Basic Needs

The memory is a little blurry, but I can remember sitting in a classroom, probably freshman or sophomore year of high school and learning about the four essential needs to survive. I think they consisted of: Air, Water, Food, and Shelter. Possibly there were five needs, the fifth being family or education or fire

But the educators were very clear on one thing.
Sex was not an essential need to survive.

The rest of the lesson dissolved into a sex ed class. So I guess I should be grateful that the memory is a blurry, as those classes are never comfortable.

Something triggered that memory the other day and I started thinking about what was necessary to my well being. I mean, I have Air (little smoggy some days but not as bad as California), I have Water (Gilbert water is pretty gross but there's always filtered options), I have Food (most days, the amount varies the farther out from payday it gets), and I have Shelter (an adorable little house with shaggy mutts, a pixy of a roommate and my coveted california king sized bed).

I have the basics down, and the basics are not fulfilling my emotional needs. I'm not unhappy but as usual, I'm yearning. My skin feels too tight and my life lacks flexibility right now. The big problem is not that I don't know what I want, it's that I want too many things.

List of things that I want:
Suzuki Boulevard motorcycle
Debts paid off
Car paid off
Personal chef
New wardrobe
More books
Run a Tough Mudder
Move to Seattle
Travel more . Lots more.
Hike Appalachian Trail
Finish school

Those are just from the top of my head.
I've started focusing on trying to define exactly what I need in my daily life, what will give me the illusion of content. At least until I finish school. I've narrowed it down to a somewhat fluid list.

List of small things to keep me entertained
Doing something reckless, maybe once a week, minimum once a month.
Real conversations, I don't care if it's talking books or dissecting a personality
Sunshine
Time with my puppy
New Books
Water, pools or beach

So small goal for the next few months, to try to keep a combination of the above things in my life. See if any of them make a cocktail of calm. Maybe I can narrow it down to exactly what is necessary to my well being survival.

Oh and the instructors lied.
Sex is totally necessary

Optimistic..?

http://www.asofterworld.com/clean/stocking.jpg

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good Idea: Getting a new place that is a better size for Jess and I. And a better price

Bad Idea: Moving fee's

Good Idea: Buying a new more reliable car

Bad Idea: Downpayments and higher monthly payments

Good Idea: Drinking Margaritas while unpacking boxes

Bad Idea: Crooked pictures because of said margaritas

Good Idea: Deciding to wait to fix broken laptop because money is tight

Bad Idea: Not having a laptop for two months and counting

Good Idea: Sunday dinners with the family

Bad Idea: Actually there's no bad side to this

Good Idea: Forcing myself to workout four times a week

Bad Idea: Sore...All...The... Time

Good Idea: Buying a Puppy

Bad Idea: Never sleeping again. And watchign my carpets being slowly destroyed


To sum up, Jess and I (and Raine and Londyn and Locksley) are happily adjudsting to our new home and new routines. We're mostly broke and slightly sleep deprived. There's been a lot of days at the park, a lot of movies at home and a lot of reading. Adventures are to resume shortly (hopefully)

How I plan to spend all my money this summer:

1-2 weeks in Costa Rica with the lovely Miss Erin
Scattered trips to Cali beaches
More work on my sleeve
A trip to the New York area to see Lachelle and then Sully and his wife
Fix my laptop
Buy a washer and dryer
Hike Zion
Put Locksley in agility training


Sooo it looks like I'll be working more overtime.
Don't worry social life, I'll be back one day

Reasons I heart Jess And Travis

Text messages between Jess and I

Sam: Oh no! Barely Balanced* isn't going to be at the ren faire this year! How am I supposed to sex Medium** up if he's not there?

Jess: He prolly has cholera or syphillis or the consumption or whatever STD ran around in the 16th century anyway. Count it as a blessing that the temptation is taken away from you.

Sam: OMG you are fantastic.
Sam: Wait, I lied, they are coming! Shit, now I need to start starving myself

Jess: Sam! Cholera!! Just remember Cholera!
Jess: I mean yay, they'll be there

Sam: Jess... Cholera is an infection of the small intestine passed by dirty water.. So I think Meduim and I are safe

Jess: Did you google that? You googled that.

*Barely Balanced is a kick ass acrobatic preformance group
**Medium is the stage name of my future ex boyfriend

_____________________________________________________________


Travis: Death is after me. I've had three close calls today. One of which turned into an accident for the other guy.

Sam: Maybe death got confused and thinks you're Harry Dresden. You should wear a name tag.

Travis: That's a case of mistaken identity I could live with.
Travis: ...erm, till I die that is.
Travis: HOLY CRAP Somebody ELSE just about ran into me!

Sam: GO HOME!

Travis: I'm worried. Have our ancestors desecrated any tombs that I don't know about?

Sam: Not sure about our ancestors. But we should probably check with Tanner

It was only a matter of time until I got sick again.
I was just hoping to put it off for a few more weeks... let me get the holiday crazy out of the way.
But I've been burnt out for the last three months, between work and overtime and standby and school and tests and papers and finals and bodhi and hard decisions and life plans suddenly being dashed to the ground.

Did you know that plans can smash into a million tiny pieces and gluing them back together isn't an option because the pieces are just that tiny. You stand there looking at the floor, aghast , slightly panicked and mostly devastated. You take the bigger shards and try to salvage them but really, without the all the pieces it just doesn't work.

Between the frantic scrabbling as I try to figure out what path my life is now going to take for the next six months, the increasing bouts of darkness and depression that I'm fighting valiantly, and all the holiday plans/friends/events that refuse to wait despite my moods resembling a s storm.

What I need is a vacation. A small break away from reality. What I get instead is a head cold and scratchy throat.

It's like I pissed off life and now she's being all passive aggressive on my ass.

A Sad Story

It's been three weeks and I'm still not sure I can write this.
In fact I'm sure of it, details are out of the questions.
So I'll give you the short version.

Three weeks ago Bodhi bit me.
Only he didn't just bite me. He sunk his teeth in, let go, reattached and did his best to take my arm off. It sounds dramatic, but I'm honestly not sure what would have happened if Matt hadn't been there with his steel toed boots.

Thank the greek gods that my arm wasn't broken and that the tendon damage was minimal. I'm still not back up to full use of my wrist.



As I agonised over what to do and tried to avoid the phone calls from Rabies and Animal Control, Bodhi Bit Jess. Without growling or any warning. It wasn't near as vicious as his attack on me but the bite was deep.

During that week people would see my arm, gasp, and ask what happened. As I told the story, again and again, something dawned on me.

I was in a abusive relationship with my dog.

I'd start off by telling people that Bodhi is always such a good dog. Very smart and always so good. And really the bite was my fault, I put myself between him and the other dogs. The viciousness, that was just because he was scared and didn't realize it was me he was biting. Well, yes he had bitten other people, but there were very good reasons for those. And most of them were before I even had him. And after I had him it's because he was being protective of me.... And he's never done too much damage. I mean most of the time...

But him biting Jess so soon after his attack on me? I couldn't explain that away.

I'd trail off and realize that just because I love that dog more then I've loved any human being besides my siblings, that wasn't enough. All those disney movies that told me that love could change everyone, they lied. In the following week I talked to vets, dog behaviorists, the K9 trainers for the police department. Told them how smart Bodhi was, how much of a lovebug he was, how I could let him run off leash while I jogged and he listened. We'd have conversations. He could tell when I was upset. He did drive by lickings. He was a good dog. He just had a history of biting.

They all told me the same thing. That I had no choice. That he was a biter by the time I got him and really the only reason he hadn't attacked before this was because of how safe he felt with me. But now it was only a matter of time before he bit a child, or did something that required surgery.

I cried for two weeks straight. I'd probably still be crying but I'm relatively sure I ran out of tears.

It was the hardest decision I've had to make. I won't tell you about the dark places that my mind dwelled. In my job I deal with domestic abusive relationships all. the. time. I've never been able to wrap my mind around the fact that these women (and men) stay in such violite situations. Now I get it. A part of me didn't care if he bit me again, I couldn't lose my dog. And surely if I just kept him from situations that made him feel aggressive then we'd be ok. And sure I was a little jumpy around him, sure my gut clenched every time he moved his head too quickly but I'd get over that fear.. right?

The comparisions kept building. I couldn't deny it anymore.

I've said for years that I don't believe in love. I mean, I know love is real, I feel it for my siblings. But the romantic love that lasts forever is just not something I can buy into.
But I loved Bodhi. Like my child.
Losing him has been a heartache that I can't imagine going through again.
It made me realize, if this is depth of feeling is what other people feel in relationships....

Why the fuck do they keep looking for love?

Traces of what could have been

Mckenna had a baby.
And I love him.

Then
An old friend (like someone I haven't talked to since elementary school) found me on facebook. And then she had the nerve to post a link to her blog. And because I have a sickness and have to read every scrap of word that I find (blogs are like crack to me) (even badly written blogs), I spent two hours last night reading her about her life. Reading about how very very different it is from mine.

More importantly, how very similar it could have been to mine if I had not drastically swerved off from the path I was on at age twenty one.

At twenty one I was walking down the path that most girls from my religon were walking. Decent job, a little bit of an education, a little bit of travel under my belt and marriage and children and white picket fences were right on the horizon.

Thankfully, with the help of some amazing friends who knew me better then myself, I came to the realization that I was miserable. That that particular lifestyle was not the one for me. So I blindly picked a new path and ran down it as fast as I could. It wasn't until I was hitchhiking across Kona a year later that I finally pulled up short and stopped blindly running. At that point I picked a new path and have been (mostly) happily skipping down the road.

However every once in a while I see ghost reflections of the path I could have been on. As I held Mckenna's beautiful little boy and automatically fell into the bouncing walk that I used to do with Sierra, it wasn't surprising that I felt a surreal vision of the little child that could have been mine. I came home that night and was washing dishes and I didn't have to stretch my imagination to hear children laughing and playing with trucks at my feet. Reading the blog entries from my long lost friend isn't helping with the weird de ja vue. Can you get de ja vue from a life you haven't lived?

After reading that I was in a bit of a fog. Trying to analyze my feelings. Was I feeling regret? No. Was I baby hungry? God no, not for my own at least. Was I babysitting hungry..? Yeah that felt more accurate. Was I unhappy? No again.

As I wandered around the house in a trance, Jess came bounding into the room. She chattered my ear off and dragged me into the bathroom to dye her hair a new shade of red/brown. At one in the morning. And just like that I snapped out of it. Giggling, with red dye on my hands and spraying Jess with the detachable shower head, with our mutts barking disapproval at us, I realized "oh yeah. My life is awesome". My path isn't what I thought it would be. But damn is it fun.