We'd hurt each other with the things we want to say

So.

I have been listening to a shitload of Sage Francis for the last few days to try and lift me out of this horribly, terribly, awful sad funk that I'm in now. It's helping, marginally. It helps while I'm listening to his music, because as always, the words resonate, and they express what I can't put into coherent sentences. Particularly Bridle.

Anyway, I sent him a message a few days ago telling him what's been going on, and how sad I feel, and how I'm listening to his music and it's helping me out.

AND HE FUCKING WROTE BACK TO ME.

Silver lining, I guess?

But I have been so tickled over this all day (I read it at 5 this morning on my way home from my birthday extravaganza. Which I will write about). I wrote him back, of course. I don't think he'll respond. But that's ok, he responded once, and it was thoughtful and kind and empathetic. And it was from Sage Francis. It made me happy.

Jesus Christ, last night was wild as fuck. I am on my way back out to go have drinks with Courtney and Anali, but here's a picture from last night, because I was drunk and awesome:

This labyrinth and all its magnificence can only keep the mice trapped; The princess is innocent, she doesn't belong.

I had planned on staying up and playing Fable, but I'm quite tired and glum, so I'm going to write this and go to sleep.

The weather was incredibly bi-polar today. This morning, it was oppressively hot. This afternoon, clouds rolled in with a wonderfully cool breeze, and it rained. When I got off of work, the clouds were blanketed across the sky. Tosh and I wanted to run before it rained really hard, so we didn't waste any time waiting for Jessica (smart! Because she bailed. Again). Tosh has been complaining of her ankles burning, so I ran the last stretch without her, and I logged my fastest mile this year so far at 6:45. It felt fucking awesome. I made my way back to where she was, and she said I look like a gazelle when I run. I laughed, but thanked her. And then I showed her some stretches that might help her a bit, but I'm concerned that I'm going to lose my running buddy. I don't mind running slowly with her (our miles together are averaging about 12-13 minutes) because I don't want her to get hurt. Hopefully, it's just her body getting acclimated to the new stress, but I'm going to look it up tomorrow. Because ten minutes of reading related articles on Google practically makes me a doctor.

The drive home was beautiful. The clouds had parted a little bit in a few places, and the sunlight pushed its way through each break, coming down like beacons. Every time I saw a new patch of light, I would repeat, "Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts." Lies are easier in the daytime.

I'm doing my mom a favor and selling some of her furniture on craigslist. She didn't give me any pictures, and she got irritated when I asked her for some. People are inquiring, and nobody wants to buy furniture sight unseen. That's just poor planning. But I may have already sold her couch, her chair, and two of her dressers.

I went bowling with Tosh and Ryan, Ryan's sister and brother, and one of his sister's friends. I had a few drinks, and still managed to bowl a 144. Which isn't stellar, but I don't hate it. I drove through GoG on my way home and stopped at Balanced Rock. While it was an unwise move on my part, I used the flashlight on my phone and climbed up to perch on the bigger of the two rocks. I stared at the moon and tried to count craters, but they were all one grey blur. Time feels different when I'm sitting up there by myself, especially at night.

I'm too sleepy and sullen to keep writing. In twelve minutes, I'm 29. It doesn't feel like a happy birthday. Wishes aren't real, and magic is gone.

Properly timed nostalgia of the highly improbable, exceptionally doubtful.

Oh boy!

A friend of mine called me and said she has a client that needs professional photos done. I may have another upcoming job! Which would bring my total of upcomings to three. Yay!!

My phone alerted me that there's a meteor shower coming up. One that I'm not terribly familiar with. I went and looked them up, and while I love going up to my spot at GoG and watching the sky for hours, I'm not sure that I want to watch for a few hours just to maybe see five, however brilliant they may be (word on the internet is, the great thing about this particular meteor shower is they are some of the brightest). BUT, the Perseids are coming up!! Which delights me. I've been super excited for the next meteor shower, because of telescope times! Yay again!

Tosh and I are going to go running tonight, and I'm pretty excited. I've been kind of inactive the last few days, but I am amped to run tonight.

So let's see: tonight - running with Tosh. Tomorrow night - my birthday (yuck), but going out to play pool with Tosh, Ryan, Stevie, Chris, and Allen. Sarita might join us, but I can't be terribly sure about that. Saturday - hiking/photography with Tosh. Sunday isn't anything that I know of, but it's fairly far away right now. Something may come up. Next weekend? Girl night! Diana, Tosh, Oakley, and I will be heading downtown and bar crawling. Because we're awesome, and this is apparently what awesome people do.

Monday should start girl night with Holly and Hannah again, we've been detained from that because Hannah has been on some sort of field duty thing.

I finally have all of my school stuff done! Now I'm just sitting back and waiting for everything to start, and the fringe school stuff to fall into place. Not much longer!

Tosh bought me lunch today, which was nice of her. But the salad smells strongly of onions, and I'm kind of nauseated by it. Nobody seems to want it. Bummer. I hate to waste it, but the smell is driving me fucking crazy.

Yesterday would have been a fantastic day to take pictures, but I was otherwise engaged in the morning, and by the time I wasn't, all of the fog had lifted and it was sunny again. Blast. I'm sure there will be more days like that.

I'm selling things for my mom. She's never quite figured out the whole Craigslist thing, but because she always gives me a tidy little cut of her money when she sells stuff, I don't really mind.

I read a really fantastic article on The Many Worlds Theory today. It reminded me I have some very specific pictures to take. I'm not sure yet if I want to post them or not, but I am going to take them, because they're incredibly important to me. I meant to take them a month and some change ago, but now is definitely the time to take them.

I'm reading up on low key photography. I want to take those, as well. I've tried it, but I'm not doing something right, because they look fucked up when I review them.

I wish I had photos to upload into this, since I've been all over the place and it hasn't been photography specific. But I don't. Because I'm at work. Like you do.

I promised The Clock I would not rescind my love for him.

I'm listening to my neighbor talk to his girlfriend on the phone.

It sounds like she wants to start a business, and she seems to be talking about the cost involved. I didn't realize this until a few minutes into the conversation, however. Initially, I thought he was giving her advice on getting some sort of help for herself. He kept saying things about when you're miserable, you do what needs to be done, to stop making excuses, and something or other is only a distraction from what's most important.

I thought to myself, huh. That's really forward of him, and it's nice he's not mollycoddling her.

Then I heard, "Get your shit together, woman. You can budget out your drugs for a month or two, and when you see your name on a website, you'll know it was worth it."

I don't. Fucking. Even. I'd say that aren't words, but that would be an obvious lie.

I didn't run again tonight. That's three nights in a row. I Skyped with Amber instead. We sat and talked for two hours. I'm going to run tomorrow after my thing. I went for a walk tonight, though. And I wanted to run, but I was in flip flops, and I had my purse, and then I remembered how tired I feel and how my back hurts and holy fuck, I'm turning 29 in a few days.

I've become rather addicted to A Softer World. I've been going through them all day. I found several that really hit home for me, alt-text and all, and I emailed them to myself so I wouldn't forget them.

I'm trying to talk myself into going out and taking photos tomorrow! I have some sparklers here, and I'd like to try a long exposure with those, because I've seen some that look really, really neat. I'm also still working on the low-key photos starring my very own face.

My neighbor and his girlfriend are arguing now. He's flinging his keys about in his hand, I can hear them jingling and thudding against his palm.

"There's a time to watch out for feelings, and there's a time to be true to oneself."

He said that and hung up on her.

I don't...I'm bemused. I wish I could have heard the entire conversation.

Take no paper hearts and fucking hate carnations

I haven't been taking any pictures (at least, not of the variety that I'm willing to make available for public consumption) lately, so I've had nothing to post in here. But I think I might go out tomorrow night and take some pictures somewhere.

I'm sitting on my bed, typing this on the tiny laptop. The boys (my rats, Andes and Brisby) are running around and trying to steal my dinner from me. I can't blame them. Number one, they're rats. Kind of an occupational hazard. Number two, it's a very tasty little multi-grain tortilla with black beans and salsa. It's the first thing I've eaten today. I didn't feel necessarily hungry, but I have to run later, and I have to eat or I'll pretty well fucking die.

I dropped one of my online classes and switched it for a brick and mortar class. Which dropped my total owed by a whole 90 dollars. Oh, boy! I'm really, really tempted to see if I can get one last override and sign up for another class on Thursdays. As it is right now, I have two classes Wednesday, one class Thursday, and three classes Friday. While I'm pretty sure I could get the override, I also think it might be wisest to use the time during the day on Thursday for studying and what have you instead of filling it with more classes. But I'm also incredibly anxious to get all of this over with as quickly as possible (and to kick extreme ass while doing so), so I'm sure I'll err on the side of not an extra class this semester. If I do as well as I'm anticipating, I'll overload in the Spring and the summer. I'm thinking of taking a photography class next semester. Everyone is pretty surprised I'm not majoring in photography, let alone taking any classes in it. The (Boy)Friend and I sort of talked about this when I went out with The Girls last week. Holly told me that she and her boyfriend Robert were at an art show, and they were wondering why I'm not off making money, because they think I'm quite talented (shameless plug right there). I told The (Boy)Friend, and he said that being a photographer is not terribly lucrative, and is probably a bit too sporadic, business wise. I told him I could be quite happy as a photographer, but yes, that's a no-go for me due to not making a lot of money. What's funny is I don't even care about making piles and piles of cash. That's never been a driving force for me. I flirted briefly with the idea of majoring in photojournalism, but I'd be much happier overall doing HR. Because I fucking love it.

I want to take a nap like crazy. It's raining out, and I'm hoping it stops for at least forty minutes so I can run.

In problems I wish I had all the time, I need a new bookshelf. A tall one. Best. Problem. EVER.

I miss kissing you for no reason most of all, I think. Well, I always had reasons. But they weren't important. They were mostly because you were being you, and that is so incredible that grabbing your face and kissing you was the only thing I knew how to do.

I miss you constantly. It's knitted itself into my skin, kind of how people wear a comfortable sweater. Except this doesn't feel right. I tell you, every once and awhile. I tell you I miss you and you skate over it. i keep telling myself to not tell you I miss you anymore. I don't think you like hearing it. I don't know if that's because you don't miss me so you have nothing to say in response, or you don't catch it, or you do miss me, you'd just..I don't know. Rather not say.

Nighttime is the hardest time for me. Still. I have such a hard time sleeping without you. I dream about you all the time. Sometimes they're nightmares. Those don't hurt as much as the good dreams, though. I had a dream the other night where we were sitting on your couch, and I was laying with my head on your legs. We were just talking. It was so real. Real enough that when I woke up, I fully expected you to be crashed out right above me. Those dreams ruin me.

I've started having arguments with myself about how I should be handling this. I play the conversation we had sitting outside of your apartment in my head when this happens. I hear you telling me you don't love me. And when I hear that, I wonder what it is you have to think about. Knowing that should be answer enough for you. That's the trump card, I feel. If you don't love me, there's nothing tying you to me. I'm here, you're everywhere else, and I can't win. I can't beat out proximity, I can't beat out anything, I don't think. I told you once that I am a dime a dozen. I never used to actually believe that. It was some sort of warped play on humility. I believe it now, though. What's worse, I'm afraid I made you believe it, too.

Every once and awhile, I read through the emails you and I sent to each other when you were deployed. Not all of them, but I'll pick a particularly lengthy string and consume it. I missed you so much while you were gone, and emailing you during the day, then talking to you every night was the highlight of all of my time.

...The fuck?

So, I come to my blog today to see what, you  may be asking yourself? Fucking NOTHING. My entire god damn blog was GONE. So, my brain being full of fuck, I decided to look at my posts. And they were all reverted to drafts.

I don't know what the fuck happened. So I republished everything, but now I have to go back and make sure that only those things I wanted published are published. I have about 10 drafts that I kept as drafts just for me, and nobody needs to see those.

Anyway.

In photo news!!

I saw a set of paintings that I want to try and recreate as photos. I'm fairly excited to start doing that.

I've finally quite smoking again. I haven't had one since yesterday, and I feel really good about it. Well, sort of. I still want to smoke, quite desperately. But it's cramping my style when I run. And that, while I have a very serious love/hate but mostly hate relationship with it, is far more important.

I've started ironing out details for the big drive-a-thon next month. I am so excited for just about every single aspect of it. The driving (I love it. Nothing helps you think like vast stretches of open road and waiting sky. Yes, please), the picture taking (because obviously), and the destinations. Yippee!!! I don't want to jinx anything, which is why I'm not being specific. But details will come the second they're solidified. I tried to get Amber to go with me, but she can't. And that makes me sad. But I don't mind doing it alone. In fact, it's almost better that way. Then I don't have to share the spaces where the world is empty with anybody, and I can just fill it all with my own thoughts.

This photo is noisy. I don't care for it at all. My ISO was cranked WAY too fucking high, and I paid the price. Also, that weird purple tone. I don't like that, either. Harrumph.

Is there anything prettier than a fluffy cloud? I don't think so. In let-me-point-out-the-flaw-to-you news, there's a weird squiggle in the left corner. It's in a few of my other photos, too. I think I must have had a gunky something or other stuck on my lens. I really need to buy a fucking camera bag. :/ But, I also want new lenses and a new camera body and all of that other stuff. I'd rather have those things than the bag.

Man, one of these days I am going to nail EV so fucking hard! While that day was not this day, I still love this photo.

I took these on Tuesday. I ran around taking photos for several hours, and I found three that I liked. But that's ok, I also went through them wildly late, and I was exhausted. I haven't gone through them again, so perhaps there are more.

I do need to go back out and take some more photos. I thought about doing so tonight after I run, but I am really so sleepy already. I didn't sleep terribly well last night. mostly because I got insanely drunk at the party (which was a blast. I told The (Boy)Friend that I finally learned how to play beer pong, and I'm actually REALLY fucking good at it. I played three games and won them all. By no small margin. Against seasoned payers. Yay!), and I kept waking up because I needed to drink more water. I felt dried out. Allen, however, out-championed me at drinking. He had the equivalent of two rum and cokes in one drink, three or four beers, and then FIFTEEN jello shots. Christ. I had my one rum and coke (of course I did, first of all, and second of all, it was god damn STRONG), I had a hard cider (yum!), a few sips of Allen and Hannah's beers, and then seven jello shots interspersed throughout the evening. And I felt pretty evenly lit the entire night. It was a really great time, though. I even thought ahead and brought my camera (with all of the correct accoutrements! I'm growing!), but I never once had a use for it. I had a great time, though. Hannah and Allen and I were pretty tight for the evening. Hannah and Allen really seemed to get along pretty well, which was nice.

I did actually accomplish a great deal of work here today, since, you know, that's where I am and everything. But I still have more work to do, and only forty minutes to do it all in. It won't be a problem, but I do want to get it all done without scrambling around for the last ten minutes that I'm here.