Notes from the Red Bird House

I like her. I like her a lot actually. There was a time when I wasn't sure, a time when she liked me more than I liked her, a time when I wasn't sure I was going to like her enough. Then all that changed. I'm not sure when it happened for me. When I started liking her, I mean really liking her. I didn't, then I did. That's about as good as I can describe it. I seem to remember looking at her and seeing her differently. All in one quick moment, just like that. Hmm... Wow... Yes. That's how it was. Now I struggle. I like her more and more. And more and more. Does she like me more and more? I really don't know. Certainly not like I do. Certainly not with the abandon that I do. She is guarded, closed-off, walled. Truth be told, it's a bigger deal for her than it is for me. I like girls, have for quite awhile now. Liking girls is all new territory for her. And it's huge. For a straight or bisexual woman, deciding that she might want to be in a relationshi...

I'm fighting the ADD tonight, so if you're expecting a clear train of thought you might want to stop right now. This is as good as it gets - ten little random statements made as I kill time trying to decide what to do with my night. 1. A year ago I was trying like hell to get over someone I'd never even been under. How stupid is that? 2. They say that hangover severity can be lessened by drinking light colored alcohol. That doesn't do much to explain my day long hangover on Monday. Unless we focus on the one shot of Jager (it was just one, right?) that I mixed in with all the light colored rum. 3. Pizza rolls are better if you let them sit for ten minutes after they come out of the oven. 4. Crickets sound really cool on a warm December night. As do wind chimes on a rainy morning. 5. Maybe if we had You Tube and MSNBC two thousand years ago, we'd actually know what Jesus said and be able to call bullshit on the train wreck that is modern Christianity. 6. Sometimes I ...

Because a friend is having a time and she loves the Top Ten lists... Here's one for today. As always in no particular order... 1. Being happy right where you are is pretty cool. Even when you can think of other places you'd really rather be. 2. When your best friend moves farther away from you than you moved from her, you'll try not to think how long it might be before you see her again. 3. A son's broken leg + no sleep + a shopping trip to the Meijer pharmacy = a bottle of wine. And a wish that you could be there to enjoy it with her. 4. The love of your life coming to your old home town for the first time in years AFTER you've moved away will make you more pissed than disappointed. 5. Cooking with ADD may mean scraping almost burnt chicken and noodles off the bottom of a pan. Luckily, they're pretty good almost burnt and crispy. 6. You'll be happy that you're happy with what you have when your ex-girlfriend who broke up with you because she didn't ...

At first I was pissed. Dumbass. Dumbass. I'd left my rum at a friend's house (again) and it was a veritable night off. A perfect night for a drink, I think. Except... I forgot the rum (again). Then I happened to think about why I left the rum behind yesterday. In the throws of my first massive hangover in nearly ten months, rum was the last thing I wanted to think about. The headache and nausea finally subsided enough sometime shortly before 4pm and I was finally able to pull myself out of bed. As I shut her apartment door behind me, there was absolutely no thought of rum. Ugh... No thank you. Hair of the dog? More than no. Fuck no. Today is, of course, a brand new day. And being twenty-four hours past my first massive hangover in ten months, I'm ready for a drink. It's Tuesday and I don't work until 8am tomorrow. That's reason to celebrate. Well, at the very least it's a reason to drink. It doesn't take much to convince me to drink these days. Sad and b...

She was beautiful last night. And I was lucky. For a brief moment, she was mine (and I was hers). Then I had to pretend she wasn't. I drank myself into oblivion over wanting her. It's easier to just be when I'm drunk. Otherwise I analyze and analyze. And incidentally, I push her away. I hope she accepts this part of me; accepts that I need to know. That I can't live with murky. That I can't live with mixed messages. Tell me and I'll believe you. Do and I'll know. It's very simple. I hate walls. Hers, not mine. I don't have them. My walls are down and all the gates and doors and windows are wide open. I'm ready. I want and I'm not afraid of having. She has walls, very much like a lot of the others. When we started she didn't seem to, then like a lot of the others, they grew and grew. I think it's me, something I bring out in them. I give them fear. Some say I'm too intense; I'm too clear about what I want. I am clear. I do know...

I'm an analyzer and because of this fact I am completely and utterly unable to go with the flow. I'm going to analyze it. I'm gonna have to. It's what I do. I analyze. Everything. Including the flow. Which of course will then preclude going with it. Because you can't go with it and analyze it. It's impossible. Sometimes I wish I could just go with it. Go with the flow and let things come as they come. This would come and that would come. I'd either like it or I wouldn't. I suppose if I didn't like it, I could change the flow. And if I like it, I guess I'd just keep going with it. I imagine that's how most people live life. Not me. I'm not sure when I became this person. Maybe I've always been this way. I think and think and think. And then I think some more. When I'm done thinking, I start analyzing and analyzing and analyzing. I have an insatiable need to understand. Everything. Literally everything around me. So I think and an...

There are quite a few things in this world that I'm good at. Writing is one. Tennis is another. I can also hold my own with basic algebra and shoot a pretty consistent free throw. As with most people, I imagine, I spend time doing the things I do well and avoid the things I don't do so well. It's all about ego protection. Why put ourselves in a position to show the world how awful we are at something? For example, I suck at golf. Thus, I rarely golf. I suck at video games. Thus I rarely play video games. I suck at two-stepping. Thus I rarely two-step. Of course there are a few things that I'm not very good at but I really enjoy doing - hockey and pool are at the top of the list. Dating would also fall into that category. I think. The jury might still be out on that one. I suck at it. That's pretty much written in stone; I'm trying to decide if I like it enough to keep doing it even though I'm horrible at it. Many will tell you that I'm a good girlfriend....

I guess I wish I had one. It's all that's missing from my life. Maybe that's why I try so hard. Too hard. It's difficult wanting something you can't buy, something completely intangible. Something you will know when you feel it, but not a moment before. I wonder if I'll ever like the holidays again. Holidays mean home. I don't have one so I don't have the other. I like to say that New Year's is my holiday. It's about new beginnings and a new year (well, obviously). I like that. I don't usually have all that much hope as the year goes on but each moment, each year, that passes brings new possibility. Maybe this will be the moment, the year, I find it. Home. Highly unlikely, but possible. Christmas is next week. One more Christmas I won't celebrate. That makes too many. I like to say I don't celebrate because it's not my holiday. This is true; it's not my holiday. I am non-Christian. I think I would be this way with or without a...

I remember where I was, where she was, where we were. The moment I knew. Knew what? That there was a possibility. That there was potential. Truthfully, I'd never noticed before. Four months of seeing her daily or almost daily and nothing. Then, something. That day. Right over there. I can see the spot from where I stand. That day she looked up and met my eyes and I recognized something I'd never seen before. Potential. It was a short lived realization, or so I thought. A mere five or six hours later I learned she had a girlfriend. Once again my timing was impeccable. Well, shit... I remember thinking as it dawned on me that they were together. How in the Hell did I miss that? I must have been partially blind and mostly oblivious. In any case, there went that idea. Until I got a text message only moments after innocently exchanging numbers. She was interested on some level and I was apparently in the game. On some level. I'm certainly not about stealing someone's girlfri...

I've learned that I can only handle so much frustration. Right now is not good, not good at all. I'm overwhelmed. My usually easy-going-it's-whatever personality is being pushed to the limit. I am financially, personally, sexually, physically, professionally, and geographically frustrated. Add to that my dead computer? Yeah, that's why the hair had to go today. I just couldn't take one more morning of bed-head or another really long, stray gray hair (to be thankfully plucked by one of my cashiers) or the way it didn't lay right over my ears or the way it bugged the ever-loving crap out of me on a daily basis. Yes, I do recall the "hair pulling" discussion from a few weeks back. That's all well and good, however I am no longer in a position to be in that position with any regularity. Therefore the hair had to go. Today. Now with GI Jane starring back at me in the mirror, I feel ever so slightly less frustrated. If only I could come into some money, ...