it's almost my birthday and i'm really not too excited about it. i have wanted, for a very long time, to throw a party here at my house. but now that i'm actually trying to send the email, i remember that i don't even have that many friends around here. nothing cheers me up like throwing a party...but such a small party, can it actually cheer me?

also, any volunteers from out of state to come enliven said party??? :)

two-and-a-half weeks since i wrote, in which...

* i was arrested and spent a night in jail
* my dad underwent major surgery, and is now at home where mom and i are caring for him
* i hooked up with cute-boy-from-work again
* i met up with TWO friends from high school, neither of whom i've seen in five years, and had long talks and some beer with them
* bryon (the new cook) and i bonded and are now super-duper-work-buddies

i really have been working a lot lately. in fact, i am working for someone today. so i had better enjoy the few remaining hours before i go back to work to collect some massive overtime.

i'm not sure this new arrangement is making me happier--but it will make me a bit tougher. actually, today at work got kind of depressing for a while. i'm not sure. i think andy and i worked out the misunderstanding by the end of the work day, but he implied he would call me to hang out and he did not. oh well.

so tonight i went out with the teenage girls again. it was so funny--i showed up in my normal clothes for once instead of my scrubs, and one of the girls said i looked like one of them now. not sure what that meant. do i dress like i'm 15? (don't answer that.) or maybe i look better wearing jeans and a top than i do in a vague slump of comfy cotton?

...

so, i guess my parents bought a box of HomeBest brand Awesome! Snack Bags. isn't that a great name for a product? Awesome! Snack Bags. they are reclosable. (i.e. generic ziploc bags.) one may use them to pack snacks on the go like raisins, crackers and veggie sticks. one may also use them to sort small toys and crayons, as well as use them to help keep matches, batteries, and small camping items dry.

i think i may be the only person who finds me funny. but damnit, i really amuse myself.

...

after this summer i believe i will be able to more fully identify with the music of john cougar mellencamp, and possibly also that of bruce springsteen

i have been like this allllll day. except for the hour where i was all upset, but i got over that.

a major life-shift and i can't even seem to grasp it.

i guess K and i decided i can see other people while i'm home. he seems okay with it. i haven't told andy yet.

friday night andy and i got together. the party was insane--a monsoon and tornado warnings and fights and drunkenness--and we finally admitted we were drawn to each other, and i was so upset, but K is, unbelievably, supportive of me dating. i think. we need to talk more, i think. not that andy would be the only one, because there is nurse jim........

andy called me twice on saturday. i called him sunday night and tonight. tomorrow is the first day we'll be at work together since all this has happened. i am nervous. he wanted to know what i was going to do with my "dilemma," as he called it, and he was really chill. we can talk for hours about nothing.

tonight i saw people playing chess on the sidewalk in a small town. it was nice. but then it got too redneck for me, with angel riding a little kid's bike and screaming "faggot" at the top of her lungs. on main street. at 10 pm. the second she brought out that word, i told her it was time for me to go home, and i took her home. then i...meant to go home. but i went to my secret spot, my country nook amongst some trees and hills, and....well, sat on my car and drank cheap beer. just a little. and i listened to "the river," which is this soft-guitar-rock station andy and i are obsessed with. then...well...i decided to go back to town. just to see what was going on. i ended up having an amazing time in this guy's apartment, just chilling with these teenage girls i'd previously discounted. but when i think about it, all they need is a little guidance. they have amazing feminist potential...they just need a little push. and a little less beer.

the four-man mushroom made an appearance again tonight.

the four girls and i laughed for....god knows....minutes. everything was fantastic. but we needed fresh air, so we went for a drive in the country. i really opened up to them, which feels a little creepy now, but one of my goals for this summer is to stop being so fucking self-conscious about everything. lately i think i have been more confident than usual: telling K what i wanted to do, flirting with nurse jim, talking to the nursing home residents more...lots of things. i am even much more comfortable on the days when i am head cook, and responsible for everything in the kitchen.

hmmm. so it's late. and i should eat or go to bed or something. ta.

so....................i think it's safe to say cute-boy-from-work likes me, too. ahem. i went to a party last night and it was an eye-opener. i am definitely back in iowa. three kegs in someone's garage? anyway. c-b-f-w and i were at the party and....i don't know.

one sure way to piss off your mom is to bring home her van with all the seats down, wet, and sprinkled with ash and mud. yeah, she woke me up about four hours later to clean it.

and now i have to figure out what to do. i think i want to just melt. or dry up and blow away. i don't want to have to explain myself to anyone. but i'm going to have to.

so far i have been very productive for a day off: i made pancakes for my parents before dad had to pre-donate blood, i cleaned a ton of old brush off one deck and swept it, i scraped and swept racoon poo off another deck, i did a little weeding and pruning, i got probably too much sun, and i cleaned and vacuumed my car.

i also marked a page in a book i have -- a humourous article on how to tell keats from shelley -- with a scrap of paper -- a clipping about a ziggy marley concert coming up -- to give to cute-boy-from-work. i may be putting too much effort into this for a simple friendship. hrmm. also, when i was cleaning out my car, i found that note that he brought for me to proofread, to a girl he liked who was mad at him. i was embarrassed to have found it--it's an incredibly honest if innocent letter--and i slipped that inside the book as well.

i am organizing my netflix list as well. i think it's so funny to compare the films i add to the queue with the films my parents add.

yesterday was giddy. absolutely. i kidnapped cute-boy-from-work and we went gravel traveling over our lunch break...i may have been a little quicker to agree to work the weekend because i knew he would be there. [guilt guilt guilt] after our excellent night on friday night, it seemed very natural. then, during work, matt asked if he could come out with us after work. and at first, i was hesitant, but what a night. lots o' giggles at work, then andy and i sitting in my car waiting for matt, then we went driving. i showed them my farm, my special cool nature spot-cum-cemetary, and a bunch of other things. we peed in a public park in a small town i know, and then we ended up in small towns i didn't know.; at all. we were, in a word, lost. it was still fun. the whole night was fantastic oldskool [with a k] music, with andy the only one knowing what i mean about so many things. thw two of us jamming out to hootie and the blowfish or phil collins or rob bass or queen....yeah. all music is good music, sometimes. and matt was chill, really chill, and i do like hanging out with him even if it only happens once a month or so. but andy was something else. i don't know. garsh.

work today was cool, very chilled-out productive day. except for the buzz-killing QA meeting afterwards. but i have been having a pretty swell evening anyway [by myself], from what i can remember anyway.

tonight i'm having an adventure in beer--samuel smith's organic ale (UK) followed by "hitachino nest" red rice ale from japan. tim, i recommend it--light, bitter, and fruity. wow. really impressed. i'm even drinking it at room temperature, just because i'm lazy.

off work tomorrow [coincidentally]. i have so many things i want to do: hike, vacuum and wash my car, see angel or andy or sonyl or any other friends, paint my bedroom/bathroom....but i must figure out my bedroom. in my own house, for the first time in...seven or eight years...i am deciding what it's going to be like. i am getting so comfortable here--goodbye, pink carpet; hello, a room with space for my projects and pictures of things i still actually give a shit about now that i'm almost 24.