The weather outside is frightful...

Yeah, that's right. I dressed her up in a Santa costume. Whatcha gonna do about it?!

In fact, I have a Rudolph outfit for the other one. I have become THAT pet owner. It's embarrassing, really. Oh well. I accept my flaws and move forward...

Today was the first round of wintery weather. It started out as rain, which turned to sleet around eleven this morning. By the time I left work around noon, the sleet had turned into big fat flakes of snow that were just a little too watery to stick to the ground.

Ah, winter.

I'm really looking forward to the first real snowfall of the season. I'm going to be the most ridiculously cute girl in the world - large fluffy sweater, mug of hot chocolate, dewy eyes and a satisfied smile. Yes, I really am THAT girl too. Whatcha gonna do about it?!

Autumner.

It's very very quiet in my apartment. I hear brief rustlings from the corner of the living room, the result of two very nocturnal kittens. The only light on is by my computer desk, a solitary bulb saving me from the darkness. Although I appreciate it, the light is positioned in such a way that it's constantly glaring in my eyes. Thats the trade-off for not tripping over things on the way into other rooms, I suppose.

I feel like winter has begun, even though we're officially a little over a month away from the actual day. The downward shift in temperature and the upward shift in precipitation is making me a bit restless. I hate not being able to get out - I resent being cooped up in one place for too long (even if the place has been carefully edited and designed by me to maintain emotional stability).

This will fade and I'll settle in to days of sitting by the window with a cup of hot tea or cocoa and watching the snow fall. I enjoy that as well. It's the transitions that are hell for me - I'd rather just wake up tomorrow morning with a blanket of fallen flakes and the realization that this is my life for the next few months. I'd be ok with that.

Alright, off to bed with me. I have a bit of a tummy ache that only an early bedtime can remedy.

10-14-2002

Even if I don't specifically remember immediately upon waking what today means to me, I always wake up with a grey cloud over my head.

Today marks the fifth year my life has been without one of the kindest, gentlest, most unique, intelligent and fantastic men I had ever know. We called him "Angel" which is ironic because that's what he is now. A guardian angel, someone out there looking out for us... an "in" to the world we can't see.

And still I miss him. His sense of humor, the way he always knew just what to say to cheer me up... the closeness that I felt during that small period of time when I was surrounded by friends that were more like family to me than my own blood relatives.

I will never forget that day. The phone rang early, earlier than it usually did, and I immediately had a pit of my stomach feeling. It was my good friend asking if I had heard about the training accident.

"No," I told her. "I'm sure it wasn't your husband. I would have heard something by now."

I will forever regret and remember that answer for the rest of my life. Because it was her husband. He, and another soldier, were the ones in the wrong place at the wrong time. A freak accident, you see. It was an accident, but that only made it harder to deal with. Who gets run over by a tank!? Who does that?! It couldn't have been my friend. That was impossible to accept.

The days that followed were like a blur. Visitation, funeral, grieving. The sound of my friend throwing her body over her deceased husband's in the casket, sobbing and pounding her fists against him for leaving her so soon. They had recently gotten married. A 21 gun salute that felt as though someone was shooting those bullets into my soul.

And yet, time seems to have healed some of the pain. We try to treat today as a celebration of his life, as he would have wanted it. It's just hard not to be selfish, not to wish for one more day listening to him laugh and seeing that shit-eating grin on his face.

Rest in peace, Jason "Angel" Fisher. Rest in peace.

Weekly horoscope - this dude is scary accurate.

"Weirdness is humanity's way of overcoming the ever-increasing pressure to live nine-to-five lives," says Bob Rickard, founder of Fortean Times, a magazine that reports on anomalous events. "We need craziness, it's that simple." I second that emotion, Libra -- especially for you right now. You don't realize how much juicy psychic material you've been repressing as a result of sticking to dry duty and routine. In order to recover lost secrets from your fertile depths, you're going to have to specialize for now in the mysterious, the curious, and the uncanny. It will help if you put yourself in situations that are outside your understanding.

Free Will Astrology by Rob Brezny.

Technically it's already tomorrow.

As you saw photographic evidence of below, I've been reading/practicing a book called True Love by a Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hahn. He's a very accomplished author and a compelling teacher - my eyes really have been opened to just how little I live in the present and how much I dwell in the uncertainty of the past or future. It's not helpful and it doesn't suit me.

So I'm working on changing that. Mindful breathing. Meditation. Yoga (with the girlfriend - so it may be some contortion when I'm able to tear my eyes off her fantastic ass in those yoga pants). Running.

And working. Actually, that doesn't fit in really but the monotony of cleaning when we're slow sure centers me and reminds me that I'm just a small person in the universe.

Because of that, I have no pictures for you today. I'm not trying to create a photo blog here, but I very much enjoy amateur photography and use it almost as much as I use the written/spoken word to express myself.

See you all tomorrow as long as it isn't so beautiful out I lose track of myself again...

A photo blog, of sorts.

It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm November afternoon. As usual, the second the weather gets anything close to accommodating I lose complete interest in all my "plans" for the day. Plans, really, they're more like suggestions...

Mostly, after finishing a few errands (gym, grocery shopping, etc.), I spent the majority of the afternoon on the couch enjoying the view.


I drank a warm cup of green tea and read my book. I've been so great at closing off my heart that opening it up feels almost foreign, somehow.



So cheers to lazy afternoons. Enjoy them while they last.

See you Monday!

I'm usually quite the busy person - I like to keep my life going-going-going like the Energizer Bunny. It's the downtime, the quiet moments when I'm left alone with my thoughts, that I come to realize just how unsettled I am.

It's not the fault of anyone in my life, or out of it. It's simply my nature to always look further ahead, further down the road. I'm content, but always striving.

In the spirit of rampant busyness, I have an insane weekend in front of me. Tomorrow I'll be shopping, mainly for this...


and this...


After that, I'm going to the Humane Society to play with puppies (hard work, I know) and then a hockey game. I'm looking forward to all of the above - good food, good clothes, good company and the ability to scream my head off and have it be socially acceptable.

Have a great weekend!

The view from my desk.

Actual writing to come later.

It's nearly 5 AM and I'm too tired to title.

It's officially 4:30 in the morning. I'm sandwiched not between two rock hard men looking to fulfill my every desire, nor between two beautiful women both begging for my attention.

No.

I'm sandwiched between two dogs, both whining at equally obnoxious frequencies. One is too painful to even lie down, choosing instead to sit up at an awkward angle while looking at me with her big brown Labrador Retriever eyes. She's had pain medication but apparently she'd rather stare at me and keen. Darling Lucy, on my left, was hit by a truck going at a rather quick rate of speed. She has a chest tube that we placed because otherwise the pneumothorax she's raging would suffocate her. Yeah, I'd say she has a good reason to bitch.

Still, that leaves me rather sleep deprived and a bit delusional this evening/morning. I want some warm tea, a good book, a warm body to lie against and a soft bed. Instead I get this laptop, a concrete floor and a pillow I'm sure multitudes of my coworkers have drooled on. Life is good.

In other news, I was thinking about taking ice skating lessons. Puckett was all into it until I mentioned the open skate with the hockey players. Apparently, yours truly isn't to be trusted around a bunch of men who check people into the boards for a living. Which is a shame, really, because it was one of the best selling points about those lessons. *laugh*

Oh well, I still have the games and kid's free skate afterward on Sundays to look forward to. I knew there was a reason I encouraged my daughter to ice skate. Actually, though, she wants to be an ice hockey player. I support that whole heartedly - she does have my genetic predisposition to violence. Maybe she'll use it for good where I failed to.

To close, and continue up this tradition of delusional and nonsensical side trackage that I'm spewing forth, I was reading one of my favorite blogs (written by one of my favorite writers online) who mentioned this concept of beautiful hesitation. It caught in my throat for a moment - this idea of something meaningful and worthwhile enough to give pause to the daily grind - and it occurred to me that this lofty goal is something I take for granted on a daily basis.

Where some people are cold and unable to take pleasure in the little things, that's my whole life. I pay attention to things other people miss - hence the title of this blog (and the concept of finding irrational and nontraditional things beautiful) - and take joy in tiny details of day to day living. I actually find it to be one of my downfalls. I've crafted this cold exterior, the girl (woman) that nothing really gets to, created to hide the fact that I'm emotional and warm (blech). My life IS that beautiful hesitation.

I guess I'm luckier than I could have imagined.

Now let's just work on fulfilled.

Loss as gain.

It's no secret to those close to me that I've recently had a, ahem, falling out with someone I held close to me for the past few years.

I valued this person a lot - putting aside the majority of my free time and emotional bandwidth to spend time with her. Last weekend, I finally received the straw that broke the camel's back. You can only be told so many times that you're selfish, that you're using someone and that you're shallow so many times before you call "shenanigans" and give up with your hands in the air.

I had simply had enough.

Her favorite line was that "she knew people." The unfortunate thing was that she didn't have a clue who I was. She saw what she wanted to see, needed to see, to validate her personal issues. The fact was that she, for whatever reason, needed to feel as though she had the moral high ground at the expense of others.

It's been hard, the past few days, without my sounding board. But I also feel refreshed and invigorated, as though a large wet and depressing blanket has suddenly been lifted off of me. I'm free to make choices based on what's good for me, to explore relationships with people that had been previously limited, and to be myself without fear of being called something I'm not.

Perhaps sometimes losing something can set you free.

In other news, there is nothing hotter than a man on your back. Especially when he's growling in your ear about how difficult it is not to rip you to shreds and hurt you. I love that it takes such control to not act in such a passionate and animalistic fashion, and I appreciate that his control was able to make it past the ten minute mark before waning and scraping my flesh.

My flesh appreciates it too.

Where exactly has the autumn gone, anyway?

I apologize for the quality of the picture - I just had to snap a shot of this incredibly beautiful bush but only had my cell phone with me.

But really, where has autumn gone? Here in central Illinois, we joke that we have three seasons - winter, summer and construction. It's sad, but true. The second I settle into light jacket weather and put away my open-toed high heels, it's time for thick winter coats, gloves and stocking caps.

Not to mention the push push push towards Xmas happening already this year. I noticed decorations start to appear in stores before Halloween and now, well, now it's in full force. The songs, the smells, the pressure to shop... it just makes me sick. I'm not all about Thanksgiving (it's a holiday of genocide, anyway), but I'd like a little time off from the consumerism and greed to just settle into the colder weather.

It definitely makes me a bit sad. Although, I don't mind being forced to stay indoors and drink hot cocoa. That sounds awfully Martha Stewart of me, huh? Who knew!? Maybe I'll add to that - watch some TV with the family. Put the child to bed. Have sharp edges driven into my skin until I have to force my head into a pillow so as not to wake the neighbors. You know, the contemporary version of what every woman wants on a cool, autumn evening.

Come on, you didn't think I'd changed that completely from the last blog to this one? I'm still your nasty, dirty little girl. It's just that I also am sentimental and intelligent. I like to call it "well-rounded."

A little afternoon procrastination.

I tried to go to sleep early last night, making plans and lofty goals for my entire "free" afternoon. I guess if wishes were kittens we'd all be warm and covered in fur, right? (Thanks for the analogy, D. *laugh*) All I've done this afternoon so far is run a few quick errands, mainly to secure our Thanksgiving Tofurkey, and hit the gym for an hour. Whoop-dee-freakin'-do. I deserve an award.

Being me is hard work, truly.

But with the wind whipping crunchy, colored leaves around outside my living room window and the scented candle taking me back to a place I've almost certainly never lived, staying inside and doing as little as possible sounds heavenly (if I believed in such a place).

So, instead I'm choosing to sit on the couch, catch up on my DVR'd episodes of Weeds and Dexter and work on finishing the two books I've started reading (Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem). I'll make a quick dinner - I'm leaning towards pad thai with tofu - and spend the rest of my afternoon and evening curled on the couch under my warm and fuzzy in the company of those I love.

I love days like this - even if I never get anything accomplished I still feel like I've won.

So much to do, so little time to do it in.

I'd like to begin with a picture I recently took on the way back from an adventure with my daughter. The fact that I can't remember where we were or what we were doing speaks volumes to me - I was simply in the moment and struck by the beauty of the situation...


That picture, and the story behind it, is what this space is all about. It's virtual room to stretch my legs, write about what I want to write about, exist free of labels and just BE. Breathe in, breathe out... all at my own pace.

Welcome. Glad you've decided to join me.