Bridging the Gap
Oh yah. I'm back... working the Micro beat, on the AppleTalk Mod Squad... it's good to be geek, it's good to be girl. This makes the world go 'round. Working 8-5 will be good I think. Today feels about right, and I've gotten a lot accomplished. I even managed to go work out on my hour lunch break. This is a plus and possible mostly because I can actually EAT any time I want to, it doesn't have to be from 12-1. Getting up at 7AM bites my ass but I think I can manage. In any case, I got my office set up again and I'll probably have a webcam sometime soon. Betcha'll love that.

Oh, and as for the dramatics of last weekend. Justin covers them much better. I promise I'll post the funny pictures of me weeping over cereal. I still haven't opened the box, it would be too tragic.

In other random news, due to the recent rains, the grass pollen count is down to around FREAKING FOURTEEN. As opposed to ... 658 last week. HA! Weeds, you cannot kill me! Give it your best shot! So I'm fully functional again able to work and play with the best of em.

Last night Justin and I had a dinner party with some acquaintances. Not a fake, college, "we're so cool, tee-hee, we're having a dinner party" dinner party... but a real life scary grown up dinner party. He made beef stew, I made salad, they brought corn bread, I cleaned the house and put on background music, they brought wine. We drank wine, ate cornbread (DAMN GOOD CORNBREAD), stew, salad and then after eights and fro-yo with berries for dessert. I'm not sure if this is the scary part or if the scary part is who the hostees were. They're both really nice people and I like them a lot. I think we get along fabulously... Justin just met them both and I only knew the gentleman. I met him at the rec center (you remember the story about Emanuelle Beart?) and we later talked a lot more. He's very casual, intellectual, nicely attractive older guy. I was a little nervous that he was flirting with me but he told me he was married. Nice of him or else I would have had to crash his party. So after I talked to him for a while, he suggested that Justin and I come watch some French films with he and his wife at their house or go hiking with them on Spencer's Butte. Since they're going out of town for a while at the end of this week, and last night was rainy and icky, we figured it would be a good time for a movie. So Justin invited them for dinner and we went to see 'The Cat's Meow' (good film, btw) at the Bijou. The get together was really quite fun and we all chatted each other up for a long time- Rupert entertained- and the age gap wasn't even that apparent. I think that the lady, who I just met, is probably 28 but her husband is 37... and that's what strikes me as funny. Justin and I are 'couples friends' with another adult, older couple who wants to hand out and do "grown-up" things with us. Despite the fact that they know I'm an undergrad, etc, etc. It's all very normal, I suppose but given my fear of becoming domesticated I find something CREEPY about it. I'm glad it went well though, I think we managed to make a good impression and at least pretend to be civilized. ^^ Oh man... it's hopeless, we're yuppies. That was some GOOD cornbread, though... and they left us a bottle of wine and some biscotti. That means I get to drink more wine by myself.... Justin won't touch the stuff. Heh. In any case, I have to make sure to thank both of them for a good time and I'm sure we'll get together and do more "grown-up friends" stuff again... I guess it's a balancing force. I can sit on street corners and drink beer with other friends, with these ones I can schmooze. And when we schmooze, Wolf Pup and I schmooze with the best of them. His family taught me that. ; )

Ah, micro... we're now feasting on Almond Roca, it's quite tasty. Gotta love working here. Sara just passed off to me a book titled "The Rules: Time tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right." She says I should browse through it and laugh... I'll be horribly offended. Apparently it's ridiculously hypocritical and the woman who wrote it just was divorced. Should be entertaining. I'm also reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for the second time. Actually, first, I never finished it in high school... and I think my taste in reading has become more sophisticated since then. I have more of a tolerance for high-falootin philosophy and abstract mind-plots after some of the required readings in my classes. Things I normally wouldn't touch have become fascinating. Plus, this book is a cult classic so how can I pass it up? I wish I felt the same way about Star Wars but I can only appreciate it as a genra. The most recent two have absolutely sucked... even for entertainment value... and the "classics" are just that: classic. I'm a complete heretic. I don't like Star Wars and George Lucas needs another scriptwriter. So I'll take my stuff and go straight to hell ; ) I'm entitled to my opinion, be it not humble.

Well, this entry is random and not very deep. I guess that's the way life is. Oh, now we're in for it...

I had this thought today, while in the gym (you might begin to suspect it's the only time I'm free enough to think) that I find it hard not to believe in fate, or at least in some equation for life, as un-romantic as it sounds. It's too difficult to see life as a set of random occurrences... one thing invariably leads to another and there's never any going back. One small sleight of hand can lead to great changes years down the line. How this can't mean anything is beyond me...

I spent a great part of the drive home Sunday, after my hysteria and before I fell asleep, feeling very adolescent. The emotion wasn't quite anger, fear, joy, love, or sorrow but was a great part of each. I felt detached from the world, like I was made of music and inside a dream. Like I, the physical me, wasn't real... that I was only my essence and not a part of what is real. This is how I spent the greater part of my teenage years, feeling this way. Completely intense in a magic way but entirely unstable, not grounded, head in the clouds. I used to say that I wanted "something real," that I was going to "find the real world." When I said this, I didn't mean I was looking to sell out... I meant I was looking to find a place where I could ground myself and become someone who I could believe in- something more than a dream. I've found that person and I believe in her. I can see through the haze. I know that what's "real" isn't something concrete or something systematic or logical... it's as much an abstract haze as that adolescent dream and while it's not always as 'intense', it's as wondrous and as beautiful in as many ways.

Post Script: Katie (you may remember her as "cape girl katie" ; ) has a weblog now, called Cries and Whispers. So go check it out!