I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you simple, without problems or pride:
I love you this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep, it is your eyes that close.

~Omi!

I owe my LJ and myself an apology, because I want to write so badly that I can freakin' taste it, but between work and pre-vacay crap and family and weekends with my fella, it's just not happening.  I can't wait until things settle and vacation takes off so I can finally put stuff into words instead of the big, stupid, illiterate, bumbling nest of woman noise rolling around in my skull.  A sneak peek?

1)  I have now met his entire family (Mom, Dad, brother and sister-in-law, baby brother and baby sister-in-law, sister, nieces, nephews, and grandmother) if you don't include the members of the family that live in Vegas, which, by the way, is where Steve is originally from.  Whew, long sentence.  Thanks for reading.

2)  Holy crap.

3)  I won a game of pool against him!  Fair and square!

4)  His roommate's girlfriend flew in the other day, met me, and then asked Steve:  "When are you moving that girl in here?"  His very vague answer?  "Not anytime soon."  His very specific answer?  In my next entry.  =)

5)  Apparently everyone at work believes I'm pregnant.  I'm due May 21st?  It's a boy?  Brown hair, hazel eyes, future astronaut?  Yes, that's just what I need:  another immaculate freaking pregnancy to end in a glowing amoeba oozing out of my girl parts.  Appetizing, no?

6)  I need a good song to sing at karaoke because I can't go much longer resisting the microphone.

7)  Steve's six-year-old nephew opened Steve's phone, saw the picture of me on his background, and said, "Uncle Steve, that's your girlfriend!  She looks like Cristi," who is a friend of the family and is really quite pretty, "and she's beautiful, too!"  Aww.  Made my day -- but my days get made a lot lately.  =)


~Omi!

Oh dear lord.  We're officially exclusive and everybody's going to know by the end of the night.


~Omi!

Crit.  =(  Greg just replied to an e-mail I wrote him in July while he was Out To Sea (obviously we've talked since then, but he never got around to answering this e-mail in particular).  His response begins with a smile-inducing, "I was scrolling through my old Omi folder," barrels toward, "I've met the most delightful girl," and ends at, "I look forward to your umbrageous response," and a Harry Potter reference that I didn't get.  In spite of throwing in a "what may give you solace" goodwill gesture about how he won't be relationshipping with her, I was, as he predicted, in moderate dudgeon and dysphoria by the time I wrote back.

"You never call me delightful," I scoffed, because it's expected that I be upset about something.  "Just know that I love you either way, whether or not you fall for delightful commitment-free girls."  Oh hey, also know that I am jealous of your ability to find someone who isn't a huge disappointment.  "Love always," like always, "me."

I have a feeling this autumn is going to be very autumnal, to say the least.


~Omi!

I promised myself I wouldn't be censored here, that if I were angry or hurt or scared, I wouldn't hide from it.  Today I buckled Gavin into his car seat to take him to school, kissed his hair and said, "Aunt Omi is angry."

"Are you angry at my teacher?" he asked.

"Nah, I'm not angry at your teacher."

"Well, are you angry at my dad?"

"No, sweet child."  Yes, sweet child.

"Well, then who?"

"Bad drivers," I lied, tossing his lunch box in the back seat with him.  "It'll be okay."

This morning, I went to Laura and Jack's house to pick him up and found Jack and Gavin waiting outside.  Gavin stayed still long enough for me to put his jacket on him, and then went barreling up and down the sidewalk at mach speed.  Jack and I watched, and Gavin came racing back to me and landed a solid headbutt on my midsection.

"Okay," I grunted.  "No more running."

"But I have to run," Gavin protested.  "I'm Sonic.  Sonic goes fast."

"Sonic needs to walk," I said, but he didn't.  He went running down the sidewalk again, and when he ran back, I grabbed a hold of him and held him at my side.  When he squirmed, I held him tighter.  "Nope," I said.  "No more.  You're staying right here with me."

"No," he whined.

"Well, you could go sit inside," I offered, knowing which one he'd pick, and I was right.  He promised not to run anymore, buried his face in my sweatshirt, and grumbled.

"That's it," Jack said.  "Inside, Gavin."

I looked up, offended.  "He doesn't have to go in."

Jack snorted.  "That's great," he said.  "Tell him he has to go inside, and then tell him he doesn't have to."

"I said he could go inside if he didn't want to stay outside and be good," I corrected, trying to be polite.  Gavin had migrated from my side to directly behind me, hiding from Jack.  Now that's not behavior you want to see in your kids.

"You told him to stop running and he ran," Jack said.  "Gavin, go sit on the couch.  Gavin.  Don't make me come over there."

Gavin, crying, went inside and sat on the couch.  I stood at the bottom of the stairs, pulled out my phone, watched the time, and less than a minute later, said, "Gavin, let's go to school."  It was five minutes earlier than I'd intended on leaving, but I wasn't going to stick around and deal with Jack anymore.  I wasn't going to start a war in front of Gavin, either.

Jack gave Gavin a stern lecture while I waited, and then he pulled the I-love-you, being-yelled-at-builds-character, someday-you'll-thank-me, can-I-have-a-hug-now maneuver, and finally sent Gavin outside, where I walked (not ran) to the car with Gavin's head leaning on my hip.  "I just wanted to run," he sniffled.  "I'm really sorry."

Right.  That's awesome parenting, Jack.  Now I understand why your stepchildren are the way they are.

You guys all know that I have issues with Gavin being parented by people outside my family.  Now I've dealt with his teacher being insensitive, and now we've all come to a happy compromise -- the sun is out, the birds are singing, etc.  But watching Jack talk to Gavin the way he does?  This has bothered me for way too long.  It bothered me earlier this week when Jack was sick and in a foul mood in the morning, couldn't find Gavin's belt, and decided Gavin was as good a scapegoat as anyone else.  When Gavin went to get a toy off the top of Jack's toolbox, I said, "Gavin, don't touch the toolbox," and before Gavin could get what he was reaching for, Jack yelled, "GAVIN. HANDS OFF," as though it was the kid's plan to somehow deface the toolbox and he'd been told a hundred times not to even go near it.

I know there are people out there who want to play the Life's Tough card, but life isn't tough -- people are.  Gavin is five.  If it is avoidable at all, he doesn't need to be exposed to someone with a short temper and teenage girl mentality, and certainly he doesn't need to live with someone like that.

Not to air someone else's grievances -- oh wait, it's my journal, I can air whatever I want -- I know that Gavin is not the only person to whom Jack speaks this way.  I know that Laura is not immune to his bursts of unwarranted anger and irritability.  And I'd thought that perhaps since I have no relationship with Jack except for the ten minutes I see him on weekdays when I pick up Gavin, he wouldn't become familiar enough to turn that bad attitude on me.  Nope, I was wrong.  Apparently, in Jack World, I've fallen under the realm of his control merely by being in his presence.

And we've seen how well Jack's kids turned out, so if he starts trying to correct me like he corrected them, I'm probably going to end up a drug-addicted, oversexed, underemployed, soulless human being who can't respect authority.  Woe is freakin' me.  What's a girl to do?


~Omi.


P.S. - Oh, snap.  Did I just bring the drama?  Oops.  =)

I guess I'm having an existential crisis that has me tearing up on the phone talking about how I've cemented my status as a future crazy cat lady.  It's not the first time I've felt this overwhelming fear.  It's just that if you go long enough without being interested in someone, you begin to wonder if you'll ever be interested in anyone again.  My great fear used to be that I would love him until I died, and then still more -- never even earning a reprieve.  Now my great fear is that I'll never love anyone that way again.

I worry because I've never had many friends.  I have a couple, and my family, but that's it.  I'm a loner, and it works for me most of the time.  I communicate better with the written word, so it makes sense that I have more pals online than in the real world.  I don't like to be touched, so it makes sense that I keep any and all dudes at an arm's length -- and yes, okay, admittedly I am very afraid of intimacy, but that makes sense, too.  The point is, there are logical reasons for my persistent loneliness.

And what's not scary about that?  I know why I'm alone, and I'm not sure I can change it -- it's not a matter of life not dealing me aces, it's a matter of me not wanting to play.  I could break the ice and throw myself into a relationship, but I would have to stop caring about who my partner is.  I can't pick people apart the way I do.  I want someone intelligent who doesn't bore me by waxing philosophical.  I want someone who is funny in a dry, sarcastic, clever, witty way -- not someone who throws out one-liners and tired clichés.  I want someone taller than me, with similar religious disinterest, a strong moral compass, and a familiarity with family.

At the same time, even the smallest thing will turn me off:  subtle grammatical errors, taste in automobiles, romantic history.  I'm trying not to care, but it's hard.  I feel like I live in a world of words, where I can pick at a sentence's imperfections, add em-dashes, semicolons and commas, shift the order of clauses, and end it exactly where and how I want it to end.  I've grown far too accustomed to having complete control over certain things that I want control over everything else, too.  I'm a nitpicking maniac who can become homicidal over a disagreement about agreements, for god's sake.  I'll never find anyone!

I'm trying to lower my standards, to horrifying little avail.  For example, a few weeks ago, I gave my number to a guy who seemed genuinely interested in me.  I didn't feel like punching him more than once during our brief meeting conversation, but then when he phoned, he spoke like a washed-up rapper on valium and used words like "chillin'" and "ill" and "boyz."  Yes, I could tell aurally that he suffixed with a 'z' instead of an 's.'  It was a disaster.  He was on probation, he was far too old for me, and he used ridiculous punnery and suggestive imagery to lure me into a romantic interlude -- excuse me, I am clearly a white bookworm with too many issues.  Why in a thousand hells would you want me anywhere near your zip code, let alone in the bed where you sleep at night, unsuspecting and mumbling sentence fragments and double negatives?  Do you know what I do to people who say "ain't?"

It wasn't my fault, however, if that was a dead-end.  After one agonizing thirty-minute phone call, he opted not to phone again.  I was relieved, but I continue lowering my standards a desperate attempt not to die alone.  The other night at work, a tall, skinny black kid asked for my number.  He was wearing a Phillies cap, of which I approved.  "World Phucking Champions," I snickered to myself, and I gave him my number.  He clarified, then inexplicably dropped a $10 bill on my counter.  He grinned.  "Oops, I dropped that," he said, and hurried out, ignoring my pleas for him to take his money back.  Do I have "PROSTITUTE" stamped on my forehead?  I am getting paid for my phone number?  I broke the bill down into dollar coins and quarters and dumped all of it into a nondescript sick children's charity jar.  For lowering my standards, I get to feel like a whore.  And do you know what I thought when it happened?  I thought, "If nothing else, this will make a great Livejournal entry."

Bring on the cats.


~Omi...

There you go, guys.  I've dropped my basket, flipped my lid, and lost my marbles.  I just tried to put on my name tag before I put on my shirt, and I'm bleeding.  Go humans go.


~Omi!

In Rehoboth Beach a couple weeks ago, where I high-fived Taylor and then dove head-first into the ocean wearing a brand new '60s style mod dress (and later laughed and dragged him into a changing room to see the consequence:  a wiggly sprig of seaweed that fell out of my cleavage) I found the answer to this Writer's Block Question!  Taylor and his boyfriend, drunk and staggering in their Speedos, were roaming the boardwalk looking for a Grotto's pizzeria.  When we found one, they were too intoxicated to read the menu or pick a pizza, so I shoo'd them off to the bathroom and ordered the white bruschetta pizza in their absence, apologizing in advance to the waiter for what I was sure would be an interesting visit.  Well, he understood, and the boys came back, putting away three slices each, and while Marc was eating, I noticed he had gotten spinach stuck in his front teeth.

It is probably important to note that I had spent the day asking Marc over and over again to please maintain some semblance of decency and decorum while we were in public.  He wanted to grope and grind and make out with Taylor -- behavior that is not offensive to me, but I felt might scar some little beach-going children for life.  And he had gotten drunk knowing that I'd have to drive us home, which was not the plan.  He'd been self-absorbed and inconsiderate and pushy (I could probably just say "drunk" and that would say enough) so I was not feeling charitable enough to tell him, "Marc, you have spinach in your teeth."

I guess I just assumed Taylor's tongue would scrape it outta there.


~Omi!

P.S. - You're welcome for the mental image.  =)

I'm sorry, Internetz!  I am sorry that I am doing a poor job of updating LJ!  I keep thinking super hard about writing, but then I decide, why shouldn't I go to the beach or visit Pennsylvania or go shopping pointlessly for pretty dresses?  Why shouldn't I go hang out with my kid and buy him crap because he's suddenly doing much better in school?  Green cards are cause for raucous celebration!

On a more serious note, Gavin's sperm donor got himself out of prison and back into the free world on the 26th of August, and I've had several heart attack-like episodes since then.  I thought I saw him in Wawa, and I grabbed the shoulder of the person beside me (thankfully it was Taylor) and tried not to pass out from overwhelming terror and rage.  I drive down to Laura's house and any car behind me that vaguely resembles a vehicle that Roy has owned or driven in the past gives me mad paranoia.  I'm pretty much poised to attack.  If and when I see him, you guys will probably hear it.  And by "it" I mean him.  And by "him" I mean his miserable dying wails.

I did go to the beach with Taylor and his new, psychotic, bipolar, gives-me-the-willies-but-has-deep-pockets boyfriend.  We ate pretty much everything in sight to try to soak up the two martinis they each had -- the sissies -- and unfortunately, the crab dip, sourdough bread, tortilla chips, white bruschetta pizza, ice cream cones, burgers, chicken fingers, fries, and hash brown casserole didn't work.  Two martinis, guys, and they were still wobbly several hours later.  Granted, they were super strong martinis, but that's no excuse to be a flimsy gay boy falling drunkenly off the boardwalk in a camouflage Speedo.

I did drive them back to PA and stay at their apartment overnight.  Then I worked the next night and hit the 24-hours-with-no-sleep mark in the morning at work, which made me a little loopy.

Work:  my boss is becoming more crazy and menopausal with each passing day, and she is one misstep from me calling HR.  This week, and last, she's scheduled me by myself on the weekends -- and that's it.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  I know that she did this because the week before, the day that she made the schedule, she told me to clock out, and then got incredibly mad when I wouldn't stay, off-the-clock, to take out the garbage that didn't even belong to me.  Hence, she cut my hours.  Yes, she's that much of a charmer -- but she has cancer, so we're not supposed to talk any smack.  Right?

Gavin continues being utterly fabulous.  I still have all the pictures from his first day at school -- do you guys want to see them?  I will post them if you do.  Holler at a sister, okay?

Oh, and the last thing:  we're planning a trip to Disney World, Orlando, in November, and Taylor (and maybe his boy) intended to tag along.  Unfortunately, in a fit of typical Taylor behavior, my dear, sweet BF4L quit his job and texted me, "I might not be able to go, seeing as how I just quit my job."  And it wasn't that I hadn't seen it coming, but as always, I'd hoped that he would look beyond his own selfish desires and do the responsible thing.  This is like the fiftieth time he's done this kind of thing to me, and I am so utterly exhausted with it.  I shouldn't even bother trying to make plans in advance with him, because he's always going to flake, and it's always going to be irrational and unreasonable when I get upset.  So, I'm done.  Who wants to share a room in Orlando with me in November?


~Omi!

I obviously can't speak for you guys, but when I was in kindergarten, we played all the time.  Yes, we learned our letters and wrote our names, but we played more than anything else.  We had half days, snack time, show and tell, and awful, messy crafts.  Kindergarten was fun. 

Clearly, it is not meant to be fun anymore.  Kindergarten days are a full-fledged, structured seven hours, complete with absurd indications of daily behavior, like cards of different colors representing the kids' behavioral statuses, and threats of trips to the principal's office.  I wasn't aware that this was how kindergarten had evolved.

Two out of the last five days, Gavin has come home with a 'blue' card, indicating that he behaved poorly at school and was one step away from getting a call home.  According to the teacher, with whom I spoke personally, he pretends to be cartoon characters and doesn't always want to do everything the class does.  I understand that if he's being stubborn, we should be notified, but those aren't the reasons that he got blue cards.  He got blue cards because he hugged a girl and "patted her bottom" the way that all his grown-ups hug him and pat his bottom, the way his grown-ups have done since he was an infant to lull him to sleep.  Okay.  Foul on us.  But instead of telling him, "That's not appropriate," and letting it go, he comes home upset because he got a blue card, and he knows that a blue card means he was bad.

School is frustrating enough for ADHD kids because they can't seem to make themselves stick to a particular regimen, and they constantly get in trouble for it.  It's extremely bad for their self-esteem.  We worried about this, as a family, when we talked about him going to school.  That's why we fought so hard to get a diagnosis before he went.

Now, we're told that the school requires written documentation from a physician stating that Gavin has ADHD.  And for what?  So his teachers will be more cooperative?  They've been told since day one, literally, before school even started, that he would be a handful because of the severity of his ADHD.  They still haven't been very cooperative.  A piece of paper is supposed to change that?  I'd love to know what they think right now -- that we made this up to cover up the fact that we're crappy guardians who raised a stubborn, bratty, dismissive child?  And that doesn't warrant any extra care because clearly it's not the teachers' fault?

I take Gavin to school in the mornings, or at least I've taken him this week because he hasn't yet started riding the bus.  Every morning he's begged me not to take him.  Today he was in tears.  "Please take me to Memom's," he sobbed.  "I miss her.  I want to go to her house 'cause I don't want to go back to school."  It took all of my willpower to resist him -- first, not to cry, and second, to pull him out of the car anyway, wipe his eyes, and take him into class.

"He'll be fine," his teaching assistant said.  "The first week, you know, they're still getting used to the schedule and going to school every day."

I rubbed the feeling of pricking tears out of my eyes.  "Yeah," I muttered.  "So am I."

Mom and I went to pick him up today at 3:15, and by 3:20, they still hadn't opened the gymnasium doors to let him out.  "Screw this," we said, and walked up to the gym to wait at the door instead of sitting in the car, killing time.  We are a family of strong offensive players.

When the door opened, a guy came out and looked at us and said, "We know you want to get your kid out of here as soon as possible, but it's really better if you wait in the car so we can send the kids out one at a time and keep an eye on them without adults going back and forth, too."

My mother snorted.  "It's really better if we could get our kid out of here at 3:15."  Then she took the car keys from me and went back to her car while I waited, steadfast, at the door.

I peered inside and there was Gavin, standing with a teacher, looking for us.  He smiled and pointed when he saw me, and I waved and said, "Hey, kiddo!"  Then his teacher leaned down, asked him something, and, to my horror, inexplicably took him away.

I waited some more, telling another teacher that I was there to pick up Gavin.  I waited while they found him, and when he came back to the door, he was in tears.  He came running out to me, and I kneeled and swooped him up, concerned and furious and emotional about his lucid expression of misery.  "They asked if you were my mommy," he said, sniffling.  "And I said... I said, "No, that's my Omi," and she made me sit back down."

My temper flared, and I checked it.  "You said I wasn't your mommy?" I clarified.

"Yeah, I said, "That's my Omi," but she made me sit down again."  Mom buckled him in, got in the car, and gave me a Look.

"But she wouldn't let you come with me because I wasn't your Mommy?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, 'cause I was waiting for you and then you were there, and Memom was there, but she made me sit down, and then you came and got me, and I love you."

So now he's in a school that keeps him from his guardians because they won't release him to anyone who isn't his mother?  I checked with Laura, and her temper flared too.  "That's why they're supposed to check the IDs," she ground out.  "There's a list of people that are allowed to pick him up.  You know, this is what worries me, that someday Roy will come to pick him up, and they won't follow procedure and check the IDs, and they'll just send him off with Roy because they'll think Gavin knows him."

And in addition to that great horrifying notion, I'm left with Gavin's bookbag in my lap, reading in his folder that he, quote, "Would not listening."  More horrifying.  Teachers who happen to be incapable of agreeing tenses.  Is this the kind of people who are teaching our kids?

Gavin also told me that during recess, he got in trouble for playing in the dirt.  He had to sit on a curb and do a time-out.  So he's not allowed to be a boy at school.  Check.  He's also not allowed to be a kid at school -- according to my discussion with his teacher, hugging is a violation of personal space and is grounds for an automatic card change.  This made me irate on two levels:  the first being that hugging is nice, kids hug, and nobody should be in trouble for hugging their friends; and the second being that ADHD kids are by their very nature tactile creatures who require, much more than others, an overwhelming amount of physical contact.  They need to be hugged and patted on the back when they do a good job.  They need to have their hands held.  They need physical displays of affection to reinforce the notion that they are loved, that they are behaving well, and that they are safe.

There is also a third reason that I'm irate about this, which I didn't know until I spoke to Laura:  apparently the teacher is allowed to hug the students, but the students are not allowed to hug each other.  Glaring contradictions in both grammar and rule enforcement -- let's hear it for Mrs. Marshall, you guys.  How about a round of applause?

Just don't give her a hand, though -- she'd probably put a blue card in it.


~Omi.

I guess Gavin turned five yesterday.  And my grandfather would have turned 84 this week.

I am just having a very emotional August.


~Omi!

I always knew that I would be the type of parent who couldn't let go, but I didn't know it could be this difficult.  I knew that when it was time to live apart from Gavin, I would have a hard time -- and I did.  We've lived under the same roof his entire life.  I've always been there for him.

Tomorrow is his first day of school, and please allow me to say without reservation that it is killing me.  For weeks, every time someone's mentioned it, I have either wanted to cry, or actually begun crying.  Suddenly it's time, and it's snuck up on you.  He turns five on Wednesday, and he'll be in school for it.  Suddenly it's time for making cupcakes for a whole classroom.  Suddenly the time you've spent and all the work you've done his entire life, teaching him manners and letters, reading him books, telling him stories -- it all gets turned over to someone new.  Suddenly he's not saying, "Omi taught me how to spell a word," he's saying, "My teacher taught me."  Who does this teacher think she is?

Yesterday was Laura's birthday and I took her and Gavin to breakfast which rapidly turned into lunch.  I asked Gavin if he liked his new teacher, whom he met the other day.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" I asked.

"A girl," Gavin said, and Laura confirmed to my great relief.

"Better be.  So do you like her?"

"Yeah, I wike her," he said, building a Teen Titans Tower with oversized Legos at the table, smiling.  "She has kids."

Laura nodded.  Confimed.

"Oh?  Boys or girls?"

"A girl," he said, all excited.  "She made a big dinner."

I looked at Laura.  "(He was playing with a little girl named Sookie in a play kitchen.  They pulled out all the play food and 'cooked' it.)"

I thought of Gilmore Girls.  "Heh, Sookie.  So, you're excited about going to school, kiddo?  You're sure you don't want to stay home forever with Aunt Omi and let me teach you everything?"

"Well," Gavin began carefully, "I do love home -- and I love you -- but I still gotta go to school."

It was like the worst break-up ever, times a million.  I can't even talk about it without crying.  I remember being horrified when I realized that he spoke in complete sentences instead of baby fragments -- now he's mastered tact and delivery.  He's only four!

In my heart area, I know that I should be proud of what I and we have accomplished with him.  I know he has been given all the tools and direction that he needs to begin a successful social and academic life.  That doesn't mean that I don't wish I had more time to give him more, because it feels like now it's over.  My turn is over.  Somebody else, so help them god, is going to teach him to read -- and I would have loved to do it, but there's never enough time.

I don't even feel like there's enough time from now until morning when I have to go with him to his first day.  I have to take a separate car because I need to be able to sit outside of his school and weep once he goes inside.  My mother refuses to go if I am going because she knows I will be the biggest heartbroken wreck in the world and it will spur her own wreckery.  I can't help it.  This is absolutely crushing me.  He's not all ours anymore.  We're handing him over to new people who will guide and nurture him, who will fundamentally influence the way the rest of his life goes.  Is that supposed to be easy?

I know dads aren't supposed to cry on their kids' first days of school, but I am about to set a new freakin' standard in paternal behavior.  It involves Dove chocolate, Kleenex, and all the pictures of Gavin under this cut here:




~Omi...

Hey, look, guys!  Pictures from the 4th of July!  I realize it is ridiculous to post them three weeks after the fact, but there are adorable photos of Rad walking and potato salad.( And more! )
~Omi!

Oh.  My.  God.

I have the hottest male counterpart on the planet.  I want to eat him alive.  I am so glad he's finally on land again -- and with pictures this time -- that I think I may die of joy.

But, all my careful months of work...  Oh, well.  When talking to someone makes you smile so hard that you cry and can't breathe, you must know that it is a Meant thing.


~Omi!

My mother just shouted into the locked bathroom door at a resistant Gavin:  "Well, if you don't have to pee, then stop holding your pee collector!  When you hold it, we think it's full!"

My heart just stopped.  Suddenly:  a whole world of possibilities beyond this computer of mine, stacked haphazardly on a cardboard storage box on a rickety tray table, squinched into my tiny, cluttered room.  Where have I been?  Where was I when this news passed by me?

Was I in Pennsylvania, speeding down winding scenic back roads while boys tipped their heads out of their windows in awe of the high moon?  Was I at work, burning my fingers on hot glass and spattering oil?  Was I at the park, crouching in the middle of the bridge over the noisy dam, fisting my hair in my hands and trying to pull everything together?  Was I at the gym?  Was I painting with Lily and Gavin?  Was I at the Philly Diner making emergency lemonade?  Suddenly, you can print out your LiveJournal?  When did this happen?!


~Omi!

Yesterday in Pennsylvania, I told Ashley, "Just a trim," and it turned into, "Oh, just go ahead and cut it all off."  Here's to spontaneity!

Pics later.


~Omi!