2009, in retrospect, was a year of change for me. This year:

• My job changed. And in a lot of ways my feelings about work and my workplace changed. The change should have been such that it felt like I quit my last job and started anew. It hasn't materialized like that...but there is a piece of me that hopes 2010 brings that change.
  
• I wasn't blogging at the beginning of the year, and here I am again.
• Sometime at the end of 2008, I started to fall off of all of my hobbies. In the last year I have finished a sad total of 3 knitting projects: all three of which should have been super quick knits (socks, a hat and fingerless gloves). I had a layer of apathy sitting heavily on top of me. I think that's gone now - I reorganized my knitting/crafting area and I feel like that burden is lifted. I have 3 projects going at the moment, 2 more ready to go and 3 in the planning stages. I'm also hoping to start a different sort of project tomorrow using one of my christmas presents, a journal. The idea isn't fully formed but it basically just involves words, not writing, more like semantics. I heart semantics. Anyway, we'll see how short lived that is. But, 2009 was the year of hobby death. Hopefully in these very last moments it also contains a spark of renewal.
• And obviously my personal life changed this year. loml is around now. That change was kind of hilariously rocky at the beginning. I think that's another lesson to myself: how I'm not so graceful - I wanted that change and yet didn't handle it all that well for quite some time.

So what do I hope for in 2010? Basically what I mentioned above: work to become what I hope it to be, writing to continue, hobbies to continue as they are from the past few weeks and to pick up speed and I'd like loml to stick around. I'd like 2010 to be a year for settling into the change of 2009.

Happy New Year all! What do you hope for in 2010?

Happy Holidays!

It's been a really nice season so far - I've already had a few lovely mini celebrations (all involving food, of course) and we have lots of snow here. It doesn't really feel like actual Christmas celebrations start tomorrow, and at the same time it feels like it's Christmastime. Full of Jingles and cheer. And I'm about to wrap all my presents, which is one of my favorites - I love this part.

Tomorrow is the extended family celebration, which I look forward to every year. loml and I are doing everything separately this year, which is a bit sad...and at the same time, doesn't really change my feelings about the next two days. I really enjoy being with the family and all the laughs and food...love this time of year. Heart.

I hope everyone out there has a lovely holiday and a happy new year.

I am about to do something that I have found very hard to do so far...that is...tell you about loml in a happy way. There is something about writing a self-satisfied blog post that gives me chills. I don't want anyone to read a post I write and think: that bitch is smug. So I'm going to try to walk on this very thin ice - between writing a happy post and being smug. And if I fail, call me out.

loml and I just hit six months. Strangely, a lot of that time it felt like it all wasn't really happening and so six months came really quickly and yet...it feels like we've been together longer than that. And so I would like to just tell you all how lucky I feel (most of the time) to be going through all of this messy relationship stuff with loml. I'm extremely inexperienced at all of it and I tend to over-analyze and he's a peach for putting up with it.

I just deleted a whole paragraph about how I am sometimes needy and loml also handles that like a peach - but then i deleted it because listing all of my faults and saying loml is awesome for putting up with them is a pretty sorry happy post. We put up with each other - it's becoming obvious that all relationships that succeed are based on people being uniquely suited to handle the other ones tricky bits. And yes, I kind of like that that sounds dirty. I like loml's tricky bits, even though it's often maddening, frustrating and full of lots of nuggets to over-analyze. And I sort of hope he likes mine...or if nothing else, he likes making me squirm while he picks on mine.

You're a peach loml.

Yesterday I had a bit of a mishap involving a bread knife and my left middle finger. Basically I cut part of my nail/finger instead of the pita I was cutting. I've been asked for details:

I'm still not entirely sure how I managed the cut, I was slicing circles of pita into triangles and suddenly I was staring at the cut on my fingernail waiting for it to bleed. You know those 30 seconds of shock where it doesn't hurt and doesn't bleed? I spent those wishing it wouldn't start bleeding at all. That it was just a little cut in my nail...

Then it started to gush. I wandered a bit in a panic, trying to figure out if I knew of an urgent care in the area. I came to the conclusion I did not and so googled the closest hospital. I grabbed a cab with my bloody wad of paper towels. On the way I texted loml to tell him of my ER visit. I was cutting up the pita for a party we were attending...so I told him if he wanted to get there at the beginning of the party he would need to go without me. My cabbie dropped me off at the hospital, and proceeded to chastise me about how it's rude to ask your cabdriver to take you to side streets. Because its impossible to find another fare. Yeah.

So, I get to the ER, sign in. There's maybe two people ahead of me, a few more come in after. I wait probably 30 minutes before I'm called back. The nurse immediately goes to find a tetanus shot and stabs me with it. My doctor shows up - and is a more obviously gay version of Neil Patrick Harris (quite lovable). He says he wants to take off the sliced piece of the nail, to make sure I haven't cut really deep. Proceeds to numb my finger with two shots. The shots themselves hurt and then burned. Once the stuff was in me, everyone left me in a room to get numb and I proceeded to react weirdly to the numbing agent. First, I got boiling hot - sheen of sweat over my whole body style. Followed by nausea, dizziness and a distinct feeling of being a bit high. This all faded and led to a lightly numb finger - I think cute gay doctor made a bit of a tactical error - the base of my finger is where he shot me. And it was numb. But the tip? Only lightly numb. So when he cut off my nail? Possibly one of the most painful things that has ever happened to me. Applying pressure to stop the bleeding? Also horrible. Antiseptic spray before bandage application? Burningly horrible.

All in all, painful. I left with a heavily bandaged finger tip that can't handle pressure. I didn't come away with any plan as to when I should remove the bandage. And I have a sinking feeling that when I do remove it I am going to relive some of that pain all over again.

My cab driver on the ride home was much nicer than the first- wished me a happy holidays. Then I got to spend the evening holiday partying and making loml do things he didn't want to because it would make me feel better. Happy six months loml, wasn't that a fun way to observe the passage of time?

Christmas tree time...

Right when I got home from work, I put together 3 of the 4 parts (scratching the shit out of myself in the process). I plugged them in just to make sure all was right with the lights. A full strand was out on the third part....so I took a break, defeated. No amount of shaking of the branches/playing with the wires was working. Just now, I looked over at the tree and the strand was fixed. The only variable? Mona, chewing on the tree. Now I'm hoping for another miracle on the top/fourth part of the tree....apparently not so reliable pre-lit tree....

I just almost burned down my apartment. I lit a candle, to take away the tree smell (it smells a bit like stale smoke...sorry mom). I opened up my new tree topper, set the package on the table...it toppled onto the candle and I almost had a disaster. It smells worse than the tree in here now, and I'm probably ruining my lungs. Ugh burning plastic...

***

It's several hours later and there's still a dead spot in my tree lights. I shook the branches in vain...but i did manage to get my tree topper to almost fall on my head. Missed me by an inch.

Time to let this day go.

Last week I was challenged to write a post that wasn't full of talk of my flaws and whining; mostly because I challenged the challenger to eat a piece of humble pie. And so I raise him this post.

***

This weekend somehow turned out to be the perfect mixture of nothingness, accomplishment and fun. It generally ends up, when I have plans or need to get stuff done, that Sunday night rolls around and I feel like I didn't get any time to actually rest. That it went by in a blur. Not so, this.

I did nothing Friday night after work, but was in a considerable amount of back pain (lessened at this point) so laying on the couch was preferable. Saturday I ran a ton of errands with my sister (and came home with far more stuff than expected) and then had dinner/drinks/shopping with my girls. And today I've done nothing. Well, ok, I cleaned the litter, did some other chore-type things, but mostly I've been making a dent in my couch. Apparently my perfect weekend can be summed up by: nothing, busy saturday, nothing. A formula to copy.

***

Challenger specifically requested that I write about loml and I and how it is going. I have nothing to complain about, it is going brilliantly. The only hitch in the whole thing is this. Yeah, I know, I don't have a daughter, but that yahoo answer is pretty hilarious. And, clearly, Mona hates him because we FIGHT and YELL at each other all the time. Or maybe she's just a good judge of character. Kidding, kidding.

But yeah, loml and I just got back from a trip to Vegas that was lovely. Relaxing, tasty and entertaining. It's not so interesting to write posts about contentment. But I'll continue to try.

I was thinking with my lady parts...

Tonight I feel like I was finally rewarded for tivo'ing Parks and Recreation. I laughed! And so I shall share. Amy Poehler is covering up for someone, making up a story about how she accidentally shot someone in the back of the head.

Um, I let my emotions get the best of me.
I, just, I cared too much I guess.
I was thinking with my lady parts.
I was walking and I felt something icky.
I thought there was gonna be chocolate.
I don't even remember.
I'm wearing a new bra and it closes in the front so it popped open and threw me off.
All I want to do is have babies.
Are you single?
I'm just going through a thing right now.
I guess when my life is incomplete I want to shoot someone.
This would not happen if i had a penis.
What?
Bitches be crazy.
I'm good at tolerating pain, I'm bad at math and I'm stupid.

Only funny bit so far. Sorry parks and rec, but you kind of suck.

What I ate today, chronologically:

• Krispy Kreme donut
• Cinnabon
• Couple of handfuls of Goldfish
• Southwest Peanut package
• More goldfish
• 3 Jingles (or, actually, Santa's Favorites)
• Large Arby's curly fries, with cheese
• Honey Fluff donut

I should keel over any minute now from malnutrition. Strangest bit of it all is that I was not overly hungry at any point during the day.

I feel like I should cover my face in pimples for a Halloween costume. OH WAIT, did that.

Then I image searched to see if a pimple halloween costume exists and nearly gagged when I saw this. I'm not joking, so don't click that link if you know what's good for you.

About two months ago, I wrote a draft post and all it said was "write about communication". Then I got distracted by life and Olympus (who, by the way, has spawned yet another peak which is ugly and painful and HATE...but sorry, digress) and never wrote it.

I'll start by saying: I suck at communicating when it comes to emotions. Anyone who knows me well can back me up here - when it comes to pretty much anything internal/feelings, I tend to keep quiet. I'm just not the best sharer. And so, in that area of communication I'm still learning. I don't know if it's unusual, but writing seems to be my outlet. When I am processing something or unhappy about something, I burst at the seams until an email or blog post is born (and in the past, crazy journal entry). I need to figure out if I can transition that from a need to write it all out to a need to speak it aloud. If only love letters were still an art form...

In the rest of the areas? I think you could say that loml and I are champion communicators. I just wrote three sentences of example and figured you all didn't want to read it. But I suggest you do sometime look up bowel movement in the free online thesaurus.

Final Olympus update (for now anyway): the pimple I got enraged at/popped looks like an open wound/scab. The other zit, original Olympus, just looks like a bump now. It's not so much a pimple at the moment....it's more like a lurker. A lurker that is going to be a pimple again at some point in the probably distant future. And now no more talk about pores and puss.

***

I read today that threats against the president have gone up 400% from when GW was prez. Yes, I know, I read it on a Comedy Central blog, but still relevant information. And UGH. I think that it is telling that he's more threatened for two reasons:

1. Those of us that didn't like GW still understood that killing him is not an option. And those that oppose Obama? Could I say less moral? I wonder what the religious connotations are here - those that want BO dead = more religious than those of us who hated Bush but didn't wish him dead?
2. We are a racist country. Still. And it would be a lie to say otherwise.

I wish I could say today is a new day in Olympus land...but it is not...Olympus has become a chain of mountains. Only I got so PISSED that I had another, distinct pimple that in a fit of rage I popped it this morning. And man, it is sore. Because it probably wasn't ready to be popped.

Not only do I look like a pimply teenager, but now I'm acting like one too. REGRESSION.

Here's hoping that tomorrow IS a new day, that my face has calmed down a bit and that I'm, once again, a twenty-something IT "professional". I use that term loosely.

Olympus update: last night, during my twice daily hot compress application, Olympus popped itself. And then I helped it along.

This morning though? It still looks terrible. It's a bit less raised off of my face, but it's still huge, angry and red. I have definitely entertained the idea that I will end up having to pop it again. Or live with it for a long, long time. At least half of it is gone now...

I would like to introduce you all to Mount Olympus. This is where I would post a picture if I didn't get chills about it living on forever. And being used against me. Shudder. Mount Olympus is how I am referring to the largest pimple to have ever existed.

loml hypothesized last night that all the badness in my entire body has concentrated itself in this one spot on my chin.

Here's how i would describe olympus:

• red and painful
• the actual size of it, is about the size of the tip of my pinkie. Granted, I have small fingers. But that's still far too large for a pimple.
• it is so angry and inflamed that when you touch it, it basically feels like there is half a pea under my skin. Yes, it is that raised off of my face

This is the worst pimple I have ever had. I canceled on loml (stood him up is how he termed it on the phone earlier) tonight because I don't want to be in public. There is no coverup in the world that can hide this thing. And it's been this way since last Sunday.

I can't even pop it because it's hardly got a head. For the size of half a pea, it's got a tiny pin head of a head.

I know, this is too much information. But this zit is draining my will to live.

This whole post has to do with being a lady so reader beware.

• I had my yearly checkup last week. I've been seeing my gynecologist for five years now. When she heard that I was sexually active, she literally cheered. "Yay, Katie! You're sexually active again!" It was...kind of mortifying. And also, totally awesome.
  
• Yesterday, I had the displeasure of trying on multiple items of lingerie. I believe I came out of the dressing room and said "well that was disheartening". Because my body is a freak, I cannot purchase lingerie. I couldn't even fit my bosoms into a large. And the rest of my body is not an L. It kind of made me hate these things. And, then I came home and searched for corsets again on etsy. Custom made, $250 lingerie? Will i ever be able to pull that trigger?
  
• I was at Walgreen's today. My purchases included advil, vitamins and three packages of tampons/pads. As I was checking out, an old lady in a fur coat got in line behind me. She looked at my items and said "I remember those days. (silence on my end and hers for a good minute) Or maybe i don't (laugh from her)". It was a creepy share.
  

The line, the line!

I've had some amazing conversations about the line:

1. There is no line! I want to know!
2. I don't know where the line is, but I really hope you cross it. (giggle)
3. Where is loml's line? That's your line.
4. Eh, I'm not sure if you saying too much will bother me.
5. DON'T SAY ANYTHING INAPPROPRIATE EVER.

It's also especially hilarious to me because two of those conversations (numbers 1 and 5) were either preceded or closely followed by my being chastised for writing too cryptically. That no one is ever sure what I'm actually saying. Which, is totally hilarious, at least in five's case - because if you want me to be less cryptic, then I might have to be inappropriate.

My conversation with loml went something like this:

loml: what was so funny last night?
me: i pinched a nerve and didn't say anything so that we could finish.
l: you still can't feel two of your fingers??
m: i can, i woke up and the feeling was back. but, i lost it for hours.
l: HA. I personally thought the abortion role-playing was hilarious.
m: I liked menstrual heaven.

Yes, yes we did abortion role play in bed. And menstrual heaven is heaven where all of the eggs from all of your periods are there to greet you when you die.

LINE CROSSED!

I really, really want to write about inappropriate topics at the moment. I'm flailing about internally trying to figure out where the line is on this blog. Basically at this point, anyone who reads this knows me. And, in a lot of cases, knows loml. That makes talking about sex difficult. Tricky.

But damn! Hilarious stuff happens in bed. And, I've mentioned before, my favorite new addition to loml and I is the time we spend in bed laughing uproariously.

So where is the line readers? Is there a line?

That journal, the unfair portrayal, has been retired. Put to pasture. I know I spoke of it before as a good read..I acknowledged that it was unfairly dire but also a real way to look back and learn from where I was. That is true. And then I had the opposite experience with it - I went back and read it and was that girl again.

I don't know how to explain it other than - I was in an unsettled place at the time and it seeps out of the writing. And the last time I went back and read it all, it stuck to me. The doubt and uncertainty were truly poisonous.

So I've stopped reading and writing. I never wanted to write when I was super happy and the other writing fed off of itself. So there is no balance to it: crazy feeding crazy. And I think writing here will fix that imbalance.

I have a post in mind here, but I'm suddenly sneezy, kind of sore and a bit tired. But I'm going to try for it anyway. Be charitable.

I don't know if it's naive of me, but lately I've been a bit surprised by people's actions. And in some cases, people's reactions. And these are people I would say I know well. I find this surprise, the actions, the whole situation fascinating. And in some ways, a bit disappointing.

I often find myself wanting to be inside someone's head when they make a decision. Throwing a fit for no reason I can understand? Maybe there is something I'm missing. Keeping something secret that doesn't seem secret? Maybe I don't understand you.

A lot has been going on at work lately...and I heard a rumor that someone implied that I don't have all the information to...well...do my job. After laughing a lot about that and deciding this is true of everyone, I moved on. But now, I can't help but think that's why I enjoy people so much. Because of course I don't have all the information. And of course we're going to see things and respond to things and emote differently.

And I love it.

And I hate it.

Today I wonder where empathy went. Did you lose yours?

Cliche alert: you know how people like to say 'it never rains but it pours'?

My dentist gave me his cell phone number.*



*It should be noted that he gave it to me in case I needed him to adjust my bite. I got work on the top and bottom and am so numb I have no idea if my teeth are aligned. He seemed to think so. But, then he gave me his cell and told me to call if I needed him to work on the teeth this weekend.**

**It should also be noted that he then made a remark about how he has no life and I shouldn't feel bad about calling.***

***And finally, it should be noted that I am sure he is not single. And my dating status came up in conversation naturally somehow (although, looking back, that seems suspect too. How does that just come up?). So....he wasn't hitting on me. He was being a good dentist. But it sure makes a better blog post the other way...

Silence is deafening, so I'll go ahead and break it here.

I have nothing public to say about my personal life at the moment...but I observe:

• I should not be left alone with my imagination. To say it's overactive is an understatement. I often long to know what it's like to be empty-headed. It doesn't turn off or slow down. And it's vivid. There is no use and no market for that particular skill unless I can harness it. And so far my only harness has been writing. And if all I can write is self-indulgent bullet points, then really...we're back to no use/no market.
  
• I don't know how to process things when there is another person involved. I don't know how to explain that, but the "free will" part of loml's processing of things is maddening. In other words, I've gotten used to being able to predict things when I'm the only one involved and it's my decision. Mmmmm, tastes selfish.
  
• It is endlessly fascinating to me the different takes people have of the same situation.
  
• It is super cold in this office today.
• There is an icky feeling in my stomach that will not go away.
  
• Feel better loml.

Things I've learned about myself in the past 6 days:

1. I have an underwear addiction. I like it. A lot. Also, if you haven't heard of modal, you are missing out. Softest ever. I just went to find a link to it and Gap has A LOT of new underwear since my shopping spree last week. I am resisting. But, modal.
2. I am a hotel snob.
3. There's a special sort of tired that happens after several days of fitful sleep. It is not safe.

Quick one tonight...

I just wanted to welcome back the ramblings of alex. I've also got my fingers crossed that quodlibets is about to join us again too. Everyone needed time off to refresh.

And speaking of refresh, it's 9:05pm. And I am going to go get in bed. I've been sleeping fitfully the last few days and I feel like a zombie right now. Dead eyes. I have dead eyes.

Bits...

My dear friend in DC asked that I write about her so that she can read about herself at work tomorrow. And so DC, I say: congratulations on your recent nuptials! You were a beautiful bride - your Mom sent me the most amazing picture of you. It is my new favorite picture of you ever. Beautiful.

I hope Costa Rica was great and all, but it was drastically more boring at work without you around to gchat with. Please don't leave me for 3 weeks again.

* * *

I tried yesterday to write about my insecurities. I failed. I think I'm just going to start writing every now and again about something that makes me uncomfortable. When these...uncomfortable sentences happen, if they affect loml, I would like to extend to him complete rein to respond/delete/veto/redact those sentences. Up to you loml.

* * *

Since loml and I were friends for a long time before we were something more, we had a fairly established dynamic. It has been intriguing, fun, hilarious, maddening (and for me, at times a bit rough) to believe that we are a couple and to figure out what that means.

It means a lot of things to me, in ways I expected and ways I didn't. I expected to be challenged - I've been single for a long time. And loml is the kind of person that challenges you whether he's your boy or not. I didn't expect that that challenge is one of my favorite pieces of this (along with the giggling & talking while laying in bed, they tie).

I keep trying to go on here - but that is simply stated what I wanted to say.

* * *

I'm stumbling. I'm tripping over the combined forces of: getting back into the swing of writing and learning how to write about something so personal that involves someone else. I'm afraid I'll cross some line. And he's so curious about what I'll write here that I think he wouldn't tell me about a line even if he had one. Diving in...

Since I stopped blogging back in September of 2008, I started writing in a journal. And, I'm not going to lie, I was very troubled and unhappy about a lot of things at the time. I was angry with myself. I was feeling distant from my friends. And I was frustrated with the loml. The lah-mul. The journal was a vent for all of that. I've spoken about how truly terrible I am about asking people for help, about talking about my "feelings" (not accidental quotation marks)...about being vulnerable. In the journal, I write all of the inanity and insanity that flits through my head. It does not show a pretty picture in some places. In others it's full of giggles and sunshine. But, it really is mostly doom and gloom. When you're unhappy you want to whine about it. When you're happy you just want to live it.

In general, the journal is a really unfair portrayal of the last year. But going back and reading it is powerful; I can see what was behind most of it...and learn from it all in hindsight (hindsight = never good. No one ever is like, in hindsight that was a great decision I made!). But if you're loml? Those pages seem like poison. And he's partly right.

Where is this going? I don't know...

My flaws (and they are varied) come into sharp relief when there's someone else around who they affect. And I've been working on that stupid inability to SPEAK about my "feelings" thing for as long as this blog has existed (it's purpose in life). Hopefully, having loml around will cause me to speed up that damn 'fix the flaw' process that is moving at the speed of a snail. And the ultimate goal: if i speak of the feelings while they're newbs, then they don't grow into CRAZY. I have spouted more crazy in the past few months than I ever have before. Mostly normal crazy, but there was a stunning instance of capital C crazy. Quoting dreaded black journal about that stunning instance:

clearly i lost my mind a little with the phone call

But now, what to do about journaling? Do I continue, so that in 8-10 months I can look back and go: WOW, madness...or, yeah, that point was valid? Or does the blog replace it? I'm thinking blog...

tongue firmly meeting cheek...

During the past year I have, apparently, started to think in cliches (ex 1: title). So the next time I type a generic phrase or cliche, call me on it. Thanks.

I have also obtained a boyfriend. Who knows I'm about to blog about him and asked to see a draft. And also suggested instead of using his name, I call him 'one of the loves of my life'. And so a compromise: he doesn't see a draft, I from now on refer to him as 'love of my life'. How's that for relationship health?

loml. Lah-mul.

Dear loml,

Sucker!

Love,
Boo

No...

Dear loml,

I am probably going to talk about us here. That could kind of suck for you. I was going to try to spin that...it's not really working. I will try to be kind to you. And when your stupid 'slow-burners' (note to world: insults that take a while to reach their full potential) are burning, I'll be sure to tell you that I'm about to tell the world about it.

And in the end, just remember, I'm just adding to the list of reasons to dump me.

Love,
Boo

I'm leaving it at that for now, because I'm butting up against my own line of how much I want to say so publicly. The only ways I can think of to end this are ALL CLICHES. Fin.

Last night I watched the movie Hannah Takes the Stairs. It was passable - not anything to go on about. But I did take a few things from the movie and I'll share one here.

I am incubating a budding obsession with the idea of wearing a long, very thin chain and a locket. Nestled under my shirt. The only issue with this obsession is that I don't like gold and all of the lockets out there are kind of ugly. I want a medium to big one. Preferably in something not gold. Even etsy is sort of...coming up short. This one is OK:

But I really like the idea of having a vintage, real locket. Or at least for the locket to look the part. Like...

I'm still torn on whether or not I like the heart shaped locket. Is it too kitschy? Too cute?

Re-entrance into blogging is going to be rough...

reinstatement?

Not promising anything at all here, except a try.

I want to write again. Hopefully semi-regularly...