Jenkies!

I love Jenkins. I feel like him and I are very much the same. We both have moles by our mouths, we're both very dramatic and creative, we have the same sorts of issues. I just love him.

Our conversations today consisted of these little gems:

Jenkins, "It's my life goal to suck his dick."

Me, "Your LIFE goal?! How many 'life goals' do you have?"

Jenkins, said very matter-of-factly, "Seven."

Jackie Kennedy/Marilyn Monroe

I love first kisses. I love that moment when you look at the other person and you just KNOW it's going to happen. Jenkins and I were talking about it the other day and I just can't see a new First Kiss happening for me anytime soon.
As per my 4-year plan, I KNOW that romance isn't playing any part in my life right now. I'm NOT looking for anyone -- which is the reason I can't see it happening. I'm not available. I'm not available to you or to any of your friends. I'm just not.

The recent conversations with my friends have made me think about men -- or, in my case, the sudden decline of men in my life. What is it about men that is causing me to miss their presence? I like being around men, I like smelling them (provided they smell good), I like TALKING to them. I love it when they do things with their hands and have deep voices.

I also like to be feminine and I like to flirt. No, correction -- I LOVE to flirt. I flirt like a f*ckin' CHAMP. For some reason, instead of being scared or nervous (like how I WANT to be), something takes over me -- I'm pretty sure it's the spirit of Marilyn Monroe. I become funnier than usual and witty. My lips gets softer, my hair shines brighter and my smile?? The way my MOUTH reacts to an attractive man embarrasses me.
But not in the moment. It's only later, when I replay it over in my head do I get embarrassed. Then I tell myself that I'm not going to do it again -- that it's embarrassing and just wrong. So wrong.
Is that how Jackie Kennedy would act?!

And does that stop me next time? No, it sure doesn't.

Constance compared me to Jackie Kennedy one day and it made me so happy. Jackie Kennedy Onassis is the epitome of class. She stood by her husband, even though he had many affairs -- Jackie O. would not have divorced her husband like I am. She didn't put him on blast or cause drama. AND she's still looked up to as a fashion icon. To be compared to Jackie Kennedy is one of the best compliments that I've ever received.
When I flirt the way I do, it's NOT very Jackie Kennedy of me AT ALL.
My mom said, "you are going to come through [this divorce] with grace and dignity and with pride in yourself." THAT is Jackie Kennedy. The way I act around attractive men is pure Marilyn Monroe.

I really enjoy these two different sides of myself though. I'm unpredictable, even to myself at times. I can be Jackie Kennedy all day and then have these brief flashes where I'm someone else -- someone sexy in an obvious way: Marilyn.

Couponing.

I have been couponing lately.

It really gets to a point where I am just seeing how much I can save. I get a rush, seeing my I don't buy things I don't need because I don't have the money for that. BUT if I find a good deal, I try my best to take advantage of it.

What people don't understand is that even if I have 50-something coupons for something, it's NOT abusing the systems. Those coupons were meant to be used. The company budgeted for each one of the those coupons to be used. AND they are not all being used -- there are many coupons that go unused.

I have a lot of receipts from the last week and I couldn't find them all. Still, counting the ones I found, I've saved $166 AND received $22 from Walmart.
I got 48 free cans of Seattles Best coffee, 68 packs of dental floss for free, BIC hybrid razors (triple blade!) for $1.99 each, Reach toothbrushes for .36 cents each, and 6 bottles of V8 Fusion juices for $1 each.
At the grocery store, HEB, they gave me a catalina coupon for $1.00 off any HEB product so I ended up getting two free HEB sodas.
I got three Almay mascaras, one Almay eyeliner, some dark Almay bronzer blush and Almay concealer -- all for free.

I really feel like I'm rocking this couponing. I don't like to buy massive amounts of stuff I don't need. I got all the dental flosses because I made money for each one of them -- I didn't actually spend my money on them.

I feel like I'm winning. haha!

someone like you

how often will he continue to be on my mind and how much more often will I have to fight the urge to call him?
does it ever stop or does it just get easier to deal with?

immaturity

I can admit that I am not the most mature person in the world. I'm not the most immature BUT I have my moments.
First of all, I am emotional. That might go hand-in-hand with the fact that I am a girl OR that I'm a Gemini OR that I was coddled too much as a child -- who knows? I just am emotional sometimes. I don't throw fits or cry in front of people but when I get 'emotional', I just want to lay, not eat, and listen to sad music. It's helps that 856 out of 903 of the songs on my iTunes are perfect for my 'emotional' moments.
I can't even, in good faith, call them emotional "outbursts" because they are not explosive. I can't call them 'breakdowns' because I don't sink into a bottomless hole of nothingness, like I imagine happens in a "breakdown". I've had outbursts and breakdowns but what I experience on a fairly regular basis now is emotional moments.
In these moments, I am very vulnerable. It's like a gate opens and I just let it all out. I don't like to get this way though.

I also have my CRAZY moments. My friend, Bee, and I jokingly say we're going to "unleash the crazy" -- we joke about it, although we both know there have been real moments when we're concerned for our own sanity. I LOVE that she knows exactly what I'm talking about though because we've been through the same things kind of. I look to her for assurances that it WILL be okay because she's already done it.

Today Constance used me as an example of strength, an example of someone who is told they can't do it -- someone who has dreams and WILL accomplish them. It made me happy and I'm not worried at all that she's wrong because I know I will accomplish them. I will because I have no other choice. What else is there?

The broken parts of my heart won't always be this way. My heart is broken though and I haven't felt this way in a long time. I am trying to look at it positively. My heart feels this way, it could feel worse but at least I know this will only make the stronger. And stronger and stronger. I hope.

James Vincent McMorrow is a genius -- a poet.... :



If this is redemption, why do I bother at all
There's nothing to mention, and nothing has changed
Still I'd rather be working at something, than praying for the rain
So I wander on, till someone else is saved

I moved to the coast, under a mountain
Swam in the ocean, slept on my own
At dawn I would watch the sun cut ribbons through the bay
I'd remember all the things my mother wrote

That we don't eat until your father's at the table
We don't drink until the devil's turned to dust
Never once has any man I've met been able to love
So if I were you, I'd have a little trust

Two thousand years, I've been in that water
Two thousand years, sunk like a stone
Desperately reaching for nets
That the fishermen have thrown
Trying to find, a little bit of hope

Me, I was holding all of my secrets, soft and hid
Pages were folded, then there was nothing at all
So if in the future I might need myself a savior
I'll remember what was written on that wall

That we don't eat until your father's at the table
We don't drink until the devil's turned to dust
Never once has any man I've met been able to love
So if I were you, I'd have a little trust

Am I an honest man and true
Have I been good to you at all
Oh I'm so tired of playing these games
We'd just be running down
The same old lines, the same old stories of
Breathless trains and, worn down glories
Houses burning, worlds that turn on their own

So we don't eat until your father's at the table
We don't drink until the devil's turned to dust
Never once has any man I've met been able to love
So if I were you my friend, I'd learn to have just a little bit of trust

I added the lyrics because I just love the whole song and I think people should read them.
THIS and 'A Man/Me/Then Jim' by Rilo Kiley are my theme songs lately.

I'm in a Pablo kind of mood.

I'm feeling so random lately. I can't keep my thoughts or feelings straight. 

It's not unhappiness though. It's just random.

I've scheduled my classes for the fall semester of college.

I'm taking a stars and galaxy astronomy class and government 2 (plus two other classes).
I love my government classes so I'm hoping I like this teacher.

There is NOTHING more exciting to me than my astronomy class.

I've been feeling pretty lately -- and that's nice.

In the beginning of 'cien sonetos de amor', Pablo's dedication to Matilde says,

"But--with great humility-- I made these sonnets out of wood; I gave them the sound of that opaque pure substances, and that is how they should reach your ears. Walking in forests or on beaches, along hidden lakes, in latitudes sprinkled with ashes, you and I have picked up pieces of pure bark, pieces of wood subject to the comings and goings of water and the weather. Out of such softened relics, then, with hatchet and machete and pocketknife, I built up these lumber piles of love, and with fourteen boards each I built little houses, so that your eyes, which I adore and sing to, might live in them. Now that I have declared the foundations of my love, I surrender this century to you: wooden sonnets that rise only because you gave them life."

Obviously that is just half of it -- the last half.

Even the dedication sounds like a poem.
He makes me want to be in love.

If I had to pick a kind of love, that would be it.

I'm pretty sure I won't accept anything less.

"I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now,
and you heard me from a distance, and my voice couldn't reach you.
It's as if your eyes had flown away from you, and as if
your mouth were closed because I leaned in to kiss you.

Just as all living things are filled with my soul,
you emerge from all living things filled with the soul of me.
It's as if, a butterfly in dreams, you were my soul,
and as if you were the soul's word, melancholy.

I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you'd gone away now.
And you'd become the keening, the butterfly's insistence.
And you heard me from a distance and my voice didn't reach you:
it's then that what I want is to be quiet with your silence.

It's then that what I want is to speak to your silence
in a speech as clear as lamplight, as plain as a gold ring.
You are quiet like the night, and like the night you're star-lit.
Your silences are star-like, they're a distant and a simple thing.

I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now.
as if you were dead now, and sorrowful, and distant.
A word then is sufficient, or a smile, to make me happy,
Happy that it seems so certain that you're present. "

#15 from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair <3

"we need to feel breathless with love and not collapse under it's weight..."

Today has been good. No fighting with the hubs, my kids are coming home on Friday and then my mom is coming on Monday. My mother planned her whole trip to come get my kids so they could go back home with her. Most of the time, I am the planner -- I plan everything so I'm really grateful and relieved that my mom figured this out without me.

I have decided to cut people out of my life who bring nothing but drama. I have recently discovered the absolute psycho-ness of one of my ex-friends. This person is probably one of the worst people I've ever met and the scary part is that it's hidden very very well. And the lengths this person will go for revenge is unreal so... I'm just going to drop them like a bad habit and hope that I'm not targeted next.

I had to come early from Arkansas because my uncle has serious problems. I cannot be around him anymore, nor will my kids be. It sucks because I don't know how I'm going to see my grandma now but I do know I can't subject myself or my kids to him. He's dangerous.

I can forgive some people for just about anything. Really. I am a very very forgiving person. There are approximately 3 people who I can't forgive for the way they've treated me or the people I love. My uncle is one of them. I will carry these feelings of resentment and anger towards him for the rest of my life probably. I can't let it go -- and he isn't worth my forgiveness anyway. And I'm sure he isn't sorry for anything he does. He's enabled so much, he probably thinks he acts right all the time. He's a hypocrite and a terrible person. So he, too, shall be cut from my life. Uncle who?? I don't even know -- he's practically dead to me now.

My 4th of July weekend was pretty good. I went to the beach and a casino. Mississippi is nice this time of year.
We saw a washrag in the ocean. I thought, "this ocean is DIRTY!" and then I theorized it might be from the hurricane a few years ago. There is most likely all kinds of personal property floating in the ocean now. It couldn't have been a Rolex or a diamond ring that floated up to me - no. It was a dirty washrag. Just my luck. It almost touched my leg and Constance freaked out.

It was a fun trip. I think I'm ready for summer to be over though. Let's get back to school!
I'm ready! :-)

shoes and sand

gulfport, mississippi

song of the day:

I love this song.