Thinking of moving back to Jersey because I just shimmied back into my ruby slippers and clicked my heels three times….

So, let’s work this out. First you’re going to spend Friday night at a rock show and stay out till 4:00 in the morning and miss your morning run. Next, you’re going to roll out of bed at ten and sit by a pool reading your book. You’re then going to wait for your best male friend to pick you up with the soul intention of purchasing a ghetto outfit. In the midst of shopping in the barrio, where English is a second language, your friend will receive a call about a keg being purchased and “Why don’t you come by for an early evening beer.” After a few beers and after jokes are made about, “What did Pluto have to do to get demoted as a planet. He must have really screwed over Jupiter,” You are then going to go home and trade in your flip flops for ghetto white heels and go over to Clints and tap fingers and wait for Jenkins to arrive.

Tap

Tap

Tap

After Jenkins arrives you trek yourself to your Favorite Married Couples House for party, take shots, and decide we should all go out. In the midst of leaving cops arrive.

You flirt heavily with cop as everyone moves back inside stating, “Let her deal with it. She’s got him under control.” You then begin to laugh furiously as the cop pulls away because you forgot your current outfit was borrowed from Missy Elliott and you look more like a Living Color Fly Girl meets 50 Cent then your normal red head angel and have lost halo. The party is then going to travel over to another friends where neighbors are less bothersome and you proceed to fall asleep on couch around 3:00 a.m.

Sunday morning you wake up to friends giggling on opposing couch and allow a smile to take over your face cause… other than sex…laughter is the next best thing to wake up to. The 4 of you walk upstairs and wake other overnight guests. You will then spend the remainder of the morning with friends, under covers, and watching Office Space while thunder storms pass outside. Clint picks you up early morning where you will then go and make fun of his neighbor as he grills outside…because Brandon just asks for it and can give it back in spades. You will close the weekend by going over BFF friends for ladies spa day where you get to spend three hours with several of your favorite girlfriends drinking champagne and then eat pizza.

You will wake up at 1:00 am with a headache Monday and attempt to get back into the groove of normalcy wondering why you haven’t seen Snakes on a Plane after your ten mile run on Monday evening and realize tomorrow’s Tuesday and you forgot to get details from coworker about psycho Italian that is in her phone as Psycho italian and tell her funny story about man licking my face three times Friday night.

And then, you realize, you don’t need to share everything.

I understand Fluffy McTutu when she writes things like this

I have a sharp pain down my right quad - IT band massage sounds good.

And I had to laugh when another soon to be roommate said to me last night, “There’s something else you should know about me.”

I caustically set down my wine glass, zippered up my vertebrae, flexed my stomach muscles to shield myself for the blow and exhaled, “Shoot. I can take it.”

“I’m addicted to the Golden Girls.”

Scoff. “You’re kidding right? That must mean I’m Blanch.”

“No. Seriously. I have the whole box set.”

“I can see it now when I come home and someone asks where R. is, oh she’s upstairs watching the Golden Girls.”

“It won’t be the first time.”

“What if we ended up like that.”

“Eh. It wouldn’t be so bad. Look at our 20’s”

“They’ve been a blast.”

Enter sitcom theme song

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true your a pal and a confidant.

And if you through a party
Invited everyone you ever knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say thank you for being a friend.

Sunday morning I was feeling dirty, looked at Rock Star over the brim of my coffee mug and stated, “I’m going to go,” as my words took form and made noise I realized I didn’t know where I was going. Sure, I could leave the coffee shop and drive an hour to see my parents, their flight back home wasn’t for another three hours but, I did that Saturday. Saturday had been a gift tied in a messy bow and delivered in the least expecting month. August in Houston is like diving into a volcano and setting up shop. Occasionally the cauldron produces a Saturday and Sunday like this past weekend….and that’s a helluva lot to be excited about.

Before Starbucks opened Saturday morning I was out the door, met with my running group and tracked 15 miles through the city. Later that afternoon I picked up “The Rents”, trucked them up to my brothers and spent the remaining daylight hours throwing kids in the air and later banishing them to the play room so “the Adults” could talk. Apparently, I’m one of them now. However, that alone doesn’t stop my Brother from asking those nagging relationship questions, and taunt me like he is seventeen and I’m ten. He’s not really concerned about whether or not I want to settle down and make meals for more than one, he wants the dirty details because it’s like reality TV or those cheesy magazines with headlines like I ATE MY ALIEN BABY. Fried, with a side salad and a beer.

I kept my mouth shut while he kicked me under the table allowing the silence to say, “Give me the dish or this wine is going on your head.” Had he followed through, it would have been The Great Food Fight of 2006 (round 3)but, Mom was strategically sitting to my right and that would prove to be unacceptable. Pursing my lips, kicking him in the shin under the table, and regressing to ten years old I shot him the look of daggers. The most serious drawback to the tell nothing approach is that it makes more of a mystery of what has happened and that has been nothing short of a Jenna Jameson and Dave Navarro affair. We all know the nature of gossip abhors a vacuum of the unexplained and this means if I tell him what has happened then he’ll “know” what really happened cause, he’s my brother and in more ways than one we’ll always be too much alike and taunt one another by getting in a food fight.

Icing anyone?

**** Later that night Ronda, Clint, and I checked out one of our friends Rock Shows. Check em out on I-tunes, you’re sure to be a fan. Stillife

Laugh all you want but I for one can’t wait to go see Snakes on a Plane. Any movie that has lines like,”If one of those snakes gets in the controls we’re going down faster than a Thai Hooker,” is just plain funny.

Any movie can offer gratuitous sex, gratuitous violence and gratuitous swear words. This movie also offers gratuitous snakes. On a plane. Top that.

After all the hype preceding this film, you’d think there might be some let down. I just hope “Snakes on a Plane” is as ridiculous, violent, slithery, provides childlike nightmares and dumb-funny brilliance s I imagine it to be.

If you think it bites, then you’re not getting the joke.

In other news, Clint sent me this article yesterday …tell me something I don’t know.

Redheads ‘have more sex than blondes or brunettes’

Blondes may have more fun but redheads have more sex, according to new research in Germany. The study by Hamburg Sex Researcher Professor Dr Werner Habermehl looked at the sex lives of hundreds of German women and compared them with their hair colour. He said: “The sex lives of women with red hair were clearly more active than those with other hair colour, with more partners and having sex more often than the average. The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation.” He added that women who dyed their hair red from another colour were signalling they were looking for a partner, and added: “Even women in a fixed relationship are letting their partners know they are unhappy if they dye their hair red. They are saying that they are looking for something better.” Psychologist Christine Baumanns said however that it may not be the women who were to blame for the better sex lives of redheads. She said: “Red stands for passion and when a man sees a redhead he will think he is dealing with a woman who won’t mess around, and gets straight to the point when it comes to sex.”

It’s not like us reds, blondes, or brunettes need an article to summerize the type of lover we are, cause it’s like saying an all black outfit paired a white sweater states a dark soul with glimpses of innocence…which is pretty much hogwash. There could be many reasons for the all black, like I’m to lazy to go to the dry cleaners or I couldn’t find the other brown shoe. Same goes for hair color and women wondering “what they would look like as a redhead,” it may only be curiosity, but for us naturals, does the article speak the truth? Rhorr, I’ll never tell.

Paris termed Lindsey Lohan “Fire Crotch”, I don’t think she meant it as a compliment but after reading this article…take that.

Harlow…maybe… but a Tramp Stamp like Paris, I think not.

My morning trip to Starbucks proved nothing out of the ordinary…other than The Klutz strikes again. Walking out of Fourbucks my nonfat dry latte was in my right hand and my bag/purse was draped over my left fore arm. I thanked the nice gentleman who held the door open for me as William Tell’s Overture chirped inside my bag, my phone was ringing and my hands were conveniently full. Glancing to my left and then to my right, I caught daunting gazes from patrons reading the morning newspaper at the outside tables. A homeless man was perched on the curb three feet from where I stood, the thought did occur, although I couldn’t really ask him to hold my latte while I fished for my phone. Switching the coffee from my right hand to my left I dove into the bag to fish for my phone….and that’s when I spilled my coffee and it landed on the bum, I mean homeless person. Sounding like a cross between a Orangutan and Paris Hilton singing I blurted “Oh no. I am so sorry,” and proceeded to try and wipe him dry with a napkin I pulled off a neighboring table.

The homeless man reeled loud enough for everyone in the zip code to hear. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need any help from a klutz.”

Feebly I explained, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to,”

HM: “Listen Lady I’m fine just don’t prey on the weak because I stink,” then he hobbled off leaving me apologetic and realizing that I’d just offended a homeless man. Karma- wise, I’m sure I’m pretty low on the totem pole.

My eyes began to burn ominously as I felt the gazes of the surrounding clientele disapprovingly fixed on me. Morning tiredness and a conversation the previous night had softened up my normally slightly thicker skin, lately – nothing can bring me short of a breakdown like the wrath of judging strangers.

Feeling a hand on the small of my back I turned to see Mr. Laptop handing me a wet napkin, “Well, thank goodness someone got the day started. I was waiting for a car wreck or a dog bite.”

My mouth opened, I tried to respond. Apparently my voice had been chased away by the tidal wave of embarrassment swelling through my chest. A choked whisper escaped, “Yeah. Just my luck.” I looked up and made eye contact with the to hot-for the real world man and quickly glanced down again feeling a wave of red flash on my face and thought, ‘Hell Fucking Yeah. Maybe karma is on my side.’

One glance around the place will tell you exactly how the weekend went.

A novel and magazine are tell tale signs of a low key Friday night, running shoes turned upside down are evidence of a twelve mile run Saturday morning, a pair of three inch stilettos start the trail of clothing from the front door to my room, and empty grocery bags are a reminder of a trip to The Farmers Market with “Favorite Ex-Boyfriend” this morning. However, the room show’s no signs of dancing until the 3:00 am, ignoring an old fling at the club who once told me, “I think you’re smarter than me. Want to go to the baseball game?” I now refer to him as Six Six because he is that tall and probably can’t count any higher than the sum of 6+6. The room also doesn’t show any signs of seeing my Reagan and the light she lives in now. Nor does it show signs of the high point when I shared lunch today with “Favorite Ex-Boyfriend” and B.F.F. Ronda at a new local hot spot.

There are certain things I rarely discuss on this blog. I try not to discuss specifics of the troubles I’m wading through or those of my loved one’s. I hold those for us, wanting to carry the weight of their problems and not throw them back up at you. They are our burden, not yours.

But, when things really start to get crazy, when bad medical things start happening to people I love, things I can’t prevent, when it’s a deterioration I’ve watched over the course of a year, I realize that Trouble doesn’t hide. Apparently Trouble can come to nice places too; it travels, visits, and makes house calls. Trouble draws connections between family and a best friend leading both to have an indifference with hormone balances, causing you to worry, allowing Helpless to take over.

I try to imagine me as them. One knows nothing other than the life of caution she lives while the other lives a life of constant change and a fear of neurosurgery. Before she showed for lunch today and asked for the third time where the restaurant was, I said to him, “If anything ever happened to her, I’d melt.” He responded with a quick, “I know” and a silly joke. An hour later when he was gone and a moment was left for the two of us I asked a question I knew the answer to, “Are you nervous about the surgery?”

Maybe that’s where the weekend glance comes full circle…cause they live in my heart and nervous or not….Truth and Trouble always leave a mark.

After talking to my Kid Sister twice last night I’ve started the day feeling as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. We made plans to visit a pool and a few museums tomorrow afternoon. “We” as in her husband, my ADORABLE niece, Booger (my kid sis), and myself tomorrow afternoon. It’s true things in my personal life haven’t been going all that well, but who cares? I’d rather have no relationship than be stuck in a wrong one. And my professional life is providing plenty of excitement. I am fighting a good fight, and doing my part to help change things for the better.

Apparently, I just need to choose my battles. Like knowing I can call “Booger” in a crowd and it doesn’t upset her anymore. And if that’s not enough to get excited about than there’s always dancing tomorrow night.

Right?

I keep trying to write tonight …I’m blocked

I’ve been thinking about her with each passing moment and fleeing rooms to allow her rest, not wanting to get in the way, be the invisible guest.

Thursday afternoon I sat at my desk, listened to her voice mail, searched for the red alert button, and said out loud to no one in particular, “Oh MUH God.” Her voice was calm under the message. Had it been me, had I been the one to shovel the news, you would have to press one for repeat in double digit time to understand the messaged blubber of sobs.

Not Her.

She’s calm and tough like steel, on the surface. I want to put her on a plane to Comfort (apparently Minnesota will work too). Tie her tight in a hug, the way her friends say her name, wrapped in a blanket. A week ago, I walked into a room of her friends a virtual stranger. I walked out with fifteen new friends and understood the “inside” to their jokes. It helped me understand her, and understand them through the stories I’ve read and heard first hand. Her family, of the unrelated kind, are more dynamic than a Pollock painting. Layer upon layer of paint are canvassed with years of detailed trails.

They see, and I see, what she doesn’t let others in on. Once you have experienced pain, had to carry the weight of one who once carried you, it sneaks up on you, burrows itself in your shoulders, preys upon you in the middle of the night. It knows your address.

And although she may feel as though she took a wrong turn or her GPS led her to making breakfast and having a beer Saturday at 5:00 am, the world won’t come crashing down like a glass wall. That has to be an exhausting feeling, heavier than figuring out what to do about North Korea.

She’s probably thinking, well…what choice do I have? Umm. Yeah. None. There are many people who wouldn’t be able to hold up under her circumstances, who wouldn’t have a reservoir of strength to pull from. I hope she will be able to find pockets of time and allow her friends to envelop her, that’s why we’re here.

But this morning, I smiled and laughed while reading a note, slipped under my door. One piece of paper carried the weight of her love.

“J- Sorry my cigs, beer, and sorrow stink up the place every now and than – but I’m glad you’re here – and I can’t tell you how much the flowers (you stole) meant to me. Thank-you.”

My first thought was – I love you too.

**side note - I was bad (big surprise) and stole flowers from flowering trees of strangers homes… (it was late sunday and nuthin was open)I’d do it again…cause let’s face it, the little things mean the most and in the end…and, I’ll let you finish that one.