the neighbors

So it is a birthday post! birthday! Birthday! BIRTHDAY!!!
not much to talk about there, but it is the truth!

The neighbors behind us seem really nice from what I can tell, but they go out to their shed more than I ever could have imagined anyone to do. Now, I know I shouldn't care. I have never really noticed anything my neighbors do. I will laugh at certain things with neighbors (like the neighbor I had in Caldwell that had this annoying peacock in their yard), the ones with guns, the ones that smoke insane amounts of weed and cough/laugh for hours in their yard. All these cases I have noticed, but never really cared about. It doesn't affect me. This really doesn't either, but it has struck my curiosity on a level that I have to report. The neighbors have a shed that is right behind our house. A regular evening involves Joel and I sitting on the couch and talking. The back door faces the couch so that we can watch the backyard and see birds and squirrels...you know, boring old people style entertainment. The neighbors have now become more fascinating to us than the animals. They go out to the shed at least 15-20 times within an evening. This always involves them getting something small. Usually a toolbox or a ladder. They ALWAYS lock the door to the shed after wards, which mostly confuses me as it seems like a waste of time when you live in the middle of nowhere and are constantly going out to your shed. The thing that gets me is that when it gets dark, they don't stop going out to the shed. Instead they wear these mining style hats (the ones with the light attached to it) and go out to their shed. They turn on all the lights in the backyard still, but also wear these hats. What gets me the most is 1) couldn't they create some kind of closet or SOMETHING to hold all the items they go out to the shed for the most? 2) what could possibly be so essential that you are going out with a hardhat and a light in the middle of the night to get? also, again, why not put that in the house? 3) if you are going out to the shed in about 5 minutes, why bother locking up the shed again? 4) why is your shed bigger than your house? couldn't you have just expanded the house and shed together so that you don't even have to go through this much effort? I am so fascinated by this. It is the biggest shed I have ever seen. I wonder if they are mechanics. Well, except they don't have a car. Maybe they have a dinosaur collection and are SECRET SCIENTISTS that have lots of bizarre new prehistoric figures to add to museums! OR! Maybe they are zookeepers keeping zoo animals in the shed as a way of eventually supplying extra retirement cash for an easy money making scheme!!! Gotta love those neighbors!

I just got a message from an ex. An ex that I loved a lot.
One that I suspected to have just disappeared.
He wants work advice. I want to help him in a way because he had been a heroin addict and has cleaned up his life. The weird thing is he chose the exact career that I am in. It is weird to think that he now is choosing to do the same things that I am doing. I don't really know what to feel about it. I hate that it is bringing up a lot of strange emotions too. It isn't a thing like I would give up everything I have now. I am happier than ever. I am with a man that loves me unconditionally back and wouldn't hurt me like Brendan did. Yet this note is making me feel a lot of sentimental feelings...and a lot of heartache. Perhaps this is a good time to write a song. Maybe it is time that we could be friends. I don't know though. There is so many weird feelings about that time for me. He really let me down. A lot. I cannot decide whether to help guide him or not. I hate saying it, but I don't know if I will ever get over him. There was this sort of chemistry that we had. He had a way of looking at me the same way that my sweet and wonderful Joel does. He definitely would never win me back, and I don't even want that to be thought of as a possibility. Yet i cannot say that there isn't a part of me that misses when we would have good times. Did we ever have good times without being drunk or something though? Maybe it is all just a summertime blur. The summer makes everything seem magical. The desert seems made for lovers. Parks. All that shit. I think it must just be the winter messing with my mind. I love Joel far too much to even bother letting anything like that old time shit to bother me right now.

I just made this as a Valentine for a friend. I am happy with it :)

A break has been nice so far. I have got a lot of stuff done around the house. That is a very nice thing.

I have been in a weird mood all week. A mood that constantly changes, but isn't so bad. The biggest reoccurring theme is feeling a real happiness that I've got Joel in my life. I have been feeling lucky to have him lately. I realized that I would be so much more stressed out if he wasn't here. I've been feeling good with the fact that he is done with chemotherapy and that we might be back into having some normalcy for once. I've had a big push of excitement and the fact that we've been talking about doing this Scotland trip and maybe getting hitched while we are over there. It is so thrilling to finally feel happy about the idea of being married to someone. As painful as it is to admit, any time the marriage thing has come up in a relationship throughout my life, it has sounded like a terrifying idea. What if they are just lonely and chose me because they think this is the best thing they have found so far and they just don't want to try to ever feel love? Nothing is more depressing than knowing a relationship might just be simply settling for something and not moving on to finding someone you are passionate about. I feel like I have that guy that I've always wanted and looked for. The fact he could have died scares me. I always have this fear that it will all end...that the best moments of my life will soon end and it will be another long spell of the horrible shit spell that I lived for so long. The point I am getting at is that it is really nice to feel like maybe things are going to be okay. I am so excited that we might get to do some traveling and get to do something sweet together.

Cannot sleep, which means it is probably a good time to write.

Where do I start...

Things I miss: kissing, walking, biking, sex, talking about the future without a ping of wondering whether or not things will ever be normal again.
I know none of these things can be avoided as of right now though, and I am more relieved to know that the cancer is almost gone from him (hopefully). I keep crossing my fingers that the possibility of bone cancer goes away and that we can eventually have what could be considered a normal relationship. I often wish that things started this bad right from the get go so that I didn't have memories of things being normal and fun. All I think about most of the time is how things once were, and that is the hardest part. I am so happy that he is getting better, but nothing is harder than watching the person you love become weakened by chemotherapy and to have to hang out for hours on end in a room filled with people dying of cancer. The whole thing definitely changes your perspective on life.

As of lately I have spent a large amount of time dissecting the way people communicate through social media. I've always viewed things such as facebook and twitter to be a great way to share a funny video or to say something random and get a conversation going. On average it is more of my way of trying to say something comical that I am thinking at that given moment. I've become rather fascinated by how many people seem to continually make statements with a form of enthusiasm that doesn't seem realistic. If you know that the person is a bitter asshole, then you know that each time they end a statement with a form of enthusiasm (such as "hooray"), that it is to play the actor and to give a false sense of who they are. I've found that I begin reading the messages that people write and watch how they interact in public (text versus oral and nonverbal communication). On average I have found most people to not sway between the forms of communication. I believe that most people are fairly nervous around people they don't know and will show the signs of that, or that they will change the tones of their voice depending on the familiarity of the person they are speaking to. The thing I have become more infatuated by is how people will change the very fibers of who they are depending on the situation. All of this is based on an ex of mine that I have seen. His very communication is false to who I know him to be. I'll be honest since this is a place where I know he will never venture anyways....he is a pompous, arrogant, selfish, egotistical and narcissistic human being. He can be nice at times, but on average he is rude(the type that would treat you with contempt on your birthday and get drunk to the point where you have to drive him home instead). This is okay...you are who you are, and all you can do is be self aware and try to make changes about how you treat others to fix these kinds of issues. Instead I find that he writes messages that show fake enthusiasm and a general sense of "I'm a professional businessman" dialogs as to toot his own horn and to end each statement with a "hooray" or some form of enthusiasm. At first this threw me off. I thought that maybe he still had the ego, but learned to be happy through all of that muddle (because as I am sure you all know, behind an angry and bitter asshole usually lies a depressed human being). One day my sweetie and I were drinking coffee and I spotted my ex walking across the street. He had completely changed his dress style. He had cut his hair differently, dyed it, changed his clothes and shoes, different glasses...you name it. Knowing the fact that he went out of his way on average to keep his hair cut short and always dress as a professional because "you never know when the opportunity will come up", this got us confused. Then my thoughts went to the fact that he is dating someone new and that maybe she has had an influence on him to try different things, which can also be a really good thing. We ran into him at a show and the first thing he says to my boyfriend was "how's your ass?" in the coldest tone he could choose. People turned in dismay at the rudeness of the statement (considering that it is rather rude to insult someone for having stage three colorectal cancer). What can I conclude otherwise? His personality didn't change, but instead he changed everything else about himself he could think of to seem different. Since the whole cancer thing started, I have found a lot of people are kind and want to help when you are going through tough times. When I find a person like my ex in the mix, it throws me off. How can someone be so heartless? Then how can they use social media to seem as though they are a nice person that cares about others? Do these kinds of people believe that they can fool society in 140 characters? Maybe social media has been created so we can become anything we want to be. Maybe it goes beyond an effective way of communicating an idea (like where to meet for an event). All of this makes me feel like the internet is just a stage for anyone to mold themselves into whatever image they've wanted to become.

After a rant like that, maybe I have finally cleared my head for sleeping. These thoughts at least help me know that the people I have met that are real, sweet, and wonderful people mean more to me than I could even begin to imagine.

I just learned from The Unbelievable Truth on BBC radio that fresh cat urine glows green under a black light, and dried urine glows yellow. I have not tried this, but there you go.

I've been having a lot more time lately to sit back and relax. My brain feels a lot less crazy, which is good. I've focused most of my time doing a lot of things that I keep thinking of making random side careers out of. It is sort of like my joke idea that I randomly come to at times to have some sort of weird secret circus career as a juggler. Sometimes I also think it would be a great idea to take on a job as a bum that gives motivational speeches to high schools about random subjects, like "I used to spend too much money on (random pop stars) cds, and I am pretty sure that is why I ended up becoming a bum that gives motivational speeches"...or something.
The one thing as of late that I've found as a way to keep my brain busy and hopefully makes some cash is to create lots of things through crocheting and looming. I'm not that amazing at it, but at least it helps keep me from getting down (and not in the funky way).

anyways. more writing later.