My own worst enemy

There are two very different people that come together to make up Sam.
Notice I said "come together" not "combine"
This distinction is very very important.

One of those people is logical, practical, giving, low key and laid back.
That girl loves wearing jeans and size four skater shoes.
She will spend hours in a bookstore just running her hands up and down the shelves.
That girl enjoys cooking elaborate meals.
She loves decorating her living space, especially if there loud music playing.
That girl worries and frets about how her siblings are growing up
She buys them clothes for their bodies and books for their souls
That girl has a five year plan that involved getting a well paying job and finishing school in order to be able to apply for a job that will take her all over the world. That girl has completed year one of said plan. She has been diligent. She even managed to visit three states and Mexico (twice!) while undergoing a grueling year of training. She went to a combat school and learned to fight with some really tough ass people. She's happy in her relationship and loves her dog and her books. She loves naps and sleeping in. She's a little nervous about going to school but also can't wait. Her hair is blonde and growing out long, her body looks pretty good most of the time, her personality is bubbly and excited and she is happy. Content almost.


The other girl that makes up Sam is wild, spontaneous, irresponsible, selfish and fun.
This girl loves stomping around in boots and climbing trees... or rocks.
She believes that history and new places should be climbed on, even if the sign forbids it.
This girl wants to know everyone's darkest secret and what makes them tick.
She's fearless.
This girl will do/has done almost anything for an adrenaline rush.
She wants to travel not just to see the world, but to stay and live among different cultures.
This girl doesn't care about family. She made it out alive on her own, they will too.
She swims in the ocean at night and only goes repelling when the moon is shining.
This girl loves meeting strangers and leaving them before she tires of them.
This girl is reason I move constantly. She wants to dye her hair dark again and be mysterious. Why I can't ever feel complete and content. She's a wild ride and when I let her take control stories are made. She has her motorcycle license and drives her car like she's in a high speed chase at all times. This girl believes shots make everyone better friends and don't have calories. She can field strip a 1911 .45 in 24 seconds. This girl believes there is more to life then 40 work hour weeks and nights watching movies on the couch. She just needs the funding to back her dreams.

But the other half of me knows and understands that if I want to make it in the years to come with out repeating Hawaii then I need money, which means I need a job. Which means I need school, which is why I spent the last year training at this job so I can pay for school.

Almost a year ago the two halves of my personality made a pact. Follow the five year plan, let the logical side of me be in control. Really it was only fair, seeing as the wild side of me had been basically running the show since... well most of my life. The wild side was still mostly in control while I was working at the keg and going through eight bloody months of the hiring process for my current job. But in October of last year I started my new job and the wild side of me willingly walked into a cage and gave away the key. For the last year I've let logic and good sense rule me while the other part of me has been locked away. I suspect logic has been slipping the other part of me vicodin because it's been a really peaceful year. Mostly. There have been nights like tonight where the other half of me wakes up and rattles her cage, yelling and hollering with all she has. The Boy has learned to recognize those nights. Usually cause the house is completely moved around. Or because I've disappeared with a friend looking for an adventure that is close to home and come home muddy and bruised. There's been two occasions when she's escaped her cage and I've come home with a piercing or a tattoo.

I love both parts of me. They make me, well, me. I love being logical and laid back. I love being spontaneous and a trouble maker. Maybe one day I can get them to live in harmony together. In the meantime they are like two sisters too close in age. Pushing and shoving for control and attention but occasionally working together smoothly.





My friends always joked that I was born with nine lives. Thanks to my reckless and daring self it can be said I've gone through a few of those already. I want to live a life worth writing about. But I only have a few more lives left. So logic gets a to try her hand and see if can't be more successful then living spontaneously.



Now, off to see 127 hours. Hopefully watching a movie about a daredevil that ends up having to saw his arm off will shut the wild side of me up. Or at least temporarily scare her into silence.

To Be Understood

Don't you love when you stumble upon something that you connect with? This website constantly posts things like this that describes me or my feelings so... well perfectly. One day I will meet the fabulous person who posts these and we will run away together and have grand adventures.

One day...

The Gods Clearly Hate Me

In case I was confused, this morning is a perfect reminder as to why I'm soooo not having children.

Sunday night I got off work at 10pm. Got home, loaded up the dog and met Jess over at the dog park. Jess has a German Shepard (Raine) and a Papillon (London). The dog park is technically closed after 10pm, but it's completely fenced in and just happens to be the size of a running track. So we kind of ignore the rules. So we run and chat and walk and run again. Bodhi, Raine and London follow us, or run ahead of us or ignore us completely and just pee on everything. Which they should, it's a dog park. It's really adorable to watch London run with us on her little legs. She can keep up, but only if she doesn't lose focus.

I'm slightly scared that she will run too hard for her little body and have a heart attack. But she seemed to handle 3 miles just fine. Better then me actually. It's distressing to see a five pound dog at me with pity while I huff and puff.

So last night we run. We finish about midnight, Bodhi and I find our way home. I have a been having a hard sleeping lately, so I've been taking sleeping pills. Not a huge deal, except for the fact that while i'm sleeping I am out. Completely. The zombies could rise and I would just roll over and pull the blankets over my head.

The Boy gets home about 7am. He takes the dog out for another walk. Cursing the whole time about living in apartments and three flights of stairs. Or so I assume. As I said, I was out, like a light.

At 9am Bodhi started to cry. Have you heard a dog whimper and whine? It's really pathetic sounding. I was in such a deep sleep that I heard it in my dreams first. When I finally woke up I stumbled out of the room, peered around, saw that the dog had food and water, peered at the dog and stumbled back into the room.

"Matt! Did you walk the dog when you got home?!"
"mumble mumble"
"Matt!"
"mumble mumble yes"

I turned to the dog.

"He says he walked you. I have a fuzzy memory of running at a dog park with you.
So you are clearly well fed, exercised and have had plenty of time to poop. GO TO BED."

I fell into the bed.

Possibly moments later we hear a crash.
My first and only thought was oh no the book cases. We're in the middle of moving, so all my books have been packed away but the empty bookcases are still in the living room, looking forlorn. So I figured the crash was one of those falling over. I thought about getting up again, but really, if it had already fallen over what good would I be doing by putting it back up? It would just fall over again. And any mess it created could clearly wait.
Thank Hera the boy dragged himself out of bed to investigate. I heard a moment of yelling, a moment of whining and then the boy falling back into bed.

Two hours later my alarm went off. I stumbled out of bed. I opened my bedroom door.
AND WALKED INTO A WALL OF STENCH.

Bodhi had been crying because he was sick. Like, food poisoning sick. You know the kind that makes you so sick that all the poison comes out both ends. Bodhi finally gave up on making it out doors and proceeded to vomit and poop all over the living room.

As I was gagging I tried to look for Bodhi. There was so much shit (literally) that I was afraid I would find a dying dog who I would have to hold and cry because I didn't believe him and some how this was all my fault. Luckily I found him cowering under the table, sure that he was in trouble for making a mess.

I felt so awful. Oh my god I'm a terrible person. So I hugged him, petted him, made sure he wasn't still sick (he wasn't) and then realized that I had exactly five minutes to get ready if I was going to make it work on time. So I run in the bedroom, tell the boy the bad news and dash out the door.

The Boy wakes up seven hours later to go to work. Stumbles out of bed. Opens the bedroom door.
AND WALKS INTO A WALL OF STENCH.

He does a quick clean up then dashes out the door to work.

Cut to midnight last night. I walk in the door to find a pathetic looking dog. Although most of the poop and vomit were gone the smell and the stains remained. Lingered. Preeminent. Bodhi didn't like the smell anymore then we do. There was only one option. I donned my gas mask and took to scrubbing.

Oh My God.

The carpet is ruined. I'm still grossed out hours later. The stench is a living things, stalking me from room to room. I'm hiding in the bedroom and scared to go out and face the living room. Bodhi just cowers under the table.

And all this happened because The Boy and I decided to sleep through Bodhi's warning. Clearly we will be terrible parents.

Well Hello There December. When Did You Get Here?

Holy stressful month batman.

I am sooo grateful November is over.
Also a little confused at how it is already over.
I mean seriously, where did it go? I only remember living like two weeks of it.

Tyson got married.
Dinner/drink dates with fabulous friends. Multiple Nights
Thanksgiving was in there somewhere.
Work. Lots of work.
And the rest was filled with house hunting.

Yep that sums up November.

Oh and to clarify. We are hunting houses to RENT. Not own.
Don't be silly. Buying a house is waaayyy to much commitment for me.


This week we kind of stumbled on the most perfect house. It's love.
We met the owners, did a walk through and as of 30 minutes ago, submitted renters applications. Now we wait. I hate waiting. Hate. Loathe. But for this pretty house? Well I guess I work on my patience. Ah, the funny things we do for love.

God, I know you don't owe me favors. But if you could make this happen...

It's the little things sometimes

I had hoped that by writing about Robin I would magically feel better, that the situation would be better and that life could continue as it was before.

Not surprisingly to everyone but me.. it didn't work that way.

I'm not sleeping well. The night terrors are back in full force. I don't remember them much, just wisps of images and shadows on the edge of my memory. I can see The Boy is torn between letting me grieve and trying to make me happy. Which would be sweet if I wasn't so distracted. I've spent the last few days mostly in my own head.

Today I got home from work and just crawled into bed with The Boy. Unfortunately me crawling under the covers woke The Boy up. My heart was set on sleeping at least a little bit, so I promised him he could wake me up in 2 hours.

Those 2 hours went by way too quickly.

Now, you should know, I can be pretty shifty when I want to keep sleeping. I mean, I will flat out lie.
"Ugh, I'm not feeling very good"
"No Mckenna, I'm not going to wear a braid again. I'll get up in 5 min to do my hair"
"Just 15 more minutes.."
"Oh that's not my alarm, that's Lachelle's"
"The meeting was canceled"
"I'm up I'm up"
"It's a snow day..?"

So The Boy is being persestant about me being concious. The jerk. I mumble something about needing 5 more minutes. He doesn't get the hint (or ignores it) and keeps poking me.

Boy - Saaamm Wake up. I lonely.
Me - mumble mumble
Boy - Please? I want to play, I want to go out. Wake up!
Me - Go play with the dog. Bodhi likes you.
Boy - Bodhi isn't good company all he does is run up to me with his rope and
Says "throw the rope"
So I throw the rope. Then Bodhi runs up to me and says "Throw the rope"
I try to wrestle with him... he thinks I'm trying to steal his rope and
he runs away.
I mean it's fun for an hour, but now I'm over it.

Sadly, this is a very accurate description of the dog.
And my life.

Thank Hera for The Boy. He's going to get me through this.

Many lifetimes ago, I worked at a fortune 500 company. Within a few months I was promoted to the training staff. I was 22 and lost. In my job, in my romantic life, in all paths actually. I was 22 and I was already resigned to my life.

Enter Robin.

She was in my first training class. Blonde, sweet and excitable we instantly became friends. I'm still not sure how much older Robin is then me, somewhere in her thirties or forties. It's hard to put an age on her, she contains a mixture of gaiety, experience, and hope. Life had clearly knocked her down a few times, but Robin remains unfazed. She was eager to learn and in typically Robin fashion she attacked the job with gusto, rising to become a fellow team lead with me maybe six months after we first met. She was good at her job, she was good with her underlings and she was determined.

Robin is the ultimate free spirit, wild child and hippie. Our boss had joked that she hired her mostly because her resume was so random she had to get to know her better. Robin had done everything from working as a professional clown to working in a small town near the ski slopes making zilch just so she could spend all her time and money on fresh powdered snow. At one point she decided that she wanted to see all the states in America, so she got a job as a truck driver. She made it to every state except Hawaii, Alaska and South Dakota. Robin lived the life she wanted to live. And she lived that life where ever the wind happened to blow her. When she went to Vegas with her boyfriend and a few friends, someone drunkenly suggested that it wouldn't be Vegas without a wedding. Without missing a beat Robin was married a few hours later. But for all her free living ways, Robin has a practical streak a mile wide in her. Her life settled down drastically with the arrival of her son. Realizing that her marriage was falling apart, she left. Took her 1 year old son and lived successfully as a single mother for the next 9 years. She saw the job we shared as a way to make life easier for her and her son even if it wasn't her dream job. The first year she worked there she called out sick 3 times. THE WHOLE YEAR.

I can't sum up Robin. It's taken me 20 minutes to write the above paragraph. I keep trying to capture her essence in nice neat little sentences and I can't. I can't explain how she was so good at her job but so excitable that we use to joke about having to pull her claws out of the ceiling like a cat. Or within only a few months of knowing each other she brought in a postcard for me that had a signpost that said "lost" instead of a street name. Robin taught Cliff to juggle in an effort to distract him from how much he hated his job. She helped me with the office pranks. She was a tireless defender when she felt one of her friends was not treated right.

I went through my reservation road break up while I worked with her. I've never been a big crier, but there was one day when my heart was heavy and bleak. Robin was like me, hating to show weakness and would never dream of crying in public. Imagine my surprise when she told me in soft tones about her divorce and told me to expect days feeling nothing but relief that I was finally free of a bad situation. Then there would be days when I would feel so crushed, feel the impact of my failure and feel like the sun would never rise again. She told me it was ok to have days like that, that it was part of the healing process.

I worked every day with her for almost two years. When I told her I was leaving for Hawaii she squealed and jumped up and down with me. Even though she knew I would never go back to that job. For almost two years she was one of my closest confidants.

We never fully lost touch. When I started my job at the Keg she was there opening night. We did a few pool days, I'd stop by the office a couple times and a few girls nights out that left blurry, happy memories. We talked on the phone a couple times a month, then a once a month, then a couple times a year. We never stopped loving each other, life just kept getting in the way. We probably made plans to do dinner six different times this last summer. It always fell through. But it was ok, we both understood how life gets.

She called me on my birthday. I was excited and surprised. She laughed and told me "I'm good with dates. As long as you live I'll never forget your birthday. So don't change your number, cause I'm always going to call you".

Robin went in for a routine surgery on Friday. She was sent home and was healing slowly. Sunday she aspirated. We don't know how long she went without oxygen. She's been ICU since Sunday night.

She has a 1% chance of waking up. If she does she will have severe brain damage.

Robin, I'm sorry my words fail you. I'm sorry I can't explain to the world what it is losing.

I...

Just a taste

Halloween weekend was spent in Texas this year.

With The Boy's family. At a renaissance faire. Which meant that we got to wear costumes on TWO days instead of just one. Drink and eat all sorts of yummy foods while walking around staring at all the vendors and shows. So much fun.

I'm sure I'll write more about it in the next day or two. But for now, just know this:


I met Sampson this weekend and I think I love him. I've already asked The Boy if I can have him for christmas. The Boy said no, but I'm pretty sure he's just trying to trick me so I'll be surprised on Christmas day.




Clearly we are meant to be together.