Oh violence, bittersweet

I have much to share my friends and family members. And at the present time, my sense of the dramatic has overwhelmed my typing phalanges and thus this may be a most interesting post.

That may have been it as far as dramatic sentences go, it seems I've lost that particular motivation.

However, I do have much to relate.

I'll start with Wednesday, because I don't think much happened on Tuesday.

Wednesday we were supposed to have our last kickball game - a make up from the first game I attended at which the umpire failed to show up. Unfortunately we didn't get to play because this time it was the other team that failed to show up. We sat around for awhile and then the majority of us went to the 5-8 Club to eat burgers and drink beer (or water in my case). It was fun, pleasantly social, but alas it had to end. And thus I bid adieu and farewell to my summer kickball team!

I did sign up for (and pay for) fall kickball though, so I will be seeing some of them again!

On Thursday I did nothing, except mildly attempt to tidy up my room. It's been getting messier of late...

Friday, immediately after work, I "ran into" Tom. It was intentional in order to see if he was planning on going to the Cardinal on Saturday (this Saturday being another karaoke night). He assured me at the time that he had other plans and would not be attending. So I rode my bike home in a decently happy mood.

Friday night was quite exciting. I drove up to Amanda's house and then she, her boyfriend Jeremy, her friend Amy, and I all went to Crystal-frolics - some fair type thing in Crystal, MN. We drank a little, wandered a little, and played bingo a lot! Amanda, Jeremy, and I all ended up winning at different points in the night! I won a whopping $35, which was pretty awesome! In the middle of bingo there were some (I think awesome) fireworks. They were mostly awesome because they were literally RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. I actually took some video of it on my phone - if I can figure out how to I'll try to add it in here. Okay the video isn't working but here's a pic I took from my phone:

So that was Friday, it was actually more fun and exciting than it may sound. I got up early again on Saturday - 7:30 am, and drove back to Colvill Park in Red Wing to meet dad again for fishing. This time I was on time! Well just a couple minutes late... Went out, anchored, and started fishing. And almost immediately started catching! I actually lost track of how many fish we each caught, and we got up to around 7 different species of fish! We ended up keeping one nice sized walleye and had a pretty good day.

After I got home and napped and showered I received a text message from a friend informing me that Tom and Jen would in fact be going to the Cardinal. So I called Tom, intending to find out why and if it were true. Of course he didn't pick up so I proceeded to text him. And that's when the trouble started, little did I know at the time. Tom told me that he was coming out because the friend in question wanted to go out to a strip club afterwards. I thought that was a random thing to say, especially considering it made no sense at all, and so texted the friend to clarify. It was halfway confirmed and I attempted to let that part of it drop while expressing my unhappiness to Tom that he was coming, even after assuring me he wouldn't be. (I was just upset because I like going to the Cardinal, had no other potential plans for Saturday night, and still cannot handle seeing Tom and Jen together). I was then informed that they would be coming late (around midnight) if at all.

So I drove over to the VA, parked my car, and took the light rail up to the Cardinal where I watched the same 3 people sing over and over again. It was incredibly dead. Facing the possible arrival of the guy I was still in love with and his mommy-aged girlfriend, plus the fact that I intentionally took the light rail, I proceeded to get a wee bit (okay a bit more than wee bit) drunk. Because it was so dead, and in my intoxicated state I was feeling pretty good, I actually texted Tom and told him he should come out. But then later, when friend from before went to the bathroom, I did a bad thing. I looked at his phone, and the texts between him and Tom. And there I saw it. Tom telling him that he was making up some shit to tell me about a strip club, and to "just play along." Anger. Overwhelming, unbridled anger overcame me. Tom lied to me, intentionally, for no reason other than to manipulate me, and even got our friend to do the same. I don't think I've ever felt such betrayal, hurt, and uncontrollable rage before in my entire life. It wasn't even the subject of the lie, it was the fact that it was there, blatantly staring me in the face. And what had I done to deserve it? What else has he lied about? All the things rushing through my brain, one of the conclusions I reached was that he must have cheated on me before dumping me. Perhaps not the most rational of conclusions, but I was not thinking rationally at the time. I texted Tom immediately, calling him out on the lie and asking why. No response of course.

When friend came out of the bathroom, he saw my angry face and asked what was wrong. I confessed immediately, apologizing for invading his privacy so badly but then still fuming in anger at Tom. At which point friend leaned over to me and said "Tom and Jen are here."

I couldn't believe it.

I stood up in a blind rage, walked around Jen and looked at Tom. Things happened in slow motion. What struck me for a split second was that he was wearing the silly black hat that he wore the first time I saw him outside of work, on Halloween night at McMahon's. He was wearing a white, similar-looking shirt as well (possibly the same). That was all in the back of my mind though, to be processed later. So I walked around Jen, and Tom held his arms out smiling, not sure what he was trying to communicate, but I walked up to him and slapped his face with all my strength.

Yep.

I slapped the fucker (pardon my French).

I remember seeing his face turn to the side post-slap and then me using my momentum to carry me on to the women's restroom. Where I proceeded to find a stall and cry my eyes out for the next 15 minutes.

I came out eventually and ran into friend. I informed him that I slapped Tom, to which he replied "I know, I saw." Which pretty much told me that probably everyone saw.

I was so incredibly embarrassed. I grabbed my coat and walked out to the train station. Where I discovered that I had just missed a train and would have to wait another 45 minutes for the next one.

So I hung around outside for awhile, still in shock, but eventually went back in and told friend the deal and he offered me a ride home after he was done running karaoke.

I sat there, shaking and crying, and then saw Jen walk back in. I thought she and Tom had left but nope. This meant at least that Tom was outside without Jen, so my drunken self took that opportunity to go apologize to Tom. Which was horrible because he was sitting out there with one of his military friends who refused to leave when I said I needed a private word with Tom. She was so mean, I don't care if she saw what I did I was obviously crying and obviously needed to talk to him about it and not in front of an audience. But she didn't leave and even later after I was shaking and balling in front of them she offered to leave and Tom told her to stay.

He has no respect for me. I don't understand what I've done to deserve this sort of treatment from him. Even after I apologized for slapping him he still never stopped smiling or showed any sort of remorse for lying to me.

It was pretty much horrible.

But I got a ride home eventually.

Sunday I slept in a bit. Unfortunately I had a lunch date at Noodles and so I had to get up at around noon. Went and had some decent mac and cheese, and then came back and slept some more. Spent the rest of the day watching Gilmore Girls (which I've been doing a lot of lately) and being generally lazy (which, let's face it, I always do a lot of).

Monday - slow lazy day at work. Monday night - watched Stardust (excellent as always) with a friend.

Today (Tuesday) - another slow lazy day at work. Tonight - went out and saw Despicable Me with another friend. It was alright - enjoyable but not the amazing movie I was expecting.

I really want to see Inception but am finding it difficult to find someone who wants to see it and hasn't already.

My rat babies are doing well, they're as cute and curious as ever. Evaine gets bolder everytime I let her out and Luna is still pretty mild, generally staying on my shoulder.

Listening to Muse a lot - I seriously can't get sick of listening to them. It's really making me want to go to a concert, and they're actually coming to Minneapolis at the beginning of October. Now I just need to find someone to go with...

I've also made some more semi-definite plans about Colorado with Hannah. We're going to Denver, Glenwood Springs, Estes Park, and Fort Collins for sure with a zoo trip and a white water rafting/cave tour as well. There will be some exploring of Rocky Mountain National Park and we're also planning on driving back through South Dakota (along with a million bikers - it's Sturgis week!).

Now I really need to get to bed. I wasn't sure if I should actually admit to what I did on Saturday night, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

On one hand, he deserved it, he's deserved it from me for awhile now, for a variety of reasons. But on the other hand, I never really like to think of myself as a violent person, the ex who slaps. Not to mention it wasn't the time or the place or even the right motivation for it.

But the incident has decreased my emotional attachment to Tom. Not erased, just decreased, but hey it's a start.

Slowing down

So for the past 3 months and 5 days I have been doing everything humanly possible to fill up my days with STUFF to do. It didn't even really matter what, just so long as there was a plan. Granted I wasn't doing very well with that until about 2 months ago, but since then I've kept my weekends full and busy (mostly with driving down to Rochester) and my weeknights at least somewhat full.

I was doing this by going out with friends (Sybylla and Vicki, Hannah, Liisa Julie and Andy), hanging out with family, doing chores (my room has been cleaner these past 3 months than at any other time in my life I'm pretty sure), and playing with/attempting to train my new rats. While that sounds like enough to have kept me well occupied - it wasn't. So I started seeing someone (when I finally got to see Iron Man 2, that was our first date). Our first date also happened to be exactly one month after Tom broke up with me. Unfortunately, as you may have gathered via reading these posts, I was not dealing with the break up well (no shit right?).

So the rest of my "free" time, the time I had not doing the aforementioned activities, was filled up by hanging out with (dating I guess) Nathan. He is really sweet, caring, affectionate, and overall a great guy. I haven't mentioned him because I should not have been dating him. I think I started dating him both to fill up my spare time and to try to get over Tom. It didn't work. I mean I guess the busy aspect kept my mind off him for awhile, but I was not dating Nathan for the right reasons. I kind of knew it all along, but I guess I was hoping things would change.

Anyway, I ended up dating Nathan for almost 2 months. I finally realized that I was really not ready for a full-on relationship a week ago today, and ended it. Of course, soon after I realized how much I was giving up - no more cuddles, no one to boost my ego when I was feeling down, no one to fill up my empty time slots on the calendar. It was the right thing to do, I mean I was pretty much just using him to make my own life a little less depressed. But still, it's hard to let go of things that make you happy.

Point of this post is really to fess up to that. But I suppose I could also relate what's happened since Thursday.

My life is starting to slow down (hence the title of this post). Without that automatic if-I've-got-nothing-to-do-call-Nathan, I've found I have too much spare time. It's strange because it's pretty much how my life had always been prior to moving to Minneapolis. I always had tons of spare time and usually filled it up watching TV, movies, or playing around on the internet. Once I moved here, I spent about a month moving in, buying a new computer, getting used to my new job and public transportation, etc. so all of that kept me relatively busy. Then of course I was dating Tom for 5 months and 3 days. And that meant that, like Nathan only moreso, every spare second (and a lot of non-spare seconds) was spent in his company. For a month after he dumped me, I don't even know what I did other than spend copious amounts of time with my family and learning how to consume alcohol. I guess those would be the dark days when I forgot how to eat and subsequently lost 20 lbs, but I digress. Then for the past 2 months I've had Nathan.

So now, I guess I just don't know what to do with myself. On Thursday night I watched most of Season 5 of Lost. On Friday night I did nothing but laundry and played games online.

On Saturday I did get up relatively early (7am - was supposed to get up at 5) and drove over to Red Wing to meet my dad to go fishing. I caught one tiny little shad (minnow) and then we went back in ~noon to pick up mom, Sara, and Belle. Drove around on the Mississippi River on the boat, watched Belle get some air as we went over waves, and then parked out in the middle to eat lunch and throw balls for Belle to fetch. After we were done playing, she figured out how to chuck the ball in the water by herself and then leap in after it. It was pretty funny, but annoying because she couldn't pull herself back into the boat without a lot of assistance. We then drove over to a fishing spot and stayed there for awhile longer (I caught two more fish - both sheephead = non eaters but still something to do!). We eventually drove back to the dock and parted ways. I drove back home (about an hours drive) and then, yet again, nothing. Pretty sure the sun wiped me out a bit because I'm sure there was some napping involved but other than that a lot of Lost-watching and game-playing. A pretty cool storm blew through that afternoon/evening, lots of lightning but luckily no damage in my neighborhood.

On Sunday I went in to work for about an hour to dose animals with their drug and then spent the rest of the day doing NOTHING. I popped in some Gilmore Girls and watched many episodes of that while messing around online, did another small load of laundry, and ate food. Ended up staying up until 2am this morning talking to people online but seriously I'm not sure I can handle this lack of things to do.

It's making me want to go out and date someone, but that's the wrong move. It's just so much easier to make plans if you have a someone to always make plans with. I want to stay busy, to stay active (since my non-eating weight loss I've actually managed to cut out a couple more pounds via exercise, yay endorphin highs), but I'm afraid that if I have more days like yesterday I'll become the slug I was, glued to the keyboard/remote and unhappy with life but too lazy to do anything about it.

Sometimes I think I need to just find some people to date casually - no emotional commitment, just hanging out and having fun and meeting new people. Sometimes I feel like my best course is to find a job away from the cities, to move away and start fresh (then at least I have a reason for why I'm not with Tom anymore). Then at yet other times I feel like I need to find my soul mate (if such a thing exists) who will make me forget about my heartache, who will be perfectly suited to me, my life, my goals and my dreams, and everything will turn out happily ever after.

What I really should do is start planning for Colorado - figure out where we'll go and what we'll do and start packing accordingly. Apparently I need to get a new swim suit because mine are too small for me now (yay?).

I also need to start studying for the GRE and take that before my brain completely deteriorates.

So this has been a weird post, but today is a really REALLY slow work day and it's been on my mind a lot (the whole, boredom thing I was experiencing all day yesterday).

I suppose this is why I call my mind the maelstrom - you just never really know what's going to come out of the madness.

Sun!

So I admit to my failure in keeping this as updated as I'd like to. I kept thinking about updating, nearly every day for the past week, but then there was always something more interesting to do. Like watch the next episode of Lost, or burn some backup copies of my DVDs so I can send the originals home to the parents, or play with my rats, or go to a friends, etc and so on. That is what a lot of my past almost 2 weeks has been, quite the downer.

However there were a few interesting things that happened, and I'll do my best to remember them all.

So I drove Belle back down to Rochester, a pretty uneventful event, although while I was down there I did watch New Moon with my dad. After we watched it we then went to go see Eclipse. It was about what I expected it to be: completely corny but also entertaining (I just want to touch Taylor Lautner's abs... sooo pretty). Later that night we went over to my dad's friend's house (Steve) and watched them set off Wisconsin-legal fireworks. There was a toad hopping around and it actually jumped on mom's foot at one point and freaked her out - pretty funny. Stayed the night on Saturday and not sure how long it took me to get going on Sunday but eventually I did. Back to Minneapolis and then went over to Nathan's and cooked cheese dogs and wandered around outside. That was of course on the 4th of July, kind of lame but at least I saw fireworks on the 3rd.

On Wednesday that week our kickball game was at 9pm - late but it was okay. We played an awesome team who were really friendly. We ended up winning 17-5, which of course probably made the game even more fun, but at least the other team was cool about it. Jordan actually came, dressed up as the camel, so that might have contributed to our win.

Sidenote - as much as I love the Kia Soul hamster commercial, it's starting to really annoy me. DO. DAH. DIPPITY.

I finally named the rats - not sure when this happened but the gray and white one is named Luna (after Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter) and the black and white one is named Evaine (after Yvaine in Stardust). Evaine is the more active of the two - whenever I set them on my shoulders she's the one that crawls down my shirt and wanders around on my desk or clothes or wherever she can get to. Luna is the sweeter one of the two, she'll just sit on my shoulder or behind my neck. Whenever I hold her she likes to groom my fingers, licking them etc. It's so cute!

On Saturday (10th) I had to go in to work to do behavior (it takes around 4 hours). So that was my fun morning. Spent the afternoon being lazy and then that night got ready to go out to karaoke at the Cardinal. Julie was in town, Andy was running the show, but Liisa had hurt her foot and didn't want to go out. So I went to Cardi and to my intense surprise, Tom and Jen were there. This, after he told me he wasn't going to Cardi anymore. Not really sure why I'm surprised considering he's lied about almost everything else. Still waiting to learn why he actually broke up with me... don't mind my whining here! I debated going in, but decided to buck up. Went in and sat next to Julie - Tom was on her other side. Thought I could handle it, but I had one drink, watched Andy mock Jen for being a cougar and Tom for being her prey, watched Julie chatting happily with them both, and had to leave.

So I went over to Liisa's! Her dad and brother were there as well as her two married friends (as in married to each other). We had a good night chatting, drinking, doing shots of Jose Cuervo, playing guitar hero, playing with her dad's pet snake, etc. I ended up sleeping on her couch again.

Woke up on Sunday and headed home. I tasted tequila all day, but still no sign of any hangover.

Been having a slow week. On Tuesday I took my car over to get its oil changed (finally) and walked around Highland Park while it was getting done. When it was done, I drove the two blocks over to the KFC and got some delicious food. Unfortunately that led to me being up all night in front of the toilet - must have been some bad chicken.

We had a tough workload on Wednesday too, both the sarcoma and the prostate cancer groups needed behavior done but since I had gotten no sleep and wasn't feeling great I just went in for a couple of hours to do the part that I specifically needed to do and then went home and slept for the rest of the day. Our kickball game was at 6 pm and that was kind of sucky. It was the most humid day we've had so far (felt like 103 with the humidity) and our early game gave it no chance to cool down. We were playing one of the teams tied for first and we started out losing by a lot, then tying it up, then in the last inning (we were up first) we scored 3 runs and thought we had it but ended up letting them score 4 by sheer bad luck. It was okay, they were another fun team.

After I got home from work today I went out back and laid in the hammock for about 15-20 minutes in the sun. Then went inside and had an inadvertent 3 hour nap... the sun really wears me out but I love it! Tonight I was supposed to go out with Alaina and Amanda, but Alaina had other plans already (the famous Potluck of course!) and Amanda had last minute plans as well. Megan also came into the cities with Kory and we were going to go to dinner together or something but those plans faded out as well. So I guess nothing is going on for me tonight. I am hoping to go fishing sometime this weekend with dad.

Been talking to Hannah about our Colorado trip and slowly getting more and more excited about it.

Well I'm not sure how to end this post, other than to apologize for the delay in updating. Hope you all are fine and dandy!

catching up

Sorry about the delay ladies and gents, and about the silly emotional post earlier. I just can't help myself sometimes :P

So a lot has happened since that last Friday. I'm not sure what else happened at work, but afterwards I drove down to Rochester, my phone dying on the way down and me forgetting the charger for it in Minneapolis. Anyway, I arrived just in time to go to the mall in Rochester with my sisters, Megan's boyfriend Kory, and my cousin Emma. Wandered around in there, managed to get some pants, jeans, and a shirt for less than $30. Which is apparently good. Anyway, think that was all as far as Friday (the 18th) goes.

Saturday I got up and helped dad set up the tent in the backyard. Then we all headed over to Sara's best friend Emily's graduation party. Had a delicious Panera cinnamon crunch bagel there and there was a waffle bar as well. Then we headed back home and finished getting ready for Sara's party. Then the party started! It was fun and had a lot of family show up. Uncle Jeff's two labs and cousin Adam's two labs and Belle got to play outside together which was fun to watch. Also, Adam's new baby Payton was there - and yes I actually did hold her. Here's a picture of it:

And yes, I was wearing a dress, don't die of shock. After the party wound down, later that night Megan, Kory, Gramma Karen, and I all went to see Toy Story 3. It was really good and there's a distinct possibility that I cried during it.

On Sunday, I think there was some family stuff in the morning, but most of the people headed out early afternoon I think. Don't remember what else happened that day, other than eventually driving back up to Minneapolis.

On Wednesday I wasn't feeling great so I skipped kickball, which was a big mistake! That night our team lost for the first time since I joined.

On Saturday I had an awesome night. I drove over to Chaska (with some navigational difficulty) and met up with Sybylla, Vicki, and Catie at the Ruby Tuesday there. We had a good meal, with some interesting things happening that I thought only happened in movies. Afterwards we headed to Catie's house where we ate giant marshmallows and played a couple rounds of Disney Scene It with Ann and Melissa who showed up later. My team won both times (of course!) and then we started watching Mulan. Then I headed back to Minneapolis and drove through the terrifying storm. At 40th Ave, where I usually turn to go around the block to end up on the right side of the street, I inadvertently drove through a lake, with water up to my headlights. That wasn't too good for my car, and made my check engine light go on. Well that didn't stop my night! I went out to see Andy and Julie at the Cardinal afterwards and came soooooo close to singing karaoke. Well, not really, but I can pretend.

On Sunday I drove down to Rochester again to pick up Belle. Mom and dad were going to Wisconsin for a week on vacation and Sara didn't want to watch her so I offered to take care of her for the week. Drove down, watched TV and ate food, and then drove back with a crazy dog in the backseat. Walked her over to the dog park, let her run around like crazy, watched her swim in the river, and walked her back and she still had tons of energy to spare.

On Monday after work I played out back with Belle for awhile and then drove her over to Hannah's. All three of us walked around Lake Harriet, and Belle's energy was again tiring. Went back to Hannah's and hung out for awhile but then headed home. That was the last time at Hannah's apartment, she moved out on the 30th.

On Tuesday I fulfilled the movie-like part of Saturday's occurrence.

Wednesday was an insane day at work. We had two big groups of animals to do behavior on and basically went in early, had a short lunch, and got out late. It sucked! Anyway, after that I headed over to parts unknown to pick up my new babies! I got two new baby rats (6 weeks old) from a breeder I found on craigslist. Here's a pic of the cuties:

I haven't named them yet - I keep having trouble coming up with good names. The options I've thought of are: Elphaba and Glinda (from Wicked), Sabrial and Lirael (from the Abhorsen trilogy), Kahlan (Sword of Truth series), River and Summer (like from Firefly), Luna and Ginevra (Ginny - from Harry Potter), and a few others I can't even remember at this point. Right now I'm torn between the Wicked duo and the Harry Potter duo.

Anyway, they're adorable, but that's not the point! The point is Wednesday.

So after that I got ready for kickball and took Belle to the park for an hour beforehand (we had a late game - started ~9m). Went to kickball and unfortunately we lost. Their pitcher was crazy, throwing really fast pitches (rolls?) and doing tricky spin moves and curve balls etc. It was insane. I did manage to get an RBI but our team still lost 4-6. At least we didn't get skunked! But the team was in a somber mood for sure.

On Thursday I got a surprise visit from a friend and we went to go see The Last Airbender in 3D at MoA. It was kind of cool but very cheesy and they packed too much into it. It made me want to go back and watch the TV series. I seriously want to know why they changed the pronunciation of some of the characters' names in the movie. Wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be but it was entertaining.

Today was a bit less exciting than the rest of the week. Still waking up ridiculously early (thanks to Belle) and actually went into work early (7 am - kind of sick). Worked, went home, and started laundry. Was supposed to go out, but as usual plans went awry so I spent the evening doing tons of laundry, watching a lot of LOST (I'm on Season 3), and playing with Belle and the babies. They are currently sleeping so cutely, all curled around each other. Still can't decide on names for them though.

Well I think that's going to be it for tonight. Tomorrow I'm heading back to Rochester to take Belle home and hang with the fam yet again.

Now though I think it's time for bed.