As an ex-Marketing Director, I appreciate the brand extension of a product line just like the next guy - but "Garlic" Triscuits are PLAIN WRONG. I thought I was eating a clove. Sick, just plain sick about it.
Ok - you can resume what you were doing now.

A few brief images (which are probably gonna slow down the loading of this page - sorry) and thoughts from the weekend:

• You took a piece of my tattered heart back to NYC with you - I fucking adore your smile, your honesty and your vunerability
  
• What a COMPLETE treat - ALDO (So talented - damn - i hope I didnt freak you out) and Scott & Jay (Beautiful Bears with honey pots to tempt!)
  
• Chicago boys are different - they are better - they love you for who you are - they don't ask what you do, or what you drive, or who you know - they just walk up and say : "Your fucking cute - ya wanna FUCK ??"
  
• There really is something awesome of being part of that "brotherhood", a big group of guys who look out for you, love you, respect you and treat you like blood, even when your not.
  
• It really is an awesome feeling meeting other bloggers face-to-face and finally really knowing them.
  
• I loved the hotel, downtown, Boystown, room service, the weather - but NOTHING beats waking up next to my dog in the morning.
  
• I think I'm ready to start loving myself again
  
• This is something special - that you BETTER check out
  

OK - and now a few picks:

interesting.

Leo Horoscope for August 15th, from Free Will Astrology


My acquaintance Renata is a sculptor who creates animals from marble and limestone. She likes to say that her art consists of liberating the figures that are buried inside the stone. She doesn't build a statue, then, as much as she carves away the stuff that's obscuring it. I recommend that you borrow Renata's approach, Leo. The thing you love and need and deserve already exists, whole and complete. All you have to do is eliminate the inessential elements that are keeping it unavailable to you.


Anyone got a chisel and a hammer I could use ??

update:

I laid low today - very low (think Anne Frank & the attic), but I did alot of thinking and when the Ex came by to drop of the dog - I said my goodbyes - I stood my ground that I can only move forward and couldn't do so processing all the "coulds" and "shoulds" of where I/ He/ We went wrong.

I cried in front of him - sobbed in his arms - but they were tears for me - not him, and it didnt give him power over me to see me this way. I'm not sure where we'll proceed from here - no matter how painful it was - I offered him Baby - to help sever that last tie - he asked me to hold on that decision for now til I'm thinking clearly. I know that he still cares for me as deeply as I care for him - and I can see the hurt in his every action. Getting my distance - letting the healing start - isn't telling him I don't love him, it's telling him I love us both.

So - the 32nd year and it's pains and it's sadness have ended - 33 has begun - and bathed in emotion - I proceed forward feeling somehow cleansed and more alert. I have changes to make - my home, my life, my job, my friends, my spirit - maybe one maybe all - but the cogs of change are in motion - I will stop looking over my shoulder to see what I'm leaving behind...

thank you for the wishes and the words and the love today.

...so here it is the big 33. Uh, doesn't feel like much of a change - if anything I guess my biggest hope for it is it offers me a smoother ride than the last three years did - I would give up the volume of meteorotic highs if if would dull down the amount of devastating lows I had to experience.

A poorly timed hour long call with the "X" - while I was at work wrapping up my day - who hasn't spoken to me for 3 weeks - sent be spiralling down a staircase of despair, regret, sadness and heartbreak last night. Could I possibly want him back - could I possibly believe 2.5 months into this that maybe I/He/We had made a mistake. Did I really pull the trigger - or does it matter if he loaded the gun and handed it to me ? How it stung to hear him admit the words it was over - did he ever even try to get me back? And how it stung worse when he said after 2.5 months that he was already seeing someone. But I should feel comforted that it wasnt going well and no one liked the new guy and he still loved me. And how I know that I still love him and how did I believe that I wasn't partly still in love with him.

It was the worst of the three breakdowns/crying fits/whatever since the breakup - it was the darkest, most dangerous and scariest - like the first time your alone in a house as a young boy. I couldnt call anyone - I thought about asking someone to get over immediate before something terrible happened - but I rode it out like a herion junkie through his first days of recovery - locked in a padded room as he bounces of the walls - the human pinball machine with gears made of emotions. I read everyone of his cards - 14 in 3 years including the post-breakup ("I will always be your best friend, I will always love you") card and holiday cards, two of the cards came at the same time - so over 3 years I averaged one card every 3 months - a quarterly thing like a "bonus". Funny - I thought love was more like a salary - the stuff you lived on to get by. I'm being petty and I know he would be angry and see this as thus - but come on - it's symbolic of something more. Could you build the greatest skyscraper your ever saw on the Chicago skyline - if you wanted to just stop in now and then and work on it ?? Could you tend to the most beautiful garden - rows of gardienia, irises, lilies, snapdragons - you had ever seen - if you chose to water it on "just the holidays" or when you were drunk ?? Could you maintin a lover - no matter how much he loved you and prayed it would be forever if you never found time among your hobbies and personal interests and work and home to have him feel he was loved and part of your life too ?? But since it was apparently me who uttered the break-up words - I was the one who gave up, didnt work hard enough and didnt believe in forever...I was to blame.

I hate this - there is no win - either way I am without the person I love, who I called my best friend, who I wished to be my forever...and now I judge my whole life against this failure. I rethink the past years and the lows and what part I played in them, my head swims trying to figure out for how much I am to blame - how high do I really set the bar ?? How much do I really demand in return ??

And it sucks - at 33 - on this day - to have it begin this way...

...setback.
never really makes much sense does it where love comes from and where it goes.
I met a wonderful man this weekend who acted - actually that's not fair, genuinely behaved as if - the world revolved around me and made me feel safe...then my ex calls and i fall apart........

I'm back and want to post about everything and (cough-cough) everyone (and NAMES will be mentioned, PICTURES were taken and PEOPLE will be exposed - or was it that I exposed myself to people, denied my name and begged them to take pictures)...edging off of a really hellish "black tuesday" that showed up on monday - leaving Chicago - a place I just feel more at home and honestly a little more appreciated...was amazingly depressing. Oh well. Will catch up on the details later tonight.