Yay!

I am back, literally, in the saddle again. And I am so damn happy about that! Yesterday, Meagan came over and traded bikes with Steve, and I got out my Rapid Cycle (long story....at a later date) and cleaned the chain, basically got it road ready again. I rode it back from airing up the tires and it was was just 6 blocks or so, but it felt so good. Today, on the couch, I mentioned that it felt so good to be on the bike again. Steve, to my complete surprise, asked if I wanted to go on a ride with him.

We started out just riding the side streets in the neighborhood. Then we went to the bike path on Lake Shore. I've never been on the bike path, and I loved it so completely. There was a cool breeze from the lake, we stopped and watched the dogs at the dog beach, ran into Sean Harklerode on his bike and talked for a bit.

I can feel it. I can feel it in my hands, elbows, legs. Back, neck, all of it. I can feel the physical memory of healing myself after Mike, when I would hop on that bike and ride for miles and miles, just me and the pavement and Bitch and Animal in my CD player. Just me and the wind.

It was really wonderful to share that with Steve today. It was riding for pleasure, not for grief therapy.

Blisters and the feeling of shit

Grrrr. Pounding pavement downtown hoping to walk away that nasty feeling of being a schmuck.

It had been almost 4 years since I've filled out in-depth job info and tax papers, and even then, someone was there to assist me, at least with the tax papers. Cause you fill those out once you get a job.

Temp agencies don't wait. They get all your info right away.

I was hungry. That was my fault. I should have eaten something. My sugar was crashing and I was making the woman next to me look at me as my stomach was growling, filling out those damn papers.

I got the dates wrong on where I lived in the last ten years. The dates wrong on the last three jobs I've had. Completely FORGOT one job, and it was the last one I had before the institute. Scratch marks all over the damn place and not knowing any phone numbers to places I've worked. Or fax numbers. Or even how much I made an hour.

SO my complete lack of memory will most likely make me look like a liar and not someone to hire. Awesome.

And it's been so long since I've worked as a server that I don't think a restaurant would take me.

Went to the social security office twice today, once without the paperwork I needed and once right after they closed. My feet have blisters and I'm just all shades of pissy. Just pissy.

I just wish I could do today over again, at least the beginning parts of it. urg.

urg part 315

Okay, so it was for canvassing, which in itself is awesome, but not for me. And the hours were from 2 pm to 10 pm, which means I couldn't help with Shakes.

Two big blahs in one conversation.

But the biggest blah came from a phone call to Good Mamaw. I called to let her know that Olivia came back from the doctor and the visit went well and they would know the results on Monday, and I woke her up. I could barely understand her, but she sounded really bad and said that she wasn't feeling well. Mom took her to the hospital (I couldn't understand when) and they gave her IV fluids.

She hasn't been doing well lately at all, but every time I've seen her she seems okay. But I'm not there for the day to day sick spells and she's always been one to put on a happy face, regardless of what's been going on. I'm calling mom to get more information.

Filling out the apps

So I go in tonight at 7 to fill out an application for Environment Illinois to apply for a job working to help stop global warming. I have no idea what sort of job it would be, if I would be standing outside talking to people (I really hope not!) or working in an office to help organize......no clue. But I'm excited. I'm really excited! I hope the hours are during the day for the most part, because of rehearsals.

I am really excited. I'm going to check it out tonight and hit the temp agency downtown on Friday. Hopefully between the two I can find something that pays well and, more importantly, helps me with my career. I don't know that downtown office jobs will help with the career, other than give me great skills in the office, but I already got those from the law firm. And god knows that didn't do anything to better the world. Or my self-image for that matter.

I'm really excited! I really hope this is something that works out. I would love to get paid to make a difference. And having a summer internship with an environmental agency looks great on a resume.

Look at me, being all professional and shit. Getting excited about working at a non-profit to help create change.

Would I have envisioned this a few years ago? Maybe, but not likely. Let's see how it goes!

Changing times

When I was 16, I started finding grey hairs. I freaked. I completely freaked out that I would be one of those people who grayed prematurely and would be in my early 20's, completely grey. Then, the hairs stopped coming in white.

Every once in awhile, I would find one here and there. It always bothered me, up until I was about 26 or so. Then, I decided that I would be one of the few, the ones who wore my wrinkles and grey hairs proudly, because it's a sign that I have lived. I earned each white hair and each wrinkle, and I would be damned if I paid someone to "wash that grey right out of my hair" or plump up my face with paralyzing chemicals.

The grey hairs stopped coming in.

The wrinkles, especially my laugh lines, have become a bit deeper, but nothing major. It's upon really close examination that I can see the crows feet around my eyes, unless I'm smiling. They don't bother me.

This morning, I found three grey hairs in one area of my head.

And the realization came that this was the time in life where those things started coming in regularly.

And for a split second, I panicked. It was a very short, very intense panic. Not because of vanity. Not because of some feeling that I had to look a certain way to be appealing to society at large.

It was a glimps of my own mortality.

In fact, I love grey hair. I love it in my friends, in my parents, and most of all, in Steve. It proves that we are adults and we have lived. There are so many times when I forget that I've lived. It sounds funny, but I do.

And now I have proof. I have three strands to prove it. And they'll just keep coming in.

And that eternal feeling that I've still got my high school body is gone. It was the final realization that I needed. I've known that my belly is not the size it used to be, and it took me awhile to be okay with that. And it only looked that way because of intense, daily conditioning in a gym and playing multiple sports daily. But deep down in my mind I thought I still looked like I used to.

This is a very nice reminder that my body has caught up with my mind and is changing, growing and becoming older.

I remember being 10 and thinking that 30 was so old. I mean, my mom was 31 at that time, and that was just OLD. Being 30 meant you had babies, you had a husband, a job, a house and no more fun. I never thought someone could be 30 and still have fun, or friends, or anything but responsibility. I'm glad that is wrong.

I'll be 38 when Olivia turns 15. I'll be OLD to her. Because at 15, everything over 25 is OLD.

But I still feel like a kid in so many ways, and I think the majority of our friends feel the same way. Moments where I know I'm an adult, getting married being a huge one, feel odd to me. Is this how we are supposed to feel? Does my mamaw still feel like a teenager sometimes? Do my parents? Do my friends feel the same? Or is this some kind of arrested development and some part of my brain is refusing to feel my age? But what should someone feel when feeling their age? Pains in the morning? Stiff joints not due to some injury? I don't even know that I will feel more like an adult when we have a child, considering children make me feel all the more young when I'm around them.

Or maybe it's the day to day caring for them that makes you feel your age.

These are all things that someone needs to write a book about. Maybe me. I can't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

Maybe, when I start to think this way, I should remember this very important piece of information.......there is nothing quite as fun as running through a sprinkler when you are young. But you know you are old when you would much rather wander through a sprinkler. Mosey. Stroll. Because running is reserved for when you are being chased. With a knife. In a dark alley. Because otherwise, your joints ache. And you left the Ben-Gay at home.

Color me surprised

So I really am kinda surprised. I got my 4.0 for this semester.

I have no idea just how I pulled it off. No clue. It was hell, but I guess I got more of what I was being taught than I thought.

I just know I will NEVER go through another semester like this again. It was hell.

But the payoff is awesome. I'm married and have my 3rd 4.0 semester.

Killing time

So I went to the Container Store today to get some magazine holders and shelves for the dining room and started organizing all my school books and papers and such.

I found a notebook.

I found the big yellow notebook I used for my poetry class in the fall of 1998 at Ball State. It was set up to be a journal. We had to write every day, and make observations about things that we saw in our every day lives.

Some were funny. A two page description of Cheerios.

Some were written when I was stoned or drunk. Some I can barely read.

Some had my short term girlfriend's writing in them.

But most were so dark. They were dripping with deep sorrow and pain. Pain that I had never felt up until that time. Looking back, I can't help but feel sorrow for that girl who would lock herself in her apartment and cry all day long. The girl who would try to lose herself in television shows because they made her forget just what she felt.

I will never downplay the pain and sorrow that was there. My first 'real' relationship ended, my grandfathers were losing the battle with life, and I was still struggling with grief from some deaths I hadn't dealt with. A girl that I met for a brief time killed herself three days after I met her. I compared her to myself, feeling superior because I kicked all of my bad habits and she hadn't. I felt sorry for her but superior. I tried to ignore her because I saw myself in her pain and obvious cries for help. I thought, "I got through it, so will she." I had changed myself in the year prior to those entries, but I was still a far cry from who I wanted to be.

But I'm glad I can reread those entries and remember who that girl was, and stand up and look at the woman I have become. These are the reasons I would never change anything in my past. They led me to who I am.

I was a very dark, depressed person for so long.

And those journal entries, full of angst and pain, were written mere months before the real damage was done. The last journal entry was written in the beginning of December. The end of that same month the world would start to fall apart.

There is a part of me that wants to go back and warn that girl of what was to come. And show her a picture of me now, to let her know it would all be alright. But I had to live it. And I'm so glad I had to write about it for my poetry class. Those kinds of records are priceless.

I almost burned all my things from Ball State when I left. I wanted to completely start over, and felt like those things were weighing me down. But I didn't burn my notebooks. The things that held all the evidence of that life.

And I'm so glad I have them now. It makes me realize just how strong I am, how strong my family is.

I truly thank the drugs, Hillarie, Tanya from the coffee shop, the spider in my bathroom and all that occured during those times. It makes great writing material. And it serves as a wonderful reminder that things do get better. Things do change. Things can turn around and become what they need to be.

Grief will never leave me. As long as I am alive those that I love will pass on. It's a fact that most of us don't ever want to think about. But the important thing is for those of us still living to remember that we are living. It's something that, many times, is lost in our day to day schedules.

I feel like reading those entries breathed life into me again. I took those years and turned them into something wonderful....a past that I am content to leave behind but juicy enough to make good conversations out of.

I remember being that girl. Sitting in that dark, basement apartment with Patty on one side and Ethel on the other, writing and listening to Tori or Mazzy or Sarah and crying, hoping that it would all just go away. Not eating because I would get sick if I did. Shaving my head in an attempt to feel free. It seems like another lifetime ago. Yet it is still so close in my mind.

I remember very little from the end of 1996 to the end of 1997, and then from 1999 to about 2001. The first was due to too many drugs and too much alcohol. The latter from too many deaths and too much violation. But I feel it is my responsibility, as an adult, to remember as much as I can.

I feel like an adult. For the first time in that way. Sure, I felt like one when I got married. When I moved in with Steve. When I lived by myself for the first time in Chicago. But going back and facing demons that have barely been buried, and being able to see them for what they were--learning experiences--makes me feel a bit more grown up. My emotional side has caught up with my physical and mental side.....and I feel like an adult.

I finally, truly feel that I have something to offer. I've lived many lives in this one, and damnit, I am finally okay with all of them.

Thank god for organizing the dining room. It's amazing the things you find when you are clearing garbage out. And the once garbage that becomes just the jewel you are looking for.

Again?

Sp I got out of the shower and heard her voice. She said my name again. I haven't heard it in years.

Just a simple, almost pleading "Tory". That's it.

But most of the time, it's all I need.

OH OH OH!!

I just got my first issue of "The Nation" today! I am SO excited! This will be my easy summer reading.....political articles about everything imaginable!

I am SO stoked! Yes, I just said "stoked".

No More Grey's Anatomy

I never got into the story line, but with shows that are centered around hospitals, it's not too hard to follow an episode. Here it goes:

There is some sort of accident.
Someone is really hurt.
Someone has died.
Someone dies on the table.
They save a baby, maybe not.
The doctors go home and eat dinner, contemplating the day.
Credits roll.

I just finished watching an awesome Desperate Housewives (yes, I am an addict) and it made me sad and a bit contemplative myself. Then I take a shower. Of course, I'm serenaded by the Nigerians who are at it again. Dry off, climb on the couch, pet Kitten and watch the last half hour or so of Grey's Anatomy.

I just don't think I can do it. Now, maybe it's the fact that I'm just about to start and my emotions are all over the place. Maybe it's the fact that I'm married, for two weeks today, and have seen my husband a total of three days since the wedding and I really miss him. Maybe it's the fact that when a mother and father watch their child die, are asked for forgiveness by the man who caused the accident, and see the premature baby that was saved in an incubator, I cry.

All I know is, I am finally almost out of the woods with dry, winter skin.....and crying does nothing but create these horrible little red dots of dryness on my face that only vaseline can fix, and I threw out the damn vaseline during a cleaning spree.

That, and the fact that I'm sitting at the computer at 10:17 at night, alone, sad and knowing that I can't go to sleep right away.

I just want things to be good. Just good. For everyone. And seeing the misfortune of total strangers doesn't make me feel better about my life. Hospital shows are too real. Regardless of the drama between the actors, the scenes of death are too real. They happen every 20 minutes. Hell, maybe less. I just don't know that there is a Wisteria Lane. Maybe there is, but I don't see the blood. Those that bite it generally deserve it. In TV land, of course.

I guess my fascination with death only applies when I'm in the mood for it. And tonight, I really wasn't.

But I'm trying to focus on tomorrow. Big final tomorrow. But the sadness won't leave, no matter how much U.S. politics I study tonight. In fact, that almost makes it worse.

The thing that keeps me going is the fact that Bush's approval rating is in the low 30's. That makes me a bit happier.



It's a sad, sad time when talking about Bush makes me perk up a bit.

I can't wait until Steve gets home. I just really miss him.

Why?

Okay, I try so hard to be accepting of everyone. I really do. I mean, it's going to be my career for the love of god, but every weekend, I feel myself hating a certain group of people. I hate the Nigerians who hang out in the Nigerian Kitchen every weekend.

They start up around 8ish or so, and scream, yell, throw things and have their bass cranked up (sometimes to the point of being audible with the windows closed, fan on and earplugs in) until about 2 in the morning. Sometimes until 4. Steve and I have had to call the cops on them multiple times. Once, because they threw a table out the window, lauching glass and wood near or on the parked cars right outside. Last night, because they had some sort of children's party that started just before 8, and from 10 until about 12:30, children were screaming outside. Screaming. Not playing. Screaming. I had to turn my TV up twice so I could hear what I was watching. And I had no windows open on that side of the apartment.

Just a few minutes ago, people were leaving the restaurant, yelling and screaming at each other. Now, perhaps it is a cultural thing for them to speak ridiculously loud. I really try to accept that. But that damn place gives us no peace. I found myself holding myself back from going up to the window and screaming, "Shut the fuck up! You scream all night, you scream all day. SHUT THE FUCK UP!" But I didn't.

A few years ago, I was guilty of having the cops called on me every once in awhile for noise violations. It was usually the annual Camenae fundraiser and maybe one party here and there that we threw. We always shut up after the cops came. We realized that we were being rude and disruptive. And we shut up. I swear, they have someone on guard, watching for cop cars to drive by. The cops never stop in to tell them to shut up, not that I've seen anyway. About five minutes after they pass by, the music is cranked, someone is screaming and the night continues on.

We moved in across from a restaurant, not a night club. But every weekend it's the same thing....insane noise, followed by a call to the cops, silence, then more insane noise.

I hate that I hate them. I really do. I don't enjoy hating anyone or anything. But there is only so much I can take of these assholes piercing the night with their screams and crashes. They block traffic, leave the street and sidewalks a mess, and just generally make life hell on the weekends.

I hate them. I can only hope a food inspector drops by and closes the place down.

I made it

It was a long, painful journey. I slipped a few times, had a wrestling match with a dust bunny or two, but made it out alive.

And the room looks so damn fine.

There are no words.

But now I'm going to go boil myself.

Feel like I need it a bit.......

I'm going in....

This may be the last post I ever, well, post.

I love you all, but I have to do it.

I have to clean this goddamn office. And I may not make it out alive. I may obtain wounds no one can see. I may lose a limb. I may not come out of this damn room for a full day.

But I've had it.

It's done.

I can bear this absolute filth and clutter no more.

And just looking around, I'm getting scared. Really scared. I think Hoffa is in here somewhere. I know our Christmas tree is. Right next to Steve's old computer. On the floor.

You were all so good to me. I love you all. *sniff* This isn't a goodbye. This is "I'll see you on the other side"......THE OTHER SIDE OF A DAMN CLEAN ROOM!

I can procrastinate no longer. Nope. Not any longer. Not procrastinating as we speak. Nope, not me. Got my mind on the mission. Yep. Here I go.

Look at me go. Wow. Going and going.....still going.

Alright. Must. Do. This.

*for those of you who have never seen the office, you have no idea of the horrors of which I speak. For those that do, pray for me.

Damnit

I guess I really am a Geary now.

I just had steak for lunch/dinner.

I had an intense craving in class, grabbed the hubby and went to Weber Grill.

Yes. Yes, I am a Geary.

But I still wrestle with the old Tory guilt about eating meat. And that sucks.

The Let Down

So there is always a moment, right after stress is lifted, where I feel like I could sleep for days and days, and am fighting off a cold or some other sickness.

I've had a bit of both, and I was completely expecting it.

We have been married for 8 days. That is so crazy to me. Eight days. Another moment where it feels so much longer and so much shorter. But that has been my life for the last, oh, year and 8 days, so I'm getting a bit used to it.

A lot of things changed during the wedding weekend. We shared the day with Ericka and Guy, who spent their one year anniversary at the wedding. Our friends Andy and Leslie decided to try it again while at the ceremony/reception. My friend lost her virginity that morning. It was my friend Carri's birthday. It was the day before my friend Wendy's wedding anniversary. And I married my best friend. It was a magical day for a lot of people I know, and that makes it even more special for me.

There are moments when it just doesn't seem real. Really real. Of course, as soon as we got back from our mini-honeymoon, I dove right back into school and work, agreed to shoot a short film with my friend Alex and started cleaning and organizing. One of the wonderful changes we've both felt since the wedding is a new found pride in being with each other and our home. We want to make it a home and keep it clean and organized, as much as our crazy schedules will allow. I did the living room, our bathroom and will hopefully hit the office sometime in the next day or so. Steve's been working constantly, but he's been really good about keeping up what I've done, and I know if he were here he would be helping as well. But we have time.

It's just so weird to be Mrs. Geary. That is the weird thing. There is no part of me that feels like I gave up my identity by taking his last name, and I'm keeping my last name as a middle name. And once I've done all the paperwork to change it, I'm sure it will seem more real.

Right now, I'm just kinda floating on this cloud of newlywed. It's a wonderful feeling. We are back to where we were before all the stress, and actually better. It's deeper. It's more adult feeling. It's official and legal. It's wonderful.

This has to be the happiest moment of my life. Steve said something today that really got to me in a wonderful way. He said, "I am so proud to be your husband. I'm more proud of that than anything else I've done in my entire life. And I'm being completely serious." It's just so wonderful to know that all I give, I get back, and vice versa.

I just love him. And my life. And being a wife. And all of it. Yay me, damnit!!!