Show Me That Smile Again

Okay, feeling better today, at least about moving. I saw the house last night and it’s pretty adorable.

My closet is actually the staircase to the attic, which is the kind of cool room a kid on an 80’s sitcom would have and I love it. There is a sunroom for all my plants, a giant bathtub, new windows and a track nearby. Plus, the area is eerily nice for South City… Jason and I decided our neighborhood should always have a man with a top-hat and a cane dancing down the street. However, Nick and Dan told me my car will still be broken into at least once.

~~~*~~~

On Sunday, RØB had a party/concert in his garage. Squid Paynis and his band The Climax performed, as well as Sebastian Clarke & Normandie Wilson, who were so lovely. I sat and cuddled/talked to my crush the whole time. People were beer-bonging Stag all night and it was fun to watch. When folks walk away from the Squidbong it looks like they just got off of a ride at Six Flags – soaking wet and laughing and clapping.

RØB still lives next door to like 200 kids (the ones who hula hooped with us last year) and they kept wandering over to the party at the most inappropriate times. I shot a video of when they rolled up just after the boys finished filling up the Squidbong. Here’s Sebastian doing damage control:

(They spent the whole day breaking things and climbing on the roof and stuff, so I don’t think anything we did could have fazed them.)

I didn’t end up hanging out with Ian on Sunday, but I wasn’t surprised and I haven’t seen the dude in about four years; I can wait a little longer. I had fun with the person I was with. Normandie gave me her bathrobe for some reason. Awesome night.

~~~*~~~

On Monday, we all hung out on Justin’s roof again. The theme of the night was Special People, with episodes of Punky Brewster, Reading Rainbow, Degrassi and Saved By The Bell. The feature film was a childhood favorite of mine, The Boy Who Could Fly. Chilly night. More snuggling. Loft exploring. Happy dance.

Tuesday I watched some True Blood with Jen and iPhone Zombie Ron. Love them.

Found out people in my family are sick again. Multiple people. Possibly permanently. Back to my second home at the hospital. I’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t even surprise me anymore. So, obviously not happy news but not as devastated as I should be. After the past year, it’s become the norm. I toldja something would put a damper on the happy parts… I can always feel this coming.

OH and this didn’t happen to me, but Janet and Courtney went to Twin Peaks Fest! They went to all the places from the show and hung out with the giant and Lucy. How awesome is that? They are TCP All-Stars. It’s a camping festival but you can stay in the Great Northern if you’re not a camping person. DONE. I’m so going next year.

~~~*~~~

Wednesday night was totally beautiful, at least – I went to the Botanical Gardens with Jen, Ron, Nick, Jessica and Dan. Ran into Kevin’s brother Dan and his girlfriend Monica.
We listened to music and wandered around parts of the garden that I’ve never seen before. I talked to Dan a lot; that made me happy.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Towards the end of the night we just lounged around. A bat took a liking to us and just circled overhead. I curled up on a quilt, either on my back to watch the bat and the moon, or on my tummy to text with my crush. The bat flew so low it almost kissed me and we all screamed. Lightning bugs were everywhere and a fat kid in tie-dye kept dancing past us while playing a flute.

~~~*~~~

Tonight a cute boy is making me nachos. (Smile) This weekend is full of good times, too. Oh, and by the time you read this, Shortcake will have probably reached 300,000 hits? Fun stuff, for the most part. Enough that it overshadows the bad. I’m looking forward to a lot of things.

So dudes, what color should I paint my room? This is what all my stuff looks like. I’m thinking about sticking with brown, though I always liked the blueish white from my old room, too. If a great color springs to mind, please let me know! I’m stumped.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot (4)

Moving On Ugh

I’m starting to get super stressed out about moving. I can’t really afford it and I honestly don’t have the time or energy. Every time I think about it, I get a little nauseous. I know that a change of scenery will probably improve my mood (though I love this apartment a lot and will cry when I leave) and it will be nice to be that much closer to so many friends. But there are so many little things (like, where is the nearest track? Is it nice?) and huge things ($$$) to climb over in the meantime, and it’s exhausting.

Really fun and happy things are happening too, but they are the kind of things you don’t write about, or at least you shouldn’t. They’re the kind of things that are so nice that they almost scare me… like, they have to be too good to be true, or they can’t possibly last that long, or I’ll find a way to mess it up. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to enjoy stuff like that without being afraid of how it’s going to end. But again, I’ve been so worried about moving that I’ve been putting all my dumb anxiety there, and I’ve been forced to enjoy the happy stuff like a normal person I guess.

But yeah, just be warned that if I see you in person, I’ll have tons of fun stories to tell you. When I’m excited, I tend to jump up and down and clap my hands and wiggle my butt and stuff, so wear a helmet.

Feeling Ducky

Took Charlie to the park for an hour today and it was SO MUCH FUN!

Stayed up late last night hanging with a fun person. Charlie and I slept in this morning for as long as humanly possible. I think I am meeting up with IAN today which is like hanging out with a unicorn; so rare and magical.

Oh and I saw BABY DUCKS! Whee! Today is a great day.

Texts From Last Night

To sum up Gogol Bordello:

Dan: GOGOL BORDELLO HOLY SHIT

Stephie: HA, were you there?!?

Dan: True or false: everyone in that room wanted to sex

Stephie: Oh, FACT.

Charlie woke me up this morning at 6:30. I was planning on going back to bed (I WAS up all night drinking and dancing with gypsies, after all) but the fog was so thick and beautiful that I had to run. I wasn’t expecting to even hit my usual distance… but I ran 5 miles in 58 minutes! I hit my longterm goal today! Go me!

July: The Long and Winding Recap

If I’ve been in the mood to write and spill my guts this week (which I haven’t been, mostly), then I’ve either been too busy or dealing with Bacon. He’s napping right now and there are about 800 things I need to do before he wakes up, but I wanted to tell you about the funnest club ever…

TV Time Kidz™. It’s the coolest! (Sorry Drunken Intervention Fan Club – though I miss hanging with Erin in general and I consider the Allison rerun during my absense an absolute karmic payback.)

Every Monday, fellow Squid Justin projects episodes from 80’s and 90’s tv shows on his roof. Each night has a theme: Bullies, Best Friends, Crushes, Saturday Morning Cartoons, etc.

Last night’s theme was “Mistakes and Cover-Up”, so we watched Stephanie Tanner drive a car into the kitchen, Peter Brady break a vase, Ben Seaver accidentally commit a felony, Blossom almost score at a make-out party, and Doug from Doug hide a letter from his mom. Best part? The 1981 After School Special “Please Don’t Hit Me, Mom” staring Patty Duke, Sean Astin and Nancy McKeon.

You have to know the password to get buzzed onto the roof (this week’s password was “please don’t hit me mom”). He’s always offering us my favorite snacks like Flavor Ice and Handi-Snacks. His neighbor always brings her daughter, and it’s fun seeing her react to these shows for the first time. Sometimes dogs come. My favorite Squids like RØB, Bill, Charles and Karen are always there. (Kevin’s brother was there, too!) Justin is awesome.

The best part? It’s on the roof at night, so it lacks the hot/humid/gross factor of most summer outdoor activities. (But the second this cold July heats back up, I may have to beg Erin and her AC to take me back.) Also, the view is unbelievable:

(You can see downtown and part of the Arch, too, but that’s my favorite part. That and the blimp that flew overhead during the Homerun Derby).

Other stuff I’ve been doing:

• Yelling “NO!” at Bacon
• Running 5 miles at least 4 times a week. I ran it in 1:03:00 last week – certainly not the most impressive, but something I never thought I’d be able to do. Going for under an hour this weekend
• Hitting Month 3 as a non-smoker
• Gushing over pictures of Klarissa (to be posted later – she has the most hair you will ever see on a baby)
• Procrastinating writing about Kevin’s wedding (let the record show that it always takes about a month for me to write about the best stuff)
• Losing 5 more pounds – only [redacted] pounds to go!
• Surviving the Fourth (I think I summed it up all right in comments a few entries ago)
• Attending a viewing of my favorite movie The Room in an awesome TOP SECRET location
• Drinks with new awesome pals Karen and Justin at good old Weber’s
• Getting ready to move (*sniffle*) to the city (hooray!)
• Totally crushing
• Questionably rocking out to the Counting Crows at the Riverfront with friends for Jason’s 30th birthday
• Watching a homeless guy pee his pants on the Arch Steps to the tune of “Mr. Jones”
• Taking Bacon to the park for the first time. What a pussy. He saw a duck and literally leapt into my arms
• Well, if it isn’t HAAAAR-RY POT-TAH! This is the fourth Harry Potter installment that I’ve seen with Jen, Ron and the gang. I thought it was super cute
• Enjoying the freezing weather that we’ve been blessed with this month. That’s right, BLESSED. Screw hot weather. It’s so windy and chilly, I can actually go to the Botanical Gardens for Wednesday Jazz and drink wine without feeling like I’m going to faint
• Seeing GOGOL BORDELLO – one of my favorite bands ever – TOMORROW NIGHT! AGH! This will mean that I’ve now seen my top five favorite living bands in person; AWESOME

AAANNNNDD that’s it for now. Cool stufff to come, but I will be very busy with puppies and moving. Or running away with Eugene Hütz HOPEFULLY.

Meet My New Roommate

How To Fix A Mewd

BECOME AN AUNT.

That’s right, Aunt Stephie. Little Miss Klarissa is 5 lbs – pretty remarkable for being a month early (I was a month early. I like this chick already).

I called my Grandma and said, “Well hello, Great-Grandma Tassallo.” She cracked up and said, “I know, what the hell, right?” I like that chick too.

I finally got my camera cord back, so soon I can post a big-ass happy update about my life. I’ll give you one right now, though: Jason got a puppy. A red daschund. He’s long and red. So Jason named him Bacon.

Bacon picked up pneumonia at the Humane Society, so he’s been a sleepy, snotty mess for a week or two. Makes me love him more cuz he does this:

Heeee!!! Bacon kisses my face nonstop and gets SUPER pissed when Charlie is in my lap, but he seems to prefer black men over everyone else (and who doesn’t, really). I say this because he’s been humping Jaron’s arms and legs NONSTOP since he came over, and… um… we neutered Bacon last week? And he hasn’t humped anything since he came home? (It’s understandable; Jaron is a model so Jason and I sort of want to hump him, too. The man is gorgeous.)

I can kind of relate to Bacon though, because I have a crush! An actual one! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a real crush??? I had to spill that but that’s all you get to know. More later!

I’m In A Mewd …

… where I don’t want to tell anyone anything.*

I’ve recently come out of this phase where people I trusted hurt me a lot. (And I know I keep using annoying cryptic language, but these were very important people to me and the things they did were too personal and effed up to whine about here. More importantly, I don’t want my friends to think that I’ll just blog my ass off about them whenever I get pissed. I save that for the worst people, and only when I’m PMSing.)

I don’t want these people in my life anymore. And I’m afraid to let new people in, or let the current ones come any closer. So I feel completely in limbo in terms of what I want to share.

I don’t want to share good news and fun stuff with the people I’ve cut out of my life. I don’t want the friends who are still there to know about the sad and depressing stuff. There’s been a lot of both.

I mean, I don’t have a main group of friends. My family is busy taking care of each other. My 2 besties have their own things to worry about. Single, surprise! I’m a high plains drifter, basically (minus the rape and murder). Every conversation I have lately makes me feel like I should be doing something, or seeing someone, or… I don’t know. I get resentful sometimes. I feel like wandering around for a while, gathering stories and experiences and seeing what I can make out of them before I share it.

OH! And I’ve been working 10-hour days for the past 2 weeks? Plus this week? NOT in the mood to write when I get home.

But there are happy things I’ll write about when I feel better, which could be tomorrow for all I know: Kevin and Monica’s reception, a puppy, a big move, an almost-here baby (not mine), new hobbies, running, a road trip, the BEST CLUB EVER, new friends, fun secrets I’ll enjoy alluding to and more.

Sad stuff? Basically the usual and the aforementioned banished folks. Not worth getting into. I think that’s why I’m in such an anti-writing mood… when my mind is on the happy stuff and work calms down, I’ll get back to spilling my guts.

I realize this is pretty much the last entry I wrote, only without pictures. Well, DEAL. Until next week: see you on Twitter.

*So naturally, I post it here for all to read, right? Combined with a massive explanation? It’s 3 am, you guys. It makes perfect sense to me.

Okay, I Lied Again

I was closer the first time. It took til the 6th to feel better.

Still working 10-12 hour days and running 5 miles, so I don’t know when I’ll be home enough to write (and it is 1am now; just got done watching Stee’s Weeds episode and it was perfect!). Just know that fun things have happened, just happened, and will be happening (ROAD TRIP) and I will get to all of it soon.

I still want to be bitter towards some out of principle but it is more fun to banish people and get back to the party, right? I’m sure I’ll be whining about something else by next week and will have to surprise myself all over again. I sort of love me for that.