Random List for Idle Thoughts:

• If I were Louie I'd lick your face (shit - I wouldn't stop there, but it's a start) til you smiled again
  
• How will I come off to you and you this weekend: Stud, Dork, or Friend.
  
• How much it sucked seeing the 'X' today.
  
• Veered from the anger and sadness and marched my ass to the gym.
  
• Haven't let my gym trips control me before this trip - if they like me, they like all of me including the love handles
  
• You have become a true and very cherished friend.
  
• The house has this uneasiness, this melancholy - without Baby here.
  
• I've laid out all the clothes, yet still yet to pack - something about this trip has that "bigger-than-it-is" feeling - like an epiphany or something is awaiting me in Chicago
  
• I am very, very excited to see the "L-Train", "Blue Eyes" and my whore-ish "Brother/Sister" this weekend...it will feel so good to be with these old friends again.
  
• I gotta get packing - sorry...think warm thoughts of yourself, someone should besides just me.

"The Great Dog Exchange" occurs tonight with the 'X'.

It hasn't for 2 weeks sinced he's been on back-to-back weekend vacations and Baby has been with me the whole time. For me this has been pure delight - waking in the middle of the night to find her pressed against me, having her to come home to, playing soccer in the back yard - it's weird, but I guess she's where all of my love was redirected to after the break-up. For the most part since the break-up Baby has been with me - I think this will only be the second time I will have gone an entire week without seeing her. Luckily I planned my Chicago weekend with this in mind and it makes it easier to be without my dog knowing I will be out of town for 4 of those 7 days anyway.

I'm pretty much sick to my stomach and have been since yesterday at the thought of seeing the 'X', we last spoke 2 weeks ago and since he has asked that we cut ties all together while he works through his anger and grieving - it makes it all the more uncomfortable to have to spend even a second, face-to-face with him today.

I honestly feel on the verge of throwing up.

It's these moments you just think - was it all worth it - was three years worth all of this bull-shit. I have to admit I'll turn a cold eye at any future relationships - I'm just wiped out with opening up a vein, a heart, my mind, my bed, (my ass), my wallet, my home, my family's home, my history, my circle of friends, whatever...

It's one of the things I hate about having come out so young (12)...I have had "many" boyfriends (though I have only 'loved' two) - not because I can't keep a relationship, but imagine if the majority (21 YEARS!!!) of your dating experience occurred between your teens and your twenties - OF COURSE you would have had a lot of boyfriends. So I have placed my heart on the blacksmiths anvil again and again, and again, and the marks of the scalding, burning, disfiguring, branding iron have left so many tracks, burns, scars and marks, that sometimes it's hard to find what's left of my heart.

...but somehow the fucker is always there
- beating lightly, but strong and steady - my whole damn life.

So I'll look at the 'X' today and despite any feeling, any hatred and any sensation that rifles through my body and mind - I still love him and a part of that heart will beat for and because of him.

....hmmm, this Chicago trip is shaping up interestingly....never really 'fearful' of traveling alone, especially in a city where I already call so many people friends...but with the wide collection of events and wide range of interests I want to hit circuit parties, leather bars, the regular bars, some downtown sites and time with friends from both Milwaukee and Chicago - I was a little worried that not everything will come together. And there's nothing worse then standing alone at a circuit party thinking, um, uh If the drugs kick in I guess I'll have the guts to just get lost in the crowd and make friends...but friends, old and new, seem to be pouring out of the woodwork and it looks like I'll have time alone and not alone.

See what happens when you mention out loud how bad you need to get laid.

Not In This Life

Lately I've been walking all alone through the wind and through the rain,
been walking through the streets and finding sweet relief in knowing it won't be that long,
Lately it's occured to me that I've had enough of that and lately I've been satisfied by simple things like breathing in and out.

Never again, not in this life, will I be taken twice.
Never again no, never on your life, will I make the same mistake.
I can't make it twice.

Oh lately it's occured to me exactly what went wrong.
I realized I comprimised.
I sacrificed far too much far too long.

Never again, not in this life, will I be taken twice.
Never again, not on your life, will I make the same mistake twice.
Starting out from here today, swear I'm gonna change my ways.
Once mistaken in this life - but never twice...

Never again, not in this life, will I be taken twice will I be taken twice.
Never again, not on your life , will I make the same mistake .
Never again, never on your life, will I make the smame mistake,
I can't make it twice.
Starting out from here today....

FROM: Ms Natalie Merchant

ALBUM: Motherland, Track 11.

SONG: Not In This Life

Don't worry if you scroll the dirty pics are still there....

...surreal weekend.

Running into a lot of faces from the not-so-distant past, not-so-distant future, soon to be shelved friendships and some being dusted off and put back on the shelf. It's odd how far reaching this break-up has been in my life - what people have attempted to take advantage of it, what people have offered more than they've asked and what people just can't be trusted. Sometimes you fell the person questioning and you can feel them leading - they want 'dirt', they crave 'gossip' - pulling, yanking, fucking with your emotional condition hoping to get something juicy to discuss over breakfast in the morning.

I saw "him" last night - not the 'Ex', the one I never talk about, the one who for some reason made my heart skip when I was in love with another man - the one who set the wheels in motion - how unhappy I had become in the relationship. I felt stupid - but glad that I had put extra thought and care in to what I was wearing - I had wanted to look good last night - sexy - but not sleazy, Intelligent but not unapproachable - did he get the nerd glasses with the wife-beater - the 'conflict' I was suggesting to my nature. Maybe an outfit shouldn't such deep-meaning, eh?

My younger companion - all of 20 - made it confusing to him - had I taken a younger lover to replace my 'Ex' ?? Maybe he didn't wonder at all. He hemmed and hawed - I made him nervous, he shifted from foot-to-foot...why is he boyish fear of me all the more compelling - but there was no time to find out and the bar was swimming with people and the 20 year old really wanted to be where everyone else was going - the one place - I knew I didn't and couldn't be...this single thing was becoming complicated...the 'date' from the other night would be there and so would the friend who I adored - who wants more from me, and now has laid it on the line to speak my mind on what that means to me - my cornered answer not being what he wanted to hear - my decision unsound - but based firmly in the unshakeable feeling that I'm just not ready - embarrassingly uneasy.

Once I was free from that first bar and I had convinced the 20 year old to go to Amsterdam and Boom instead - some of the tension moved away. He's a good kid and I think I'll probably take him under the wing and protect him in my paternal way, I tried to make it clear from the get go what this is - and what this is not. More familiar, strange and strangely familiar faces at Boom.

I drank, I bumped, I dropped - how did I used to be able to do this 3 nights in a row ??

I didnt even waste time going through the body concious crisis of image and just pulled of the shirts and looped them through my belt loops and created my world on the dance floor nestled between people I had known for 14 years and 14 minutes...I lost myself there til 4am, and declined the after-hour invitations, "But Everyones Going..." "You have to go - you can't go home yet?" "Here I'll drive with you"....No, No, and No thank you.

I just wanted to be with my dog, on my bed lying next to each other - the sound of her breath lazily spilling out as her black fur, her little body rises than falls...

It felt so unreal and then real last night - my old life, the relationship, the group of friends, the gym at 530pm, dinner at 7pm, then 'Everybody Loves Raymond' (his show, not mine) by 930pm, the structure of my days and the pattern of my nights, the sense of familiarity, normalcy and security - are all gone...

I fell sleeping into a small corner of my bed, almost taking up no room at all ...the bed neatly made this morning with ease - and excluding the space taken up by my dog - back to mine - curled in a ball at the small of my back...'his' side (in a bed he's never slept) remained unfilled - a reminder to the fact that I am still slowly moving on.