Oh dear sweet blog, how I've neglected you so. Thankfully you live in the land of infinite cyberspace, and you are my forever friend.

I don't even know where to start, so I guess I'll just start.

Telephone call with potential roommate tomorrow. Looks like this may pan out in a cosmic kind of way. She is nice, her hubby is nice, the location is excellent, and I get my own bathroom. It's still a few months out, and talking to her tomorrow should help in solidifying plans.

Spoke with and emailed my resume to a very interesting political guy. He seemed friendly, and although I doubt he'd hold a position for me, it gave me that burst of excitement that I needed, knowing there is work out there and interesting people to provide that work.

School is INSANE. And, I mean infuckingsane. I spent last night and this morning (totaling 7 hours) on 9 assignments. I am resentful that my Friday nights are now designated as homework nights, but I really just don't have another solution for managing the massive homework assignments. My capeesh guy may make my knees wobble, but he makes my brain hurt and he may cause me to start smoking again. Bada bing that!

It's been over a month without a cigarette. Not even a little puff. I don't have the personality to socially smoke or have a puff now and then. I'm an all or nothing kind of gal, and that has its perks, just not with smoking. Last night I was so overwhelmed and stressed out by school that I cried and begged the bf for a smoke. I cried...for a cigarette. Maybe a little gross and over dramatic, but hell, I've heard it's easier to quit crack than smoking. I actually am craving cigs more now than I was during the first week. I think it's just the stress of everything. And, I feel like I'm gaining some some chunkage. I go to the gym 2 days a week instead of the 5 I was going before school started.

Things with the bf are the same. My birthday is next week, which is the 3 month mark until departure, so I may give it one more week and then drop the bomb. I can't believe time is moving so quickly.

Birthday is next weekend. Last year of my 20's. Fuck! Going to see the King Tut exhibit in SF, and then off to a fancy pants dinner at an old school SF steakhouse, Bobo's.

Tonight, meeting up with a good friend to see a hot Swedish band. Very much looking forward to that.

A Florida friend is going through a divorce, and we are going through a lot of the same feelings and experiences. We have both decided that next year, we are going to Scotland and riding horses. Sounds solid to me.

Overheard in Mill Valley

I was in the post office line yesterday. It was quite possibly the longest line ever. While we were all standing around and waiting, a couple of male acquaintances started chatting. They were a bit older and bearded men. They reminded me a little of mountain men, but very, very fit mountain men. They were talking about their children, and one of the guys was so pleased that his daughter was a teacher's assistant. Then he said the one thing that makes me see red..."now she'll be able to get a real job." On top of that, the other man guffawed and made me see double red..."oh, so she'll be making 80k to start." They had a good laugh, and chatted about the successes of their children, whipping out their dicks to see who had the bigger one. Ooops, I mean more successful child.

I was bothered by this conversation for a couple of reasons. The first being that anything less than having financial success does not mean you have a real job. This makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. If you work and get a paycheck, then you have a bonafide job. If you work and get a great, big paycheck, then congratufuckinglations. But neither job is more real than the other, and mocking the folks who struggle to earn a living makes me want to hurt others. Like a lot. Second, is this how people in my town view success? Does making a ton of money mean that you did a great job raising the children. Well, great job Jon, here's a pat on the back for making babies and they grew up to wealthy! Not one of my mountain men said, "Well gee, she's a really great kid."

Enough ranting about that.

Some goings on...

School: Insanely busy with school. 3 nights a week commuting into the city, plus an internship (which is my job, but I need to do journal entries), and working full-time is HARD! I came home last night so incredibly pooped out. However, it does make my week go incredibly fast and keeps me very busy. The teacher I have for Probate and Ethics is making me crazy with his anal retentive ways, despite my desire to make sweet love with him as soon as he opens his mouth to speak. He said "Capeesh" again, and I think a part of me melted.

Work: Meh, it's fine!

Gym: Since school started, I have been neglecting the gym. I've been going on Saturday and Sundays and that's about it. Combine less gym time with quitting smoking and I'm sure you can figure out that I am not pleased with the scale results. I tried running on the treadmill a couple of days ago to see if my stamina improved, but my feet hurt so badly I had to stop (I was wearing skating shoes...oops). I then tried to get on the eliptical, but my feet were in so much pain that I gave up and went home. That's what I get for trying to be healthy.

Home: Home life has its typical ups and downs. Told the bf I can feel myself pulling away knowing that my move is coming up. He reminded me we are just trying to enjoy each other until I'm ready to go. Sounds so dramatic and weird. Why am I not totally rich so I can get my own place, dammit!?

The move: Things are starting to shape. A very nice girl I talked to last November has reappeared, and although she has a roomie now, the roomie is leaving at the end of May or early June. Sweet! I would get my own bathroom, a large bedroom, and the house itself is super pretty and big. The other girl I was talking to from many blogs ago sort of just didn't send me pics like I had hoped, so not sure what's going on with that situation. So, I'm feeling pretty good about the potential new place. I am also stoked because there will be a huge Ren Faire nearby, and I'm going to corset up and go! Hell yeah!

Not for all the tea in China

My friend "Q" worked for a tea distribution company for quite a long time. Over time he accumulated some teas and even saved a pallet of tea from imminent destruction - that tea was heading to the dumpster with its other tea pals. Q is moving back to the east coast, and asked me and "A" to help him unload some of his tea. We were happy to oblige.

Q and I drove into the city to meet up at A's place. I did not pay attention to the boxes in the backseat of the station wagon, and happily yapped with Q and petted his pretty dog. We got to A's place, parked the car, and started unloading...holy tea box Batman!

We lugged the many boxes up the stairs and piled them into the living room. Words cannot describe the piles of tea sitting in that room. We sat down and got to working on sorting the teas. From Sapphire Ceylon, to Thousand Days Jasmine, to Jade Pagoda, it was an endless sea of exotic, fragrant teas. I was blissed out for several hours, poking in and out of boxes, and carefully pulling out the ones that pleased me most for myself and for some other tea loving friends.

We started mentally crashing from the tea overload and took a walk down the street. We were in search of an open bakery to cure our sweet craving. We found a crepe place on the main strip called Fritz. I ordered myself a crepe with nutella, strawberries and whipped cream. Q ordered apples, cinnamon, toasted almonds, and whipped cream. A ordered herself some fries with...WHITE TRUFFLE OIL.

The fries came out first and they were dripping with the white truffle oil. We dipped our fries into bbq sauce and some concoction of white truffle oil, artichoke, and ketchup. The fries were fantastic and A's eyes glazed over for a moment while chewing her fries. We munched happily on our amazing fries and then our monster crepes came out.

I have to say, eating good food is probably one of my favorite things to do, EVER. If I could go back and do it all over again, I'd be a food critic. Though, I am not adventurous with my cuisines, and would not be able to tolerate seafood, organs, etc.

We went back and continued with our massive tea project. I took everything that pretty much everyone else didn't want. This left me with many large boxes of tea. And, I don't mean those little boxes you buy in the store, I mean moving boxes full of tea, and many of them. I went home and made iced tea with the crysanthumum tea, and started building care packages of tea for some folks that I knew were into tea. I looked again in the boxes and found some new ones that I missed the first go around. Chocolate chip truffle tea, wowie. I called people up and asked if they wanted tea. I facebooked people. (Linds...do you like tea? :P) People wanted to know how I came across so much tea. I felt like a tea hustler, pushing my goods on people to "move the stuff."

This morning, I woke up (duh), gave my old roomies an enormous amount of tea, hit the gym, and went grocery shopping. I also ingested some very special cookies and I'm feeling a bit...special. So with a ruben sandwich in hand and the Superbowl on t.v., I'm enjoying relaxing on the last leg of this weekend.

No words came out

Dear Blog,

My how things change in just a day or two. Can we slow down the emotional rollercoaster please? Maybe it's an operator error.

The bf brought up such sticky, yucky stuff last night. Stuff I had been hoping to not deal with for at least a couple of months, but it looks like I don't have a choice but to deal. It was sad and emotional. As he talked, I stared at a spot on the wall. As I fixated on that spot, I was vocally frozen, and nothing came out. I desperately wanted a cigarette, because my stress point was finally hit. I, of course did not have any, because I quit about two weeks ago, and for some divine reason, he didn't have any either.

After listening and taking in all the words being poured on me, I walked away and into the bedroom and found a new spot on the wall the stare at. I fell asleep, and it was on my mind first thing this morning.

After work, instead of going to the gym as intended, I came home and wrote a lengthy response to last night's one sided conversation. I felt that mental health came before physical health tonight.

I am turning 29 years old in a month. TWENTY-FREAKING-NINE. I feel like that sounds so old, but I don't feel it physically. 28 has been one hell of a year, my god. I would say 28 has been the biggest rollercoaster of them all. I foresee 29 being a bit on the wild side as well, but I'm hoping to tame that beast before the last year of my 20's gets too out of control. I'm hoping for a wild, good time, but not in the same way of this year.

At 28 I:
* Quit smoking (hopefully for real this time)
* Joined a gym and actually worked out
* Will be getting a paralegal certificate
* Will have a horrible breakup resembling a divorce
* Started a blog to memorialize all the crazy shit going on in my life
* Moved out of my apartment
* Moved in with strangers
* Moved back in to my old apartment
* Made a decision to move for myself to a place that has SNOW

I suppose now that I've written it down, it doesn't seem like so much. Actually, it seems a little on the short end of exciting things going on in a year. I'm a bit of an adventure junkie, and overcoming challenges and pushing myself to the limits gives me an extra notch on my belt.

Over and out, folks.

Busy

Holy moly, the days are going so fast now, I can hardly take a moment and smell the blogs.

A quick update: Last night had a terrific sex dream again! Sex dream was with college ex bf, so no idea why he's coming into my psyche, but made for a damn fine way to wake up this morning. Why am I having so many sex dreams? My grad student psych friend...help me out a little? He is a friend on Myspace and we occasionally chat. I tried to find him to let him know about my dream, because I figure that would bring a smile to another human's face this morning.

School: AWESOME. I am loving my classes, loving the teachers, and loving the homework we are given. I feel a bit challenged, but not to my breaking point (yet). Love going to the food court of super awesome places before class. Tonight, I expect to get my favorite - A Roadhouse Buck, meat, blue cheese chunks, fried onions, and tons of my favorite red bbq sauce.

Home: MEH! Still the same old stuff. Figuring out the right time to tell the bf the exact date I'm leaving. Don't want to do it too soon and have a miserable next few months, but don't want to do it too late and leave him screwed. Also must remember to get the electric, telephone, and cable changed to his name only.
We buried my sweet little hamster yesterday in the hammy at a local park, where our hamster graveyard is.

Move: Feeling a bit burned out on the process. I've sent out a few emails to more prospective roomies to keep my options open, but nothing is looking as good as the prospective roomies from way back. But, I have yet to see pics of the place, connect with the actual roommates (and not just the landlord), or be connected with the friend in SF. It's still too early to seriously job search, but I did apply for a job with the FBI as a paralegal, because that would be fricken' rad. I don't expect to hear back, but I have nothing to lose. I am just a little bored and burned out right now, so I'm laying low and hoping for some inspiration to hit me soon.

Smoking: Still smoke free. It sucks. I love smoking. I didn't even quit because I hated smoking that much. I just hated the idea of an old lady me, with a smoke in hand hacking up green stuff. I'm at the week and a half mark I think? Getting closer to two. I'm not needing the nicotine gum as much, and the crankiness has abated. I am find myself strangely antsy though, and those are the moments when I want a smoke. Like, after my show is over. But still going with it. I haven't been hungrier really, and I'm not snacking a lot, BUT, I haven't been going to the gym as much since school started (can only go fri/sat/sun now), so I hope my blubber doesn't suffer too much from all the changes at once. I figure if I work out super hard over the weekend, I should be ok. Also, once I get used to my new late night, busy schedule, I can cram some gym in there also.

Time to get ready for work. I feel like I've been going a hundred miles an hour!

Last night

About 3 am the bf came into the bedroom and woke me up. He had one of our hamsters in his hands and told me he didn't think the little guy was doing so well. I took one look at him ("Fat Ham") and knew he was near death.

About a month ago, I told the bf I was worried about Fat Ham. He looked frail and his coat was thinning out. He also was not running in his wheel as much as normal. We thought maybe it was just the cold weather.

But, last night as the he sat in the bf's hand, I cried and cried. I told the bf to put him back in his cage and make him comfortable. He had such a hard time letting go of Fat Ham. He kept stroking his tummy, but Fat Ham was on his way out of this land.

We put him in the cage and gave him a fresh heaping of his favorite food. I cried as I knew he would not make it through the night, and there was not a damn thing I could do for the little guy. I've had enough dwarf hamsters to recognize when it's their time to go. The smushed face, heavy and fast breathing, lack of movement, etc.

I woke up this morning and checked on him. There he was in the spot we put him, looking totally at peace. He lived to be about 1 year and 8 months, which is ancient in dwarf hamster years. The owner of the pet store told me they live longer when they are bonded to humans. I like to think he was bonded to us. He was one of the sweetest dwarves I've had. These types of hamsters are not known for being sweet; they are typically aggressively and must be tamed. I've had Fat Ham and his brother Crazy Ham since they were about 6 weeks old, so I had a chance to tame them while they were young.

His brother Lazy Ham is still rocking and rolling in the other cage. They were separated last Christmas due to fighting.

I wish my baby well over the Rainbow Bridge.