Mountains

Is it weird that I alternately think of this blog as either my diary or an open letter to my cousin?  Meh.  (hey Alyssa!)

This. Weekend. Was. Awesome!  Derrick's boss is on vacation, so he actually had the whole weekend off.  So, after seeing some pretty pictures posted by classmates that went on a trip last week, I decided at the last minute to check on hiking at Quartz Mountain way out in southwest OK.  I wanted to camp, but considering I have absolutely zero winter camping gear and not too much money with which to buy it right now, I found instead that the lodge there has pretty damn cheap rates in the winter.  Score!

We set out Saturday with a mind to go through Chickasha to see Mom, but she was gone so we just ate Roy's instead.  For those of you not from Chickasha...my god.  Roy's is the shiz.  Lots of people go to Jake's Rib when they're in Chickentown--its bigger, fancier (not fancy mind you, it is Chickasha after all), and you get a SHIT ton of food.  But, it is nothing compared to little Roy's over on East side.  My poor African, when we were getting out of the car, assumed it would be like most of the small towns we visit on our weekend trips and said "Wanna bet there won't be any black people in there besides me?"  I had to say, oh hon, this place is owned by a black family and its on the black side of town.  Chickasha has plenty of African-Americans, we just (sadly) are very segregated and pretty much all of them live east of 4th street.  It has to be interesting coming from a place where there are pretty much no whites and then moving to Oklahoma.  Anyway, lunch was delicious, he loved it, they were very sweet to us as always, and good times were had.  We even had enough to pack for a hiking snack later that day, as seen here:

(also seen, the 'flower' I picked for him that he wore in his hair most of the day)
Then, on to Quartz Mountain! I took the scenic route through Anadarko, showing him how depressing that town is, got to see Gotebo and teach him how to say it with the correct Okie accent, then past that to areas of the state I've never been.  The giant town of Hobart was fun, with its big time stores like Sonic and the like.  Then we started to see actual mountains!  I didn't realize these were part of the Wichita mountain range, that I'm so used to climbing down in Lawton.  550 million years old!  That's why they're not so tall, the Rocky Mountains are only 70 million years old--lots less erosion time.  Geology!

Anyway, we were very pleased by the scenery, and drove through admiring everything before checking into our adorable hotel room.  Second story balcony overlooking the lake!  Rustic wood bedframe!  Super comfy down comforter and pillows!  HOT TUB!  Indoor pool!  Fireplace in the lobby!  We were smitten.  We will be back to stay more than one night, fo sho.

So, off we went to our first trail, where we hiked our first mountain straight up to the top.  It kicked our ass, but I was proud of myself for my chunky ass keeping pace with his skinny ass. 

(I only have a few pictures from the weekend on my phone, the rest are on his, so you won't have 500 to look through today.  And yes, we hike with our Daisy BB gun.  And stop to pose with it.)
After we found a group of deer, ate our Roy's snack, and took a walk along the beach, where we noticed that the fish kill warning was very true.  There has been a large algae bloom killing off large numbers of them.  Derrick was sad that they weren't getting eaten.  Then, when we were set to walk out on the dock, what did we notice but a giganto catfish floating a bit offshore!  So, he decided we needed to make steps and go "catch" it.  Done.

We went back to the hotel, and had an amazing dinner with drinks in front of the fireplace.  The staff thought we were a little strange for wanting to eat at the coffee table by the fire, but they found Derrick pretty hilarious and humored us.  We talked past, present, and future, and relaxed for a time.  Then went, rather tipsy and far too full, to swim in the indoor heated pool and lounge in the hot tub.  Despite the inevitable nausea, it still was relaxing and felt great. 

The next day we had a great breakfast at the hotel (thanks to our server for not charging us for half the shit we ordered and then offering us more for free--dude got a great tip), made a bacon sandwich for another hiking snack, and checked out.  Then we went back to the beach and climbed the rocks there and sat watching the waves, the birds, and the sun until we were about ready to nap.  Said bye to our poor catfish that was still sitting untouched on the beach (those are the most well fed birds ever).  Then went and climbed Baldy Point.  It was a bit scarier than the other mountain; the rocks were much bigger and a lot of them were wet from runoff.  But, it was beautiful, and we stumbled upon a geocache!  It was pretty awesome to read through the logbook, look through the container and choose what to take (D took a little toy skateboard), and then look through our bag for what to leave (an emergency blanket from Mom--D included a lil note that said "Stay warm! <3 Lynsie and Derrick, thanks Malea!").  We've decided to look more into geocaching, we could do it easily on our weekend trips.  When we had almost reached the summit of ole Baldy Derrick stumbled and put his hand right onto a cactus.  It hurt my stomach to see all those gigantic thorns coming out of his hand.  I think if it would have been me I would have looked at my hand and immediately puked.

Then we headed back home and Mom made us dinner and watched part of a Rupaul's Dragrace marathon with us. Good times, he wasn't even scared away by the plethora of cats surrounding him.  Or the barky pushy little jerk dogs.  Ha! 

Then back home to rent and watch Dredd, and pass out early with my muscles already getting sore from hiking 2 mountains. 

I added a couple new sections to my "Life" section over there.  Since we go hiking so much I like to remember the last place we went.  And, I'm constantly trying to learn new words--especially in Ewe, Derrick's first language.  But I also occasionally learn some Mandarin from Hongwei or Nepali from Arjun, or even some Ga or Twi--two other Ghanaian languages that D knows fairly well.  It helps to write out the things I learn, otherwise they'll just slip away from me.  So, the last, that amuses me, is the word for flipflops--chale wote (pronounced like cha-lay woh-tay).  Chale is a word people call each other, like bro or man.  Wote means let's go.  So, its literally "man, let's go!"  Which is an awesome word for flipflops.  My other favorite is mede ku ku (pronounced like muh duh kookoo), which is literally kind of like "I beg you" but really just means please.  Say it.  Its fun.

Life is amazing.  Really.  Beyond just my life with D and my family and friends, I feel really good about work and school for the first time in months.  I was going back and forth trying to decide if I actually have the passion I really need to do this for a living and to finish my thesis, and I've realized that it doesn't matter.  I want to try to see this PhD through to the end, but I don't feel trapped into it anymore.  I felt for a time that I had committed to this and I would foolish if I needed or wanted to quit.  Now, it is my curiosity driving me forward.  Can I do this?  Will my project be fruitful?  It is just my wonder keeping me in it, which is awesome.  It is no longer the thought of what anyone will think of me if I fail.  Because even if I do, people will still love me, I won't be any less smart, and my life will still be amazing.  I don't need a lot of money or prestige, but if I get it, hey!  That'll be awesome!  If not, Derrick and I can still go hiking and still go have a nice dinner with my mom.  And I'll be fine.

Stunted

I am emotionally stunted.  I have no idea how to talk to people, and my ability to carry out a healthy, adult relationship is pretty shaky.  At best.  But I'm trying to learn, god dammit!  After the crash and burn and utter stupidity in the way I ended my last relationship, I'm determined to start out right with this one.  If it starts with a strong base and fails because of other reasons, we can say we gave it a real try. 

So, yeah.  The past week was one of me being super upset over a plethora of small things that added up to make a Big Thing, and I was then paralyzed by it and unable to talk about any of it.  Then it exploded into ugliness.  Then....we worked it out.  In a nice, talking it out calmly, listening to each other and each meeting in the middle kind of way that I've never seen happen before in any of my relationships (ha...this is only my third for godsakes).  It was brilliant.  So yeah.  I'm happy as a fucking otter (clams just don't look happy to me, otters are always out being awesome and having a great time).  I know its cheesy and barf inducing, but every day I'm excited that I get to go home and see this guy.  Every night I feel at home and safe because I get to fall asleep with him.  And I look forward to every weekend that I get to hang out with him, even if its just sitting on the couch.  I feel like no matter how much my (soon-to-be)ex-husband and I cared for each other, we fed off each other's bad qualities.  They were magnified when they were put together.  Now I feel like D and I bring out each other's good sides.  I exercise more because we both want to spend time outdoors.  I eat better because we enjoy cooking together.  I laugh more because he's ridiculous.  And so on and so forth.

So, maybe this old girl can learn new tricks?  Maybe everyone that told me their 30s were way better than their 20s were right after all.  My first year was stressful and poopy, but this year is going pretty damn swimmingly. 

In other news, we're going to Quartz Mountain tomorrow to hike and stay in the lodge for a super cheap winter rate. 

In other other news, I got the comments back on my pre-proposal and there is only one tiny portion one of my committee members wants me to change.  Another member (the one I look up to the most) just said "Great!  Nothing needs to be changed, I look forward to working with you and seeing how this project turns out!"  And a third gave me a detailed list of notes on every part of the paper, which is amazing and will really help me when I'm turning this little 2 page pre-proposal into a Big Fat 10 Page Proposal with References and all that shiz.  Yay!

Ok, off to inject mice, take retinas, and then go get groceries to take hiking. 

Busted

Ok, I'm finding myself alllllllmost sliding back into unhappiness, so here is my list of loves for this moment:  love notes, snuggling, jarred fetuses, experiments that work on the first try, checking off my to-do list, having a great committee, family, ginger tea with peak milk, brown rice, and spring temperatures.

Anyway, on to my eventful weekend.  Generally Derrick works 6 days a week, but he took off Monday in anticipation of my long MLK weekend.  The plan was to hike and possibly camp somewhere.  Yeah well.

Saturday night we passed out on the couch watching Dark Knight Rises with our friend Justin.  Sunday morning I woke up, thought about wearing my favorite boots, and realized they were in the car.  I tried to find my purse, but couldn't, and forgot about it for a while.  We felt a bit lazy so instead of leaving early to go hike as planned we started watching one of my favorite shows, Carnivale.  Then we finally decided to go hike somewhere and also go to Super Cao Ngyen (the big awesome Asian market).  When I went downstairs to see if my missing purse was in my car......the car wasn't there.  It didn't really seem real so I walked around for a while just looking around.  Then I walked back upstairs and joked about it.  Then I ran back downstairs and freaked.  I was more freaked out that my car was stolen with my purse in it--as my purse had Derrick's share of the bills in it...in cash. 

So, we sat down for a second trying to figure out when the purse and the car would have gone missing and if there was a reasonable explanation for it.  Justin had left at around 2am, and we couldn't remember if he had his car.  So, even though it was unlikely, we were a little hopeful he had just taken it without asking.  So we called, and of course, our reliable-as-hell (yeah right) little J had forgotten to pay his cell phone bill and it was cut off.  So, we drove directly over to his place and found that he did indeed have my purse, with all cash intact (I had forgotten I'd ridden with him to rent the movie and left my purse in there).

So, I actually felt super relieved and not entirely freaked out about the car yet.  I was just glad to have my purse, and it still didn't feel real that the car could be missing.  Neither of us could believe it actually, and we just kind of joked about it.  I realized I had no idea what the license plate was on the damn thing, and I had JUST went to the tag agency to switch the title over from dad's name to mine, so of course I didn't have it yet.  Lovely.  Luckily when I was trying to get insurance on it I had taken a picture of the VIN and still had that on my phone.  PHEW!

So, called the police, which was annoying and took forever and there were several stupid things with that, but eventually I had my report filed and a promise from the police officer that went something like "Yeah, Honda Accords, pretty much THE most stolen car, we'll probably find it in an alleyway stripped for parts."  Cool.

So, on with our day, which ended up being lovely.  I figured worrying about not having a car wasn't going to make me magically have a car, so we went to Super Cao Nguyen and did what I love to do most in grocery stores--went slowly down every aisle, twice, and looked at every single thing.  Awesome!  We bought some fresh fish for stew, and a few African things that he remembered eating and wanted me to try.  Plus some awesome possum ginger tea that tastes downright amazing with condensed milk in it.  Oh yeah, and of course strawberry pocky and a cream bun for moi.  Afterwards we went to Taj for Indian buffet thanks to my lovely stepsis who gave me a gift certificate for Xmas.  It was awesome and has the best mango lassies ever.  We ate like kings and then went home and fell asleep watching Carnivale.

We woke up the next morning with a plan to go hiking, but I had a missed call from the police.  So, I called and found out that my car had been found!  Called the impound lot and found out it would be over $250 to get it back, I would need the registration that I did not yet have, it would be $4 extra each day they had it, and they couldn't tell me what shape it was in.  I didn't even know if it had been completely stripped, was completely fine, was totalled in a wreck, or what.  AGH!  So, realizing that if I paid that $250 I would not be able to pay the $650 total in rent I pay right now (let's call it alimony), I did what any self-respecting 30 year old would do and called daddy.  Who kindly offered to pay.  (now let's be fair and say that if he hadn't, Mom would have bailed me out, but she's bailed me out way too much lately, so I didn't want her to yet again)

So, I found out my registration had come in the mail and made a plan to pick up the car the next day.  Mom called and asked if we wanted to go to the zoo, which sounded better than driving somewhere to hike in the cold.  We packed up a lunch and went to meet her.  And on the way....got a flat tire.  And when we changed the tire to the donut, found the donut was flat.  So we drove on the bad tire to the zoo, and said fuck it and went inside.  It was lovely, and lunch was awesome.  Oh, and Derrick fed me to a lion.

After, we went to buy some fix a flat, changed into the spare tire again, which partially inflated.  We drove it to a gas station to air it up, and it was fucked.  So, changed back to the bad tire and drove slowly, slowly, slowly home. 

Next day....the impound lot.  The lady freaked me out and told me it had been wrecked a few times and I might not want it, so Dad and I went back to survey the damage.  From the outside...not bad!  I had indeed been wrecked a few times, but its just the paint off the front passenger bumper and scraped all down both sides.  Shitty, but not undriveable.  They had, however, completely broken out the ignition switch and cracked the plastic all around it and pulled off part of the driver's door frame.  And taken everything I had out of the front and back seats, the glove compartment, and the middle consoles.  Which includes (but is not limited to): Mike's wedding ring (mine was in the floorboard, they forgot it), a big bag of my clothes, my running shoes and workout clothes, a bag of pictures, my special edition fancy Origin of Species book, my favorite expensive water bottle, my extra brake fluid (the brakes still need to be fixed), a bunch of Holiday Barbies, the ice scrapers, my trash, my napkins, some science papers, and they ripped apart and then burned my parking pass for OU.  There were a pair of zebra print gloves, prescription glasses, 3 phone chargers, an ipod charger, and pretzels all over the front of the car, and the back seat was covered with cookies and valentine's day sprinkles.  They had apparently chain smoked the entire time and didn't use any of the ashtrays, but instead used the floorboard and the dash.  It smells like a fucking bar in the car and gave me a headache just on the drive home.  The trunk wasn't really touched, which is awesome because that's where my favorite boots were!  Plus my boardgames and a buncha other shit.  Yes, this does teach me not to live out of my car so much.  Anyway, they had left a bag filled with clothes back there.  Several pairs of looney toons boxershorts, a pair of jeans with belt, some white tshirts, a sweater, a hoodie, and lots of socks. 

So, for now, I have to drive with the windows down from the stink, I need to go to the carwash and vacuum out the detritus, and I have to start my car by sticking a screwdriver (that they kindly left me in the front seat) into the steering column.  And I have to park it at dad's because a baby could steal it right now, all you need is a little strength to pry the door open and a screwdriver to start it with.  So....joy.  A new ignition switch is $155.99 from Oreillys.  UGH.  Assholes.  This is what I get for being poor and only having liability on my poor 1996 car.  The total to just pick it up from the impound lot was just a few bucks over $250.  Thank you dad.

Lesson:  hate everyone, especially drunk young smokers. 

People are made of meat.

I'm determined to write a non-sad, non-relationship related post.  That shit gets boring.  Let's talk about my overly-fascinating life instead!

My narcissistic side copied Dan from Single Dad Laughing and made a little sidebar gadget over there to tell you what I'm loving right now.  In case you're interested in my exquisite tastes.  You know you are.

I'm learning all about green card issues from several different angles right now, and it all serves to make me very glad I was born in this country.  That shit is stressful!  One of our postdocs is working on his green card based on his career, and is going to end up spending over $10,000 to get it.  BUT--he's FINALLY in the final stages of it, so yay!  We're throwing him a party when that shit goes through, he's been dealing with it forever.  There's also the issues of my boy's green card, but that's a conversation for another day.  Suffice it to say it is stressful knowing that at some point your man could go into "expired" status and fear deportation.  It has happened to one of his family members in the past, and it sucks balls.  But I have faith it will all work out fine.

This motherfucker here has got me liking one of the very few musical genres I have historically always hated.  Reggae has always been up there with new country in my "Ok, a COUPLE songs are ok, but mostly this shit is balltastic!"  But, being around someone who listens to reggae a minimum of 2 hours a day gets you to the point where its almost a defense mechanism to start loving some of that shit.  I've always kinda been the kind of person that ends up liking a song when they know all the lyrics, no matter what my opinion of it was the first time I heard it (hence my love of 90s soft rock, from so many hours of riding in the car with my father and stepmom).  So, I now have a vast library of reggae that I know all the lyrics to, and I can tell the difference between Peter Tosh and Culture from the first line of a song.  I've seen the Bob Marley documentary more times than I'd like to admit, and I know too much about stupid rastafarianism (such as the fact that they hate that word).  Don't worry, I think that anyone who believes Haile Selassie actually was the second coming of Jesus is dumb as hell.  I do like that they promote vegetarianism, keeping your hair natural, and not wearing makeup.  But any Bible based religion will always hold women as less than men, so fuck that shit.  Fuck you Bible.  :-P 

I still hate the song No Woman No Cry.

My foster kitty has ringworm, and I'm trying as hard as possible to keep it from spreading.  I am keeping a mother cat and her 6 (!) kittens in the spare bedroom, and praying they don't get it.  And that no humans get it.  Tonight will be fun, we're going to give her a dip!  She'll smell like sulfur and scratch the shit out of us.  Then, its a fun evening of steam cleaning the carpet!  Yay!

In other news, anyone want to adopt a kitten?  Eh?

In watching my food intake compared to my general health, I've noticed something disturbing.  I've noticed that I should probably cut bread out of my diet.  This isn't a total disaster, as most of what we eat are yummy stews with rice or some sort of cassava based starchy substance (fufu FTW!).  But it still sucks for this bread-loving woman of Irish descent.  No more sweet sweet Barnes bread from the African market.  No more Hawaiian sweet rolls stuffed with goat stew.  :(  But, it will be worth it to get away from the horrible acid reflux that bread seems to cause and the awful headaches I have when I've been eating bread and stop (food withdrawals are not awesome). 

I am ridiculously poor right now.  Its not so bad, considering the boy is very good at taking random shit from the pantry and making delicious meals.  But I would like to suddenly have my debt wiped away.  That would be awesome..........

I've been listening to KOSU almost nonstop lately.  Its either NPR, or it is music that makes me happy.  Derrick's little heart almost burst when we were on our way to the Great Salt Plains State Park on Sunday and they played a block of reggae.  Reggae on a station in Oklahoma?  He was in heaven.  Then I got the same treatment driving home 2 nights ago and I heard Salem.  SALEM!  On the radio!  In Oklahoma!  I could have died right then.  Side story--D said when he first moved to this country he asked his sister how many reggae stations there were in Oklahoma and when she said none he was devastated.  Side note--if you haven't heard Salem GET ON THAT SHIT.  Start with the song King Night.  Although Sick is my personal favorite.

Ok, that's the main news in my life.  Hope you enjoyed this view into my cluttered little head.

Confidence

I find my lack of confidence alarming.  No matter how much evidence to the contrary, I have a deep-seated belief that everything I do and everything I am is pretty shitty.  I'm working very hard to shake this, but it is still there, whispering to me.  I can project as much as I want, and tell myself over and over that these beliefs are false, but they stick, somewhere under the surface, just waiting to jump on me when I least expect it.

You're not smart.  You're not pretty.  You're not funny.  No one really likes you.  You will be alone.  You will be unsuccessful. 
You are annoying.  You are unnattractive.  You are stupid.  You are fat.  You are a bad person.

I wasn't raised like this.  I was raised by someone who had a mother who constantly told them they weren't good enough, so she raised me the opposite.  We were told how smart we are, how great we are, how much we are loved.  But still, this lack of confidence.  I see it in my brother.  I see it in my friends, too.  Is it this country?  Does our society instill this in us from an early age?  Is it the consumerist belief that you need to buy more, more, more to be good enough?  Fuck, I don't know.

All I know is that this needs to stop.  We need to realize that we have faults.  We have weaknesses.  But, we have strengths.  We have greatness in us.  We are good enough, and we can become even better.  Nothing is stopping us.  I'm not saying that we can be whatever we want--that line of bullshit created a generation of us that are overeducated and cannot find real jobs.  I'm just saying we are smart enough, pretty enough, nice enough, and we won't be alone.  We are loveable.  We have friends and family who actually like us for who we are.  And if we don't, we can fucking find them.  Trash the ones that don't.  Ignore them.  Focus on the positive.

Success should never be measured by money or belongings.  It should be measured by happiness and love.  And if I go by that, I'm becoming more successful every day.  My confidence is getting higher and I'm able more and more to tell those silly negative voices in the back of my head to shut the hell up.

Carousel

The term "rollercoaster of emotions" is trite and overused.  So, I'm saying I'm on a carousel right now.  I'm riding a pretty, pretty horse, and going around and around looking at the pretty sights...but sometimes I start to feel a little motion sickness and want to get off.  Ok, that's ridiculous.  Seriously though...I do love a good carousel.  I always took the time (if there weren't too many people) to carefully pick out the prettiest steed and then while riding I would tell it how awesome it was while petting its mane.  Of course, if there was a rabbit to ride, hot damn!  I was in heaven.

Oh wait a minute...why the hell was I writing this blog again?  Oh yeah.  I'm still cycling back and forth between sadness and anxiety, numbness, and sheer joy.  The happy parts of my life are slowly but surely creeping up on the others, though, and I'm able to focus more on the awesomeness than on the stressfulness.  Here, lists are fun, let's compare them.

List of sad:
School, stressful as always
Lab, still feeling a bit behind and very unmotivated
Family, still freaking out about my life choices
Friends, those that I've lost are still fresh wounds

List of happy (thanks, Selina!):
School--I'm feeling more confident since the whole A-in-the-middle-of-a-breakup
Lab--Dr. Ding is happier with my work than she had been, and I'm understanding the direction I will be taking more
Family--mostly supportive, and some of them have really truly surprised me
Friends--I have awesome ones that make me laugh and stick by me

Also:
Every Sunday we've been hiking somewhere.  Whether it be close, like the trails behind Lake Hefner, or driving up to Stillwater to hike the lake, down to Norman to Thunderbird, etc.  We take the soccer ball and the BB gun, and I'm getting much better with both.  I can kick the ball up over obstacles and my aim is getting pretty good with it, and as for the gun, holy shit I'm pretty awesome!  Now to get my crossbow....
I've been eating better, almost never eating out.  We cook a lot, and I get to eat damn good African stew several times a week. I'm even learning to like fish (if seasoned well, of course).
I've been exercising more, I have some apps on my new Kindle (thanks Mom!) that are pretty awesome and kick my ass just enough to give me that soreness the next day that I love, plus I make an effort to keep moving at work and to always take the stairs.
D has started playing soccer, and I'm considering upping my practice times and possibly, just maybe, joining the team.  There are a lot of girls playing, actually the best player on their team is a girl.  It would force me to get more exercise, more social involvement, and it looks like hella fun.  Of course, me being me, it would be a major step--playing a team sport?  Craziness!  We'll see, I have to get a lot better before I'd submit myself to that embarassment. 
I finally got a library card in OKC, and although I really don't have time to read anything non-science, I think I'm going to start renting books on tape.  I miss reading for fun, and now that my commute to work is between 20-30 minutes each way, I could easily burn through some books that have been on my reading list for years.
I love being a part of the foster program for the Humane Society.  No matter how much I love this little kitty we have right now, I like that she will go to a new home and we can give another animal a chance after her.  I got an email yesterday with a list needing homes last night, and was very tempted to take a dog (or two), but resisted because of Nola's recent spay.  I don't need to add stress to her while she's healing.  She'll be going to the adoption center soon (sad face) and then we'll be able to take a new animal.  Although, once we've decided where we're living for the next year (our lease is up), I'm seriously considering getting a permanent house rabbit from Heartland Rabbit Rescue (where I volunteered before moving to NOLA).

So, even though I have some low levels of anxiety remaining, and every once in a while I need a good cry to process shit, overall I'm the happiest I've been in a long time.  Hopefully I can clear out the rest of the emotional clutter some time soon and just be able to focus solely on my list of happy.  Derrick's ridiculously positive attitude about life is helping a lot.  If we can both find a balance between the two of us--my overly fretful nature and his overly laidback, we'll make it, by god! 

Loss

I cried half of the way home today.  I was mourning the loss of friends and family.  I've noticed that several, several people have deleted me off Facebook and are no longer answering my attempts to contact them.  Ok.  That's their choice.  Some were hurtful, but expected.  Soon-to-be-ex-husband's best friend.  I love him, but yeah.  Others though?  Ouch.  Childhood friend, I've known since I can remember.  FAMILY members.  And I don't even know why they decided I'm not worth talking to anymore.  Adultery?  My increasing showing of the fact that I'm an atheist?   Just tired of my potty mouth?  Secretly in love with me and can't stand seeing my beautiful face anymore?

Anyway, then I remembered what Derrick always says to me.  People are going to do what they're gonna do, no matter how you feel about it.  So, take it in stride and don't worry yourself so much.  So, I had my cry, mourned my loss, and then thought, fuck em.  I'm human, I make mistakes, but I'm also generally awesome.  I have a shit ton of people still in my life that support me no matter how much I fuck up.  I have great friends and great family.  So, I want to say I appreciate those people.  My awesome friends--those I made in grade school, high school, at SWOSU, in NOLA, and those who are in school with me now.  You assholes know who you are.  And my amazing family, at least those that are left after the smoke clears.  Especially my father, who can seem to uncaring at times, but really came through for me in all of this and surprised the shit out of me.

So, I had my cry.  Then I picked up my foster cat from the spay clinic and headed home to good African food, a loving boyfriend, a soft couch, a warm doped up kitty, and a glass of red wine.  Now I'm going to go get ready for D's very first American soccer game.  He's super excited and I'm going to enjoy laughing while watching him dance around to Bob Marley in his cute soccer outfit.

2013

A new year. I realize this year more than any before that a calendar date is meaningless, but it is still a time for reflection.

2012 was a time of amazing highs and terrible lows. I had huge realizations and big giant mistakes. I felt so loved and so alone. I started falling in love with someone new and started falling out of love with my best friend. I found out that I could make the grades I needed in grad school. I found out I am smart. I am sexy. I am loveable, fun, and all those other nice things I had a problem telling myself were true.

I started the new year dancing and laughing with my boyfriend, then passing out together in the living room tangled up together. I spent the next day with my family fully enjoying the day. D met my dad's side and it went well. He was great with the babies.

Anyway the point is I started this year the happiest and most relaxed I've felt in so long.  My extreme anxiety is almost completely gone. I have confidence. I have a really cute kitty in my lap.

2013 bring it on!