i think tonight i'm writing just to hear myself type...

(track and field day, combined with parachute games...a kid's dream :) )

ya know, if i didn't have a kid and a job, i wouldn't be leaving my room anymore. i'm in this completely hermatic mood (hermatic. yes. just made that up. it's like being a nomadic hermit or something...which makes sense but is actually a totally impossible thing to be unless you're living in your head only. which is where i am. so see, that's how it makes sense...)

anyway, all i want is coffee, my typewriter, my camera's and computer. at night, i'd come out for some wine, maybe. or whiskey, maybe. (i am in the process of looking for a couch for my office so i can make this a reality, btw. though when i say it out loud, it doesn't sound all that healthy, does it?) i've been crabby with myself because i do get this incurable urge to write something, anything, and it's all i can dwell on, even feeling jealous of those who do write. writing has always been my quiet spot in my head, or something. i think i'm just missing quiet in my head more than anything.

amazing. i think i just solved my latest hangup. incredible what writing nonsensical sentences and made-up words can do for a person. sigh. i'm cured! or somethin...

so, on a totally unrelated note, this weekend is bff weekend. i am so excited i could squeak. cuddle time in bed, junk food, terribly stupid television, wine, board games, conversation, laughing till tears come out...it'll be awesome.

this time though, there will be NO videos of me leaked on the web. last time, things got a little out of control when i stole my bff's crutches, laughed at her for not being able to get me, did a dance i called, 'twinkle toes', nearly lost my pants and then fell over into what i thought was my bff's chair...but what turned out to be her recording it all. it wasn't my most shiningest moment in life...but it was a funny one--in a drunken, retarded sort of way. (and i believe that if i got drunk more often, i wouldn't be so stupid when i DO drink too much but yeah...that theory might be as stupid as the video itself...)

maybe i need a career adjustment...

(had another photo shoot with kids and are this weekend! so cute :) )

what did i do this weekend, you ask? (well, no you didn't...but, let's pretend you did.) i worked. and i'm still working. and now, in less than twelve hours, i will be back at a job that i'm growing to loathe more and more each day. it's not the kids or my room...i love all that. it's incompetent management who lack the ability to communicate and make decisions that benefit anyone outside of themselves (though on a personal level, are very nice people) and the fact that i really have a problem raising other people's kids for 40-60 hours a week. it goes against everything, as a parent, i stand for...and i'm supporting it. everyday i get told by someone how they want their child raised, potty trained, fed, clothed, etc...and everyday i get told when i'm not raising their child correctly. it's frustrating to me and seems really wrong and i still basically work in a customer service field so i still have to be nice about it all. i love having my own room and the freedom to do what i want, but the overall setting leaves much to be desired.

ugh. anyway. here's another pic. i got up at seven this morning, to gain a couple hours in the day, due to anxiety about not being able to get everything done...and i rode the bike to caribou to eat some oatmeal, read the paper and have someone else make me coffee. it was during about mile two of the ride home though that i looked down and thought...'oh. do normal people ride their bikes with coffee in the water holder place?' i still don't know that answer that...

happy mothers day

it's that day again. the day all moms are queens and can, without guilt, put off chores and not shower. (okay...well, i maybe threw the shower thing in because any day i have an excuse not to shower is a good day.) ((and also...sure, i put off chores, but it just means i get double tomorrow and get to be behind the rest of the week and feel stressy.)) (((and yes. i love mothers day. i really do. kinda.)))

anyway. i don't know how to call you because i don't know how to make my voice work sometimes...i can write though. everyday, you're in my thoughts in some way...whether i'm finding a mixing bowl at a thrift store, buckling a milk can into my passenger seat or well, doing anything with my own daughter. i'm not sure how relationships work or get messed up or come back together or anything like that...and i don't get how some of the easiest seeming relationships can sometimes be the hardest, but i don't really care either, because honestly, it is what it is.

my kid wiped out and skun up her knee pretty bad the other day and when she stared at it, and touched it, and bent it, and rubbed the rocks out, it hurt. and the more it all hurt, the worse it all felt and the more upset she got. and then, she went to bed and forgot about it...when she got up the next morning, the bleeding was done, a scab was forming and yeah...the injury was there but, being left alone, and having life, and bike rides, happen all over again made that injury fix itself, entirely on its own.

and i'm not saying anything but i am just saying...i miss you in my life.

i love you.

yep. i'm lazy. deal.

yep. it was everything i'd hoped it would be. the wedding was perfect. (AND! it started with the people ahead of me in the line at caribou buying mine and my daughter's drinks :) )

there's more about it: HERE! (the wedding, that is. drink buying is pretty self-explanatory.)

and no. i'm not trying to be a douche and make you look at my other blog because that IS what people do these days. i just don't want to write it all out again. and copying and pasting just occurred to me...but, at this point, that's too much work. it's been a long day.

yep. my job is pretty okay.

tonight, senior portraits. tomorrow, a wedding.

the wedding i'm shooting, i'm doing as a volunteer. my dad's best friend is getting remarried. they went through high school, through vietnam, through adulthood, through parent hood, through life...together. the groom's first wife, died suddenly and unexpectedly, about a decade ago and i remember it really sucking. i remember being at the funeral and i remember seeing the pain in the eyes of the kids who were my age, who i had grown up with, side-by-side. i remember seeing a tall, strong, gruff, motorcycle riding man, so low in life that he wasn't sure how to raise his head up high and i remember crying not for myself, but for them. they're a large, close, family who walks slightly off the beaten path and seems a generation behind their time, but is always together in this life...and a part of me had always wanted to just be a part of them.

tomorrow, the husband is remarrying. he's remarrying a woman that his first wife would have had as a friend. she fits in so perfectly with all the quirks and rolls with it all effortlessly. she loves him and he loves her and i love it all. i hope i make it, as the photographer, without crying too much...though as i write this, i can feel the tears well. getting to be a part of tomorrow feels like an honor to me.

ya know...looking at my photo blog tonight, it's kinda funny how i feel through my lens. i'm a sensitive person as is...but through my lens, i feel it long before i see it. i feel paper thin when looking at my images. i see life moments, captured forever, and i feel so insignificant in front of them. i genuinely feel honored, and i deeply respect, being invited into major intersections within people's lives.

i couldn't ask for a cooler, more real, job :)

baby, it's not you...it's me...

(uhm...kolace's didn't really work well enough to actually give away. those things are really difficult! i'm gonna talk to my grandma again and try it again another day. i think i'll stick to my cookies, breads and cakes for the time being... oh! i'm gonna go to kolace days this summer and talk to them people too...)

well. my roomie came to me and said, 'i got a part-time serving job and i can transfer wendy's and i can go back to the sober house where i used to live!' and i stared blankly and i thought for a minute and all i could say was, 'so, you're lying to a sober house and backtracking in life? that's awesome. you went as high as you could, in life, apparently.' and i didn't say it nicely. i said it bitchily. (and holy hell, bitchily is a word. i know that because there are no red, squiggly lines under it.)

and then i went into my room and i sat there and i realized, it's me. it's all me.

i absolutely need to get over the idea that people are going to only do things that please me. and i don't mean like buy me awesome lenses and shoes and candy...i mean like not live up to the expectations i've placed on them. with my friend, the nasty boyfriend thing is a shock to me...but to her, she's happy. i fear for the psychological effect on her son and whether or not he's a good role model, and i know she deserves so much better, but she doesn't care so, so be it. she's looking at his boat and his big truck and forgetting that she has a son that needs to be picked up some days, and be trusted alone with him, and that she works in a corporate atmosphere that a rednecky, pot head won't fit in with, nor understand. she's okay separating herself from family, friends and her career, fine. it's my expectations that lead to my disappointments. she is lonely and looking for someone to share time and interests with. she's always been one to date questionable people...the good ones are always too boring. that's who she is. (i'm really tryin' on this one, but all i just said, up there ^^^ makes me sound not quite over it, huh?)

and my roomie, he's more comfortable at a sober house (despite being a social drinker, at most) and working at a fast food drive through. yes, he's 35 with no high school diploma but he's okay with that. (he came to live with us because he wanted to get back to school, get a car, enroll in some college courses and leave the service industry. out of all of that, he got a car. it's currently broke down in my driveway.) he's fine living off the system, never paying taxes, not showering for days, smoking cigarette butts from the ground and eating junk/fast food all the time. these things are who he is...i want him to be more. i want her to be more. but they are who they are.

i have an remarkably stupid way of only looking at the good and being completely blind to the bad. i get my hopes up and i get disappointed. and this isn't anything new...and it's not necessarily a bad thing. i just do NOT have the right to get angry at people, for being exactly who they are. (heh. this coming from an artist that expects a certain amount of slack when i randomly go crazy. after all, it's just who i am :) )

not sure how to smile and nod here...

(i brought my guy home a gift of chocolate covered potato chips this weekend...my guy, being his typical OCD self, then went out and decided to chocolate cover all KINDS of other thing...)

so, uhm, a while back, i wrote about a friend putting me in a bad position with her kid and boyfriend, etc...things got better. and now, it's back worse than ever.

i have to get this out because i swear, i feel crazy, like i'm missing something.

so for a couple weeks she's been glowing about a new guy. i have been so happy for her. she's taking it slowly, he hasn't met her kid yet, it sounded just like what she needed. i told her how excited i was to meet him and am watching her kid this friday so they can go out.

last night, she made the relationship official via facebook (so, of course, me, and everyone else, started fb stalking) and wow. i mean, outside of the pot smoking comments, rap videos, scuzzy, redneck friends, i found this gem of a photo:

cool. the dude dropped two grand on a gun from a video game. however, the comments below the gun are what totallly alarmed me:

friend: 'dead n%#$er walkin'
boyfriend: 'i hope you're not talking about me. lol'
friend: 'naw, the koon lol'
boyfriend: 'good call!!'

really!? professional, suburban, near 30 yr old, moms are into that??

so, i scrolled down a bit on his page and then saw that he had posted about what a great weekend he had had (my friend posted the same thing), HIS friend responded to that post by saying,

'hahahaha about time u got a piece drunk an sloppy or sober lmao'

that comment is in reference to someone i care about--he responded by asking his friend if he'd been hittin the pipe and his friend said 'not yet,' called him a cracker and let it go.

wow.

so...now, i'm stuck. and i'm feeling like a total jerk but no. i can't do this. i have red flags up all over and i'm not an idiot. she's begged me not to let this first impression ruin it all but knowing that he has a big truck and a fishing boat isn't enough for me to give ANY sort of approval. and having her assurance that her friend wouldn't have hooked them up if she thought he was bad isn't enough either. i just had to back out of babysitting this weekend and i know she's gonna hate me. (also, i won't be here and my guy has said this dude isn't allowed around our daughter and in our home so i'd have to be asking him to babysit so they could go out. that would cause a fight and i'm not willing to risk it...) i reminded her that her family, coworkers, etc...can see his profile and she just responded with, 'oh crap. do you think anyone has seen it?' really!? she knows it's bad but is still trying to convince me he's good?

ugh. i had to write because it's all i can think about lately. i'm being consumed by knowing this is gonna get worse between us before it gets better. we have a wedding to be at this next saturday and it's gonna be weird and i hate weird and i hate conflict and i'm sick about all of it already. ugh. maybe she'll just be like, 'wow! you're right! it's done.' but yeah...something tells me this isn't gonna work that way.

and maybe i'm being a jerk. i mean, maybe his fb is all wrong, but out of the 227 friends i have plus all of her friends...combined, NO ONE would ever say those things...trashy, rascist, ignorant, redneck, people talk like that. i'm completely confused by this...i know my gut but i love her and and trying to be happy she's happy.

sigh.

i'm gonna post some chocolate fruit pics now and go walk my dogs and then ride my bike. i need to clear my head...