If I ever get to the point where this seems like a good idea, I want you to punch me.  Right in the face.

Everybody has been asking me how you are.  So, what should I tell them?

And the silly part is I don’t even know if there’s anything to be nervous about.  I guess we’ll find out.

I couldn’t have escaped work fast enough today.  I have no idea what the long weekend has in store, but no doubt it’s better then work.  God bless the short week.

I can’t wait for the all day carb fest tomorrow, the family, the relaxing.  And an extra day off just means more time for tequila people!  Let’s celebrate!!!

I’m already in my jammies, cleaning the house, doing the laundry.  I sprinted out of work early and hit Target for my various winter skin itch necessities.  Twenty bucks later I won’t have to go near a store until the shopping masses that make it an absolute nightmare to even drive past a shopping center subside.  Except Christmas gifts, but I’m living in denial about that right now.  Besides a possible haircut I am wide open and responsibility free after my turkey nap tomorrow.  Hell, I might even start my Christmas cards I’m so fired up right now.*

This is my favorite weekend of the year!  And!!!  And I know a secret!!  Snicker.

*Perhaps the Dr. Pepper I sucked back at work was a mistake.  I haven’t been this hyper in a long, long time

I must say, this was all Lisa’s idea.

Every day for me has been a “thank the sweet lord I’m not in high school any more” day.

Since this instant at graduation with my Mom I’ve been glad I wasn’t going to have to go back.

I recently went to the Homecoming at my high school.  I don’t know why, as I’m still as “anti-high school” as I was when I was forced to go.  A combination of seeing the campus (I’m obsessed with seeing how things change) and catching up with the friend who asked me to go made it seem like a good idea.  It was fun to revisit the past, but you can’t help but feel that everyone is comparing their places in life.  What has changed, what’s the same.  Who is married, has babies, did wild things?  It seems like a contest to see how far you’ve gone in your life.  This is part of the reason High School Reunions sound like as much fun as a colonoscopy.

Sometime since the Homecoming game I picked up my senior yearbook and glanced through it.  Some of the things that people wrote are still so true about me.

    “Jennifer, stop doing that thing I hate, please.  You’ll thank me some day.”  Mike nagging about the smoking thing.  I did stop, and then restart.  And some day I’ll stop again.  Hopefully before the cold hand of death comes to get me.

    “Well seeing as how you don’t cuss, have a fuckin great summer.”  Some girl who apparently had never been to one of our second period free for alls which included games of hangman with only dirty words.  During a famous Snider lecture in Yearbook on the overuse of the “f word” she decided that I should explain to the class why I don’t cuss.  Wha…?  I guess they assumed that because I was semi-quiet and looked innocent that I had never uttered a curse word in my life.  Even now I still get treated like I’m a good librarian type who knows nothing about sex, drugs or alcohol.  It’s the innocent face I guess, little do they know! 

    “You have nothing to be depressed about so cheer up and smile.”
    “You better get happy …”  I still frown too much.  I worry and I wear it all over my face.  But every day I get better at letting it go! 

    “For a yearbook staffer who had an attitude - you were awesome!  I hope you become more optimistic in the next few years…”   Sorry Snider, I still have an attitude.

    “Even though you were sick most of the semester you still talked to me.  I hope you don’t get this sick throughout your life.” That got even worse after high school.  Although I think most of him thinking I was sick was me sleeping off muscle relaxers during first period Brit Lit due to me doing this to my car:

That’s right people, the first major accident, and boy did I do it major!  My neighbor Dad, who witnessed the whole accident, with my Mom and neighbor Mom, made this flyer for me after the accident.  They all said it was the scariest thing they had ever seen.  (But I’ll show you scary if anyone besides my neighbor family tries calling me Jenny!)

I was following a car with my parents and a second car with my sister and several friends on my way to a show* and a wall jumps out** and eats the back half of my car.  I’m told we then bounced back and forth a few times between the two cement walls that made the exit ramp.  This would explain why both sides of my car were smashed to hell and back, but I wouldn’t know as I had my eyes closed and was death gripping Brandi’s hand at the time.  Next thing I remember was sitting on the cement wall, keys in hand, and screaming.  Thankfully no one was seriously injured.  Sister and the Moms got shin splints as they raced down the exit ramp towards me, and I gave everyone’s heart a good jump start I guess. 

*Shows.  This too has not changed.  I still go to A LOT of shows, only now I’m on the fun side of the fence!!

**Okay, not exactly the way it happened, but it’s my story and would you look at that!  It’s my website too!

And yes, I did this the night before Prom.  So this is all something of a blur.

I didn’t even want to go to prom.  But many, many painful hours of peer pressure, parental pressure, and even my peers parental units pressuring me, I relented and agreed to go to my senior prom. 

Even though I was a mean girlfriend and wouldn’t go to his senior prom John was a nice best friend and took me to mine.  Even though we were up almost the whole night before with the show/accident and he slept on my couch while I spewed Cheerios because of the pain killers, we made it to Prom.  To this day we both still get a little antsy when I’m driving any where near a concrete wall.

Ah, high school hair.  What was I thinking?  I actually kind of like the purple though.  The only thing going on with the hair lately is the long/too short cycle.  You better believe I would rock some pink hair if I didn’t know my ass would get fired though.

I was left after my night of high school reminiscing feeling like I was behind everyone.  No babies, no marriages.  Only wild thing I did was move to VA, and I’m back now.  I look around at how many friends I have known since high school, how similar my life seems, and wonder if I really should be that glad to be out of there.  Has anything really changed?

I guess it took me sitting down and thinking to realize that it has.  I do the same stuff on the weekend, I talk to people I’ve known since then, I have the same sarcastic attitude because I want to.  Not because I’m forced to look at the same people and situations everyday, but because it’s my choice to. 

I’d never go back to high school in a million years or for a million dollars.  And I won’t regret that my life seems to be the same when you look from the outside.  I’ve only been paroled six years, how much is really supposed to change?  I didn’t hate who I was then, I hated the lack of control in that situation to change my life.

Being an “adult” means a lot more control.  I guess the trade off is the inability to rock purple hair at the office.

I can’t find my For the Record CD, and I don’t exactly remember why I was looking for it.  This annoys me.

Old arguments die hard.  They just keep repeating, even when I think it’s been put to bed.  Maybe it was just denial.  This frustrates me.

I haven’t had anything to say in a week, my mind is still a blank slate as soon as I look at this page.  This just scares me.

I don’t sleep.  I don’t eat.  You’d think I’d have miles of time to get things done.  So why am I still so behind?  This confuses me.

My truck successfully ate all of my settlement money.  I’m now back to living paycheck to paycheck.  This makes my tummy hurt.

I didn’t take any pictures this weekend.  Playing “Asshole” on Friday was obviously a lot of fun if I forgot about my camera.  I’m pretty sure I managed to do some Under the Influence dialing, and I know there was some text messaging.  This makes me want to password protect my own cell phone, from myself!

Any weekend that starts with me proclaiming I have tequila in my purse is bound to be a good one, and it was.  Right up until I was dumped with a simple “It’s over” at dinner tonight.

This one knows how to break some hearts.

We’ve already established that my legs are longer then every person I know, including those who are taller then me.  It’s now become hard fact that my boobs are the biggest too.  No wonder I hate clothes shopping.

Bra shopping is one of the worst tasks brought upon women, I’d rather have cramps.  From start to finish it’s just a humiliating suck fest.  When was the last time my best friend spent $30 for an apparatus to hold up his balls?

I am so strung out still.  The lack of “catch up” sleep and complete absence of any water to counteract the substances I ingested this weekend has lead me into Day 5 of total retardation.  Starting with not understanding basic English, forgetting what side my gas tank is on, and concluding with my inability to complete a two minute task without totally jacking it up.  My text message bill this month is going to double due to me accidentally sending half my texts to the wrong person.  Then I have to send the “I’m sorry, that wasn’t for you, I’m a moron” text.

I fell asleep at 4:30 yesterday.  That’s right, five hours before even my Grandma goes to bed.  I thought today would be better in light of this, but when I couldn’t figure out why they were trying to make me work six days while filling out my time card (Um, because it’s only Tuesday, not Wednesday, you monkey) and then sent the “Fuck Boobs” rambling text to the boy best friend I realized I was still trash.  I need sleep, or to start the caffeine drip. 

Boy issues: 
Um, I’m not a kissable kind of person right now.  I’m scary and mean.  You fear me, really, you do.  Don’t kiss me!

Don’t tell me a long drawn out story about your child support situation.  I’m guessing you weren’t trying to offend me, since you then asked me to lunch, but the whole thing concluded with you looking like you were proud to be a dead beat dad.  Not sexy.

Telling me I’m not difficult was cute, but you are so full of crap.  You and I both know I give you a hard time because it’s fun and you pout like a girl.

Cat Issues:
W T F is with Killer licking the pictures??   Ew.  The Target bags, the Febreeze, and now pictures?  Be warned, any picture I give you probably has cat snark on it.

And I guess that’s it, except this woman is hysterical!  I totally blame her for missing some sleep today.

There aren’t any other words to describe this weekend. Thank you to all my friends for showing me a good time. Thank you to all my friends who put their hearts out on stage.

I’m sorry I’m so burned out, and K, I’m SO sorry.

It’s been a monster of a week. And I’m sleepy, and people keep telling me I look like I don’t feel well. Which is basically thinly veiled code for “Damn you look tore up!” and I think I agree with them.

I’m mad at my truck, most of the people in my life, and myself.  And I’m just oh so very sleepy all the time.  Between the forced overtime/schedule change at work and the screaming at people all over my life (even if it’s only in my head) I’m spent.  Who knew anger made you so damn tired?

My website is too bright to look at right now.  Writing would probably be really beneficial to me at this point, but I don’t have the energy*.  It would also very closely resemble finger pointing and spouting off and that never goes over well in the morning.  No one has been able to say the right thing to me in days, so I’m not going to open the door for a while.  It takes too much willpower to slam it again.  I’ll be back in a few days.  Tomorrow I sleep, Friday I drown parts of my brain with beer and melt the rest with some kick ass rock music, and Saturday I’m a new woman!  Right?

*People, I haven’t even started my psychotic Flickr project I’m so exhausted!  That is making me itch.  You know I’m the walking dead when my psycho projects get neglected.

Sunday I made the long trek (quarter of a tank round trip!) across town to go with Jeff’s mom Sue to a Pow Wow and watch Bodie dance. 

I haven’t been out to the house in almost two months, I’ve missed the grass come up, twice, and the dogs growing.  Ravyn and Jake greeted me at the door with the usual ritual, barking and growling respectively.  Jake has even more hair and Ravyn looks exactly the same.  Dizzy has put on so much weight!  She’s bigger then Yuki ever got to be.  She’s just massive!

This picture screams Jake’s “Don’t even look at me” personality.  He’s getting cranky!  But he stops growling and puts his head on my foot once he realizes he knows me and I’ve shared my pizza with him.

She’s huge!  Look at that face!!  And she’s way stronger then me now.  I went outside when John let Dizzy out and the first thing she did was jump up in my lap and wipe dog snot all over my shirt.  I’m gonna take that to mean she missed me.

Before you look at that sad little Ravyn face and think that I only visited from across the fence, you have to realize Ravyn is a little actress.  That dog makes as many facial expressions as I do.  The first thing I did, and always do, when I walked in the house was cuddle Ravyn.  It’s just impossible to get pictures of rambunctious cuddle whores who won’t sit still! 

We spent the rest of the day at the Pow Wow.  It was my first and I didn’t know what to expect.  I really enjoyed it.  The weather was great, the people were very friendly, and there was certainly a lot to look at!  I think the music was my favorite part, go figure?

I made it home with a little sun headache and an interesting sunburn.  Maybe I shouldn’t have worn the open back shirt with the x pattern when I knew I was going to be in the sun all day…  As I peeled off my clothes when I got home the cats began the ritual they perform whenever I get home from the boys house.  Attacking my feet, obsessively huffing the air around me, and rolling around in my dog hair covered clothes.  I’m going to take that to mean they were also happy to see me, and that maybe they’ll both behave* if we get a live in dog.

*Anyone who has ever met Killer or seen her around the dogs is rolling their eyes right now.  I know, she’s a spoiled brat and will never stand for another pet in the house.  She barely tolerates Tux and he was here first!