lxforever

Kind of a perfect day.

Slept in, yoga + meditate, Getting Things Done aka freelance/Smashing Pumpkins fest with Jeff in the Yellow Room Motel & made some good logos!, sunny sunny sun, bluey bright sky, bike ride up to the U to swim, great swim with own lane, being in the moment, accepting present reality, less anxiety about the future, diminishing reliance on the past. Peace / strength.

Bike home along East river, roast some potatoes/kitchen fun, a happy Jeff, gardening, fun chat with neighbor about gymnasthood, reading super book outside in the perfect weather with a margarita in hand.

Back in to cook up tilapia/make beet salad. Watch gymnastics with Jeff over dinner and chocolate. Earlyish to bed. Peaceful. It is what it is. Hope it can remain.

Sunny Sunday, out of nowhere.

But I don’t want to be tough.

Ugh.

Aughhhh, August…

“You know how the time flies / Only yesterday / it was the time of our lives / we were born and raised / in a summer haze / bound by the surprise / of our glory days”

—Adele

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

—Robert Heinlein

“Looks like you get…”

—

opening the door gaping across the threshold looking older but still looking younger still complication with optimistic outcome optimist? pessimist realist a dose of realism i’m tired tired of same old serious date night! malt shop! looking at pictures face so full “fat?” no just young, young, hit on by a college student? high school student? “do you go to Washburn?” ummmm… but it wasn’t that long ago but it was? half of your life away? staring across that threshold disappointment dejected rejected but coming up for air to new people new lives friends make new friends but keep (kept?) the old kept? old threshold door wooden table sweating glasses left your glasses you still don’t believe me about the glasses? racing around in cars in the dark curfew free questionably so the same four over and over guaranteed fun guaranteed to satisfy costumes and seance and barely light when you wake up and the school year lurks around the corner but doesn’t still, right? Augh August… fall crisp air Garbage darkness promising promises ahead steeling yourself for a night of insults the dark? new friends? old enemies? old enemy of yourself when the biggest worry was getting skills keeping skills performing on a little stage that felt pretty big it all felt pretty big, in fact; photos of bright eyes full faces shiny hearts lifetimes away… but still hard to let go.

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Ha. Yes, I still do that.

I am feeling better than I have all month which is promising and hopeful. SUPER DUPER excited for NATIONALS tomorrow with Diana!!! Reliving 2006…! Also excited for:

-lunch with Tiffany today
-grilled cheese/iced tea party with Anna on Monday (also DT = YAY DT lunch life!)
-Ange’s wedding Saturday/GD debauchery with Heidi and Brigette and Jeff : )
-Hanging Out with Jeff Friday/finishing the logo which is looking good! YAY
-HITF HH 8/31!
-FAIR soon
-Gotta admit, kind of excited for September.

NOT excited for:
-Amber and other friend(s) leaving TC area. Alas.

I am enjoying this Update Renaissance and I hope you (whoever ‘you’ are…Michael Jeff Alyssa and Mom, and Jenny) are, too. I expect that my Future Self will enjoy it even more, honestly.

Life…too much going on. Happier though.

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

“You know how the time flies / Only yesterday / it was the time of our lives / we were born and raised / in a summer haze / bound by the surprise / of our glory days”

—Adele

“Making websites and coaching gymnastics…story of my life!”

—me

And what if… this is exactly where I was meant to be after all?

Did I get hit on by a 21-year-old physics major while swimming laps (in my swim cap and goggles, no less…questionable) today? Yes. Did I have the heart to tell him I am (a) married and (b) almost 30? No.

Awww.

“Tonight, so bright
Tonight
And you know you’re never sure
But you’re sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake
The place where you were born
Believe, believe in me, believe”

“But I knew exactly where I was / And I knew the meaning of it all / And I knew the distance to the sun / And I knew the echo that is love”

—Smashing Pumpkins, Muzzle

Amber of the moment: watching 6-, 8-, and 9-year-old girls walk into a parks room and take no notice of the teacher to create a game of chase all of their own, complete with rules and challenges and makebelieve and joy. Joy in their faces and such ease in playing. It felt like watching something too good to be real…something very lucky to witness.

Amber of the moment II: sitting in a conference room, soaking up CSS3 nerdery, creating dorky and obnoxious fuchsia-on-red pages and sending them back and forth to your husband, flirting electronically. (What?) Telling a tablefull of stranger-nerds that your ‘testing strategy’ in the late 90s for your ‘sites’ was to insist that your HS friends visit your site and give you feedback. Realizing that hey…maybe this is exactly where I belong.

Amber, baths, butterflies, sparkling everything. Girly again in my old age. “And I knew the meaning of it all…”

“All my friends got flowers in their eyes / but I’ve got none this season”

—Counting Crows

Title stolen. Yes I just did that.

Anything I write here will probably be dark and awful so I’m trying to avoid it. Even though sometimes it helps. Granted, good things are out there/happen to me, but it feels a little like pinholes in a dark sheet or something, and like a distraction. Again, dark and awful, so I’m just going to stop there.

But then this: coming home late, a little hopeless and depressed (I blame beer, fail!), missing Jeff…so sitting on the couch with him, giggling in the dark, joking about everything and anything and “Bob Oliver” and “Kyle Moe” and talking about our nephew, still arguing about 2003 design projects and classmates, “And how about that other girl who yelled at you?” “Well, she’s sitting right here.” Yep, I am. Pretty damn lucky.

There are good things, good things, I just want that summer high of denial back so, so bad. In the meantime, I cling to all of the good things, the amber-of-the-moment things, I do have.

“My whole wardrobe is either old lady clothes…or [redacted] ones.”

—Alyssa, 8/6/11

“You look like horrible ugly crap!”

—Alyssa, 9/7/01

“How you gonna win when you ain’t right within / how you gonna win when you ain’t right within?”

—Lauryn Hill, That Thing

“Party rock is in the house tonight! / everybody just feel all right”

—LMFAO/song of summer

time 6:10 pm feeling woozy and cool (like, temperature-y) wearing black hangout dress music Caspian, + planes ready for a good dinner next cook it up!

Phew. I hope you enjoyed that last entry. THAT is how my mind works. I was going to take it down but again…not how I roll. So.

I was going to/supposedly am working on some freelance, however (1) the files aren’t opening on this machine and (2) I am feeling like horrible ugly crap (LOL, kind of) after <5 hours of sleep and >5 drinks last night. WHEW! Woozy but pretty wonderful. Sitting in the backyard and the weather is perfect. Drained after a 20mi RT bike ride to swim and 45 mins of swimming. (BUT. It is what Keeps Me Sane.) Recovering from crazy dancing/drinking. You know. Still in my 20s.

My crash is still going on but I am working on being better at it, if that makes sense. High-functioning! Summer/better weather/light helps (vs winter, heh). So do Phone Calls to Stephie. She is amazing. So do…friends. DUH. 🙂 And lovers (well, lovER, singular, haha). THE BEST!

A quick(?) weekend recap:
Friday = got home, ran errands, made an almost entirely vegan meal that included an EatLiveRun falafel burger recipe. Yes you read that right. Ate late but was wonderful. COPING MECHANISMS indeed include: drinking too much and spending way too much time in the kitchen (not at the same time, generally). Thankfully we now have a dishwasher to sustain my kitchen-love. Jeff and I had a hangout party and then to bed.

Saturday = up early to bike to the gym to lift. Probably too early esp. considering the evening ahead. Alas. Quick lift, encountered loser trainer Gary, then home. Get ready fast but still late to roommate coffee AGAIN. FAIL SELF FAIL. Alas. Didn’t realize I was in my old Midwest Gymn ‘hood until I got there. Nostalgia All Over!! Honey almond coldpress + supportive and kind roommates as always. I am way, way too lucky to know way too many incredible people who are so, so good to me. So grateful for those gals. Alyssa and I had a dark laugh about how even after all the externalities of your life are solved, you still have to (and always WILL have to) deal with … YOURSELF. Heh. LIFE. Conundrums.

Off to get pedicures which were amazing! I can’t stop looking at my toes. Light blue with beautiful flowers. I am way too obsessed. Such a great idea. The morning was wonderful but did stir up troubling thoughts. No one’s fault but mine, of course. So.

Swung by Cassie’s carwash where the Civic got a beautiful wash. Go Gymnasts! I also got my amazing yellow shirt and had a nice chat with Cassie. We’ll whip those girls into shape! Back home where Jeff had disappeared. Had lunch and did a deep clean of the windows amidst my freakouts. Tears etc. But. Manageable. Called Stephie and she helps.

Suddenly it was evening, cooked a pre-going-out dinner of champions consisting of grilled cheese + coldpress and straightened my hair. Looking like a stranger! Makeuped and all. Brigette shows up and gives us the rundown of her date for Jeff’s advice. His advice is…You Are In Control. He’s right. Jeff drives us to Ginger Hop amidst crazy skies and clouds and lightning. So terrifically beautiful.

We secure a table and Kristin arrives. K+B really hit it off and the night is lovely. Two fancy schmancy drinks (“DENTIST MONEY!”), one with St. Germain (!!), one with cucumber + sake (bleah, but fun to try). Yellow curry. Love Ginger Hop.

Down to the Front at 11 where we proceed to dance for almost three straight hours. THE FRONT is AMAZING!! What a find by Brigette. She Knows. K+B are amazing dancers. I am terrible as always. That is OK. SO much good music including Toxic and Hey Ya and Lauryn Hill(!). AND recent pop music. THE FRONT is filled with a wonderful crowd of all kinds, including many very-cool because-they-are-not-cool girls. AND all ages/races(“real sweet faces/every different nation”-Will Smith). Saw a guy wearing a backpack for his bike on the dancefloor. Danced with Abou and a male Alexis(!!) BUT no funny business AT ALL. Incredible in every way. LOVED IT. Such a good night and just what the doctor ordered (“Prescription / but not baths with friends!” “Why not?”).

Cabbed home with Brigette. Hassan drove us. Nice fellow. Made us grilled cheese AGAIN and Facebook-stalked Abou. Kind of the most amazing person to walk the planet, as he told us at the bar he wants to start a Mpls charter school and change public policy, etc. Almost unreal. But 26. Well… Brigette goes home to get braces and I go to bed at 3.

Sunday = today = up too early. Can’t sleep. Restless and want Jeff to awaken to get brunch. NO DICE. Go to Turtle to get a chocolate croissant for myself instead. STILL NO DICE. Chocolate bun and homemade brunch with self suffices/is amazing. Coldpress with chocolate. COLDPRESS 4EVAH. Way too much caffeine this summer, but if that’s what it takes to avoid a meltdown…

SIDE NOTE: On my walk to Turtle, listening to Caspian, I encountered a yellow butterfly flitting about. Yellow and black. It circled around me multiple times and followed me in this manner for a good block or so. It was rather large and very beautiful. It came on as I was listening to “Vienna” by Caspian and it somehow seemed meaningful. Peace.

Fuss around the house, Jeff fixes my bike wheel. THANK YOU JEFF! So much better now. Bike to swim which is great and calming. Home to snacks + more fussing. Just Getting Things Done. Which. I love. Fail to do freelance. Eff. Maybe another time. Now to make dinner…BBQ chicken pizza bitches. Yes I am learning things.

So. Summer high can come and go but denial has left the building. That’s OK. Life is real and sometimes Planet Earth calls. I will make it through.

This week = attending an EVENT APART and so excited. Then to Madison Friday. Love it.

Later. Thank you friends for making my life.

“No dawn, no day, I’m always in this twilight”

—Florence + The Machine

Churning churning churning you can’t shut it off you can’t escape it. “And then you realize – it’s not the circumstance – it’s just you – and you have to live with YOU your whole life.” Depressing but true? Wanted to train the whole world in how to behave but would love to instead be able to train myself in how to behave, my brain, brain brain drain, compounding itself one thing after another and suddenly it’s all hopeless and dark…dark? Afraid it won’t last, the permanence of moods, afraid it will, afraid it’s everlasting, afraid of months and days ahead of this this this again again again distractions DISTRACTIONS quiet quieting the spiral one thing after another and you’re just making it worse but maybe writing can help. Not this again, past 2010, past your 20s past the past is past and all you can do is look at the sprints ahead. Not a marathon a sprint? Not sure? Not true? Can’t unring that bell can’t quiet it but maybe writing at least leaves a little out there, maybe movement physical activity quieting the mind DISTRACTIONS “you’re living life” are you? Enjoy what you have don’t wish it away DON’T WISH IT AWAY. But so many thoughts churning, so hard to escape yourself.

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^ ahhhhhhhh, it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these, eh?? Good times. If you’re reading this, enjoy it while it lasts; I can’t imagine I’ll leave it up. Or will I? Crazy brain…