Oh, I lived through my birthday week.  Did I not mention that?  It was a blast, and very full.  And I am tired, very tired.  Still.  If it makes you feel any better about my neglect I have lots of lists written out of things to write about.  No, don’t believe me?  Well, I could take pictures of them (since I’m too lazy to actually type) and post the picture here?  No, still not good enough?  Probably because you realize it would take me a week and a half to post a picture any way.  (I don’t just neglect you!  That suitcase is still sitting in my bedroom like some kind of masochistic obstacle course as I vault out of bed to hit the snooze every morning.  Ok, six times every morning.)

Here’s a picture.  The Atlantic, pretty much my favorite place.

And a bonus picture, me landing from my home planet of AllWeDoIsNap.  You’ve probably never heard of it, but let me tell you, the journey is long and tired making.

Obviously, I’ve started uploading pictures from the Florida trip, so go hang out over there and amuse yourselves.  I’ll be back with pictures from birthday week (If any are suitable to print, that is.) and the many reasons I hate Christmas another day.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe not.  Don’t hold your breath, just stare at a pretty castle.

If this doesn’t distract you I don’t know what to do.  I have a couple hundred pictures of gators back here, how bout that?

I’ve been back from Florida a week now.  I haven’t accomplished anything other then drinkin and sleepin.  And I did start one of those things that adults have to do in order to sleep indoors and afford to eat.  That is literally all I’m ever going to say about that here.

Why does vacation mean you have to come home and sleep for a week to recover?  I haven’t even finished unpacking.

What?  I think it’s a nice accessory to the room.

The trip was great.  It was a whirlwind of family, gators, theme parks and beaches.  We jam packed just about every day and my feet paid the price.  Pictures will appear, promise.

For now I need to catch up.  Everything in my life is disordered and chaotic.  Check out what I discovered when I finally cleaned out my purse for the first time in a week and a half, and then multiply that by the bedrooms and the truck and you have an idea what things are looking like right now.  Messy, and a bit like I have a mental disease.

However, it’s birthday week, and the celebration/punishment has begun.  We did family dinner at my favorite restaurant on Friday.  This included a large pink cowboy hat made out of balloons and my grandmother climbing on a saddle.  Saturday night was an impromptu night at a bar near the house.  I don’t remember much of that night except being forced many shots, even though the official birthday celebration isn’t until Friday.  If the way I felt after Saturday night is any indication, I’ll be lucky to live through this week.

I thought I was doing excellent on the Birthday Freak Out Meter* until I cried at the bar Saturday night.  Geez, you cry once a year around your birthday and you start to get a reputation as a drunk crier!  My goals for the rest of the week are:

1.  Don’t cry, pansy.
2.  Do some laundry or clean something, seriously.
3.  Sleep, I’m going to need it for the next goal.
4.  Live through it.  Man, when did I become such a light weight?

*Oh, you didn’t know that every year around my birthday I lose my shit?  Where were you last year?  Compared to last year (Code Red:  Hit the Deck!) I am ACING the Birthday Freak Out Meter!  We are firmly in a greenish-blue area so far, however this is subject to change, quickly, based on the number of shots I am fed.

I have to say, I am absolutely dumbfounded that I have managed to do this NaBloPoMo thing.  I have posted the last thirty two days in a row.  Seriously, I have pulled thirty two things out of my ass and displayed them on the internet!  I deserve a vacation!  Which is perfect, since I leave this morning for a week of vacation.  I can’t wait, it will be nice to get a change of scenery.

It will also make finishing up the next six days of NaBloPoMo on this site impossible, which is why I’m going to cheat!  Yes, I’m a cheater!  Since there is no way for me to access this website while away from home I’m just going to be sending things to the flickr stream.  I guess captions to crappy cell phone pictures isn’t the kind of quality expected by NaBloPoMo, but really?  I’m all tapped out here, I’ve already posted 30+ days in a row, which is more then I’ve done in the last five months.  And I’m on vacation.  And you don’t pay me to be interesting.  Honestly, the next six days were probably going to be pictures or drivel about useless daytime TV any way.

So, check the flickr, that’s where I’ll be.  Well, technically I’ll be in Florida, but you know what I mean.  I’ll see ya in December!

Thanksgiving was awesome.  Here are just a few of the things I’m thankful for.  (And yes we ate Thanksgiving dinner on the patio, AZ is awesome, it’s okay to be jealous.)

Every year someone retells the same story.  One of my elementary school teachers asked everyone in the class to tell what their family’s Thanksgiving Day tradition was.  I said that the tradition in our family was to wear pants with expandable waist bands.  Whenever someone wears non-expandable pants they get chided, “Don’t you know the tradition?” 

This year few of us wore the traditional attire, myself included.  But it works out fine, I’m extremely lucky, and thankful, to have a family that won’t bat an eye when you throw back too much stuffing and have to pop that top button.

Today was a good day, I’m starting to come out of my funk.  We spent the entire day cleaning and planning.  Tomorrow is my favorite holiday.  The next day I leave for a whirlwind vacation with my family.  I’m on my way out to do our annual pre-Thanksgiving drinking.

I hope everyone had this much fun today.

Dear AARP,

Thank you for your recent letter, but allow me to clarify a few things.

I know that I take more pills then your Grandma.  I know that I complain when it rains because it makes my hips hurt.  Some times I walk with a limp, yes.  I’m can certainly be described as crotchety at times.  I probably should even be on some sort of Ensure protein shake therapy.

However, I am only 25, and would greatly appreciate it if you would stop mailing me applications so close to my birthday.  I already promised that I wouldn’t cry, and you are making this more difficult then it has to be.

Sincerely,
Jen, who doesn’t even have grey hair yet.

Tonight we went out to Hooters.  I’ve never been before because the only way to get me to a place that’s main draw is the semi-naked servers is because of live music.  My best friend’s band played an acoustic set for a local radio station’s charity event.  As they played their awesome set more and more of our friends showed up.  The group ended up sitting down at a table so I could try this “awesome” food you hear so much about.  (Verdict: Bleh.)  To think, I could have sat on my couch and listened to the whole set on the radio…  Actually I couldn’t, some where in the best friend contract it states “Thou shalt go to all shows” and he’s one of the few who didn’t shove a bee in my bonnet as the evening progressed.

It was hard to get a grasp on the night, being in a place that freaks me out, hundreds of people milling around, lots of sports and several friends.  We talked a lot, some people way too much.  I’ve heard enough talk about my own hooters to last a lifetime, including seemingly well thought out reasons on why I shouldn’t have them reduced.  I didn’t know other people had such strong opinions about my body parts.  If this wasn’t Arizona, and therefore 80 degrees tonight, I would have slapped a hoodie right over the conservative shirt I had on.  A bit much to be discussing over dinner, ya think?

We sat at the table, in the most stimulating atmosphere I have been in for the last two months, and we talked for hours.  It was more fun then I expected, considering the location and strange mix of people.  As the group dwindled talk turned to why people just can’t get along.  We fought the fight we’ve been fighting for two months and both stated our cases.  These two people in my life may have only been fighting this particular fight for a few months, but I have been involved in these types of friendship/relationship mini-dramas for as a long as I can remember.  I have become the “go to girl” for when you want to bitch about someone in our circle.

It became apparent that some how, in all the relationships that have fallen apart, grown apart, or just plain blown the fuck up around me in the last ten years, I am the one that’s left standing.  I’m the one that knows both sides, can make a case for both sides, yet some how manages not get taken down when someone else’s friendship implodes.  I get to keep all the friends who don’t talk to each other any more, who’ve separated from each other for whatever reason.  I’m like a walking scrapbook of everyone’s past friendships.  They know about the other only because I manage to maintain contact with both parties, regardless of who caused the falling out between the two.  Inevitably they end up crashing together when they show up to be with me.

Not only do I seem to constantly be in charge of getting people together, of having my friends around me, of setting up nights out where most of the people are there because I asked them to be, but some how I’m in charge of managing the ones that have fallen apart too?  I get to worry about how she is going to feel when this one shows up unannounced, and how the other two are going to work this out before they destroy us over a head gasket.  This is getting to be exhausting.

I’m tired of being the glue.  I’m not sure how I ended up here, being the one that everyone trusts.  I know, what kind of Class A bitch do I sound like even complaining about this?  I guess you could say that I “volunteer” to be this person, but why would I ever do that?  It’s hard to maintain the calm, but I know if I don’t no one else will.  I just don’t understand why I’m the one that everyone goes to when they need to talk.  I don’t go to anyone to talk about serious issues because I don’t trust anyone.  Realizing tonight that I’m that person in all of these groups just threw me, don’t they realize how I am?

This is pretty much how I feel about all of life today.

It started the instant I woke up in the middle of a dream that I had forehead cancer.  Seriously, FOREHEAD cancer, so the doctors euthanized me.  Really, what dream is complete with out euthanasia?  I had limited time before falling asleep forever to make several deathbed phone calls, which is just as horrifying as it sounds.   I was still shaken after being awake for an hour, so I attempted to forget the dream with Sex and the City DVDs (It’s an addiction, I must be stopped.) when my daily “eat the pill” reminder/horoscope text message was delivered to my phone. 

“Especially vivid dreams will come soon, ushering you into an exciting time of life.”

I better start having dreams about sex and cute boys, pronto.  The saying goodbye to family members and making my boys cry dreams are not the kind of exciting life I want.  Damn, my subconscious is fucked up.

Obviously a great time was had by all, including Chris who probably won’t remember anything that happened after midnight, which is fine since by then it was technically his birthday!

Randy checking on Chris

Sammy

Brandi and Shannon

I swear all those shots weren’t for me.

The night actually went better then I expected.  I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time, and it was great seeing some friends who I hadn’t seen recently.  Denny’s afterward was a blast, until I couldn’t even finish my meal due to this stomach ailment that will not die, and I totally could have lived without the flat tire at five in the morning.  But all in all, the best night in a while, totally worth getting off my couch for.

I’m going to rip myself away from my DVD player (Which has been looping Sex and the City for the last three days, thanks Kristi!) and go out.  Again with the leaving the house.  But, it’s for excellent and funny musicians, good friends and cheap drinks in a cool bar.  It should look something like this, which was last April.

Well, except Lindsey and her finger are going to be at work.  (Work, blah, who needs a job?)  So, it’s going to look more like this:

This was two weeks ago.  Maybe we are in a rut?  We party at the same three bars year round?  Well, I guess you can’t really complain when we look like this the entire time we’re in this bar.

And you can’t complain that this is a total bull shit post.  I have nothing to write about, I literally have been watching Sex and the City for days.  Sure, it’s given me lots to think about since I hang out with plenty of single people, but I can’t write about it, my parental units read this site!  The last thing they want to read about are my opinions on and experiences with various sexual issues. (I have no opinions, Biddies!  None at all, and certainly no experiences!)