Gooseberried

Did you miss me?

I'll start this post off with informing you that my computer now has a mind of its own.  I had just turned it on, sat down at my desk and started writing a check when it suddenly decided to turn itself off.  I hadn't even touched or clicked anything.  It was just like, "Well, gotta go!" 

Weird.

So, Massachusetts was awesome.  The time off was awesome.  6-6's parents are awesome.  We were seriously spoiled rotten by them.  Breakfast was ready for us every morning.  Free dinners out, free dinners in.  His mom is a massage therapist and she took me down to her shop and gave me a professional massage for over an hour.  His sister is a cosmetologist and she gave me a haircut for free.  I'm telling you...we received the royal treatment so it was a bit difficult to come home. 

One of my favorite parts of the vacation was meeting Susie from Everyone Loves a Boston Girl.

I've never been to a blogger meet-up or conference like several of you have, so this was particularly exciting for me.  I'm sure you can tell by the expression on my face.  I think I knew Susie in another life or something, because it felt like we were already friends and knew everything about each other.  I guess that will happen when friendship stems from the blogosphere.  I think I've been reading about Susie's life for over a year now.

The second half of my time off was spent with my family for the holidays.  Thanksgiving is really the only time that my entire extended family gets together so I figured I better go and see how everyone was doing since the visit is so rare.  Needless to say, I was exhausted from my flight coming back so I think my family thought there was something very wrong with me since I was able to fall asleep sitting up on a couch in front of twelve loudly talking people.

At any rate, I'm back and ready to get back into the swing of things.  I finally finished the massive amounts of laundry I had to do.  My parents smoke so even though some of the clothes I packed weren't technically dirty, I had to wash them anyway because I can't stand the smell.  When I first walked into my parent's house, the smoke was incredibly overwhelming.  Then I kind of got used to it as days passed and then when I got back to Flagstaff, I realized I smelled like I had just taken a bath in a gigantic ashtray.

6-6 is graduating in a week and a half and I'm so excited for him.  I'm really excited to see his parents again too.  While I would never want to live with my own parents now that I've been out of their house for almost seven years now, I don't think I would mind living with 6-6's parents.  Maybe they wouldn't mind the idea of moving to Arizona permanently and living with me in my studio apartment...?    

On my way

I took this picture from my plane window while we were flying just outside of Phoenix when finally, all the city buildings ended and the land became just land.  Phoenix is like one gigantic grid when looking at it from above.  Small blocks look like squares which then look like bigger squares surrounding those squares and so on.  Then all of a sudden, the buildings stop and there's nothing to look at besides a vast amount of land.  It's insane to me how much open space is left in Arizona and yet, so many people live here already. 

This picture reminds me of dreams- the dreams I have where I'm flying and there's no better feeling in the world. 

Safe landing

Back from Massachusetts safe and sound

but...

leaving again in a few hours for Thanksgiving vacation - Part 2!

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Back soon.

Jimazoid: Xbox saved my marriage

[He's back everyone!  Jimazoid, that is.  To see more written by my oldest guest blogger, click on the Jimazoid category at the end of this post.]

Up until a few months ago, I'd been blogging for about 7 years. It's always been something I enjoyed doing for a few reasons.

I fancied blogging as my way to communicate with the outside world without the insufferable agony of dealing with the outside world. I also figured I could get across my ideas and my humor in writing a little better than I could with words. Then I discovered the joys of Xbox live voice chat with my friends.

It turns out, the corny idea of male bonding over things like video games, beers, babes, sports and more beer might actually be true. Many of you are years ahead of me on this one, but I'm a late bloomer and I could do without all the judgmental stares. Yeah, you. As I've discovered, I blogged for so many years because I didn't talk for about that many. I had all of these stories and ideas to get out there to prove how amazing I am (and I am quite amazing, thank you very much) and putting it on the internet was infinitely more comfortable and gratifying than talking to anyone about it.

I might also add that I have about the same luck with guys friends as Michelle does with girlfriends, but because I am a guy nothing ever comes of it. Guys who are not "bros" generally share a kind of unspoken agreement that though they may not be close friends, they will be friends and refuse to talk about or ever deal with their animosity. I assume women have the same kind of thing, but they seem to take it to passive aggressive torture instead. I digress.

Xbox, however, brought me and one of my friends together in ways only cheesy buddy flicks can truly capture, and through him I became a lot better friends with a few more of my acquaintances back in California. Then, once we had the teamwork and comradery down to a science, we started jsut fucking around and joking while we played various games. The joking around led to stories and tales of jow, of woe and of exceptional triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds (like that time I ate a 15x15 at In-n-Out and ralphed all over a strangers car).

Then when it came time to sit down in front of some kind of word processor and write something for the internet to read, I had nothing left. I had dipped into my well of inspiration and entertained a very small group of fine, upstanding gentlemen and I was tapped out when it came time to write things for my blog or for Gooseberried.

Now, I know nothing I have described is abnormal. People talk and tell stories and then they don't need to tell any more stories, but it's especially strange to me because, as I said, I'd been blogging for 7 years and the change was so sudden. It's like being obsessive compulsive for a few years, and then waking up and realizing you don't have to go through all of your rituals in order to stave off an anxiety attack.

I'm not sure I know how to function in this new world I've stumbled across. I imagine this is how Lewis and Clark felt when they looked to the west and realized they weren't going to be able to update their blogs for awhile.

Too busy

And this is on a slow day.

Things have been crazy around here in my life lately.  As I mentioned before, I've been taking on crazy amounts of work at my job and will continue to do so until the end of the year and even after that, it won't be getting much easier.  As such, my company has decided to have a couple of people from our corporate office come up to Flagstaff to train me in certain areas I wasn't aware of.

At any rate, things have not slowed down and I constantly feel tired.  It's difficult to maintain a social life, a work life and a love life.  Plus, I'm leaving for vacation this coming week when I will finally meet my amazing blog friend, Susie.  I am so excited for this, you have no idea!  I keep going through all the things I'll be needing to pack and get ready before my flight and it's driving me crazy.  I just can't wait to be in Massachusetts once and for all.

It'll be nice to see a few blank pages in my planner at least.

~~~

P.S.  I'd like to thank every one that commented and emailed me regarding my previous post.  It was nice to learn that I had a lurking lawyer as a fan not to mention surprising!  It was reassuring to hear everyone's advice, opinions and straight-up legal knowledge about how this person's story is complete crap.  Thanks again for your support.  You all are part of the reason why I continue to blog.          

Feedback please

I decided to write at BlogHer tonight and I would really like it if my regular readers would please visit, read it and let me know what you think.  I'll warn you, it's a little long.  You have to have an account with BlogHer to comment, so if you don't want to sign-up, feel free to comment back over here, email me or whatever you want.  I would just like to know some of your opinions on the matter.  And just to let you know, I wrote the post last night and since then the situation has gotten even worse by which I mean, more threatening emails.

Here it is.

Not just dating

My boyfriend is an adorable peach and he's also...my hat twin!

The other night while snuggling:

6-6:  You smell like jam.