You know that feeling when your anxiously awaiting something in the mail? Like when you've ordered something online and you check fedex.com approximately 3452033048 times a day? Maybe I'm the only weirdo that does that. I've been like that with my email.
About a month ago, I was ready Jenni's blog, Story of My Life, and came across this post. I immediately wanted one. Here is what I submitted:
I'm Allison and my best friend is Claire. She is a tall brunette and I'm an average blonde. We both love our cats (her cat Milo is an orange tabby and my cat Princess Fiona is a black/tan Maine Coon). We've partied with Kenny Chesney on his tour bus. She recently got engaged. We love playing Name That Tune. I'm an only child, so I consider her my sister. We like wine and getting into trouble. After we graduated high school, we flew by ourselves to San Francisco for a week...and we survived. She plays the harp and I play my iPod. I'd like to give her this portrait as an engagement present, because I'm classy like that.
And here are the pictures:
And here is the final masterpiece:
I can't stop laughing. Everyone needs to drop what they're doing and go to www.freecrappyportraits.com. GO!
Staying true to myself, I had an awkward Friday night. Here's where you're supposed to act shocked.
Friday was my friend Mojo's birthday. A big group of girls went out downtown to celebrate, but in true Mojo fashion, the birthday girl finally showed up around 11:30pm. That's about the time that this carriage turns into a pumpkin. While the BFFAE and I were waiting on Mojo and the rest of the group to get there, I decided to make my way up to the bar and order some drinks for us. I'm standing at the bar, squeezed between a very large man and a very drunk woman, patiently waiting on my drinks and my change. Y'all, that drunk lady started leaning all of her weight on me, and smushes me up against the large man. Then, she starts petting my hair. No ma'am. Nice awkward way to start the evening.
Everyone finally arrives and we are all standing at the bar talking and watching the NCAA games highlights. A sketchy looking dude with chrome-plated sunglasses comes up and stands near me. I can feel him staring and I just know that he's going to try to strike up some awkward conversation. I try to ignore him. He's persistent. "Excuse me, do they serve beer here?" Really? You just asked me if they serve beer in a bar. You can't do any better than that?? I can come up with at least five cheesy pick-up lines that are better than that.
Did it hurt? [Did what hurt?] When you fell from Heaven...
Do you work for UPS? [No, why?] Because I could have sworn you were just checking out my package...
If you were a booger, I'd pick you first.
I'm no Fred Flintstone, but I can make your Bedrock.
If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me? {Thank you, B. Spears.}
Mojo decides that she wants to head to another bar. Unfortunately, it's one of the shadier bars. You know, the kind that isn't afraid to server minors with fake IDs. That kind. We run into her ex and his friends. Oh, joy. At last call, the BFFAE and I make our way to the bathroom. We see this guy that looks really familiar and we realize that we went to high school with him. He has always been on the goth side and a little socially awkward. (This is where I up my level of awkward.) We made small talk and he politely said goodbye and reached for the door to the Men's Restroom. You know when you hear words coming out of your mouth and you know they shouldn't, but you just can't stop them? That happened to me. The BFFAE told him to have a good night, and I should have said something along those lines. But I didn't. What did I say? Have a good pee.
My life is just one continuous stream of awkwardness. And there was a lot of that this weekend, specifically awkwardness in the "dating" department. I had a handful of exes pop back up. Three, to be exact.
Golf Guy: Now, I don't consider him an "ex" really, but he counts as someone that I had something with. Specific, huh? Things were going well (so I thought) back in early December and then he just fell off the face of the Earth. I decided not to pursue him because I'm sick of the chase. He knew where to find me if he was interested. Needless to say, I didn't really hear from him. He texted me his condolences on NYE about Granddaddy, which earned him some points in my book, but we hadn't really been talking since. Well, Friday night, the BFFAE and I had a slumber party. Mr. S (the BFFAE's BF) went out with Golf Guy (his BFF). I received a text from Golf Guy that night, asking how our girls' night was going. I can't say I was too surprised. I was, however, a little irritated. Dude...either you're interested or you're not. I'm too old for this game. I'm fragile. And impatient. We text-flirted for awhile, but that's basically the end of that.
BJ: Let me give you a little history about BJ since I've never mentioned him. I met BJ (his initials for the blog's sake, not his real name) the summer before 9th grade (2000) on a church retreat. It was puppy love. We spent the week holding hands, talking for hours on end, and just being generally adorable. He lived at the beach, so we didn't do the "relationship" thing, but we definitely kept in touch and had major crushes on each other. I had an AT&T calling card with 1,000 minutes on it and I used to call him and talk for hours at night. This was before the days of cell phones, free long distance, and all that jazz. I had strong feelings for him that didn't go away quickly. We talked less frequently over the years, but every time we did talk, it was like no time had passed at all. (I feel really childish writing this, but it was the closest thing I'd known to love at age 14.) My junior year of high school, I called him and asked him if he would be my prom date. I knew it was a long shot since he lived almost 5 hours away, but I thought he was so dreamy and couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather go to prom with. He said he needed to check with his parents (they were divorced so he had to make sure it was ok on all fronts). Before hanging up, he said, "I love you and I will call you tomorrow." That was the last I ever heard from him. Yes, I'm bitter about it. I ended up going to prom with my gay friend, Justin, who was the best date ever. Fast forward to 2007 when I'm living in Italy. Guess who finds me on MySpace?! BJ sent me a message and apologized for the way things had ended and I felt like I got a little closure. Then, a few months later, he defriended me on MySpace because his girlfriend didn't want him talking to me. Mature. Recently, I found him and friended him on Facebook, just to see how life was going. Ok, you caught me, I wanted to Facebook stalk him. Happy? Saturday night I got a Facebook message from BJ. I stared at the icon on my phone just trying to imagine what in the world it would say. Was it spam? Did he actually have something to talk to me about? Did his wife know he was contacting me (because yes, he got married last year)? Would his wife care? Why should she care? Why did I care? I finally opened the message and here's what it said: "Hey Girl....How about give me a call 843-***-****.....I need to get your address. I have something of yours that you gave me a long time ago and you may want it back.....BJ" I knew immediately what it was: a ring. Somehow he'd ended up with a silver ring of mine and apparently he still had it...after 11 years. I summoned up the nerve to call him that night. (I was a ball of nerves because I hadn't heard his voice in years, I didn't know what to say to him, I still harbor a little bitterness towards him, and I was afraid his wife would answer. I'm lame.) We talked for about half an hour and caught up with each other's life. He said that he'd been keeping the ring and found it last week and wanted to send it back to me in case it held any sentimental value to me. I was touched. And I do want the ring back. Want to see what he looks like?
I took this picture from his Facebook. He's married, a cop, and has an adopted 7-year-old son.
CW: CW was my first serious relationship. I met him on a church mission trip called Salkehatchie (see a theme...). We met the summer before my senior year of high school (2003) and started dating pretty much right away. Again, this was a long distance thing (another unfortunate theme in my relationships). He lived about 3ish hours away and we both had cars, so it wasn't terrible. He would come and spend the weekend at my house about every 6 weeks. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it is when you're talking about being in high school and having your boyfriend come spend the weekend with you. He was my first "real" love. He wasn't the greatest boyfriend in the world, by he was mine. He came to see me for Valentine's Day and wore a Piggly Wiggly t-shirt. Not so classy. The following summer, we we went back on the same mission trip. (It was held in his hometown again so he was a volunteer.) Four days before our 1 year anniversary, while he was less than 2 miles from the church where we spent the night, he dumped me over the phone. I was heartbroken. Couldn't function. He said he just didn't love me anymore. We continued to see each other throughout the week and I put on my brave face. It also helped that I had a lot of guy friends on the trip and they made a point to talk about how great I was and how pretty I was right in front of him and he got pretty jealous. We patched things up as far as the friendship went and ended on a better note. We talked some over the years, mostly when he would call me when he was intoxicated. I've since deleted his number from my phone, as I had no reason to call him. Fast forward to this past Sunday morning. I checked my phone when I woke up for church and I had received an inappropriate text from a number I didn't recognize. What did the text say, you ask? Well, it wasn't awful, but it was certainly creepy: "I want to f you." Say what?! I texted back and asked who it was. I was thinking it was a wrong number or a friend playing a prank or just someone creepy that I would have to block immediately. It was CW. He responded and apologized. Apparently, one of his friends had taken his phone and sent out random inappropriate texts. We briefly texted back and forth about what we were up to these days and then said our goodbyes. And I'm sure you want to see him, too, huh?
This is CW. I don't really know what to say about him.
So that was the awkwardness of my weekend. And I saw Black Swan. It was maybe the most disturbing movie I've ever seen, and I've seen some really disturbing movies. (My cousin forced me to watch Faces of Death. Google it if you dare.) I left the theater feeling really uncomfortable and anxious. And confused.
He died. Granddaddy died. And I found out via Facebook.
Let's rewind. On New Year's Eve morning, my parents decided that they were going to drive down to Alabama to be with the family and go see Granddaddy in the hospital. I wanted to go with them, but I had to babysit that night for a few hours and I wasn't feeling so stellar. My parents left in the afternoon and made their way down. I checked in throughout the day to see if they had any updates. He wasn't doing well at all. They'd found fluid in his lung and were going to try to remove it to ease his breathing. I prayed all day that he would recover and be able to ring in the new year with us. I arrived at my babysitting destination at 5:40pm. The couple was going to an early dinner and said they'd be home around 8:30pm. I called Mommy Dearest around 7:15pm to see if they'd made it to Alabama and if they had any news. I asked how Granddaddy was doing and Mommy Dearest hesitantly replied that he wasn't doing well. I texted back and forth with BFFAE about tentative plans for the night. After babysitting, I was planning on going home, changing clothes, and heading to her house. I put the little boys to bed went downstairs to the living room a few minutes before 8pm. I knew I had some time to kill before the couple got home, so I started browsing Facebook on my Blackberry. Everyone's status seemed to be about their plans for the evening and wishing everyone else a Happy New Year. Then I saw it. My cousin's wife had posted the sentence that I've been dreading my whole life, particularly this past week: Cynthina is ringing in the new year with a heavy heart. Claude (Jason's Granddaddy) passed away today. My heart sank, I burst into tears, and I almost threw up. I immediately called Mommy Dearest. She answered the phone and all I could say was, "He died, and no one told me??" As it turns out, she had called BFFAE and filled her in. The plan was for Mommy Dearest to call me once I got to BFFAE's house so that I wouldn't be alone when I got the news. Well, thanks to technology, that plan failed. My parents had been a few miles away from the hospital at 5:43pm when they got the call that Granddaddy had left us. They opted not to remove the fluid from his lung because his body couldn't take the strain and they didn't want to cause him any unnecessary suffering. I spent NYE alternating between crying, rationalizing that things happen for a reason and that he's in a better place now, being angry that I wasn't there, and trying to pack clothes for everyone to wear to the funeral. Unfortunately, my good friend Harley Chick's Grandpa had just been diagnosed with stage 4 bladder cancer and died the same day. And my Grandmother's brother that had been placed in the care of Hospice passed away at 1am on New Year's Day.
I need some time to catch my breath on this one, plus I may or may not have started crying while writing this.
I have been extremely slack with posting lately. Don't worry, you haven't missed much. I've been working and making jewelry and babysitting and trying to stay well. Daddy has bronchitis and Mommy Dearest has an upper respiratory infection. I fear that I'm coming down with a deadly combination. Stuffy head, sore throat, lots of snot, coughing, sneezing...awesomeness.
We celebrated the BFFAE's birthday on Friday. I did my best to orchestrate a get together, but a big chunk of people couldn't make it. It was lots of fun. Two of our best friends from high school days came (M.Elmo an Vron). We had about 12 in all. Of the 12, four of us wore argyle sweaters. We. Are. Old. After a very long dinner, we went to another bar to listen to a live band.
Saturday, my family trekked down to Alabama for Christmas with Daddy's side of the family. It was a slightly smaller gathering than normal...only 19 people. We have moved away from giving gifts, so it was just an afternoon of food, games, and conversation.
Sunday, we had Christmas with Mommy Dearest's side of the family. We had a huge spread for lunch. You'd have thought it was Thanksgiving all over again! There were about 27 people there. Since Mommy Dearest is the baby of 9, there are 19 years difference in age between her and her her oldest sister. My Aunt Joan (the oldest) passed away in January of 2008. She has 2 sons, one of which has a daughter a few years older than me. That being said, the other has a daughter that is 10 years old and her name is Skylar. Skylar desperately wanted to learn how to play the piano/keyboard, but had never had a single music lesson. I took it upon myself to Google some Christmas songs to teach her. Bear in mind, I have not touched a piano since I quit lessons in the 7th grade. I "relearned" how to read sheet music so that I could teach her some basic Christmas songs. I numbered her fingers, and wrote down a string of numbers for her to play. That was much easier than trying to teach her how to read music. She successfully learned "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls." Sweet kid.
I have way too much to do and literally no time in which to do it. I haven't wrapped a single gift, and I'm still waiting for some to arrive via UPS. Nothing like waiting until the last minute...
Daddy is having knee and ankle surgery on Thursday. Yes, that would be December 23, two days before Christmas. Thanks. I will be spending my Christmas vacation playing nurse, all while trying to relax and not catch "the crud." I wonder how successful I will be...
The BFFAE and Mr. S flew out this morning, bound for Mexico for the holidays. Bon Voyage!
A special thanks to S.E.Dubs for bringing me coffee and a muffin this morning. That's probably the only reason I am still (barely) awake.
I'll post pictures and more stories later. Right now, I'm trying extremely hard to not fall asleep on my keyboard. Eyelids...heavy...
Let me just start this off my saying that I have an unhealthy obsession with this song. I've listened to it on repeat basically all day. I just think it's beautiful, and I love the video. So, enjoy.
Now, moving on to the real reason you're here...to hear about my weekend. I know you're dying to know how the birthday festivities went, so I'll tell you. They were pretty awesome. Friday (Birthday Eve), the BFFAE planned a dinner with friends. It was a great group, and I felt like the coolest kid in town. After dinner, we went bar-hopping downtown. The group quickly dwindled because most everyone there had to work the next day. (I'm very glad that I don't work on Saturdays anymore). I spent the rest of the night with the BFFAE, BFFAE's BF Mr. S, and BFFAE's BF's BFF Golf Guy. BFFAE was trying to set me up with Golf Guy, and I was cool with that. He seems like a great guy and we'd had some pretty great conversations via text and Facebook before we actually met. Apparently, I'm more appealing through the interwebs, because he seems disinterested since Friday night. Clearly, this is the story of my life. (I saw him Monday night at Name That Tune and he just seemed distant. His loss, right?)
These good lookin' people are my friends.
Mr. S, Moi, and Golf Guy. (This was taken with my Blackberry because Mr. S accidentally dropped and broke my digital camera. Sad day.)
I love my BFFAE.
Saturday night, I went to SK's annual Halloween party. I was dressed in all of my Gaga glory. It was a good time. I got to hang out with some good friends and look silly. Winning combination.
This is not my Poker Face.
SK is a hot witch.
Gaga with MT (biker chick). Gotta love self portrait shots.
I got mostly dolla dolla bills for my birthday, so needless to say, the cash is burning a hole in my pocketbook. No seriously, I smell smoke. I've pretty much decided that I'm going to buy an iPad. My cousin can get me a slight discount, so I think I'm gonna do it. My palms itch just thinking about it.
I talked to Little today and I'm getting so excited about her wedding. October 1, 2011! I cried when I saw her in her dress. Tears of joy rolling down my face while I was sitting at my desk, pretending to work. I couldn't be any happier for her!
Warm snuggle hugs,
A
PS- What do you think of my new blog look? Do you like it???
