The fun never ends

Not even sure where to start.
Weekend that was SUPPOSE to be quiet, was of course not. Had two separate sightings of Joe, both times he either left or went and hid rather than see me. But he did buy my beer the time we stopped into his bar.
That's a manly thing to do.

Got another email from the ex-ex confirming that he is still thinking about me, how much seeing me made him miss me and just laying it on -- even going so far as to say,

"I don't want to seem needy but...."

Ok, if you say that, odds are good that YOU ARE NEEDY.

Work is freaking insane. Nothing is going right. And everyone went all high maintenance on me.

Saw make out boy this weekend.

And I have killer cramps right now. I am sure you all wanted to know. Deal with it.

And coming in under the title, of sealing the deal, discovered tonight that I have ants in my kitchen.

At some point it has to stop. I mean, what do normal people do? I will grant you, I am not really the dictionary definition of normal but at some point this has to all slow down, right? Shouldn't I be able to just spend a few days not freaking out about something? The worst part is, I just really want to talk to my mom about all this, and I can't. I mean, she would have simultaneously pissed me off and made me feel better, but it would have been her.

And, I am suppose to go out of town this weekend for the block party. The same block party that my dad invited Gary to. The same block party that I basically told him, as my father invited you, if you want to come, you can. And he took me to task on that one. So my dad is all, Come on down, spend the weekend relaxing, etc. I was like Dad, you sorta made me relaxing this weekend about impossible.
Here is where I am at. I am ok with having him in my life. As a friend. I am not ok with being his girlfriend, fiancee, mother of his children and so on. If he can handle that, then fine. If he cannot handle me in his life without one of those labels, then the answer to me is obvious.
It's not there for me. It's like I said earlier, I closed that chapter of my life.

On the upside -- yes, there are good things in my life -- I had 44 people sign up for the Race for the Cure and like, another 4 or 5 that didn't quite make the deadline (slackers, you know who you are) but will be joining us anyway.
So, now I just need to plan a breakfast for 45-50 people. Should be fun. Not sure where everyone is going to SIT, but it will be fun.

I need a deserted island. With a cabana boy. And a kicking bikini body. And a winning lottery ticket to make all that happen.

Now Watching: The Daily Show
Now Listening: to Boris ( my cat) howl at air.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

Drama Installment #8,741
Do you ever feel like you have lost all control of your life? That if this was a reality series, you would be like, no way that is really happening?
I have those thoughts.
daily. at least this week.
Last night.
ooh, last night. So, as was mentioned earlier this week, the ex-ex has been making noises about being interested in me and re-connecting. He actually called me on Wednesday night when I had a few people over at the house, so I let it go to voicemail.
Well, I called back last night after work - I am a big girl, it seemed to be the right thing to do.
Holy crap.
We talked for about 35 minutes. Actually he talked a lot. I listened.
The conversation, in a nut shell, went something like this:
I love you. I have always loved you. I compare everyone to you. I want to spend time with you. I want to get married and have kids and the only person that I only think of when I think about the future is you. I am sorry for all the things I have done to you in the past.
And so on
And so on
And so forth.
And basically every possible iteration of the above message that you can think of.
My first reaction was -- you think the week after my mom's funeral is really the ideal time for this conversation?
Really?
Just think on that for a minute - or seven years.
And then of course, he mentions that he talked to my dad. I was like, I know. He mentioned the block party, again, I knew the invitation had been extended. And he wanted to know what I thought about him coming down for that.
Ok- you just dumped a shit storm on me and now you want to plan a weekend? How about you give me a little time to digest all of this.
Say maybe seven years.
Who effing knows?
I don't. Clearly.
Well, scratch that. I do know that at no point last week when we were catching up was I like, man, I miss him or I can't believe I am not with him. And then there is the fact that in the intervening seven years, I have grown up a little bit. I am not some wide eyed 24 year old that needs someone to help them in the big bad world. So, honestly I am not sure who he is so madly in love with. Some previous version of me?
Jeebus.

Now Listening: Little Plastic Castles by Ani DiFranco

PS: for a great laugh (thanks Danielle) check out this link, especially all my coastal readers.

Back to life, Back to reality

I have been told that people have stopped reading, as my posts have been too sad lately.
Well, back diving head first into the ramblings that you all love. Because surely I cannot just have a few days without anything happening. Oh no. That would be to easy. So I finally made it back to Des Moines late Monday morning. I had to stick around the house and we finished off the last of the thank you cards -- I hope we got them all. Should you be a reader and did not get one, well, chalk it up to the organized chaos that was the last 10 days of my life. That said, a HUGE thank you to everyone. The outpouring of support from every nook and cranny of my life has been amazing. It truly is the silver lining in all this.
Ok - back to the good stuff.
So Monday night a few of my girlfriends decided I needed a night out. Like I hadn't consumed enough alcohol in the last few days. Whatever. So we went for sushi. And it was awesome. I think that was the most food I have consumed in like, 2 weeks. Of course, at Taki, with sushi comes sake bombs. I think we did 3 or 4. And then, we decided to go to another bar for "one drink". And for the record, we did only have one drink. And a few shots, but we never specified about shots.
What am I? Like, nineteen? Anyway.
During the course of the pool game, a question came up about make-out boy. As in, where is make out boy, have you talked to him? I hadn't, so a text message was sent and the response was, been a crazy weekend/week, if you want to stop by later, feel free. As I have mentioned before, we have a friend in common, Lisa. Lisa who was with me Monday night. Lisa who decided that we ALL should go over to Make-out boys house. Um, no. Of course, I hadn't driven that night. Smart move, Very smart move. So we head -- to what I think is back to Lisa's house. Where my car is. And all the sudden, she is giving directions to Make-out boys house, he does have a name BTW - Chris. And then we are there. All three of them get out of the car and head right into the house. I am furiously texting him to let him know he is about to have his house invaded, and all I hear is hysterical laughter coming from inside the house. My only thought at this point, is "Holy shit, I cannot believe this is going down like this.". About 5-10 minutes later, all three girls, plus Chris pour out of the house. I go over, get a hug and I am like, SO SORRY about this. He is laughing as well, so I think no harm, no foul. In the course of like, 2 minutes, all three girls jump into Liz's car and off they go. Leaving me stranded. Nice. Very nice.
So long story short, too late. I had a little slumber party. Get your heads out of the gutter, it wasn't anything that crazy - so yeah.
My insane friends.
Of course, against this little back drop, I have another wave of drama hitting me.
When it rains it pours.
So as I mentioned over the last few posts, my ex-ex boyfriend showed up to my Mom's funeral. Small history lesson. We dated for about 3.5 years and broke up like, 6 years ago -- with the last communication coming in somewhere about 5 years ago. I did in fact, send him an email -- along with some other people -- telling them what had happened. I told him mostly because his mother passed away when we were dating and he had come down to my parents house on several occasions and knew my mom.
So fast forward back to last week. He was great. really. Everything he did was compassionate and very adult. It meant a lot. So since he left the house on Thursday, I have received two emails from him. One that said it was great to see everyone, even under the circumstances, reminding me to not have to be strong all the time -- that sort of thing. The second one came on Tuesday when he basically said he had been thinking of me non-stop and wanted to know what my weekend schedules were looking like as he thought we should meet somewhere or he could come visit. That was then topped off by a phone call from my sister on Tuesday night in which she started the call with "You are never going to guess who Dad is talking to". Given the people that have been turning up out of nowhere the last few weeks, I had no idea. Well, seems Gary had given my dad a call. And they talked about a few things, according to my father, and then Gary invited him to join him at a Nebraska football game. My father then turned around and invited Gary to my parents block party the last weekend of this month.
Um, WTF?
I mean come on, I haven't talked, emailed or sent a carrier pigeon to this guy in FIVE YEARS. And all of the sudden he is like, lets get together, lets see each other, let me hang out with your dad.
Can't deal. I just wanted to come home, get back to normal - or whatever version of normal my life is -- and go from there.
All I need at this point is a drunk, 2:30 AM text message from Joe and the whole thing would be all set.
Narf.

Now Listening: O by Damien Rice

Thoughts that linger

I have been thinking quite a bit over the last week about everything that has happened. It has been a lot.

I remember being totally devastated that I never heard from Joe right after it happened.

I remember saying the Our Father right before they took my mom away.

I remember having a beer with my dad after we left the funeral home and watching Nebraska play the last 5 minutes of their football game.

I remember watching the train-wreck of Brittany Spears on the VMA's on the Sunday after it all happened when I came back to Des Moines for the night.

I remember seeing the flowers from my ex-ex boyfriend at the funeral home.

I remember standing for what seemed like forever during the visitation, waiting for the line to get smaller and it never really did.

I remember getting up and talking, but not really seeing anyone in the church.

I remember my cousins beautiful voice singing the Ava Maria

I remember breaking down the first time I saw Julie when she came into town.

I remember lawn mowers stopping as the funeral procession passed on the way to the cemetery.

I remember turning back in the limo and see an entire almost mile of cars following us.

I remember being more tired than I have ever been on Thursday.

I remember calling my mom's cell phone the day after she died to hear her voice. I have done it a number of times since.

I remember a ton of people who all the sudden told me I looked like my mom.

I remember seeing Nate outside the church and him giving me the biggest hug I think I have ever gotten.

I remember all my friends that came down just for the funeral. Their support is something I will never forget.

There are more. But I will leave you with those.