Holiday and such

Hey dudes. I know I haven’t written in awhile. I’m not sure if anyone really keeps up on this anyway (or makes it through my entire entry whenever I write).

Anyway, things with Paul are pretty much still up in the air. I am really trying to be kindof emotionally distant (a.k.a. "defensive") so he doesn’t really get the opportunity to string me along… I’m not saying he’s consciously doing this, of course, but it’s kindof the impression I get when he says he loves me or wants to be with me but doesn’t take any steps to make that happen. Maybe that’s just me, but I spent a lot of time stringing Tyler, etc. along… and I wouldn’t want him to be with me again just out of habit or for security (if that’s the case, it always ends up much worse the 2nd time around).

So yeah, I guess I could be too quick to shut myself off, but I dunno. Anyway, so that’s all I will really say about that for now. Luckily I have had things to distract me. Last Friday for instance, Meghan, Monte, Zuha, Zuha’s boyfriend and I did some indoor rock climbing. Man, that crap’s difficult! Come Sunday I was so. freaking. sore.  If I keep this up though I’ll be SUPER BUFF.  I’m pretty dreadful at climbing right now, though I hope to get better.

Let’s see… I worked on Friday and Saturday. I can’t remember what I did on Saturday night. Oh yeah, Meghan was taking a Greyhound to southern CA, so we went downtown to get her tickets. Then she, Karoline and I picked up some Italian take-out, came back here and watched "Stuck on You" on Comedy Central. It was a terrible movie but made the night pretty okay. Around 830 or so I took Meghan to the bus station downtown, came back here and fell asleep pretty early.

I woke up Sunday around 11, sat around for a long time, and then Monte and Ian came to pick up Karoline and I. One of our friends/coworkers was celebrating his birthday. We went to some college concert thing, then went to a bar called "The Red Room" afterward. Vanessa, Erin and my supervisor Bo showed up, so that was fun. After that we went to Vanessa’s house and stayed the night there. She lives REALLY close to the beach, so after a few drinks we walked over and essentially tripped over the sand in the dark. It was cool though, being on the beach and hearing/seeing the ocean, though it was cold and pretty dark out. Luckily Vanessa wrapped Karoline and I in some of her clothes so we kept warm. After that we headed back and Karoline tried to teach me some card game, but she kept beating me so I wasn’t really too excited about it. I probably ended up telling her it was lame or something, but it was all in good fun.

Ian spent a good amount of time singing songs about each of us. Karoline’s was definitely the most interesting; mine basically involved him saying I never said a word the first day, but he knew I had a lot of heart because I was really quick to volunteer to do all the physical work. It’s always interesting to hear first impressions people have of you, ya know?

So we slept at Vanessa’s on Sunday night, and we drove back on Monday morning. We stopped at some small "restaurant" for breakfast, and I had a sandwich that ended up making me puke later: a bagel with egg, lettuce, mayonnaise, tomato and mustard. The whole drinking thing + a winding highway + eggs plus freaking mustard just ruined my belly I guess. Damn, what kind of f’n hippies mix eggs and mustard? Ugh..

Anyway, so there’s that. I took a good ol’ nap on Monday, did laundry eventually, and just sat around the rest of the day. Today was pretty boring… it involved a lot of office work. I am excited about tomorrow… we get to spend the morning doing stake removals for trees we planted a few years ago, and lunch consists of a big ol’ Thanksgiving potluck + babyshower for one of the staff members. That really means that our lunch will be about 2.5 hours long, and we don’t have to work Thursday-Monday.

I will probably head to southern CA on Thursday morning. I had invitations to spend Thanksgiving with a few people here, but I really don’t want to impose on their holidays. Plus Paul’s family is excited about having someone else show up for the holiday, and I am excited to see kitten again. I just hope it isn’t too awkward… but then again, I should just accept the fact that awkward blood flows through my veins.

Don’t forget what you’ve learned

all you give is returned

and if life seems absurd, what you need is some laughter

and a season to sleep, and a place to get clean