I am an earring nut. Three pairs today, a collection from Ecuador, and a lot of self restraint to avoid any more pairs during shopping today with my mom. My current pair are ridiculous rainbow striped plastic stars.

My nails are finally long enough to paint them, which I'm hoping will preserve them from boredom or stress induced destruction...

Concert ticket [Pinback!], candles, and cooking together for valentines day...I'm already excited, even if it is on a Thursday and he will have to work and it's still weeks away. I procrastinated last year, so I'm ready to be prepared this year...

I have found someone who lights up my life with "hello". I miss him hours after I've left and I can't wait for spring term when I get to see him every day instead of on certain weekends if my job allows. But that's enough whining about that or it'll snowball.

Work starts again tomorrow, which is depressing, and today was my first day off this week...This seems dumb because I couldn't possibly have had a shift today, as in Sun 6 pm - Mon 4 am and then Mon 5 am - 1 pm....grr.

I really liked the movies Juno and Knocked Up, even though they are both about a subject which terrifies me (unplanned pregnancy).

I like reading blogs and having a sense of knowing someone. I know one blogger on elowel personally - a voice to go with the name, facial expressions, what her smile really looks like. But then I was reading a couple entries that really hit home and realized that things [we blog about] might not be something as personal as I, or perhaps we, would like to believe...they are certainly personal, but in the rain storm of our youth (let's say from adolescence to after grad school, to be more specific) we've probably experienced a lot of the same things.

Maybe you've already thought about this, but I really hadn't. As it is, my best friends and I have generally shared similar value systems, upbringings, financial backgrounds, maturity levels - things that made it easier, naturally, for us to relate. I found my soulmate at 18 in a girl named Jennifer, who I've become close with over our [quickly approaching end, in her case] time at college together. We just seemed to have experienced and felt the same things, sometimes even concurrently, and understand often to a fair degree what the other person feels. As much as you can feel what another person feels, anyway.

Whichhhh brings me to wonder how many elowelers have experienced some of the things I have...

1. Making your best friend in the world cry when you tell her to fuck off. (And then feeling shittier than shit, and possibly shittier than you ever have in your life.)
2. Told your significant other your darkest secret(s).
3. Accidentally cut yourself and wonder what it would feel like to do it on purpose.
4. Gotten yourself out of a relationship (romantic or otherwise, the first or maybe second or third time around) because you realized things (what you needed, that nothing was changing, that you'd be sad but eventually better) and stuck to it.
5. Watched pirate themed porn.
6. Gone down on a firecrotch.
7. Regretted making out with someone because you knew although it meant nothing to you it meant something to them.
8. Showered in the dorm bathroom of the opposite sex.
9. Texted while in a bathroom stall actually doing business.
10. Thought about buying a girl a cucumber and telling her that practice makes perfect just to see if she'd buy it.
11. Peed in a pool.
12. Peed in a public shower, but never in home shower.
13. Lied to a caller about your age to avoid talking about your community, and then feeling guilty.
14. Left AIM on just to talk to random people and not feel alone.
15. Like popping pimples.
16. Bought a college biology book for fun [actual reading of it not required].
17. Hated a job but gone back because you feel uncomfortable/scared/lazy/potentially inadequate as far as applying elsewhere.
18. Let a dog kiss you on the mouth, even if it stuck it's tongue in your mouth.
19. Gotten yourself off on family furniture.
20. Let a friendship go after a reconciliation.
21. Slept in your parents bedroom while they were also there [non-sexual, in my case after scary movies].
22. Thought you've found the one you're going to spend the rest of your life with.
23. Never bitch slapped anyone because you were too afraid to, but desperately wanted to.
24. Would feel ashamed for bitch slapping someone because why can't women just haul off and punch a guy as well as they're trying to get the point across that they are serious?
25. Felt insecure and unintellectual (not a real word) because of personal reading choices.

The list goes on and on, and I don't expect anyone to have actually read all of this, much less replied, but I find it interesting that our personal lives can overlap on such a grand scheme and yet vary so much at the same time.

Some people choose alcohol.

I didn't. (I chose something else.)

It didn't help me forget...

Looking in his eyes opened a wormhole where I swam in a sea of our memories, a filter easily sifting the heavier ones to the bottom while I floated at the top, carried by the current and tears.

I'm hanging on to something now but still afraid of being swept away.

How long will you hold this power over me?

I can tell it's the week before my period because, even with exercising, I am more ravenous than most of the time right after I got home for the Christmas eats, which was even more special after the continuous rice/chicken/lentils of Ecuador.

The men's underwear stockroom shows progress, despite comments of various managers/supervisors who love to criticize while they look on at the chaos. THEY aren't handling low rise bikinis, mid rise briefs, etc, for hours, sorting and carting and sorting again. Gah.

I go back to campus tomorrow to see my koala bear! This means I have to get ready to move in, post last day of work for the week, post sealing appt. at the dentists, post dinner with my mom. It means coffee right now, I think. I have a headache, and while it cannot be possibly a caffiene deficiency bitch war cry from my body (due to general lack of coffee most days) I'm hoping a tall non-fat no whip white mocha will appease it. Then I can set about packing and gluing pictures into my scrapbook to show my old friend, whom I have having a wondeful, granola-rolled french toast brunch date with on Saturday.

Things will be looking up as of 1 pm tomorrow. Hopefully I can work miracles in the men's underwear stockroom until then. Then it's making my room for the semester more homey, watching Juno with Karamel Sutra ice cream, face cuddles with Baweep, reading Fables (manga), and taking a break from my dear, dear (rolling of eyes) place of employment.

Less than 24 hrs until the weekend, and I think I've got my dad to drive me to get coffee...

P.S. I have bunny slippers.

P.S.S. Headache making a comeback, damn......

- having an open bag of M&Ms in front of me before I get news that stresses me out
- so many clothes
- a couple extra pounds
- the Christian abortion billboard people's number in my phone
- brussel sprouts, forever
- my ex using my boyfried as a messenger
- my other ex not having any balls (more problematic than it might seem)

I tried cooking the other day with my boyfriend, and I actually enjoyed myself. It didn't take much work, and a lot of my part involved dish washing, but it was still fun. This is new for me. We also made jello in my cool $10 sillicone, star shaped mold thing but left it in the communal fridge and one got stolen. We ate them for breakfast, it was pretty fun.

I also like cats, which is new. Well, a cat. His name is Baweep. He's the fraternity cat and he hangs out with my boyfriend (who feeds him) and me (who doesn't crowd him too much). It's fun. He has his own bunk since there's an elevated loft for one with a futon matress and then the double matress loft below it.

So, I am pretty sure my dad found a folder of pictures that was supposed to be private when he was working on moving files from this laptop to my old one. This is what I get for not passwording the damn thing, or deleting them before I got home, or putting them on my zip drive as soon as I got home.

It makes my stomach turn.

He's not online, and considering we spent the last 48 hours together and I can trust that he's not stirring up trouble (for us, or anyone else) it's not really a big deal. He's probably reading manga, feeding the cat, and socializing with the people who drop by his open door. Not much different than when I'm around.

I guess I feel like lately I've been analyzing it too much: why do we work? The real thing that matters is that we are happy, and we are. I guess it's the comments from my brother about how certain characteristics of him are annoying, although this could be said for anyone. Another perhaps being that I am still uncomfortable, at times, around the fraternity lifestyle. We talked about how he's "on the outskirts" and my part in that, but I guess not partying hard and having a girlfriend tend to separate those closely affiliated with "brotherhood" from their "wallflower" brothers and he's ok with where he stands in that. I know I make him question his membership with my thoughts, which I share openly, but he admits I may have a point, and I explain that I'm not intending to make him defend it, just consider it.

Last night we cooked dinner and a few people stopped in to say hello. One of his good friends stayed with me in the room when my ex decided to awkwardly hang out in the doorway and later accompanied us to the kitchen. I do alright, socializing, but we tend to hang out in his room with the door partially closed or fully closed, content to be in one another's company, as we hear bellows from the Beruit tournament downstairs drifting through the space between the door and the floor. I guess as long as we're ok with it the rest will have to deal. It doesn't help that we try to avoid as many encounters with my ex, who seems to act out whenever he sees me.

I realize that this probably does not interest you, if you've even made it to this point, but my goal is to take it as it comes and not break down our relationship like those critical analysis papers I was forced to write in 10th grade. I've resolved to focus on the beauty of the fact that we have each other, and put why and how on the back burner.

I:

- slept 4 hrs
- was a zombie for 8 more of them, at work
- resisted the intense urge to down caffiene, thus de-zombifying
- got a day off that I was expecting and then told I would be working
- took a shower for the first time after two work days
- read a silly romance novel while in the shower after work today
- yelled profusely over instant messenger at an exboyfriend
- spent time instant messaging real boyfriend about jello plans and three day visits
- thought fleetingly about things to pack to officially start my move into off campus house
- took my brother to get his long hair cut (truly a transformation)
- further changed my class schedule, mainly by including community service with emphasis is using Spanish in schools
- got a call from the exboyfriend I thought wasn't interested in keeping up a friendship and got invited to coffee, and actual information about his life
- didn't get to shop the mall or sales at Walgreens
- didn't work as much as I probably should have
- took a one hour nap
- refined my order for a kick ass bag by skullcat designs, locals of Portland and vendors at the Saturday market

It's bedtime.

So I pulled my first 10 hr shift...it was ok. I worked on five hours of sleep and willingly accepted the last two optional hours of my shift. 2 am to noon, and I still felt pretty good. I worked with this girl I'd never met before, who was nice, and a supervisor with the flu, who, since she didn't feel good, didn't mind us all trooping together like two red blood cells and a white one (reference to the shirt I am forced to wear as part of the mandated "uniform" and her pale, flu induced complexion) and ultimately we got less done as a team for all our walking around together. After all my previous productivity, though, during which I broke a sweat and lightly strained some tendon behind my knee and my back I wasn't about to complain. Turns out this week is early mornings, next week is not-as-early mornings, the next week is day shifts, and then who knows for my last week. Certainly going to fuck with my sleep schedule. In theory I'll be too tired to care...

I went to bed at 7:30 last night, woke up at 12:30, hung out with my brother (who was gaming) until I had to go to work, talked to my boyfriend, and headed out. All the good songs were on the radio and there were very few commercials...and then I sat for an hour waiting for my boss, who never showed up. Then the secretary called me at 11 to "apologize profusely" for the fact that my boss told me the wrong starting day.

So, minus a small nap, it's going to be another 5 hrs of sleep, and this time actual work to make me tired. I guess about $60 before taxes can't be beat but 2 am start time still seems pretty rough. I guess in a couple days it'll be normal and I'll be passing out on my boyfriend at 7 pm and wanting him to watch movies with me at 1 am...Snuggling up with him is going to be all the sweeter for the 7 pm spooning with my new stuffed dinosaur, Emerson, in attempts to tell my body "It's dark out, you've been up since 12:30, pass the f out already".

Wish me luck!