A break

This full moon is kicking my ass. Hard. My mind is all aswirl, as are my fragile little emotions. What was I doing when I noticed that it was raining in my living room last night? (long story, for another day) Answer: I was laying on my couch, listening to my iPod and sighing. This is not the person who should be writing posts for you. I'm taking this week off. Be good to yourselves.

How you know.

Do you want to know how you know you are in the presence of the One That Got Away? I can tell you. You see him and your heart skips not one beat but two. It's cold out, but your face is flaming hot. You are sure you are purple. You can feel your eyes light up. You toss your hair. Stop. Pull it back over your shoulder. Did he like your hair longer or shorter? Can't remember. Get frustrated. Contemplate pulling said hair up into a ponytail. Stupid hair. He sees you. Your heart skips beats again, and this time, your stomach drops. You forget where you are, why you are there, and who you are with. He hugs you. You want to keep hugging him. The urge to kiss him is gigantic, enormous. It's so big, you are sure everyone around you knows that you want to kiss him. Words from 16 years ago blast through your mind "Moment of truth, huh babe?" You are sure everyone around you heard this, even though it's only in your silly little mind. When he stops hugging you, you feel yourself leaning in his general direction. Every moment he's around you, you want to touch him. Hold his hand, put your arm around him. This feels like the most natural thing in the world, even though he hasn't been "yours" for 13 years. You want to whisper in his ear, or scream at the top of your lungs "I still love you!". This urge is gigantic, enormous. You think you'll die if you don't say it. You don't say it. Every ounce of your famous self-esteem is gone, vanished, like it had never existed. You can't even bring yourself to give him your phone# or email address. You act like a child and give your info to his sister instead. You kick yourself for this. Repeatedly. When it's time to go, you are physically ill at the thought of leaving. Leaving him. He'll forget me. He'll forget I was here. You have an overwhelming desire to be alone. You want your apartment, something strong to drink, and your bed. For a very very long time. You get home, and immediately get in a hot shower so you can cry in peace. You feel silly for crying but God damn it you love him and you miss him and holy shit. You go to bed insanely early, to avoid drinking alone. You can't sleep. Not a little, not at all. For days after, you have this incredible sadness weighing you down. You know that you could cry at the drop of a hat, and would, but God damn it you're not going to! There's work to be done! Things to do! You know understand, with stunning clarity, that the reason you are the way you are in relationships is because you know that he was the one. And he got away.

Fridge Note

3Bulls hates Von. Yep, I'm back to being spam. s i g h

Wherein I feel the need to share everything with y'all

well, ALMOST everything. The backstory. There's a mouse. In the house. Well, in the commune in which I live. A mouse who poops little tiny poops that announce his existance. Poops that were not seen, or brushed off as "not mouse poops" until: One day last month, VonSis went up to her place one evening. EEEEEEEEEEEE (or so I'm told. again, I didn't her my sister's screams. Bad sister, I am) ***my cell phone rings***** "Didn't you hear me screaming!?!?" "Um. Nope." "I was screaming for like five minutes!!!!!" "Ok. Why were you screaming?" "There was a mouse on my kitchen table!!" BLEH!!! BrotherInLaw/LandOverlord lays out poison. Many many lovely blue pellets of poison. Weeks pass. More weeks pass. -Last night- I happened to go up to VonSis's house for a quick visit after work. BrotherInLaw is home, and the three of us discuss the mouse. Where is the mouse? Why isn't it dead yet? What if it's dead somewhere bad? Now, onto the tale I feel I must tell. This morning. This is the text VonSis and BrotherInLaw/LandOverlord received. From me. At 6:30 am. "OH MY GOD!!! DEAD MOUSE!!! MY BEDROOM!! WHY CAN'T YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING! I DEMAND IMMEDIATE REMOVAL!! ZOMFG!!!!!" silence nothing No running of feet over head to save poor poor me. 6:34 am *my cell phone rings* I'm confused. It's VonSis's work number. "Hello?" "Yeah, so I'm at work." "WHERE IS YOUR HUSBAND!?!?!?" "He's on his way to Kansas, or Missouri, wherever." "But there's a mouse. In.my.bedroom." "Where is it?" "By the hole in the wall, go figure. It's dead." "You sure?" "I've been staring at it for like five minutes. It's dead." VonSis promised dead mouse removal upon her return home tonight. I will not be entering my bedroom until the thing is gone. 7:05am **my cell phone rings** "Hello?" "HAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAA. You have a dead mouse in your bedroom!!! Hahahahaha." "Um, brother-in-law? You suck as a LandOverlord." "HAHAHAHAHA. At least we know where it is now!! Right?!?" "I hate you. It's in my room. IN MY ROOM." click

just gonna type

It's not like we were friends anymore. I don't know when the last time I saw him was. But, I had known him since I was 5. Gary Gnu. That's what we called him. Not we, like a couple people, we like everyone. The whole neighborhood. Kids, their parents, other kids from nearby neighborhoods. I bullied him, picked on him, picked fights with him. He bullied me, picked on me, picked fights with me. My oldest brother-in-law befriended him while we were in high school. Broinlaw played softball in the field right across from Gary's house. He asked me to leave Gary alone. Whatever. I didn't give it a second thought. Then right after high school, I started dating someone who was best friends with Gary. We started spending all of our time at Gary's house. It was one block over from mine, but far enough away my parents never knew I was there, daily, drinking Grand Slam 30 packs of Old Style that somehow seemed to get there, even though none of us was legal. Gary wasn't so bad. Sure, he was a little off, but he was funny, crazy, not much different than the rest of us. I dated that guy on and off for three years. Throughout our tumultuous relationship, Gary was around. He never got in the middle of our many fights, he'd just sit there and shrug, never really taking either side. The ex and Gary used to go over to the forest preserve right across from his house. The ex said he and Gary would have these incredibly long conversations over there. I'd asked once what they talked about. "Everything, Von, we talked about everything from yogurt to God." Like it or not, he was part of our group. Here we are, a number of years later. Tomorrow is Gary's wake. He died, suddenly, Friday at 37 years old. Of course I will be going to the wake. He was a part of my childhood, my memories of the neighborhood that I grew up in, and where my parents still live. He was a big part of one of my favorite times of my life, those first few years right out of high school. I have a feeling that that wake is going to be packed. Though nervous to go, and be around my ex, my heart really goes out to him. I can't imagine how devastated he is. I just want to hug him, and his sister, and Gary's mom, all at once. Tomorrow is going to be a rough day. ** Side note. It's only because of teh fb that I found out about Gary. I'm fb friends with the ex's sister, and she posted something on her status. I emailed her and got the details. FB is good for somethings, it seems.**

Cowboy meh

Friday night I got to volunteer for the Cowboy Junkies show at Old Town. I've never gotten to work one of their shows before, and I was excited. I was early. Really early~!! The show I was working started at 10:00, so I was supposed to be there at 9:00. Well, it was Friday night, and I was tired, so I showed up more like 8:00. This gave me a chance to check out the band. Meh. A little too low key for me. Being so early gave me a leg up on the head vol for my show. I took the clipboard and assigned myself box office. This would keep me off my feet (or off my bad knee, actually) and keep me out of the hall. If I had to sit there through that mellow mess of Junkie, I would have fallen asleep fo sho. It was a good night, one of those nights that all of the staff people were totally awesome. People I either am friends with or would like to be. So, I'm sitting, crocheting, minding my business. And here comes the opening act. Grant Lee Phillips. Sure, his original intent was to check out with the concert staff, get his $$ and go. That's not what happened. He hung around. He chatted. He picked up a banjo and strummed around the office a bit. Let me tell you, even when he hums it's purely melodic. I developed a quick little crush on him, due to his awesomeness and laidback coolness. I just sat there and piped in every now and then. Then I had one of those thoughts again: 'I love this place!! This is the awesome stuff that happens here, and nowhere else! I love this place! I love my life!' Right about that time, one of the Cowboy Junkies walks up to me at the desk: "Ice?" I shake my head and point over to the cafe. Yep, he was supposed to be on stage at the time. Awesome. Guitar update: Learned 3 new chords. Also learned "Bring it on home", one of my favorite songs ever. Cannot feel my left hand index finger. Some people -including Grant Lee Phillips - that this is normal.

By Request

At brunch with Laura this morning: L: "So, as a follower of your blog. I have to ask something." V: eyebrows raised in inquiry. Fork slightly moved to indicate 'go ahead' L: "The post you keep saying you're going to write, and not writing.......write it." Far be it from me to let down the reader. SOOOOO A week or so ago, R and I decided to change our Relationship Status on teh facebook to In a Relationship. (or, relationSHIT, thanks Dane Cook, back when you were funny....) It was kind of a joke, barely a "thing". It was pretty late, we were drinking, we decided to make the change. We agreed that the actual relationshit would not change, at all, just taking a step more publicly. We laughed about it, then let TheBrother know that we had come to this "big" decision. A couple of days later, I made the change. Apparently, you cannot be in a relationshit with someone on teh facebook unless they confirm it. So for a day or two it just said Von is "in a relationshit" Oh my God, the backlash. Well, I call it backlash. 800 people "liked it" many many many people left a comment. My favorite? "Oh! Von! You make me so happy! I am so happy for you! You deserve all sorts of wonderful things! I'm practically crying I am so happy!!!!" this was from one of the J5 (refresher, the J5 are my step-siblings) I got PISSED. In my own comments I wrote "Thanks, but you all seem to be making a much bigger deal of all this than it actually is...." Then, another fb friend emailed me and said "yeah, I was wondering how you felt about that." I wrote her back that I was pissed. I am pissed!! First of all, it is so not a big deal. To make it a big deal would give R a wrong impression. One that I do not want to give, but have no control over. I cannot not have control over things with R. That would be bad. Second: WTF. Of the 745 people who "liked it", and the many many commentors, REALLY!?!?!? Why am I validated now that I am in a relationship? Did you really think I was a spinster? I've been jokingly calling myself one for a while now, but I was joking, people!!!! You may not understand it, but I love my life. I love every crazy, busy, active, exciting, snarky, second of it. Whether or not I have someone in it to share it with is pretty irrelevant to me. R gets to stick around because not only does he not resent my busy schedule, but he digs it, and is cool with it. He gets to stay because he compliments my life, not takes away from it. Also since teh f.b. status change, I've gotten more emails from the J5 and a few others with offers of things to do, invites, etc. C'mon, people. I am NOT stupid!! You don't want to see me, you want to meet R. You've done your f.b. stalking, you're curious, you aren't smart enough to just call me and ask about him, so you want to meet him. Well, you can wait. We aren't there yet. I don't know when we will be, but when we do, y'all are at the bottom of the list. We are not a side-show, our relationshit does not exist for your entertainment. See, you want to meet him, then you want to go off and talk about him, and me, and the us that is us. I'm not going to give you that pleasure. Not right now. I am me. Still me, always me.