Dear Friends

On my last official day of classes as a student of literature, I would like to take a moment to say thank you to the many friends I have made along the way and recognize them for their insight, encouragement, and inspiration. I would like to thank the following:

Alice, for letting me see that even if one eats eggs, one may not necessarily be a serpent.

Candide, for not letting me be content that this is the best of all possible worlds, and teaching me to tend to my garden on a daily basis.

Mrs. Wollstonecraft, for inspiring strength in me and truly demonstrating that intellect, will in fact, always govern.

Frederick, for making me believe even when there are times I may be a slave in fact, I do not have to be a slave in deed.

Nora Helmer, for helping me understand that I can dance the most heatedly passionate Tarentella for a man, but in the end, he's still going leave if the dance was all he loved in the first place. And for giving me permission to take societally unacceptable risks.

The murderous Russian, I will affectionately call Pod: for asking me to examine more closely my value as a woman.

Roderick Usher, for reaffirming to me that we all go a little mad sometimes.

To Ethan and Maddie, for helping me accept the fact that when we make the choice, we also choose the consequences. But mostly for making me believe more strongly than ever that weakness and helplessness always cause more pain in the end than strength and confidence.

To Sylvia, for being passionate enough in her death and in her spirit now to still shine through her posthumous work, even when others would try to defile what meant so much to her in life. And mostly just for being totally uninhibited in her willingness to just "put it all out there."

And last but not least, to Ms. Dickinson, who wrote the words I live by:

My life had stood-- a loaded gun.

yesterday, somebody donated a girdle. why? i have no idea. it's like a pair of granny panties attached to a girdle, size 2X. no way in hell would we ever give anything like that to a client. so i stretched them out and laid them on Kerry's desk as a gift from me to her.

so when i came in today, i had a nice little catalogue laying open to the g-string page front and center on my desk.

i make no apologies for the fact that there is NOTHING attractive about a man in a thong.

ok. you know it's bad when you are driving to school 12 hours later and you still feel like you're swerving. kevin was on the white russian pain train last night. i was on the whatever you got back there behind the bar and whatever's sitting on the table in front of me pain train.

luckily for me, i got to school and class was canceled. so i loaded up the OKVGPB and headed back to la hacienda to wait out the nausea and the spinning before i headed to work.

i think i held out long enough to let the queasiness subside and just finished lunch. we'll see how that turns out for me.

anyway, i've gotta work on some papers tonight. i also gotta get my butt in gear for finals. how am i supposed to take finals with all the partying going on??

and i learned today that when i get intoxicated, i get blunt. i call it brave. but those on the receiving end call it blunt. i say, no that's not a blunt. trust me.

Holy humongous hangover Batman!

Ok so here are the choices. Everybody vote. I'm up for whatever.

We've got Wade Bowen in Stillwater on Friday night the 7th, and Cooder Graw in OKC on Saturday night the 8th.

My vote is for us all to get schnockered with Nancy on Friday night and then get doubly schnockered with me on Saturday night. And all in the name of higher education.

I would also like to request that in honor of the ensuing festivities that Ragan do a performance of Drinking Bone.

Who's in?

OK. Who's In?

Let's talk beer bash here people. For you of course. I'm a whiskey chick personally.

Pick one or the other. Or hell, pick both.

In honor of my years of sweat, toil, and bullshit, and in honor of my impending graduation, would you rather party at:

a) The Wormy Dog OKC on Friday, May 7th- Honeybrowne
b) The Wormy Dog OKC on Saturday, May 8th- Cooder Graw
c) Both
d) Another venue with another band that I am not aware of at this time.

And like always, strippers are welcomed.

Talk amongst yourselves.

I hate making adult decisions. It's too much fucking work.

What happened to the time when my biggest decisions were what I was going to wear and whom I was going to call when 3:15 rolled around.

I hate waterproof mascara too. It's evil.

What happened to the time when my eyes looked great without mascara? And I didn't care what my eyes looked like anyway.

I hate it when the people who are supposed to be sympathetic and encouraging just turn out to be assholes.

What happened to the time when a skinned knee meant love and kisses? Now it just means, well, if you wanna cry because it hurts, then you're being negative and it's your own fault.

I spent my night praying while lying in bed saying, God, please give me an out. Please give me an out. And a bigger house so I can get another cat and name him Jacob Poot.

Amen.

A Question of Ethics

So you're a therapist. You have a client whom you have been seeing for 6 months. She believes her life's only meaning is in her death. She has never discussed a suicide plan with you (She has never discussed how she would kill herself) or specifically said she is going to end her life. You discuss with her and explore other possible avenues of meaning for her life. She holds that the only meaning of her life is in her death, and you express to her that you respect her feelings. Without informing you of her intentions, she kills herself.

Her husband files a complaint against you and asks the Licensing Board to revoke your license so you can never practice again.

Now pretend you're a member of the licensing board. You can revoke the therapist's license, you can suspend it, or you can find that the therapist has not committed an ethics violation.

What do you do?

You know that little game that they have in the doctor's office, the one with all the different colored wires with beads on them that you push around. It's like a little rollercoaster of wooden beads on primary colored wires.

That is my life right now. I'm right in the middle of the twisty turny maze trying to find my way out. The director of my non-profit informed me this morning that she is resigning and will be recommending me for her job.

I have mixed feelings about this. I love my job. But I won't work for much less than market value, even though it is a non-profit organization. They're not paying her near that now. And then you have the whole stigma attached to religious organizations... I wouldn't be your average, run of the mill director. So far we haven't had any problems as far as those kind of things go, but I tend to jump into things and mix them up. Start from the ground up. Figure out what's not working and change it. Sometimes people in this circle don't like that. Think of all the old churches you've ever been to and the people who go there. Most of the time they do things the way they do because it's just been done that way for the past hundred years. Who cares if it's not effective and it's not helping anybody. I'm brave enough to shake things up, and I think our record speaks for itself, but I'm not sure other people are ready to handle the newness I would bring to it. And I'm not sure I wanna deal with the BS.

But anyway, damn. I've got so many choices to make in my life right now. What to do, what to do. But I know this, a bottle of wine would sure help.

Well, one research paper down, one to go... and three finals. Yuck. But I suppose it's worth it, seeing as how I'd really like to walk across that stage on May 8th.

Well, I've had some interesting discussions this weekend. Starting with a phone call I got from Dave early Friday evening. He seems to think I have some sort of writing thing going for me. Even though he did call me "marketable." Which I know in his book is a dirty word. But he did make a good argument for my blog bridging the gap between the book readers and the web junkies. But mostly he just made me wanna hop on the next flight to the west coast. Which I may be doing shortly...

I think this may be the first weekend in recent memory that I haven't at least made a cameo at the Wormy Dog. Wow. I just got better offers, what can I say? But I'll be returning to my beloved Dog next weekend full throttle. Hell yeah. Classes are over. Only finals stand between me and a degree in English Literature. And I'm gonna study for those. Yeah. Right.

Well, no doubt this week promises to be interesting, culminating in the drunk fest that will be Friday and Saturday night. Well, it's a beautiful Sunday and I'm going to sally forth to see what kind of mischief will present itself.

Shaniqua wants to do the nasty with her dog.

She does.

She sent me an email and told me so!

Deja Vous

I hate you you fucking bitch. I fucking hate you. You better give me my car back. If you even touch my car you're going to fucking regret it. I swear to god, I put it on Xavior. I'll make you fucking regret it.

You are two seconds away from rock bottom when you are standing in an empty Walgreens yelling obscenities on your cell phone and putting things on your child's life.

What's up with the whole, "Put it on something," deal. My ex used to say that constantly. I'd tell him something and he'd be like, "Put it on something. Put it on us." Like that ensured I was telling him the truth. They're just fucking werds people. If I'm gonna lie, I'm gonna lie. I don't care if I put it on my life and the life of every last person I know. I'm not a voodoo chick. I know I can still lie and get away with it.

And what's going on with the rash of girls naming their kids Xavior. I know like 3 or 4 girls who have named their kids that recently. Don't they know their kids are going to hate them for that? Oh well. I guess it's not much worse than Sunshine Snodgrass.

What a dreary day. But guess what? I've got Tuaca in the fridge.

I was supposed to make my annual trip to the Festival of the Arts today, but no way. Not in this weather. So I'll wait til Sunday.

I have tickets to Man of La Mancha tomorrow night also. So that should add to my cultural awareness weekend.

I haven't done anything today except spend an hour with 2 hyper 6 year olds and sleep. Yay for nap time! It's the perfect day for it. Everybody's going out tonight for the Red Dirt Rangers and Stoney. Still haven't set my plans. It may be a movie night for Ashly. We'll see.

Hope everybody has a fabulous weekend and I hope the sun is shining wherever you are!

So. I hit the WD for about an hour tonight. And I just have a few things to say:

#1) Brandon Jenkins is officially on my boyfriend list.
#2) I got to dance with a boy. Yay! (I forgot what it was like to be around guys who actually ask girls to dance. It was very nice for a change.)
#3) Cody, Jeff, and Julie are the only bartenders worth a damn at the Wormy Dog (except Nathan, but that kinda goes without saying.) And there is definitely one of them, and I won't name names, who can kiss my white, but getting more tan by the day, ass.
#4) It's thundering outside so it's time for sleepy-time pills and a comfy bed.

Hope everybody's Friday kicks ass.

What a strange day. I feel like technically I'm supposed to be in a bad mood (just because of extenuating circumstances) but I'm not.

Maybe it's because I found out that the definitive love of my life just got home from the hospital this morning after his 3 day stay for Spinal Meningitis. Apparently his brain swelled up really big and he couldn't move and was in a horrible amount of pain. WTF? I just realized that after all these years something horrible and unspeakable could happen to him and I would never know it. At least until it was over. I don't like that. I wanna be telekinetically linked to him. But he's ok now. So I'll just chalk it up to a close call, I guess.

Anyway. Today has been kinda weird. Lately I have had directors of other Centers calling me for advice on how to structure their pregnancy loss counseling programs. Apparently, my method seems to be the only one that's really working. I don't really understand it, because I just use my God-given common sense. But I guess when it comes to emotionally charged stuff like that, people don't like to use their brains. They like to have written out, impersonal guidelines to follow so they don't navigate into murky waters. But in the process they turn masses of clients away. And surprise surprise, their clients are coming to me. So I had one director suggest this morning that I hold a training conference. So it's an idea. We'll see. Interesting stuff.

Topic of the Day

Legalization of safe injection sites (actual places that offer clean needles and counseling for those who want it) for Heroine users?

Keep in mind other countries have done it and the overdose mortality rate has been drastically reduced.

Discuss.

Prose Poetry

She hasn't been sleeping but no one seems to notice.

So last night she took some pills and made some deals only to find the one thing she owns crumbling in her hands. Yeah, she picked up the pieces but all the kings horses and all the kings men were no where to be found. But it really didn't matter because she knew they couldn't put it back together again any better than she could. And she couldn't.

So today she'll wait for the conversation that will never come. The one that starts with blaming words and a fight about who does and doesn't have time and how that time should and should not be spent. There will be tears, but only because he secretly hates her and wants her to suffer. So she will oblige and cry them while he pulls the strings to make her dance.

And tonight she will lay down and take her pills and swallow them down along with the book of sad hope that has lain in her drawer undisturbed for two years now. And she'll sleep. And start the whole thing again tomorrow.

Severe Weather

It's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful. -Adrienne Rich

My life feels like the sky looks. It's a weird grayish bluish color and you're just waiting for something to happen any minute. Either the sun's gonna come out or it's gonna be a hell of a storm. But either way, something's gonna happen.

Lauren and I sparked a conversation in class last night about "growing up" and how culturally it's a little different for girls than it is for boys. A grown up adult male is stereotypically one who has a decent job and makes a decent amount of money. He seems to be climbing the corporate ladder and generally contributing to the productivity of his environment. A grown up adult woman is stereotypically one who has married and had children.

True story: A year ago I went with my dad to some family friend's reception for their 60th wedding anniversary. A lady, an acquaintance, who is probably a little older than my parents walks up to me and says, "Hi, Ashly. How are you?" I respond in kind. Then she proceeds with, "Aren't you married yet?" So then I laid out my life's plan right there in the kitchen for her. Undergrad school, grad school, good job, then family. She said, "Oh well, I suppose you've still got time." I was so dumbfounded I just stood there in shock. I should have taken my mother's advice and said, "It's none of your damn business."

So here I am, at a time in my life when I'm faced with the business of "growing up." Having to define it on my own terms. It gets very fucking lonely. But somebody's gotta do it. If you're not gonna fit into their mold, you're gonna have to accept the fact that you may feel left out of the group.

My only problem is, I'm not sure I consciously chose this route. When I look back over my life I see how I have mysteriously been held back from making choices that would make me the average 24 year old female Oklahoman. And I tried to be that person, trust me. But I guess there's a bigger plan. I know there is. I just kinda wonder sometimes though, why me?

But I know why. It's because I kick ass. And ten years down the road from now, I'm gonna kick even more ass. And then, it will have all been worth it. Cause after all, I guess we really need the rain.

One of my mostest all time favoritest poems.

The Death Hour

You know they say that the majority of people die in the hour between 3 and 4 a.m. Somebody told me this about a year ago and ever since it's inevitable that I wake up in between those times, probably about 3:31 a.m. and think about all the people that are dying. But it occurs to me this morning at 3:35 a.m. that no one ever told me if that was CST, GMT, EST, PST, MST and what about those folks in Australia who run on CXT. Maybe it's just the fact that most people die between 3 and 4 a.m. wherever they are, regardless of their location in reference to the Greenwich Meridian.

And I've also always heard, if you can't sleep, get up and do something productive. I don't think this counts but what the hell. I checked the email and had only one that said, Shoe Sale Event: Save Up to 60% on the Latest Spring Styles, so I looked and they didn't have many of the latest spring styles, but they did have a couple pairs that caught my fancy but because I'm already 5'9'' standing flat footed, I was SOL, because these shoes have at least a 4'' heal on them. That would make me, what, 6'1''. Uh no thanks. Cody and Chad didn't call me The Jolly Green Giant in high school for nothin. But I like bein tall. I do. The long legs definitely have their advantages. And I'll just let you imagine that one.

So here it is, almost 4 a.m. and I suppose people are about to stop dying, at least in my time zone. Thank God. I guess I can breathe a sigh of relief that at least for one more night I made the cut.

So I'm just sitting here on a Tuesday night bein discontent with my life in general. You know how you have those days when freakin everything just sucks. That's today. And I have a huge freakin tension headache to go along with it. Where's my manservant when I need him? Well, I guess he gets the hose then. One day he'll learn. And he needs to take out the trash while he's at it.

I just ran into Ms. FknDiaz at Harry Bear's. She's worked there for 3 years. Who knew? Not me, apparently.

In honor of 4/20, everybody seems to be sharing stories about the first time they lit up. Umm. Is it just me or does that really sound like a boring topic. Everybody's is the same. Well, uhhh, the first time nothing really happened. I say we share stories about the first time we ever got drunk. Or how about the first time we ever got laid. Oh oh oh! How about the first time we ever got caught naked in public! Oh wait. Is that just me? Well, nevermind. That never really happened anyway, and ya know why? Cuz I'm a good girl, I am.

I'm just like Mary Poppins, absolutely perfect in every way.

Shout Out

I would just like to say a big thank you to our Feist guy who just dropped of my handy dandy new copy of the Oklahoma City Metro 2004 Feist e-directory which eliminates both bulky phonebooks and expensive calls to information. Now every listed number in the Oklahoma City metro area is right at my fingertips. Thank you Feist Man.

Tuesday Morning

This day is not looking altogether promising. Had an extremely disturbing dream last night. Woke up at 4 a.m. told my unconscious, You will not remember this in the morning. You will not remember this in the morning. And true to form, she pretty much obeyed. I remember snippits, but the original terror is gone.

Now I'm looking outside. It's a perfect tornado day. Get the bathtubs, mattresses, bike helmets, and kitty carriers ready. I could be a long night.

I've read a couple of blogs this morning just for fun, and perhaps, just maybe because I'm a bit of a procrastinator and I don't really want to get ready for school. There's a boy who gets like a zillion hits a day and has labeled himself or someone else has labeled him, "popular." And it's still not good enough. I suppose he wants to be bigger and better. I say just freakin write the shit outta that thing and forget the rest. You're not making any $$ at it anyway. Then I read lick, where one of the coolest chicas on the www admits to doing coke on the weekends. Rock n roll. Maybe it's artistic license but whatever, who cares, it's cool. And I'm contemplating why I don't write for lick that much anymore. I think it's cuz this place, AshlyBrooke.com, has pretty much become a free-for-all. Damn. There's not much I can't say here. Not much I wouldn't say.

Which leads me to my next thought. Got an email yesterday that said, Damn girl. You really live that life you put on your blog? Well, hell yeah. I say Ask me anything. I'll tell you what you wanna know. It may be a lie, but you'll never know.

But I don't tell all my secrets. He says, You? Secrets? I don't see that happenin. But I don't. I don't tell 'em all. And you know why? Cuz in the words of somebody famous:

I write you these pretty words because the truth would scare you.

How's that for a Good Morning :)

So.

I was reading Angelina's blog about how it's so hard to get a guy to take you out on a proper fucking date. (Not actually fucking. That was added for emphasis. :) And I got to thinking, I don't know if I've ever actually been on a real date. Ever. I mean I remember going out to eat every once in a while with my boyfriend my senior year in high school. So maybe that qualifies. But he's definitely the only guy who's ever taken me on a "date." With all the other ones, we just "go out" or "hang out" or get drunk or whatever. And I almost always pay, at least for my part, and sometimes for the whole thing. I'm not complaining so save your nasty comments. And I've NEVER had an abundance of romance in my life. In fact, I can only think of ONE TIME a boy ever even put any thought into making something special for me. And that was Josh, the proverbial boy next door who's memorized your every move since the sixth grade. One night when we were in college he lit candles and rented my favorite movie and bought me a box of junior mints (cuz they're my fave). Then he sat next to me and played with my hair throughout the whole movie and I cried because I knew he wasn't the one for me but I wanted him to be, but he just thought I was crying at the movie. And the night ended with wonderful wonderful kisses and our relationship ended about a month later. And that's that.

So I clicked on the advertisement at the bottom of her comments section and it took me to Amazon.com to a list of books that will help you find that one special person who will make you never feel lonely again. And here are the top titles that will undoubtedly change your life:

101 Ways to Flirt: How to Get More Dates and Meet Your Mate

How to Attract Anyone, Anytime, Anyplace

Body Language Secrets: A Guide During Courtship & Dating

How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You

How to Be Irresistible to the Opposite Sex: The Art of Dating, Mating, Long Term Relating

How to Succeed With Women

Wow that seems like a lotta work just to make someone fall in love with you. I got somethin that's way easier, alot cheaper, much quicker, and way faster results:

Show your boobs.

Snippits From my Day

"This ass is high class. Just call me Cadillac."

"It's gonna take one hell of a man to take care of me."

"If you put your fucking finger in my face one more time..."

"What if I told you I knew I was meant to be with you. What if I told you that you were the only person I've ever loved?"
"--- It wouldn't matter you're married."
"You wouldn't marry me anyway. You never wanted to in the first place. So don't act like you care that I'm married."
"--- Then don't ask."

"What's up rubber duck? What are you doing?"
"--- running late."
"Oh, I thought you were gonna make some smart ass remark about 'going to hell if I don't change my ways.' "
"--- uh, no. What do you want?"

"One big huge BUR HUR"

"Sometimes you have to kill a boy to keep his ass in line."

Growing Up

You know what's hard sometimes. Watching your friends grow up around you. My best friends in the world have grown up and gotten married on me. I physically talk to them maybe once a month. Why is it that when we permanently or almost permanently hook up with someone, they become our only source of social interaction? I've always wondered about this. And honestly, I think girls are worse about it than boys. I know a ton of married guys who are willing to leave the house and come home at all hours of the night if it means having a night out with the guys, just kickin back and hangin out. But almost every girl I know has the first response of "Well, I don't know, let me see what he wants to do." Or something to that effect. It's so interesting to me. And I'm not pointing fingers, cuz I've done it too, I'm sure. But this kind of thing just fascinates me. Woman's need to cling and man's need to flee. Sometimes it gets reversed but hardly ever.

Either way, I miss my friends. I guess life just gets busy. Everybody's either working their asses of or going to night school or just being comfortable staying home and being married and making babies.

But then again, I guess this is when I get to know myself best. And this is what makes me, me. I have the uncanny ability to go anywhere and do anything by myself. Go to dinner, go to a movie, just hang out, whatever. I don't know one of my friends that is really comfortable doing that stuff by herself, except Whit, and she probably comes the closest. So yay me :)

And maybe one day, when I've perfected the art of being by myself, I won't have to anymore :)

Funhater

Ok. While I'm feeling good, I'm just gonna call 'em like I see 'em. And I'm fully prepared for all the testosterone-charged comments I'm gonna get.

I've been called a funhater because I said the bullshit never ends with guys talking about other girls and especially about seeing two girls together.

Here's a story for ya. So there was this really super cute, super nice boy who flirted a little and who had a fantasy of being with two girls at the same time.

He was a fireman and all. OH yeah.

So one night, he was feeling pretty good and there were these two girls that were paying special attention to each other. Yeah, the alcohol helped and they discovered kissing girls was just so much softer...

Two hours later, the time was right and things started getting hot. Clothes were flying and there was definitely some giggling going on.

Twenty minutes into it both of the girls said screw this, where's the party, because the boy was so nervous he couldn't get it up. He wanted it but, yeah, he couldn't handle it.

And that was that. So in the words MTV has made so famous...

You think you know, but you have no idea.

Las Drogas

I have a friend that says, "Ashly you are the most drug-sensitive person I've ever known. I'm glad you weren't around in my hard-core partying days. You'd have killed yourself or somebody else."

It's because any kind of cold/sinus medication makes me want to cry. And I took one about 3 hours ago. It's really weird.

So I guess I'm going to take the rest of this day to write "thank you" presents for a few people in celebration of my graduation :) And maybe I'll cook some dinner. That sounds good. Yeah.

I got nothin today. Literally. Nothin to say, nothin to do.

Except the new Smirnoff Twisted Raspberry kicks ass.

I guess I'll take a nap, clean the house, and maybe go get a movie and settle in for an Ashly night.

Unless I get a better offer :)

Funniest Thing I've Ever Heard

Skeptical, jaded, recovering Goth, psych major Kristen, says under her breath to perky, air-headed, knows nothing about literature, doesn't know when to shut up, I don't like Walt Whitman Diedra,

"I hate you and I hope you die."

And it made my day.

Dave says a list of 100 sex positions would be a better read than my list of My 100 Things... So I'm working on it. Please contribut cuz I only know about fifty or so.

Also this is kinda funny...

I'm not a very peaceful sleeper. I tend to roll around alot. Last night, Tucker decided he needed more space on my side of the bed so he wedged his fat ass horizontally against me and the edge of the bed, which means his head was digging into my side. I guess my unconscious didn't appreciate it and I rolled over and elbowed him in the head. He let out a very angry meow. I said sorry and moved him to his normal vertical position stretched out on his back, paws in the air. He was back asleep in 2.5 seconds and all was well.

In the Words of Carmella Soprano

It never ends! Your bullshit!

My sentiments exactly, Carmella. I was sitting in an empty bar last night listening to boys talk and thinking, the bullshit never ends. Guys can be married twenty years or just newlyweds and they will still be begging 21 year old girls to grind on each other and maybe flash them some tits. And then they expect their wives to be cool with it. Yeah, and when they find out their wives have been seeing some other dude for the last five years they act like they're shocked somehow. Word to the wise: Save the money on the wedding, the marriage counseling, and the divorce. Move to a pretty state and just do what you love and be content with that.

I had a similar run in with another of the male persuasion this morning. As we all know, two days ago, I had somewhat of an emotional crisis on my hands. He was the one on the other end of the line when it happened. He put me on hold. I hung up. Today is Thursday and he's now returning my phone call. I'd just like to say that I've spent hours upon hours upon days (literally) talking him through bullshit in his life that he thinks he can't handle at the moment. I get a phone call 2 days later. And a mere, I'm sorry. Can you forgive me? The bullshit never ends.

So anyway, that's my gripe and now I'm done. It's a beautiful day and I'm taking it off (the day). Skipping class this morning to work on a poetry paper that I didn't get done last night and going to a non-profit job fair, then going to see my girl Michelle who's going to make me beautiful.

So that's it. That's my day. Sounds good.

Due to Popular Request

I give you my 100 Things.

You know what's sad. I've become the sadly optimistic girl who checks air fare specials every week thinking someday she'll get to go somewhere fun.

This week, $139 round trip to Jamaica from St. Louis.

So Tell Me What This Means

So I was a stripper hanging out with my stripper girls, giving a few dances, makin a little $$. Suddenly somebody tells me the club's being raded and we gotta get outta there quick. Another girl hands me a stack of $100 bills and tells me to run. So I did. I'm thinkin hell yeah there must be $10,000 here! Woo Hoo!

WTF?

Tear Soup

I had a breakdown today. And of course, right in the middle of it, I had no idea what was going on. I thought I was just nuts and out of control. I was sitting at the light at 23rd & Drexel on hold with a friend, waiting for him to come back on the line, and I starting crying uncontrollably. I couldn't make it stop. So I hung up the phone. And I just sat at the stop light crying and wondering why in the world this was all coming out of me and not stopping. It was a fairly hard day, so I suppose the groundwork was set for my emotional outburst. But only twice before in my life have I ever been physically unable to stop the tears. Fortunately I learned that I shouldn't try to stop them. So I didn't.

But eventually they stopped. And as a result I felt like all the life had been sucked out of my body and I could close my eyes at any moment and any place and be sound asleep, a nice respite from the world. Walking back from the library tonight I contemplated my situation, and it occurred to me: I'm grieving the loss of the person I was. I'm like a lost little kid wandering around looking for direction in a big scary world all by herself. See, most people don't understand. They think, Ashly you're a 24 year old woman who's graduating college, which you should have done 2 years ago. You've had your adolescent years to feel lost and now you're a grown up.

What they don't understand is I'm not supposed to be here, doing what I'm doing right now. I was never supposed to finish college, because I couldn't. And God, that's a stretch. I don't even think I expected to still be on the planet at age 24. So I've fought and I've struggled and I've conquered. I've won. I attained the goal. Not only staying alive, but getting an incredible education, doing it excellently, and having a passion that drives me to be who I am and to help others. What a freakin fight it was. And now it's over. Now what? I guess I can kind of compare it to the mindset of a soldier who's been on the battlefield for years. What happens when he comes home and has to be just a normal citizen again? It takes some adjustment. He has to kind of change his perspective on life or maybe rearrange who he is to fit his new life. That's where I feel like I am. And I guess sometimes that's scary to me. I guess it was today. Maybe my bravery will return tomorrow. Maybe I won't be so weary and so tired of my life. Maybe the hope will come back. Maybe I'll find a new job that pays me more money.

Today's a yucky day and I don't have anything else to say except if I have one more dream about leaky roofs and big black spiders crawling through my hair I'm going to go throw myself off a bridge.

Yes, hopeful, optimistic Ashly is officially saying she would rather be someone else today.

Preferably someone who is married with about a zillion kids so she wouldn't have to pay damned income tax. This country's view of single people, gay people, and women is fucking screwed.

Bah humbug.

The Evening News

Just a few thoughts, just MY thoughts:

1) I cannot fault GW for 9/11 attacks. I know it's the basest human, knee-jerk reaction to look for someone to blame. We didn't find Osama in Afghanistan, so now it's no wonder we're pointing fingers at home. However, unless he had a memo on his desk that said, "Hey GW, we're gonna kill about 1500 of your people on September 11th. Have great day!" I can't hold him solely responsible. I'm pretty sure communication in Washington is just like one big game of telephone anyway. I don't see how anybody could get it totally right.

2) OMG. He actually just said, "The situation in Iraq is improving." Uhhh. Somebody tell his advisors he missed the briefing about the fact that 71 US soldiers have been killed in the last 12 days (some numbers say as high as 78).

3) Science is right. Everything moves into to a state of chaos. And I personally think we're in over our heads. We jumped into this situation to save someone else and didn't know what we were really going up against. You can't just go into a country and try to single handedly change hundreds of years of religious oppression and ingrained ways of cultural thinking by taking out one dude, even if he was the ultimate jackhole. Because even if you take him out, you've still got the oppressive/religious control mindset of the masses to deal with. Good freakin luck. Here we go, thinking we can change the world again because we get it and no one else does. I know that we all like to think of America as this massive super-hero super power force, but nothing is indestructible. We should have learned the first time we tried something like this.

I'm tired of hearing about someone's sister who took a bullet to her heart and won't be coming home. This is ridiculous. I love our soldiers and I want them to fight for their own and our own freedom. Now they're just fighting for their lives.

Voices

I've been jumping from blog to blog today in between clients, screaming babies, and homework. And the conversation Dave and I had about blog writing being the next vehicle for the voice of our generation keeps coming back to me. The more I read, the more I can see this happening.

When I was talking to Dave I said, "*so and so* has the best blog out there." He said, "Really? No way. Do you think when people are looking back fifty years from now and trying to hear the voice of our generation, they're gonna look at *so and so's* blog?" And it clicked. NO way. They wouldn't. So I rephrased, "Maybe what I meant is that it's the most marketable blog out there." And he said, "Yeah, and being marketable is not what we're talking about here." And I totally agree. Was Ginsberg marketable? Kerouac? Burroughs? It's doubtful, but look what they started. They started a whole movement for anyone "living as a bohemian or acting rebelliously or appearing to advocate a revolution in manners."

It was their generation acting out against the voice of their parent's, and creating their own. Every generation does it in one way or another. Yet, ours has yet to carve out a definitive niche in the world as of this point. But I think we're working on it. And I'm still searching the web for the people who have something to contribute to this collective voice and all I know right now is this chick is definitely gonna play a role. And this one too.

So Dani has safely returned to College Station, which is nothing short of a miracle. She slept for 2 hours Saturday night and didn't even leave town until Sunday at 7 p.m. and it's just over a six hour drive.

Had a pretty great weekend. Got lots to do today. Gotta finish up the graduation announcements, finish up some tax stuff, study for a test tonight, run by dad's to pick some things up, and it goes on and on and on.

Glad to hear Whitney had a great time in Boston... I need to make a trip here pretty soon. Must get out of this town. Who's up for a weekend road trip?? Anyway, I realize I have absolutely nothing to say in this blog and I'm suddenly aware of a rumbly in my tumbly so I suppose I shall pursue the idea of lunch. hmmmmm.

Monday mornings are from the devil.

It has come to my attention that last night Robert, pictured in photos #3, 5, & 6 below, was mistaken by one Nancy Wolf, for Robbie Rob Rob. See Mr. Miles, you need to come out. Your fans await. :)

Dani's Trip to the Big City

Holed Up in my Lair

1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says:
"He looked at me a couple of times- no big deal." Ashly Brooke, 01/02/94

2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
The bed.

3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?
SLC Punk with Matthew Lillard, cool concept, weird movie.

4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is:
12:30am

5: Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?:
12:45 am

6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?:
The occasional car driving by. It's very quiet here.

7: When did you last step outside? What were you doing?:
7:30 p.m. Coming home from dinner with my sister.

8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?:
BlueCad. I got this from her :)

9: What are you wearing?:
Gray Nike Basketball shirt with a purple embroidered basketball logo, plaid boys pj pants from Old Navy

10: Did you dream last night?:
That's a trick question. We all dream every night unless we have sleep disorders like narcolepsy and such. We just don't always remember the dreams.

11: When did you last laugh?:
At dinner tonight.

12: What is on the walls of the room you are in?:
Lots of pictures. Too many probably. 2 Edward Robert Hughes', a random pretty one, and 3 framed prints I picked up in Paris a long time ago, and a lace covered board filled with favorite quotes and two of my favorite baby pictures.

13: Seen anything weird lately?:
That movie I watched tonight.

14(a): What book are you currently reading?:
A zillion. Revisiting Ariel by Sylvia Plath, an anthology of contemporary American poets, Inner Work (a dream book), going back through some personal journals, and just whatever I happen to pick up when the mood strikes.
14(b): What is the last book you finished?:
Man, the guy I'm copying over is reading Truman Capote and Kurt Vonnegut. Damn. There are some intellectuals left in the world. Hilary Clinton's autobiography.

15: What is the last film you saw?:
It seems like I saw something after Dawn of the Dead but I can't really remember now.

16: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?:
A house in Malibu.

17: Tell me something about you that I don't know:
You will never know everything there is to know about me.

18: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?:
Legalize marijuana :) The world would be a much happier place.

19: Do you like to dance?:
Are you kidding me? Hell yeah.

20: What is the last thing you ate or drank?
Smores pop tarts and milk.

21(a): Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?:
Ryan
21(b): Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?:
Branden

22: Would you ever consider living abroad?:
Absolutely. But hopefully not anywhere that I'd have to speak Spanish. Uhh. Donde es el bano? Yeah, that's all I got.

Today was an interesting day. It started out with a boring class that I dread every MWF morning and will end on a good note, it seems. Dani and I are having dinner again tonight, much to mom's chagrin. She's pouting apparently because Dani is not spending time with her. We're having lunch at her place on Easter though.

I got a couple of interesting phone calls today. Both were ex-bf's and both went really well, I thought. I knew this was going to be an interesting day and probably an interesting night too. It never fails. I had a crazy whacked out cat fight dream last night. It just occurred to me I never let my readers in on the infinite wisdom I gleaned from the mini-drama that occurred between the hours of two and four this morning. Maybe later. When I feel like making shit up so you guys won't really think I'm that crazy. Or that slutty :)

Oh, and while I'm at it, a little boy named Collin was scheduled to make his appearance in the world today. I haven't heard if he's actually here yet, but I would like to go ahead and say congrats to Josh & Kari. Josh is hands down the best ex-boyfriend I have and he couldn't have landed himself a better girl :)

So dinner tonight was a nice stroll down memory lane. We ended up at Fridays, which always makes me think of the movie Office Space and Jennifer Anniston with her 15 pieces of flare. Which prompts me to say something about the movie, which in turn prompts Dani to do her impression of Milton. Which for some reason led to recounting the Cartman and the Special Olympics episode of South Park. And that was equally hilarious. On the way home dad launched into the "I will never forget the time" speech. And I don't care how many times we hear it, we still end up laughing so hard that it gets hard to breathe. And I swear, tonight more than ever I realized how ingrained we were as children with Bible stories and how we couldn't differentiate them from our normal everyday lives. Take for instance the time when mom, dad, and I were standing in the kitchen just after dinner. Dad says I better go check on Dani in the bathtub. She was three years old at the time. So he opens the bathroom door to find the bathroom literally flooded and Dani jumping up and down in the bathtub throwing water everywhere laughing and screaming, It rained for 40 days and 40 nights!

Three years before that incident, my dad took me to see Fox and the Hound while my mother was at a baby shower that was being held for her just before Dani graced this world with her presence. I was 3 1/2. There's a part in the movie where the little hound dog puppy gets lost in the woods and is all alone and very scared. While he's lost in the forest in the dark of night, it starts to storm and big, heavy rain drops begin to fall on him. Dad said, a hush fell over the audience. It was a very dramatic moment, no one knew if the puppy was going to make it. And Ashly stood up in her chair and started singing at the top of her lungs (while doing the motions, of course) The rains came down and the floods came up, the rains came down and the floods came up...

And those were just two of the many hilarious stories that my sister and I are responsible for... another would be the ever so popular Dani drinking the perfume story, or the Ashly sitting in a pile of fire ants story. All good stuff. Maybe I'll share at a later date.

So anyway, family time is good :) And now it's late. So story time is over children. Now go brush your teeth and mom will be in to tuck you in in a minute :)

Loaded

Tony wants girls to write for Lick. But he wants them to write more about drugs and rock and maybe just a tad less about sex. Scroll through Lick. There are a couple of really good pieces on drug induced altered states of consciousness and hardly any on rock, really. And even the drug pieces involve sex. I think this is a very very important cultural statement. Tony started up Lick for women to use their voices in an anonymous way to say things they felt they couldn't in their own blogs. I have a sneaking suspicion girls feel pretty comfortable talking about drugs and rock in their blogs, but not sex. This is because it has not yet become socially acceptable for a women to express herself sexually without it being labeled as slutty or dirty or something else negative. I think we may have gotten to the place in our culture where it's finally OK for women to enjoy sex, in fact, it's become a goal. But is that goal truly the enjoyment of the woman or is it for the man to feel like he's just that much more of a man because he can make a girl scream. But even when she does enjoy it, we still don't wanna hear about it. We'd rather just look at twins with their boobs popping out all over the place and imagine them bringing us a Budweiser and fondling each other at the same time. Forget the fact that it's incest.

So I guess what I'm saying is, it doesn't surprise me that Lick has been overrun with girls dying to writing about sex and pretty much bleeding it on the page, uhh, screen. It's because they can do it and be anonymous and not be judged and express the excitement in whatever way they see fit, and it's pure and it's honest. And everybody knows mom would never read anything called Lick.

Happy Day

It's such a pretty day here in OKC. Could be a little warmer I guess, but it's still nice. Maybe that's cuz my beautiful little sister is in town. She said she had plans to study for an anatomy test all day. I said, right like you haven't thoroughly explored that subject already. And I only say that cuz she was always the bad girl. Ashly was always the good girl. No mom and dad, I'm not having sex. No Mr. Concerned Youth Minister, I'm not having sex. No Nosey Bitch Ass Prinicpal at School, I'm not having sex. No baby, I wont have sex with you. But thanks for asking and just for that I'll let you do whatever you want to me besides that, resulting in getting you all worked up and having absolutely no satisfaction. Aren't you so excited!

But Dani, oh Dani. Dani said, hey I'm wearing a short skirt. How do ya like that. Oh yeah. I thought so. Mom and dad aren't home, and that bed looks really inviting. Wait how did my dress get over my head? I think I kinda like this! Yeah, sorry about the mess mom. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

So anyway, how did I get off on that subject? Wow. Anyway, we're going to dinner tonight with dad. That should be a fun time. Yay! Free food! So, I've got more intellectual things to blog about, but I think I need to think about them some more for a bit. Dave and I had an interesting conversation about the voice of our generation and using the blog as a vehicle, kinda reminiscent of the Beat writers. So I'll think about it some more, make my selections as to whom would be a candidate for this group of new voices, and get back to you :)

Rock n roll.

You know what really bugs me? What's that? you say. Well, I'll tell you. It's the fact that I've got things to say that I can't say in this damn blog because it wouldn't be nice and neat and pretty and there are people who would get their feelers hurt. These are the people who read, but try to act like they aren't addicted to AshlyBrooke.com. They never comment. Because they don't have "time" or they're just too cool or they can't figure out how to press the little "submit" button at the bottom of the comment window.

And here's something else that bugs me. The one person who should be most interested in knowing me, I mean every aspect of me doesn't even know my web address. Nor does he read my writing anymore. (But I can't say I blame him for that. It did get pretty nasty towards him for a while.) So I'm beeboppin along and one day he pops into work unannounced and freakin takes over my desk and pulls up the Internet Explorer. Well whoops. AshlyBrooke.com is the homepage. Duh. And there are all my deep dark secrets laid out on the screen in front of him. He sees his name like once, and starts freaking out like OMG who reads this, what if somebody sees this, and on and on and on. I said, ya know what, your wife doesn't read my blog. But if she did maybe her ignorant ass would learn something. Haha. Got your attention there, didn't I? :) My life is so much fun... but you should have already figured that out by now... unless of course your name is Kevmo and your middle name is C. Yeah, that's it, just C. I think he's adopted Cosmo for the time being. And in that case, it might take you a little while to totally grasp the obvious.

Like he walks up to me one night fairly recently and goes, Ashly I've figured something out about you. You're horny. I'm just like dude where have you been, and that's all I know to say. And then I threw him down and... no wait. That was later. Sorry.

So I'm contemplating some serious issues here. One of which is my total lack of sex lately. Another is the fact that I'm still driving the beast affectionately known as the OKVGPB and can't afford the freaking $50 it takes to fill it up. Another is that Whitney is leaving tomorrow morning for freaking Boston. Take sweaters. It's cold there. And the third, no fourth is the fact that I'm wondering when I'm going to hear the results of the Playboy poll of the best vibrators. And that reminds me, I need to go pick up some batteries. And yeah, Dave, if you're Sarah and you tell me to fuck off one more time, I will fly my ass to California, hunt you down, kick your little brown ass and make you like it. But other than that, I love you. Always remember that.

So I guess that's it. Besides, it's about time for my booty call to arrive.

Yay!

Dani is coming home tonight and staying til Sunday. Finally. I haven't seen her since Christmas. She's my laughing buddy. She says things that are hilarious and she doesn't even know it, then we both die laughing. Like she has this stupid joke that ends up with a guy yelling, "I can't hear you! I've got a banana in my ear!!" And she just yells and it's so not funny, but it's hilarious. It's good to have a little sister that you love :)

Tonight is Bike Night at the WD. It's also the night Li-Young Lee is giving a poetry reading at school. I can hear the comments now. So go ahead. But hey, I'm a well balanced girl. I can be philosophical and poetical and get drunk in the same night. In fact, I think it works better that way. We'll see.

Ok this is the part of the day when I comment on Matt's thoughts since he STILL has not put comments back on his blog. He wrote alot about creativity and inspiration, which is appropriate since I went to a poetry workshop given by Li-Young Lee this morning. I do this every time- I leave a workshop and have this unbelievable impulse to quit school and quit my job and just write.

Today, in the crowd, was a very hippie/artsy looking man sitting front and center, who apparently follows Mr. Lee and his work very closely. He had on dirty clothes had long scraggly hair and a beard and just looked the tortured, starving artist type. So naturally he had the first question when Li-Young opened up the floor. His question was, "You write alot about your wife and children. As an artist, how do you integrate having relationships into your life while still fully devoting yourself to your art?" And you could tell that the guy was just one of these people who thinks you have to completely sacrifice your very being to your art. You must starve, you must be tortured, you must be miserable to create. And Li-Young gave the greatest answer in the world:

For me, poetry is everywhere. The universe is the totality of poetic unconsciousness. I think by compartmentalizing our lives into 'this inspires me' and 'this hinders my art' is to not fully embrace life and art. You limit it and yourself. Poems have just always kind of come to me. It's not something I have to concentrate on and conjure up. You ask about relationships. When I met my wife, I looked at marriage as the ultimate poem. I thought maybe I'll never write again and I'll just let marriage be my poem. But the poems just kept coming. Then I thought the same thing when my sons were born. Maybe raising these boys is the ultimate act of poetry. Maybe I'll never write again. But they just kept coming. I think, if you are open to it, the words, the breath, will come in all different forms. I think we must be careful not to limit ourselves in our art by compartmentalizing our lives and separating them from the reality that the universe itself is art.

Wow. And see, that's what I've thought all along. I never in my life could have verbalized it that way, but I've always just felt that even sitting in a room all alone, a phrase or a certain word or a different perspective would come to me. Maybe it wouldn't be a poem, but it would be art.

Can I Just Say Something

I really don't have problems. I realize that after long counseling sessions with girls who eat valiums and zanexes like they're going out of style all the while swilling a bottle of gin and possibly being pregnant with someone esle's child. My life is cake.

Which brings me to my next totally unrelated thought. Tina has pictures of girls kissing on her fabulous website. And they actually look like they're having fun, not doing it cuz a group of boys were gawking on. Kissing girls is different than kissing boys. Or different than kissing the wrong boy. Girls are way softer.

Kissing is fun :)

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

The air is so weird in my world right now. For the last 4 days I have found myself listening to music that reminds me of really emotional times in my life, really good emotional times, not bad times. I feel like like I'm pulling so many good things from so many different places right now, the physical, the mental and the emotional.

I feel really exposed in a secretive sort of way. There are people in my life who in one way or another just hit the freakin nail on the head when it comes to me and different aspects of who I am. And it's totally unexplainable. I've never really let any of these people into my inner world, yet they've totally got it figured out. And that freaks me out. In a good way. Because as people go, I'm a fairly complex person in many ways. And in all of my 24 years never has any one single person been able to figure things out like the people in my life right now. What do I do with this? I guess I just take comfort in the fact that I have a safe place to go. A safe place to fall. A place where I don't have to say anything and yet I'll still be heard. That's a really good feeling.

And I was thinking today, I want to write a book, but I suck at fiction. I have trouble narrating in the third person. I don't know if that means I'm just an egomaniacal narcissist or what. But I find it much easier to write when I'm doing it from my own perspective, from the "I". If I do it, it will be called, "The Single Girl," or some derivative of those words. It will contain the sordid accounts of my many debaucherous experiences as a twenty-something single chick. It will probably read alot like a soap opera. And obviously it will start with the disclaimer: The names have been changed, but the problems are real.

Well hello Mr. Man Mowing the Grass outside my window. You got a free show this morning!

My bad.

I do what I can to make the help feel appreciated.

Something today doesn't feel like it fits. I'm a firm believer in the soundtrack of my life and this morning nothing works... I guess we'll go with a little Marylin Monroe. She'll get me in a good mood. After all, she knows this girl's best friend :)

OCD

So I'm on break at school. In class tonight we had a presentation on OCD. This one person keeps coming to my mind... I have a very good friend whom I have been close with for 10 years now. Only a year ago he told me that he counts things constantly. He seems to only do it when his mind is not on task, when he's not working, not having a conversation with someone, etc. He counts his steps. He counts the cars that pass by. He counts the blue cars and subtracts them from the total number of cars and on and on and on. It's constant when he's not focused on something. He hadn't told me for so long because he thought I'd think he was nuts. (Which is another symptom of OCD.)

Damn. I just thought he was a genius. (But above average IQ makes one more susceptible for OCD.) As it turns out, his synapes are just over firing.

Haha. Tony went to a Lakers game this weekend and they were selling Kobe t-shirts that said, "No more white chicks" on the back.

THAT is funny.

Thank You Blogger

for being my de-briefer. It is recommended that trauma workers de-brief after helping out in a crisis situation. This is to ensure that they don't take on the emotions of the person actually enduring the trauma (that's called transference) and become crazy loons themselves.

I just had a counseling client have a total emotional breakdown in the room with me. Very sad, yet very cool to see the metamorphosis. We talked through things for a good hour and fifteen minutes and it was very productive. We established a lot of things that she can work on to change her situation. Then, at the end, after I told her it was OK to feel her feelings and be sad regardless of what other people said about her sadness, that she should just get over it and move on, it happened. Tears, tears, more tears, a little screaming, and more tears. A box of kleenex later, all was well. Well, not ALL. But it was better than when she walked in the door today. Sometimes people just need to be allowed to go a little nuts, knowing that it's going to be OK and reality awaits you when you decide you've finished indulging yourself.

I like what one of my psych professors says when he takes us on "guided journies", "You can go ahead and close your eyes and go into yourself and your inner world. I'll stand watch out here and protect you from the evil dragons."

So I guess that's what I did today, and it was very cool to see. I had about a zillion phone calls while I was with her, but I was the only one in the office so I let them go. One of them was a girl scheduling counseling for she and her BF. They are old clients of mine and they're coming back for different reasons... this should be interesting...

Ah the joys of crisis work.

I STG...

Mercury is in retrograde and whole world is going to sh*%. I don't know one single person who's not going through, at the very least, a transitional time right now. I feel like I need to mount speakers on top of the OKVGPB and ride around blaring Heal the World or Don't Worry Be Happy or some other feel good song like that. I GOT IT! I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness!! You GOTTA be happy when you listen to that song, it's like a rule!

And sssshhhhhh. Lil sis is coming to town this weekend... she may come see The Stragglers with me. wink wink nudge nudge. PAR-TAY!!!

Art

Ironically, there are no words. Go here. This chick definitely has blank walls to write on. And she's a Lick reader.

Night Off

So many people are partying this weekend... I've got friends at the Kid Rock Concert, at the Texas Motor Speedway, at Eufala and about a zillion other crazy places. And here I sit, in my comfy little spot, alone on a Saturday night. In fact, it's 9:30 p.m. and I'm getting ready to go to bed. I worked the Redbud Classic bike race this morning from 8-11. It was actually alot of fun and I felt fantastic even though it was 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I got sunburned and didn't realize it til I went tanning. Whoops. My face is a pretty shade of pink :)

Anyway, so I guess the jury's still out on Mr. Pierce's alleged shot gun wedding. His whole blog today was about missing a girl who was his soul mate but that he let go. Either he's not married or Moxie is REALLY understanding. I'm bettin on the first.

Which leads me to my next thought. Someone said to me this weekend that he never believed that there was only one right person that all of us are destined to end up with. I guess I never really thought about it until he brought it up. People always ask me if I think it's possible to love more than one person and that's an easy one. Yes, of course. What, do we only have like a limited amount of love that we're allowed to use in a lifetime? I don't think so. But I don't think it's possible to be totally emotionally engaged in 2 relationships at the same time (I'm talking about romantic relationships, not friendships). I don't think two relationships like that could ever be balanced equally, unless you're giving nothing to both of them. But that wouldn't be total emotional engagement would it. But I would NEVER discount the great loves of my life just because they aren't my focus at the present moment. And who am I to say that I won't be madly and deeply in love with someone else twenty years from now? I would hope that just because I've completely loved someone in the past that it would not disqualify me from loving someone even more in the future.

But as to the "one right person" thing... hmmm... I guess I'm jaded. I don't know if anybody's the "right" person, I just think you should pick someone that you work really well with and that you'd be willing to work through the hard spots with. I guess that person would be the right person. And so yeah, I definitely think there could be more than one of those out there.

And so since this blog is really long and it's a weekend, I'm going to bed and I will dream sweet dreams of a boy that likes to laugh with me.

So I'm sitting here nibbling on my chicken strips from KFC and thinking, damn. Tony really did get married last weekend! And I'm sorry for all you poetry-haters out there, but it reminds me of a James Wright poem I read last night about how beautiful his surroundings are with the wind whistling through the wheat fields and the sun high in the sky... lots of beautiful wonderful description to draw you in, then BOOM! The last line: I've wasted my entire life. Where in the hell did that come from? But I love it. It's so shocking and so unexpected. So I guess that's how I feel about Tony runnin off and gettin hitched... very out of the ordinary and unexpected. So cool. Someday, that's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to show up one day with a ring on my finger saying, Yeah, I got hitched this weekend! Isn't that fun? And it'll probably be to a guy I met like two weekends before. It's such a freakin toss up anyway. You can know somebody for years and years and get married, be miserable for twenty or so years and still get divorced. I figure the odds are 50/50 either way. And I've always been pretty lucky :)

Anyway, I've had some really interesting and cool/deep conversations with several people lately. Actually, they were all last night. One of them after midnight. So technically that would be this morning, I guess. They were all about art, written & visual, fate vs. free will, and religion and how our view on spirituality makes us who we are. I only started ONE of these conversations, and that would be the one about art. The other two kind of pounced upon me (in a good way). It's interesting after having all those conversations stacked ontop of each other, I kinda of see the world differently today. Not drastically different, there's just a different feel about it today. I want to go see the student show in the Gallery at school today. It'll be open until the end of semester but today is just such a pretty day. And I love walking into the room and just being overcome by the talent that I'm surrounded with on a daily basis.

Anyway, that's all after I go take this test for the possibly new job... wish me luck!

So...

Did he elope or not? I'm cornfused.

Ginsberg

A note to Alamo & Kevmo,
Don't let the poetry and the "big words" bewilder ya fellas. I was reading Allen Ginsberg tonight and was reminded of you, my good friends :) He wrote a poem called Howl. You may or may not have read it. But it's a poem he wrote, at least the first section of it, recounting his life and times, but mostly the life and times of his friends. And it reminded me of your stories.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical, naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix...
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating cross the tops of cities contemplating jazz,...
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,...
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue
to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars....

Just a few excerpts. Pick up a Ginsberg collection sometime. If you like your beloved Mr. Kerouac, you'll probably enjoy Mr. Ginsberg. Just a thought :)

I'm on a mission to educate you fools!

I feel an office bitch rant coming on. Yep. Here it is:

Bitch #1: How hard is it to understand that if you leave the thermostat set at an even 75 the temperature will always be right. Quit knocking it down to 65 then decide you're cold and turn the GD heat on!!!

#2: If you work here, be on freakin time. This is a crisis center people. I could be at the office by myself and be up to my eyeballs in stressed-out family members. If you're supposed to be here at one, then be here at one.

#3: If you have an appointment here and can't make it, please call. There are other people who would love your slot but can't get in. And ESPECIALLY if we're giving you stuff like diapers, formula, clothes, etc. SHOW UP to pick it up. Otherwise your ass is just gonna be SOL next time.

Ok, I think that's it. I feel better.

Wow. What a great sleep-in that was :) Got up at 10:50 a.m. Really considered calling work and saying, Yeah, I'm just not feelin it today. See ya Monday! But alas. Responsibility calls. And so does one of my BFF's... at 8:30 this morning. I know I said my phone would be off, but I just turned it waaaay down. I thought I wouldn't be able to hear it, and that way I could see my missed calls. Well, it woke me up anyway. He said, "This is your 8:30 wake up call. Get your ass outta bed." I told him my Thursday class was cancelled and he said, "Oh," and proceeded to yack my ear off for the next twenty minutes to the response of incoherent grunts muffled by my pillow. Eventually, I heard the magic words: "Call me later." And I lost consciousness again.

Anyway, so after I wake up and get ready to go to work, I sit down and take the opportunity to read a few blogs. And here is where we come to the time in our day when I comment on the thoughts of a certain person on the internet who has a blog without comments. I would like to make one observation: Since he's taken the comments off, he's turned into SuperUber Blogger. I wonder why that is? Anyway, I would just like to say if I had a $5,000 cello, I would also purchase a seat for it on the plane, and yes, more than likely it would have a name. Like Jello. Jello the Cello. And no way would I trust the buffoons on the loading dock at the airport with my precious cargo. It would be a bad business move, after all. And I would also say that, yes, it is good to periodically detach ourselves from our lives and etc. to reconnect with people. I struggle to get that point across to various people in my life. But inevitably it happens when something goes wrong and they need someone to talk to. I just think it's sad that it can't happen on a happy day. So good job Rib Tip, for just taking the time to do it, just because.

Well, I guess it's time get on with my day. So welcome to the jungle- we got fun and games. Oh yes we do. I have no idea what the rest of my week and weekend will hold, but I can feel it in the air, it's gonna be Ka-Raazy!

So yes, I got drunk on a Wednesday night because Thursday will be a very light day for me. I have an excuse. Robert, Ragan, Kevin, Me, and a bunch of biker dudes and chicks, and a couple of wannabe gangsta chicks hung out at the bar and par-tayed.

When I look back five years from now, Wednesday nights at the WD are what I'm going to remember. I can tell.

Don't expect a blog from me until the PM. I plan to be sleeping. Don't try to call, my phone will be off.

And there ya have it.

And BTW, I won't be drinking anymore this weekend. HAHA. April fools!!