move. he wants to hang out a lot, but never makes any sort of move. it's frustrating but maybe a good sign that he isn't just into fucking me.

google is good. the same. they're flying me out to san francisco next month for an offsite meeting/just hanging out with the team. we're going to napa and tasting wine and staying in a swanky hotel. i'm pretty excited to see the mountain view office and kristine and shawn.

my throat's been fucking up for over a week. i refuse to accept/believe that i'm sick. it's just allergies. i've just drank three cups of tea and it does feel better.

i guess it's work time.

don canceled on saturday. he's sick. one day i will see him again.

speaking of people i haven't seen in forever, i hung out with regan this weekend for the first time since october. she's so nutty but i like her. we did division all weekend. john shaw's art opening was almost boring but it was so good to see him and meet his wife. lanny, erin rachel and i basically did a pub crawl around wicker park. she's pretty great, it was my first time meeting her although she's from peoria.

i flipped my handlebars today again. it's so fucking ridiculous. i bought linen pants at old navy, started to ride to to work, old navy bag got caught in my wheel and bam! face and shoulder hit pavement. arg.