I’m so tired of feeling like I’m alone.  I shouldn’t feel this way, no one in this generation is supposed to feel like they need a relationship to be complete.  And I don’t feel that way, 98% of the time I am so happy alone.  And I don’t want a boyfriend to fix this, but I’m missing something.  I shouldn’t feel this way when I have a great group of friends, best friends that love me, family that I can count on.

But it was only a matter of time until I sat back and looked at my life situations and realized, I’m the only one without another person devoted to me.  I have very few single friends.  Everyone is in a relationship or has kids, has someone else that knows them better then I do.  Every now and then, like tonight, this gets thrown in my face.  And it burns.  I miss having someone else in this world that shares everything with me.

Every where I go, every person that I’m with, I always feel like the third wheel.  And most of the time it’s not them making me feel this way.  It becomes obvious when they go home to their boyfriends/girlfriends, to their kids, to their best friends.  When everyone has someone else to talk to before they go to sleep, to trudge through this life with.

If I understood why maybe I could handle it.  If I wasn’t happy alone most of the time maybe I would fight it, maybe I would figure out what’s wrong with me.  Maybe that’s changing.  In a room full of people that I adore, why do I feel so lonely?  Why don’t I have anyone to talk to about this?  Did I shut down again, or is this just a coincidence?  My instinct is to hole up and try and work this out in my head, fix myself so that someone can love me.  Is that instinct what’s keeping me away from having people in my life that I can trust?  Should I be searching for… something?  I desperately want to know what is wrong with me, and if nothing is wrong I need the strength to see that.

Did I promise to finish up that picture essay?  Hell, why not.

Next up was Kristi’s birthday.  Dinner at the Roadhouse, drinks at a relaxed bar.  It was crazy (have you ever tried to get a table for 16 people?) and chill (cold beers and a swing) all in the same night.

Birthday Girl!

Look who else came?

Brandi and Seth, also known as those who work too much and are difficult to see!

I caught it!  I caught your real smile!  Leave it to that baby to distract him enough for this to occur.

And then Lindsey balded my nephew.  I may not have taken this as well as one would hope.

He may have been referred to as Nnenna.  He may have also learned the word ghetto and to tuck your cell phone in your bra for safe keeping.  I’m not at liberty to say who called and taught him these things.

Here Zach is combing Jorden’s hair, which is officially longer then his now.

Does it feel like we need another baby in my life?  Absolutely!

Jackson was born Friday the 12, 6 pounds 2 ounces.  Adorable as hell, with Dad’s red hair and Mom’s chin.  I brought my roomy purse, but hospital security is pretty tight these days.  Congrats Brig and Wade!

This guy graduated college.  Mind your kids, Mikey has now been released into the world of education.  He celebrated with a tequila shot, which he never does.  I think me and Jenika are bad influences.

I lose a lot of writing time to this.  Combine cuddling babies and our spa, I’m MIA for hours.  Why were we not in the spa all last year?

We pried ourselves from the spa long enough to have Tatum’s first birthday party.  So I made very many cakes.

Pretty much for the express purpose of watching her do this:

Despite having a few worries beforehand, the birthday party was a huge success.  And then the Tate got her first shiner on her actual birthday the next day.

Before you get all suspicious, we don’t torture the children. I do, however, let children torture the cats.

Killer is acting like having all these kids around is destroying her life.  While not unexpected, Princess Killer needs to get over it, and the first step is to stop hurling on my bed.  Thanks.

Did you think we were done with the baby pictures?  Nope!  Baby Michael is two months old now, and doing great.

I visited him and his Mama last week, and he made these faces at me the whole time.  I think he could sense my urge to tuck him into my purse for a quick escape.

Jorden started crawling.  I know, Shan Shan is totally screwed.

Should I mention this was at about one in the morning and we still had several beers and rounds of Asshole to play?  How I made it until the sun rose without passing out face down on the deck of the pool is beyond me.  I run on a combination of smoke, Dr. Pepper and music these days.

Then I had a dead-bird-corpse-type situation in the backyard on Monday.  The nice neighbor was kind enough to dispose of the body, despite my slight hysteria about not being any where near the situation.  So we fed them some pizza, played some games, and then… what else, we all got in the spa.

And my final excuse for not writing more.  Who wants to write when you can get open mouth toddler kisses and have long talks in the spa?

I’ll get back to the writing soon.  I’m (surprise!) a little insane right now, and trying to work some things out.  First up:  why am I such a stubborn bitch.  This could get interesting!

Have you ever fallen in love with music so quickly that it brought tears to your eyes?
No?
Yeah… me either.
On an unrelated note (Har, har.) I may have found the soundtrack to my summer.

I think I like today, I think it’s good
It’s something I can’t get my head around

***********

I’m sorry I have to say it, but you look like your sad
Your smile is gone, I’ve noticed it bad
The cure is that you let in a little more love 
I promise you this, a little’s enough

***********

And I don’t know and I can’t guess if it’s gonna be ok
but now my last wish is that you’ll do this with me
kiss me here and hold my hand
let me feel like I’m the only one
I know you can, won’t you do it for me now

***********

I cannot live and I can’t breathe
unless you do this with me…

***********

I swear I’ll melt if you touch me at all,
but then I’ll ask you to do it again and again
And suddenly,
you’ve done it all,
you’ve won me over,
in no time at all.
Angels and Airwaves, you’ve got me.

Phone rings.
“HEY!  I have a question for you.”
“OK, go.”
“Why do they call it rush hour when no one is able to rush?”

It’s a lazy Sunday and we both have our houses to ourselves.  This happens so infrequently neither one of us knows exactly what to do about it.  I’ve cranked up the radio, and hung out in my underwear.  He’s apparently over thinking things and calling me randomly.

As we walked into the house Chris demanded that we take off our shoes and make a pile of our cell phones on the stove.  “No distractions,” he said.

It was just what I needed to forget about the afternoon I’d had.  Pizza, beer and a round of Asshole with four people who just let me be.

Eventually I need to deal with the fact that I’m hiding from everything.  Until then I’m blessed with wonderful friends who I know will just watch the sunrise with me.

I know, I never call, I never write.  I totally understand why you’re mad.  The last few weeks have been completely batshit crazy and jam packed.  And I’m still happy, in case you were wondering.  Just oh so very busy and getting very little sleep.

But I caught up on uploading pictures.  I’ve been a week or more behind since April.  So, can I appease you with these?

My date Jenika for the Rock Star Party.  I think we did an excellent Kurt and Courtney as we were both hammered and probably suffered memory loss that night.  We killed two bottles of tequila and a bottle of rum, and there weren’t enough people there to justify that.  But, we were rock stars and nobody hurled, so it was the perfect party.

Did I ever mention that Emily, Jen, Jenika and I all had a mushy, drunk, “I looove you guys” cry fest in the middle of the party?  No?  Well I can now, because this picture shows that Jenika totally started the emotion overload.

The next night I went to see actual rock stars.  I think they showed us up in the musical ability category, but we totally had them beat in the makeup category.

And then there was one of my favorite bars, where I had a drink despite swearing I wasn’t going to drink any more for a long time. Yeah, sleep cures all sorts of insane declarations like that.

Sometime that week (or the next?  I have no idea) we went bowling for Brian’s birthday.  And trust me, that’s a lot of $1 beers for a week night.  But I think we really hosed ourselves as far as being productive the next day with the shots.  Oh, the shots.

Not that all I do is drink.  I also throw defenseless children into medium sized bodies of water.

Then the backyard was fixed up.  Removing a tree (which cut down on the amount of bird crap tremendously) and building a gazebo thing, and adding nice little bench.  Suddenly I can’t seem to stay inside the house.  Best backyard ever!

Then I got stuck in traffic in the middle of the night on my way home from dinner.  On a week night damn it.  That whole sleep thing?  It’s for the weak.

Except, right now?  I’m a little sleepy.  Can we finish this photo catch up later?  Can I even get away with trying to appease you with posts that are nothing but photos?  And how pissed are you going to be if I forget?

“Weren’t you saying that you wanted to go for a ride on the bike?  On the freeway?”
- Jeff after we finished dinner last week.

I think my open mouthed stare (Oh, and the fact I won’t even look at him on the motorcycle.) made him realize he wasn’t going to be able to trick me into this that easy.  It’s going to take a lot more work then that to get me on a death trap.

How upset am I allowed to get when someone reaches my site by putting “slit wrists the right way” into Google?  Slightly less upset then when I saw pages titled “What is the best way to commit suicide when you’re under 13?” as the other search results?  At least I take solace in knowing you didn’t find what you were looking for here.  All that’s here is someone who was left behind.

Maybe the person who searched simply “jen” found what they were looking for.

Do you doubt just how much I hate birds?  Today I came dangerously close to hurling my iPod at a pair of pigeons that were getting too close to my bubble.

Would I really throw a $400 gift that I use only 23.5 hours a day to keep a bird from pecking me?

When your mother’s reaction to you writing a new blog is “Uh oh!” it may be time to move your website.