testing, testing...anyone out there?

Hello Blogland! Anyone out there remember me? The girl that used to hang around these parts?

When I said I was taking a break I certainly didn't anticipate being gone this long, but my life has changed a lot in the past 5 months, and I really just didn't have the urge to blog. I think the main reason was because I had spent so much time and energy on blogging when I was sitting in front of a computer at a job I hated that I decided if I couldn't spend the same amount of time on it, it wasn't worth doing. (did that make any sense?) I did still pop in from time to time and see how all my blog buddies were doing, and even if I didn't comment I was celebrating your weddings, babies, engagements or just laughing at silly stories.

I didn't really miss posting myself until the past couple weeks...so after some thought...I'm back.

I can't promise that I'll post as often or comment as much. But I'll be here.

so long, farewell

I never thought I would be saying this, but I have decided to take a little break from blogging.

Blogging is amazing and wonderful. I love all of the friends I have made and to be honest, I don't know how I could have gotten through almost three years of working at a job I hated without blogland. It was like having a permanent escape hatch in my cubicle.

That being said I have to get through 15 credits and one Praxis test in the next two months...and I really want to get started with school on the right foot.

So I am going to back off blogging until probably August. This is just a break, I will be back for sure so please don't forget about me (or delete me from your readers!)

I may pop in from time to time and see how you are all doing...have an amazing summer!

creep alert

When I was 16 I started dating this guy, A. He was a really sweet, nice guy who I was close friends with and he had a major crush on me. Not to sound mean, but at that time all my friends were getting boyfriends so I gave in. In the back of my head I always knew he was way more in to me then I was to him but I did love him and we had a good relationship, and a lot of good times together in high school.

College came and we both changed, I just wasn't that into him anymore (and I met someone else...which is a whole other story.) So I broke up with him, but I really wanted to still be friends. That wasn't in the cards...he changed even more, went from a nice all-American guy to this crazy, drunken weirdo. He would also have this random freak-outs at me or have his friends call and harass me. This went on for years, even after he had another girlfriend.

Anyways...I am rambling...this story has a point.

A had an older brother, we'll call him The Situation...because he is very similar to the Jersey Shore character. TS was in his early twenties when we were in high school, which at the time seemed...old. He always kind of seemed to be coming on to me, but he was like that to lots of girls so I didn't think much of it.

Well, it's been about 8 years since I have seen TS and the other day I get a facebook message from him (we were not facebook friends so this was out of nowhere.) It said: "sorry for being sooo random, just seeing how my brothers ex is doing. glad to see your doing ok"

Yes, a little random but oh well, it is facebook. So I friended him and sent a message back saying: "Hey! I'm doing well...hope you are too!." Casual...not trying to really go into a whole lot of detail with this guy I really don't know.

Then he responds with this: "Yeah im ok i See your still looking good." Ummm WTF? I just don't respond to that one. The a couple days later I get another message: "is it weird i contacted you"

Again, I didn't say anything back. Then a couple days after that he ims me on that facebook chat thing. So I also just ignore him. Now he just constantly sends me weird applications.

Should I just keep ignoring him? Is this common on facebook and I have just been missing out?

catching up

• I've been being pretty lazy lately and that includes blogging and commenting. I hope everyone enjoyed all the guest posts, hopefully I can continue working in guest posts in the future so please if you are ever interested let me know!
• Today is my last day of total freedom. My first day of grad school classes is tomorrow evening. Then next week I start the two undergrad classes I am taking at a local community college. So basically June through about half of July I am going to have class all day and all evening Monday-Thursday. It will be busy but I am excited!
• I have started having these dreams...which I haven't had in a while but always start when I am doing something new. I'm always at a school...usually my high school...and I either have to take a test and haven't studied or I'm lost and don't know what class I am supposed to be in. Weird!
• What did everyone think of Sex and the City 2? To be honest I was a little let down...I mean, it was entertaining and all but not much there in terms of plot.

Curiosities: Tracie

Good morning blogland! I'm over at my parents today helping get ready for my little brother's (high school) graduation party, which is tomorrow. Never fear...I have Tracie here to blog about the truly curious subject of child leashes. Enjoy and have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend!

Do You Leash?

Cee asked me to write about something that I find curious, or random, or strange. I have something that is all three. Leashes. I'm sure there are reasons for pulling out that leash. Safety is one. I can imagine lots of people pointing out that they use leashes for safety reasons. It keeps the little ones from running away. That is all good and fine, but what happens when they turn the leashes on you?

When my husband, Thomas, and I were first married we flew from Florida to Arizona to have our second wedding with my mom's family. We had a layover in the Houston Airport. While we were there we saw this woman. She was traveling with her four kids and it didn't seem to be going very well. The first time we noticed her she was walking through the airport with all four kids attached to her by leashes. She had a suitcase and although three of the kids were walking (none of them were babies) one of them was definitely closer to being dragged.

The three kids who were walking weren't much improvement on the "dragged" kid, because the three "walkers" were all trying to walk in different directions! It made me think of those old western movies when the townsfolk would get really angry at a guy and threaten that he might be drawn and quartered. I could just see this poor woman being pulled in three different directions!

She finally corralled all four kids into the bathroom (these western words are really working for me today) and we didn't see them for a long time.

Finally, after a long wait, it was time for our plane to board. We got in line and Thomas started tapping me and said, "Look! It is the lady with the leashes!"

What I saw when I turned my head........I have wished ever since that I had had a camera with me that day. It needs photographic explanation. It was just so crazy! So crazy in fact, that I decided that since I don't have a photograph I would just have to draw you a picture. Nothing short of that will do.

There she was. One kid trying to escape while simultaneously having wrapped his leash around another one's neck. Two of the kids had run around her in circles and the mom was unable to move due to being tied up. The last kid......this was the one who was being dragged earlier......had climbed on top of a telephone booth that was mounted to the wall! To this day Thomas and I are unsure how he managed to get up there. We had to catch our flight, so I never have known what happened to that mother with all the leashes. I imagine that she might still be there at the airport all these years later tied up and stuck under that phone booth, but hopefully she was able to make it to her airplane.

I had never given leashes much though before this incident. On that day, Thomas and I decided that we were not leash parents. It is just too dangerous. You might be able to use that leash to keep your kid attached to you.....but you never know when they might turn on you and tie you up with it!

Thanks Tracie! I have a vague memory of my mom having me on a leash when I was about 3 or so...but I'm pretty sure she would deny it now!

Curiosities: The Non-Student

Today's guest poster is The Non-Student from (Ex)Grad-Student Girlfriend...or is it back to Grad-Student Girlfriend? I've really enjoyed reading her blog over the past few months, not because she blogs about an enjoyable situation...but because she is so relatable! Definitely check out her blog...after you read this post of course.

Relationship Curiosities

I started my blog Grad-Student Girlfriend about a year ago when SCL (my now sort of former ex-beau with whom I have an ambiguous “relationship”, nicknamed Summa Cum Laude) and I were about to move to Washington, D.C. and start our new life together as PhD student (him) and non-profit do-gooder (me). I was completely naïve about the adventure lying ahead of me, not only with my job (which I totally hated and ended up leaving six months later) but also with my now live-in partner. Little did I know that within the course of the year, I’d go from expecting an engagement ring (round-cut with halo and pave band) to getting dumped out of nowhere with no explanation and then a month later, be approached by SCL wanting to try again…but living at different addresses.

Our most intimate relationships are curiosity-invoking things to me because of what they tell us about ourselves, oftentimes things we don’t want to see. The difficulty, at least for me, is admitting that whatever is going on, good or bad, isn’t just about the other person. It’s also about me. Apparently I am capable of being annoyingly needy one minute and completely independent the next. One moment I am planning to ruin SCL’s life and the next I am willing to drop everything in my own life to make him happy. I’m shocked at the intensity and breadth of my emotions. Sometimes it makes me feel like a total psycho. When SCL and I were broken up, I went on a mini-rampage in our apartment, tearing up little things of his, pouring out his expensive bottle of cognac down the kitchen sink, and contemplating much, much worse.

And I’m constantly surprised by SCL’s behavior, which I find totally bizarre. Example A: if boyfriend breaks up with girlfriend, then gets back together with her, then wants to move out but stay together, should boyfriend then ask girlfriend to repay him for couch that boyfriend and girlfriend paid together for? Answer: HELLS NO! I’m amazed by his lack of emotional sensitivity, that unlike me he doesn’t consider my feelings and desires in every single thing he says and does. Sometimes he just does what’s best for him.

Why is this so impossible for me, doing what’s best for me? I think it’s a product of my upbringing, of having an altruistic mother with a martyr complex who would give of herself completely and then resent it. And whether I like it or not, she’s the model I grew up with. I’ve learned that loving another means giving into the other, even if it’s not good for me. I’m trying to change this though. Lately I’ve been thinking in terms of what I need (mostly because I have a therapist who figuratively beats this into my head) and what will make me satisfied. And now that SCL and I won’t be living together, I am a lot less responsible for him, which means more freedom for me. Oh, and I won’t be giving him a damn cent for that couch.

Thanks to TNS for the post! And for the record...I am totally in favor of not paying him for the couch!

Curiosities: Surferwife

I'm back with more Curiosities guest posts. Today we have the hilarious Surferwife from A Day in the Life of a Surferwife. If you are not reading her blog...you should be.

My name is SurferWife. *hi Surferwife* And I am a blogoholic.

*crickets*

Oh. Whoopsies. Am I not at my Blogs Anonymous meeting?

Right. I am hosting Cee's place, sorry about the confusion. When Cee asked if I wanted to guest blog and talk about something 'curious' I hopped on that like Pam Anderson to pasties.

Some of you know me and my blog already and have read my Friday feature: Happy Hour and a Celebrity Encounter. This is when I dish on an encounter I have had with a celebrity and at the end I rank them on my Marg-O-Meter. Very classy gig I got going on over there.

So, there is this one encounter I have been itching to tell my readers, but haven't, due to the fact that I have a reader or two that is friendly with this particular celebrity. What better place to do it than on Cee's Curiosity blog?!

Back around the millennium, I worked in a restaurant in Santa Barbara. The owner, and still a good friend of mine, was buddy buddy with Alan Thicke. Remember him? He was the dad/psychiatrist on Growing Pains. When the owner told me that his friend Alan Thicke was coming in and to take care of whatever he wanted, I was excited. I mean, I had Kirk Cameron plastered on my walls as a kid so this was like one degree away from my childhood dream come true.

Then I waited on Alan Thicke. And his small child who ran amok in the restaurant. Alan ran me around, had his bill comped and then proceeded to not tip me.

Not impressed.

A few months later, I was downtown in a popular bar with some friends. In walks my boss (D'oh!), his girlfriend, and Alan Thicke. Owner man spots us and beelines over to the bar where we are standing. He does a quick introduction and lucky me gets to stand next to a sweaty, red faced Alan Thicke. I play it cool until A.T. decides he needs a cocktail napkin at that very second. The napkins are to my right and A.T. is to my left.

Instead of asking me to hand him one, or reaching in front of me to get one, Mr. Seiver reaches around behind me to get it. This means his entire body is pressed up against mine and all gross and breathy whispers, 'Excuse Me' in my ear.

I had to do everything in my power to avoid throwing up in my mouth a little bit.

The next day I told my boss his friend freaked me the eff out and I would rather eat a worm than stand next to him again. Boss man laughed, but sure enough, I never saw Alan Thicke again.

I award Mr. Invasion of Personal Space Non Tipper Guy one margarita.

This encounter couldn't get any more curious, Cee. I hope you and your readers enjoyed it, and I will be back to my normal celebrity encounters this Friday.

Ewww...shame on you Alan Thicke. I'm sure Kirk Cameron would have left an excellent tip and would never invade anyone's personal space. Thanks Surferwife!