There was a man delegated to the other side of the world I left once on a starry Arizona night back in October.  He was home from Iraq for a “rest and recuperation” from KBR/Halliburton (worst company ever btw).   I had enough, enough of knowing that he’s not what I want and left on a shuttle the morning after a long drawn out night of back and forth going nowhere. In a fit of anger he told me to leave, when he woke the next morning my bags were packed, a shuttle service was booked, paid for and departed in four hours.  Stall tactics were set in place…we had to go get coffee, we had to go to the hardware store, we had to stop at the mall so he could buy cologne and I had to make sure I made the shuttle.

Days later we talked and apologized to one another knowing it would be four more months till we were able to meet again.  He was returning to Iraq and I to Houston, longing set in wishing the days in Arizona had played out differently. “I really want to see you again,” he’d say while sitting pool side at Saddam’s Palace, “I’m sorry the way things turned out and then he’d begin to blame me for causing a stir.  “Well had you not up and left, had we talked about it,” then he’d detail how he would have liked our past to play out.  After all, I had indeed passed the parent test with wings to spare.  “They really liked you,” he said, “and my Dad thinks I should hold on to you…..you’re not like the other girls I’ve dated.”  I’d take that in the literal sense not knowing if that was an insult or a sincere compliment.  We decided to give it another try, go another round, “I care a lot about you, so much it’s hard to be away.”  Plans were set to meet in Australia come February on his next R&R.  My sister of the Heart is there after all and it would be combining the best of both worlds, or so I was hoping.

  October breezed by and November hit hard, we began fighting and not fully understanding one another.  He was quitting smoking and I was making a career change, both proved too much to handle. He said wretched things and I let go. Hadn’t I already dated “the choker” and I wasn’t about to allow an abusive relationship again.  However, in typical stupid female fashion I rationalized his anger and used the displacement theory if only, because he is in a war zone.  I forgave him, in my heart but never forgave in my head.

Fast forward to February when the week arrives we were to travel to Australia together.  It was to be a reunion, me with my wit and wishful thinking and he armed with desire and wanting to right a wrong.  (**Sidenote – KBR flies all contract employees to Dubai as an entrance/exit point for their over sea contracts and he is fire fighter for KBR**).  After he arrived in Dubai, on his way to Australia, he texted, then called and we bantered back and forth yet again…not going anywhere.  I told him briefly of my travels and someone new I have been dating for quite some time now. “If you really cared you wouldn’t have met anyone else,” he said to me through a vodka induced reaction, “I was falling in love with you.”  I fought back laughter in a you don’t even know me sense and counteracted his pleading, “we stopped talking…and we did so for a reason.”   He’d get on the plane to leave for Australia and I’d go for a very  long run knowing he was “hooking up” with a girl in Australia. 

A week later, Wednesday morning, I woke to the below email

“Jessica-   please give me a call when you awake.  i’ll be out of touch from 8am – 1130am eastern, but will be available after.   on a quick note, we’re doing a trip from Dubai to bahrain to london and london to new york.  the trip begins on friday, and you’d have to leave today..  please let me know by email prior to your call.”  

After I accepted the trip a text was sent haphazardly not knowing how it would be percieved.  The universe was indeed playing a cruel joke on me and I was inclined to beat it to the punch line.

“Are you in Australia still, Dubai or on your way back to Iraq?”

“In Sydney, I get to Dubai Friday morning.”

“Really…. I’ll be in Dubai Thursday night through Sunday.”

…To be continued

My neighbor is a 30 year old male and we’ve become good friends since I moved in.  This morning we’ve been texting back and forth because I can hear when he comes and goes because the hinges on his door squeak.  From time to time i’ll raz him about putting WD-40 on the hinges as I was again this morning.  He then asked what I was doing today and responded and in return said,

J: “What are you doing? Taking Skipper (my nick name for his barely 22 year old girlfriend) for grilled cheese?”

N: “Maybe Chuck e Cheese. I’m not so sure.

J: “Awww man, I’m kind of jealous - wish i was young enough to play in the balls.”

N: “I think you’ve graduated beyond the plastic one’s. And easy now, she’s barely worked her way past Putt Putt.”

J: “Does that mean you’ve yet to get a hole in one?”

Just when I was thinking of what an awful day lay ahead of me you spoke to me.  I was knee deep and wading through situations of having to go to my lawyers at 10:00 am for that whole sexual assault thing and a funeral this afternoon when you reminded me, “Hey Kiddo – at least your still alive, well and have people in your life who truly care for you.” 

Thanks God for letting me get caught in the rain on my morning run this morning, I needed that reminder.

All my love,

Jess

P.S. The white tank top and black sports bra (on my bra) was probably a bad idea

I’m at a loss for words…this rarely happens.  Yesterday, I started writing with a fever that’s been lost in the last few months.  A dear friend had an expected loss, she’s been trying to prepare herself for it a year now.  I imagine, one never is prepared when a parent passes. Her words and gratitude have once again thrown the reality of this life dead and center (pun not intended).

Last night, while watching the State of the Union Address I was ticked at our current leader and craved to personally smack the smug look off his face. . . especially while discussing the Iraq war. 

Text message exchange with my own Father during the State of the Union went on as follows:

J (using language I shouldn’t while speaking to my Dad): “Fucking A! I am so pissed at the applause and him saying the obvious.  Dad, I’m talking about the State of the Union – ugh – the obvious is just that!

Dad: “Life’s a bitch, don’t vote for one.”

Dad: “We shall overcome.”

J: “That made me chuckle, tell Mom Alison’s Mom’s funeral is Thursday – if this is what getting old is about and going to friends funeral’s then I want no part of it.”

Dad: “This is Mom now (on Dad’s phone).  I was your age when my Dad died.

J: “I was at least six, I remember him in the cancer bed which would have made you 33.

Dad: “Close”

J: “So how old then?”

Dad: “He was 62, died before we got Em (my kid sister’s adoption), I was 34 when we got her.

So, I was 8? Doesn’t matter, I still remember when Ruth died (Dad’s Mom) and you received the call sitting on the edge of the bed in a hotel room.  Your lip quivered as though the temperature dropped 30 degrees.  Her Mom went to hospice Friday and it’s been  a year coming….life never prepares you for this.”

AND THIS IS WHERE I BROKE DOWN

Dad: “NEVER. I still wish I could talk to my Dad.”

J: “ L I know.”

Dad: “Good night. Love you.”

J: “Good night Daddy.”

You probably didn’t know I just spent the morning day dreaming of a man in St. Louis. 

Chamomile tea keeps me from becoming an alcoholic on lonely nights.  I love tomato soup more than legally allowed since tomatoes scream when coming off the vine.  I talk to much and say random facts to kill silence.  I’m a master at Trivia Pursuit.  I usually don’t sleep with a pillow.  I love the smell of fresh rosemary sprigs hanging in the shower. I can still do the splits.  I’ve gained five pounds since July (but that’s a work in progress).  I routinely tell my cat, “No ass in face,” and believe she understands me. 

I love the rain and running in it more.  I still start food fights. I don’t trust girls who call themselves “Princess” or girls who wear tiaras on any occasion.  Get annoyed by ego’s just because they are in the bar industry and “know the scene.”

I take photos of my laughing monkey at each FBO (airport) where my Jet lands to remember where I’ve been.  I can’t remember what city or state I was in during most of my stories.  I’m gullible to the point of failure.  I love to laugh and find humor in the oddest places; I am the funniest person I know.  I hate talking on the phone.  I’m developing Blackberritius. I’m afraid of heights even though I fly for a living.  I love funky socks.

My two closest friends are from high school.  I once scared a friend so bad she hit me hard enough to bruise my arm (apparently it’s not funny when a car is being towed and you wake up said friend screaming as though your about to have a head on collision). I know most of my friend’s flaws and love them more because of them.   I haven’t talked to my brother in over a year. I have a sister and a niece who are adopted from other countries. As a child, I would save my pennies to send to Sally Struthers’s starving children in Ethiopia.  I want to adopt a village but find joy in giving other peoples kids back then walking away.

I think Hillary would be a stronger candidate if she left Bill years ago.  I have the mouth of a sailor when I get mad.  Daily, I walk into inanimate objects and apologize before realizing what they are.  I bruise like a battered woman.  My curtains do match the drapes.  I want botox like the rest of Houston but am scared of the outcome.  

After a bum asked me for change, I asked him for his coat. 

Your turn….

One isn’t able to choose members of their family…that’s for sure.  If so, I probably wouldn’t have chosen a brother who limped for three weeks in the third grade just in case he broke an ankle; or  a sister who had a fetish for chewing her own hair until she was 14.  However, there are people in this world you can choose…people who touch your heart, talk you through things, truly have your best interest in mind when they call you out and never make you feel as though you are alone in the world NO MATTER HOW MANY MILES BETWEEN YOU AND THEM.  Those unique individuals, whose ties sometimes go deeper than blood, is the family we CHOOSE to know and the family we CHOOSE to love.

One fateful day over four years ago I met Lindsey aka ASSKICKER RICKER in the computer room of our old apartment complex.  Instantaneously we became the best of friends.  There’s something soulful that happens occasionally when you meet someone for the very first time and connect.  There’s a spark, a bond or need for kinship when the soul recognizes one who is traveling a similar path but creating  their own adventure. It’s as though your heart grows bigger allowing yet another to stop, stare and grow with you through the years.

My AssKicker has been traveling the world for the last year and a half but that has not slowed down our friendship.  She looks out the window, spots the Indian Ocean, is piss ass drunk and calls me.  I stare out the window, view roads jammed with trucks filling up the Texas sky and grab my phone, “Oh shit Jess – I’m so drunk I just hit my head,’” she slams, “I don’t even know if I’m bleeding,” deflated from a long night I can’t tell if she’s about to break down or break into one of her renditions of Annie Get Your Gun.  So I laugh, our conversations are filled with laughter every day we talk on the phone – regardless of continents or miles between. Because in my mind’s eye – she’s right here with me.  And boy, the girl just gets me and I her.

I’ve made a promise to visit her this summer in Melbourne, Australia and in return – she’s made a promise to come home to the states…unless Hillary wins – then I’ll join her.

Email to Lindsey:

“ I love and miss you so much! You
are loved more than all the toddlers with cute voices
whose cheeks begged to be squeezed…except the
starving ones in 3rd world countries. They aren’t
loved enough.” Her response: after reading my blog 

blonde moment
I’ve always wondered but never asked. what the hell
does “no outlet” mean? Does that just mean dead-end or
no turn around? Cut me some slack, I am the girl who
asked “What did Buffalo soldiers kill?…Buffalo?”

Two peas in a pod this one and I and I miss her terribly!

The man in front of me couldn’t stop staring at my calves.  I sat across from him detailing application implementation then uncrossed my legs and pushed myself up from the chair.  Swiftly I crossed the room to the white board and began drawing my design in an attempt to pull his attention from my calves to the outline I was trying to make him understand.  If I could not get him to comprehend anything outside of the cup size of my bra how was I ever going to get him to sign off on a $750,000.00 implementation project plan?

Day 684:  The man staring at me with a blank expression stared at me and tried to wrap his mind around a system that appeared so black and white but he became lost on the implementation.  He knows how to carve cancer out of a cell, remove a tumor from a stroke patient and refer them to the proper rehabilitation unit so they may regain motor skills but he could not understand the implementation breakdown.  FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD!!!   I had exhausted every scenario possible I knew to make this over educated man understand the technology behind an application.  I’m the idiot in this one, cause let’s face it, he’s been in school and a resident for more than half my life but when it comes to common application and social questions…..he’s as lost as a toddler in the grocery store.  I began again, “Let’s say my friend has cancer, just follow me on this one, after all of her tests have been ran she is diagnosed with stage 3 and her doctors decide  to forgo surgery and that she is a prime candidate for an experimental drug they have read multiple studies on.  After 4 months she begins to slip.  She is once again re-evaluated after deteriorating  worse then taken off the drug, more tests are ran and the doctors then devise a new plan of action after talking to other doctors who have had similar cases.  Blah Blah Blah.” And that would have been stage 15 of my sales process.  Next came the hospital administrators and then the board of directors. Each group required a different attack plan and new charts.  After eight years in this industry I had HAD enough.  Well, a few incidents occurred making me understand how short life truly is and although I knew I could compete quite successfully in my healthcare I.T. medical sales job….I simply wasn’t finding the job satisfaction I know I need. I simply wasn’t happy.

I changed careers this past summer. Not in a “you’ve just been promoted and now have new responsibilities” manner.  No sir. Not I – 2007 was indeed a pivotal year for me.  Let’s track back if we may.

1. I cut out all toxic people out of my life
2. I was robbed while in my house
3. I turned 30
4. I had a miscarriage
5. I changed careers
6. I was sexually assaulted
7. I moved into a place all my own
8. I ended a 4 year long volatile friendship (okay that was yesterday and technically 2008 but give a girl a break will ya?)
9. Oh and who can forget about all the funny stories with my friends…I truly am blessed.

Each day now is a brand new adventure for me.  I made a drastic change career wise.  Travel has always been important to me.  It’s something I love to do…to experience and see things in other parts of the world and experience things outside of my day to day.  I love life and the people I meet in it.  Every detail of the world is exponentially unique and every person is amazing…errr – minus the one who robbed me and that whole sexual assault thing totally sucked ass big time.  At thirty years old I decided I needed time to write and shut up or put up and not out.  If I was going to be happy and change careers then I had to make a choice.  A) continue making super decent money while selling to doctors and hospital administrators whose ego barely fits through the door or B) be able to travel the world for work…ya know…on someone else’s dime,  get paid to do so and finally start being serious about writing.  I enjoy it as much as enjoy a great bottle of wine, sex or laughing at brunch so hard my side’s ache the next day. 

So this is my life….I travel for a living, write in my spare time, have amazing friends, am rarely home,  AND I LOVE IT!

Happy New Year everyone – may 2008 be good to you.

lame post - more to come about me and the man on the other side of the world - the one i left in arizona

It will start without you knowing it. It will creep up on you in tiny increments until there is no turning back. And you realize now it’s smart that it happens in tiny steps, because if you knew that it was going to happen, you’re not sure you would think yourself ready. You would find an excuse to dislike it, look for a way to prevent it. One day your feelings will get hurt and instead of sending an angry email you will decide to sleep on it. You will say sorry first when it’s your fault, and you will mean it when you say it. You will wear more sunscreen and a little less dark eyeliner. You find that you give as many handshakes as high fives and more pats on the back. You will find that life suddenly begins to eat up your time and daily two hour phone calls about every detail of your best friend’s life no longer happen. All of a sudden not every lip gloss you own will be named after a berry. You will learn that sometimes people are better off not knowing, and you will be able to keep your secrets secret. You won’t apologize for leaving the party early, for not dating someone who uses large stacks of pornography as a nightstand or for things out of your control. You will realize no man is worth the time you’ve spent agonizing on the what if’s in  a relationship.  You will know he is lucky to have you. You will floss more. When your friends talk of their houses, they are no longer referring to the ones their dad built them in a tree. They own their own and their mortgage will cost more than their bar tabs. They drive cars without rust, wear high heels without teetering and tell you they love you at times other than 3am.  You will learn to say it without expecting to hear I love you back.  They will have offices and responsibilities and suddenly you will know that you can count on them to be there not just for the party, but for the funeral. They will not always know what to say, but they will know that they need to be there. And they will know that is enough. Suddenly you will know more married people than not- and it doesn’t scare you.   You will find yourself a part of a club that you didn’t know existed. A club where people talk about 401k’s and wine and all the excellent television found on a Thursday  night. At first you are reluctant to join the club, but you know you can’t go back. So you stay, not always knowing what to say or how you fit in but then you realize being here is less stressful, less dramatic. You find that you feel… relieved, happier to know that there is a life outside the world you knew. You realize this new group also talks about goals,  the future and they say things like ‘when we do this’ not ‘if we can ever do this’- and that comforts you. They own plants that don’t die, ideas that are theirs and know the ingredients to crème Brule.But sometimes, you will feel wistful. The great stories of dancing all night and drinking from contraptions held together with duct tape will feel over. You will miss the late nights but can now recall the painful mornings. You will fondly remember spending all your money on shoes and clothes but now like the idea of a home and savings accounts, flying on private jets and not knowing what city you will be in tomorrow.  That alone is exciting  and you will know you created this new life for yourself, you own it – all the past and look forward to the future.You will know your friends love you cause you’ve screwed up,  they have been there for you and there is not a thing you won’t do for them.  You will know  love and not settle for less.  And then, you will get on a plane and have to leave, because that’s the world you live in.  And she will know – we are sisters through and through. No harsh words or ill moments will break your love.  You will realize your parents are your best friends and try as they did to screw you up – they did the best they could with the tools they had.  Cause let’s face it, you’re nothing with out knowing you  know nothing and no one knows anything.  But this right here is knowing you are well on your way of becoming the adult you dreamt of.