30 DEC 2003 - 10.44p
just enjoying some ice cream before bed. i had a decent day... tony stopped over after work, which was great. i must learn to not be so paranoid all the time. it's just hard... the relationship has had more than its share of ups and downs... it's hard not to think back on what happened four months ago or what happened four weeks ago. i have to look at what i have now (a boyfriend who is more than willing to bend over backwards for me not because he HAS to, but because he WANTS to... and someone that i want to do the exact same thing for...) and remember that i am so lucky. i mean, who wouldn't want someone to sing stevie nicks to the horse and mule and dog at dinnertime? tony's the best at that... and at a lot of other things.

enough mush. i should eat more ice cream and then go to bed. i'm really anxious to get my lotion gloves on. wooooo!

30 DEC 2003 - 10.03a
i don't know if this is queer or not... but i started sleeping with these lotion gloves to help my super dry hands. i love how soft my hands feel in the morning. i want to wear my gloves around the clock.

i watched old school with tony last night. i did not like it. mainly because there was no plot. i didn't think it was very funny. i liked office space better (and if you remember, i didn't really like office space). but i'm not here to talk about movies.

lacey's new year's eve party is sure to be a success... it sounds like she's really put a great effort into decorating. tony and i are still not sure what we're going to do for the prom theme. hmmm.

and now for my best of 2003 list. or something.

best show goes to guided by voices at the lime spider, june 27. okay, okay... so it was my birthday, and it was one of my favorite bands and i was wished a happy birthday by the band... but putting all of those factors aside, this was the best gbv show we were treated to all year, i think. good setlist, good crowd, and a fight. what more could a fan ask for?

best album is definitely radiohead hail to the thief. how many more times could i listen to this on repeat?

best show we weren't expecting to be so rocking goes to ash at the beachland ballroom. that show completely ruled. one of my favorites, definitely.

best show that i don't remember stephen malkmus and the jicks, beachland ballroom. i puked in tony's car on the way home, in case you forgot.

i don't want to write anything else right now. maybe i'll add more later.

29 DEC 2003 - 9.17a
tony and i went to see mystic river on saturday night. i'm not big on reviewing films, so if you want to know what people think about it, look in your newspaper or something. i will state the facts, though... sean penn, tim robbins, and kevin bacon are in the film. i didn't really know that before the movie started. i recognized sean penn and tim robbins immediately... i could recognize the third guy's face, but i didn't know who he was. when the credits rolled after the film, i saw kevin bacon's name was third... and i thought to myself, "OH! so that's kevin bacon." i'm really that film ignorant... i didn't even know who kevin bacon is.

i didn't tell that story as well as it could have been told.

26 DEC 2003 - 5.36p
i am exhausted. i just had to load a lot of hay into the new truck... i came home and unloaded about half of it and walked it back to the barn. the other half is going to have to live in the garage for the time being. if anybody wants to help me move hay and bagged shavings from the garage to the barn this weekend, please let me know. it is SO much fun, i swear.

i received an email from donal logue yesterday morning. if you don't know who donal logue is, you suck. it was completely out of the blue, in response to this very website. i was definitely surprised... and i have no reason to believe the email is a fake. it sounds like mr. logue wasn't necessarily having the best of holidays (i mean, he was reading my blog on christmas eve...) so i sincerely wish things are less fucked up for him now that christmas is over.

i also wish that things become less fucked up for tony. i went to his family shindig on christmas eve... there was some weird episode involving him, his mom, and a light up christmas tree (i guess there was some weirdness before that, however). they never exchanged gifts on christmas morning which means tony missed out on some stuff he'd been looking forward to... i hope the situation is resolved as soon as possible.

i think things shaped up a bit once he got here. he and my mom exchanged gifts, which was fun. nothing like cleaning supplies to make someone's holiday brighter, you know? tony's face totally lit up when he opened the swiffer dusters. honestly. after gifts, we went to my uncle's for dinner, etc. that was great... i think we both had a good time with my cousins and stuff.

we hung around here for a bit afterwards then went to a bar so tony could collect fifty copies of his long awaited book. we met a lot of really cool people associated with the poetry book guy... everybody was so nice, very friendly... genuinely decent people. i had two drinks. i don't know how many tony had, but he was pretty drunk. woo hoo, celebration... it was quite the opposite this morning... poor hungover tony.

i have to feed lucy and henry now.

24 DEC 2003 - 1.34p
it makes me so happy that lacey was listening to wowee zowee while complaining about christmas. i think that is such a wonderful christmas complaining album that i will listen to it just so i can complain. i also like listening to "grave architecture" in the car while driving in the winter... there's a part of that song that sounds like driving through slush. i hate slush, so i will complain about that, too.

tonight is christmas eve at tony's parents' house. i'm sure it will be nice, but i'd be lying if i said that i wasn't nervous. i have this idea in my head that his parents are less than thrilled with me (well, mainly just his mom) because of all the break up and make up shit. he swears it will be okay. i hope.

24 DEC 2003 - 8.52a
updating this just because someone wants me to. that makes me feel like school... doing uninspired writing to just get it done.

merry christmas and happy holidays. view a special christmas greeting from henry snodgrass here!

tony and i exchanged gifts last night, which was great. i loved everything he got me. stuff to replace the stuff i lost for my glasses, my favorite kind of gap turtleneck, seabiscuit on dvd, and other stuff. and i'm pretty sure he was happy about the one gift he didn't specifically ask for, which was the spike jonze dvd. we watched all the videos last night... hopefully i'll get to watch the rest of it with him another time.

i guess that's it.

21 DEC 2003 - 9.42a
what a great weekend it's been! i haven't been able to say that in a long time. tony took friday off of work... we spent the day together (with the exception of a few hours when he was off shopping for my gifts and i was with newt). we did a lot of shopping, which was great... nice to watch tony get things done.

on friday night we went to see the it men and party of helicopters at the beachland tavern. one of the opening acts... the cleveland connect, i believe they were called... um, i'm not really sure what to say. i'll let somebody else (tony?) describe it. i'll just say that i'm really happy i looked away a fraction of a second before the penis came out. i would not have needed to see that.

the it men were fantastic. quite possibly the best local thing i have ever seen. i was happy to hear that they have a couple more shows lined up soon. everybody should see them... even if you don't know anybody in the band.

tony and i saw elf last night. we laughed a bunch, which was good. it did get a little too christmasy cheese at the end, but the rest of the movie made up for it.

18 DEC 2003 - 5.36p
i'm seriously considering getting tony a couple of volumes of girls gone wild for christmas. he already has a collection, and i'm convinced that no collection will be complete with out the snoop dog edition of girls gone wild. if you go to the ggw website you can see they have a special deal where you can get snoop's ggw and some spring break ggw for the most excellent price of $9.99!!! tony keeps telling me not to... but we'll see. i think that would make a pretty excellent christmas gift. i don't know about you, but when i think of christmas, i think of boobies.

i also think of my plans for a live nativity scene outside our house, right by the street. it's perfect... i'm going to play the virgin mary, tony is going to play joseph (he has experience... he's been joseph before... more than twenty years ago, but it still counts), henry snodgrass is going to play the donkey, lucy is going to be a camel, and winnie "black thunder" loomer is going to play the baby jesus. i think david volunteered to be a wiseman, but i'm not sure. if anybody would like to help out, please let me know. we'll stop traffic for sure. no, wait. there really isn't much traffic on my lonely country road. nevermind. it was a stupid idea, anyway.

i have to pee and horses need to eat.

17 DEC 2003 - 11.33a
grades are posted! i had probably my best semester in a long time... i did really, really well... it's good to end things on a positive note. i am really very seriously considering doing grad school in the fall. i'm sure i can get into any one of my local options. i wish i could go away, but with my kids it will not be possible. i might even forget trying to be so specific to finding a job with tuition reimbursement right now... i'd be more than happy to work as a research assistant or something at the university of my choice. i am such a nerd.

i'd like to add that i even got an A in film. no shit! i managed a 96.5 on my final exam, which is astounding considering i missed quite a few classes (i never did see "undercover brother"... ahhh, maybe someday). i bet i got such a high grade because i answered one of the essay questions on harvey milk. i could talk about harvey milk all day.

my mom is taking me out to dinner tonight to celebrate graduation and good grades. i feel like i'm twelve. but it will be very nice to go out with her alone... we haven't done that in a long time.

the rest of the week looks promising. tomorrow night, tony and i are going out... he has the day off on friday, so we're going to do some christmas shopping and go to a moive... then to another show later that night. yay.

16 DEC 2003 - 7.26a
yes, tony... he might get to sleep with parker posey... but please don't forget that you get to sleep with me.

the other night i was channel surfing and i came across the belle and sebastian video for "step into my office, baby" which was kind of a cool thing to come across while channel surfing. then i came across the pixies video for "here comes your man" which i hadn't seen in a while. so i guess that was also a cool thing to come across. yay.

15 DEC 2003 - 8.19a
i have electricity in my barn again!!!! i can't tell you how much this excites me... no more life of the amish! no more feeding at dinnertime with a flashlight! no more cleaning stalls without the radio playing! it feels so good...

my sister was in town for the weekend with her family. a big congratulations to tony for surviving her... although he really didn't have to deal with her hardly at all. i guess my brother-in-law thought tony was a nice guy. tony thought my brother-in-law had a limp handshake and looked like a puppet.

my older nephew is starting to get really cute and fun. i had a good time with him. it didn't make me want kids or anything like that... in fact, when ryan came up to me and asked me to pick him up and his hands and face were covered in sticky candy cane and snot, i had to tell him no. isn't that sad? he's only two and a half and really cute... but snot and sticky are so disgusting.

the weekend was good... the best season of survivor ended last night. i went to tony's to watch. i was happy that my pick, sandra, won. actually, i guess rupert was my pick (i'm sure he was everybody's pick), but out of the last four... it was definitely her. i'm excited for the all-star season to begin!

my diet really should consist of more than cheese and crackers... which is why i'm going to meet tony for lunch today.

11 DEC 2003 - 7.40a
all my best to lacey. truly... all of my best. she's wisely in columbus now... where people don't suck (except for that asshole sniper!). she'll be there for a few days... i plan on going down to visit her.

i have one exam to go. i'm sure it will go better than the ones yesterday went... bah. but i am DONE after this. please keep fingers crossed that i passed everything... i would HATE to have to take anything over again to get my degree. that would be so lame, and i am way too smart for that kind of embarrassment.

so... i think i have my boyfriend back. still waiting for it to become officially official. he still needs to tell "that girl" again... i'm very much hoping that happens today. that whole thing makes me very nervous. we've already made a lot of plans, which is good... it feels like things are going to be back to normal this time. we're supposed to be together.

the police paid a little visit to our house last night. seems like my darling lucy filly let herself out of her stall last night, via the dutch doors. my mom put luce and henry to bed and swears she shut the dutch doors (which slam shut and would be pretty difficult for a horse to open, even if they weren't latched)... but isn't sure she latched them. gah! so, lucy was standing outside, phoebe was barking (most likely at lucy) and my mom got really scared that someone was out there. she called me, i told her to call the police... it's so dark without electricity out there. everything turned out to be okay. the police out here are very friendly and understanding. phoebe is being called a hero, and lucy is being called a sneak. my mom has managed to avoid being called anything. hmm.

10 DEC 2003 - 7.52a
it's unbelievable what happened last night. i didn't know what to expect. it was better than christmas. i got what i wanted. no. wait. i would really like to think we both got what we wanted... not just me.

i must talk to lacey today. i hope she's feeling better.

i have two finals today, neither of which i have studied for.

09 DEC 2003 - 6.09p
why does everything have to be so confusing?

i got to hear some about the "other girl" today. it's not that i really wanted to or needed to... but he talked and i listened. and the stuff he told me was on some level good to know. he says he likes her and i'm sure he does. i'm sure she's a perfectly fine person. she hates horses and roller coasters, though.

i want him back. call me crazy... i'm sure a lot of you will. but there is something about him and me... it's a good thing. a great thing. i'd hate for it to completely go away... it took me a while to realize that, but i know it. for sure. i can't force him, though... he knows how i feel and i know he says he's very confused.

it's really hard.

09 DEC 2003 - 1.39a
so, i didn't puke, but i dry heaved. i guess in order to drink until you puke, you kind of have to have something to puke. i didn't. i just spit and spit and dry heaved and spit. but i did get drunk. i couldn't manage to drink after the dry heaves, so i also got sober.

lacey wasn't doing quite as well as i was in the puking/heaving department. i hope she's feeling better by the time she reads this.

it's been a rough week for the both of us... even more proof that our relationships parallel each other. scary. she thinks we're being punished for something we did in high school... i can't think of anything we did in high school that is worth a punishment this shitty.

but... all my best to lacey. i sincerely hope that things work out better than things are going to work out for me. i guess my fate is totally sealed in the "working out" department. i hope you still have someone willing to work on things, just because i know how you feel about him.

i'm going to crash now. thanks to paul h "pizza huttner" for giving me the pizza key off of his old computer. thanks to brett for explaining football to me. thanks to johnny for... um, farting? thanks to lacey, most of all, for being there and giving me a good night out on money that wasn't even hers. let's do it again sometime. the sex talk we had was grade A.

08 DEC 2003 - 12.06a
i have decided to make a potentially devastating situation into a positive thing. well, deciding to do that and actually doing it are two different things. i decided to quit smoking a bunch of times, too.

but, really. my feelings are crushed and i'm sad and miserable and all of that. i'm sure some people think i got what i deserved and i'm sure some people think i deserve much better. i'm not sure what i think right now. it's been a long day.

did i mention that when i went out to feed the filly and the mule this morning there was no electricity in my barn? none. no lights. i fed this evening with a flashlight. i used to have electricity out there... the culprit is most likely UNDERGROUND. the FROZEN ground is under many inches of snow. i will be feeding with a flashlight for a while.

so, anyhow. it was good to have a talk with a new friend tonight... someone i hardly really know. he knows my whole situation... from the past, right up to tonight's update. he doesn't mind listening, he thinks that sometimes it's better to have a stranger's point of view on this type of thing. it's funny, because his point of view hasn't differed much from anybody else's...

so, i don't know. we're supposed to have this graduation party for me/birthday party for my nephew (who will be in town) on saturday... then i have the barn christmas party after that. tony was supposed to do both of those things with me, but not anymore... i can't get out of the family function, but i might skip the timberlane christmas party (which is usually one of the highlights of my winter) to go out with the person mentioned above. his insight tonight was great... this is such a new time of my life, i'm graduating school... i've had a lot of changes lately. he told me that i can either sit around and be miserable or i can take advantage of all kinds of new freedom and go with it.

i only wish i didn't have the horses weighing me down. i would move in a minute.

chatted with lacey and john t online. talked to paul h "pizza huttner" on the phone. all of them had nice things to say to me. paul h (who has taken a very interesting anti-dating stand) told me that i shouldn't be embarrassed (i am feeling a lot of embarrassment about this) and gave me a few really excellent reasons. i'm going to keep them to myself for a while longer, just because i really need to think about them and let them settle. lacey gave me permission to puke on ezra whenever i want to, which helped immensely... and john t told me (once again) how much i rule. thanks.

07 DEC 2003 - 7.42p
right when lacey gets her hinges screwed back on, the screws totally fell out of mine.

i am embarrassed that i let things happen yet again. i have been betrayed and used and i'm just not very smart, in general. i'm back to wanting to puke on the sidewalk. please. somebody... take me out... get me so drunk that i puke on the sidewalk.

06 DEC 2003 - 6.39p
i bought hay. fourteen bales of hay, to be exact. that will feed henry snodgrass and lucy for a few weeks. it snowed a hell of a lot yesterday. i had to get hay... i was on my last bale. i went to the hay store, bought my fourteen bales (that was all i could cram into the shortbed truck) and loaded them all by myself. i was feeling very accomplished... moving hay is work.

my uncle thought that even with the snow, i should be able to drive the truck (heavy duty 4WD type deal) to the barn to unload my hay. so... i tried. for those of you who have not seen our property, let me say that it's slightly hilly... there's a slope going up to the barn.

now, have you ever seen at the range rover dealerships and stuff how they have those rock walls and they drive the range rovers up them, so that they're on the rocks sideways and it looks like they're going to tip over or roll off? well, i got our big pickup truck into that very position and managed to scare the bejeebers out of my mom and myself. the really scary part was that the truck was sliding down the slope SIDEWAYS. the wheels aren't supposed to go that way.

i was very frightened. it was still snowing. the hay could not get wet, so we tried putting the little trailer on the tractor and driving it to the sideways scary about to tip over truck... we figured that until my uncle got there to figure out what to do about the truck, we could unload some of the hay that way, so it wouldn't get wet.

we got the tractor stuck, too.

SO. my uncle came over, took over truck duties while my younger cousin helped me carry bales of hay (that weigh 50+ pounds) about 100 feet to the barn. i was really afraid to watch my uncle with our truck... it was so sliding sideways. i don't know what it would take for a half-ton pickup to roll... but eddie managed to get it out. thank god.

i am exhausted. but my horses have hay and are very happy.

05 DEC 2003 - 9.44a
yesterday i accused tony of not being a loyal guided by voices fan because he hung his complementary gbv calendar and then took it down because it looked too small. i think we both laughed when i called him that.

i still haven't cleaned stalls yet. it's my day off. i'm lazy. they'll get done eventually. it's snowing really hard out there right now which is preventing me from getting motivated. i'd rather sit here and eat graham crackers instead.

05 DEC 2003 - 8.31a
my last class was yesterday. finals are next week. i want to go to grad school.

i should go do barn chores now.

04 DEC 2003 - 7.53a
it's like not even coming up for air.

my horses are fed. i'm enjoying my morning juice in the warmth, before i go back out to clean stalls and let them out for the day. both lucy and henry are doing well... goofy, but good kids. lucy bosses henry around a bit now. it's interesting to see her do that since newt totally bossed her around. it's a size thing, i suppose.

i had the last presentation of my undergraduate college career yesterday. it was one of the best presentations i have ever given... the best part is that more than half of it was COMPLETELY FAKE! our asshole teacher wasn't there, so he was just having two graduate assistants videotape and time the presenatations. i fucking nailed it. after class, one of the grad students came up to me and asked if i was going to grad school. i told him that i most likely would be eventually and he told me that i should... that my presentation was great and i was the only one who has a good hypothesis and compared my research findings to previous findings and blah, blah, blah. he told me that the don't even have people do presentations that good in grad school. i told him i was a smart kid.

the final draft of my dating show research paper is due today. i'll work on that later. must do stalls now. juice is finished.

as we go up, we go down.

03 DEC 2003 - 9.25a
i'm going to be okay. i don't know when i'm going to be okay, but i will eventually be okay. i was thinking about getting so drunk tonight that i puke all over the sidewalk, but i don't want to ruin any impressions of me. you see, i have not had anything to eat since sunday (i'm fasting, you could say) and i'm afraid i might puke relatively early. i'm not particularly a lightweight drinker, even if i've hardly had anything to drink lately. i have a reputation to uphold.

instead i will wait until friday to puke all over the sidewalk. today is ezra's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PIRATE!) and his party is friday. i will drink there and i will puke outside on the sidewalk.

i am a puker through and through.

in other news, school is slowly winding down. i have one more presentation to give today. special thanks to my ex, tony, for helping me out immensely. much of the info in this presentation is fake, but he gave me just enough real stuff to make it all sound 100% true. thanks for helping me lie yet again.

nothing else is going on. might be going to columbus to look at some lights once finals are over. that will be fun.

thanks to all of my friends.

02 DEC 2003 - 7.32a
i am a mean, selfish person. i don't know what ever gave me the right to think it's perfectly okay to be that way... but i'm really starting to realize how my actions may affect others. lesson learned, i guess... but i'm completely ready to crawl into a hole for a while unless someone wants to lure me out with booze or drugs. i'm almost completely broke, i have about a week left of school until i'm a graduate... and no job lined up. things are stressful and i guess the last couple of days have just been the icing on the cake.

a quick congratulations to my friend brigid... she and her boyfriend zac were engaged over the weekend!

and yes, i am blogging again. i need something to do with my time now that it looks like i'm going to have a lot of it.

also, if anybody wants to fund a vacation for me, that would be great... i wouldn't mind getting out of here for a day or two, maybe going someplace warm. i hate the winter... and i have a feeling this is going to be an especially long one. my head is going to be cold and i am not going to go ice skating.

01 DEC 2003 - 11.59a
i made a big mistake.