i made her come

It's my birth month. I'm not excited. This will be my first birthday without my father. I know it will be sad and I'm just simply not looking forward to it. Plus, I'm turning another year older. And my life is in the exact same spot it was on last year's birthday...and the birthday before that. I'm sad about that. But it's giving me the motivation I need to make a life change. I am happy to report that one thing is different though: If I stay on track and work hard, I will turn 26 being 30 pounds lighter than I was when I turned 25. I've lost 20 pounds so far. It's exciting!

Another reason I'm not looking forward to my birthday...at the end of this month and early next month, football preseason kicks off. My favorite person to talk shit with about the games is no longer present. I'm not sure how excited I am for the first Colts game of the season, or any game really. It just hurts that he isn't going to be here. I got my love of football from him. And I can't stand that we won't be texting one another during the games and I won't be calling him to discuss the highlights as I make my drunken way home from the bar on Sunday nights. 

This weekend brought some relief from my constant boredom. On Friday night, me and one of my friends and another of her friends that I've gotten kool with all went to a casino that's about 40 minutes away. It was really fun. I went with 100 dollars, blew it all, got back up to about 50, and ran it down to 20. I'd be willing to go again, but I think I'd rather have it be more of a party atmosphere. I wasn't expecting a bunch of middle aged chain smokers. We left out of there with headaches, stomach aches, burning eyes, and smelling like smoke. They did have a nonsmoking section, but all the fun was over with the smokers. There was one woman there who had us cracking up. She was about 4'5, didn't have a bra on with these little strange looking breasts, she had kinky twists (the worst hair style in the world), her lips were black, her eyes were all glazed over, and she had the rough voice that comes with strained vocal chords from smoking all her life. Her friend won $4,000 on a penny machine. And she lost her mind. "AAAGGGGGHHHH AAAGGGGHHHHH AAAAGGGGHHHHHH SHE WASN'T EVEN GONNA COME, I MADE HER COME! I MADE HER COME! I MADE HER COME! AAAAGGGGHHHH AAAGGGHHHHH!" We were dying laughing! She carried on like that for some 15 minutes. I was like "she should say something else besides 'i made her come.' how about 'i brought her with me." It was funny, but it got annoying after the first 5 minutes. After awhile, she had four casino employees standing behind her trying to urge one another to go over and say something to her. She was disrupting the atmosphere. And all the machines clearly say one machine per person...but she had two machines going, had a cigarette in each hand, and was sitting there in a cloud of smoke, just having the time of her life. None of them worked up the nerve to approach her, so she got to carry on uninterrupted. 

Saturday night, another friend's son turned 3, so there was a party at their house. It was cool, a real laid-back time. Except I got punched in the face by the birthday boy. I was tickling him and he didn't like it...so he swung. And connected. It didn't hurt that bad at the moment, but the bones around my eye and nose are sore now. He got in trouble and was sent to bed. He's been a terror since he was born. He gets kicked out of every day care they put him in. His mom even said that she can't wait until somebody hits him back or beats him up because she thinks that's the only way he'll learn. And it just might be. He gets whippings that are pretty extreme, but they don't seem to really help. Time-outs and whatnot are a joke. His pediatrician already told them that he was going to end up medicated as soon as he starts school. I feel bad for him though because his parents are basically waiting for him to turn 5 so that they can put him on pills to calm him down. And he also has night terrors. They wake up to him screaming bloody murder in his sleep in the middle of the night, almost every night. He's too young to explain what's going on and the doctors told them not to wake him up in the middle of it. So they've actually invested in a video surveillance system so they can watch him without going into his room. I can't imagine how stressful that is for them as his parents (they haven't gotten to sleep longer than 5 hours at a time since he's been born), but I feel like whatever is "getting him" in his sleep might contribute to his aggressive and violent behavior while he's awake. I used to think he was just a sweet kid who had young parents who didn't know how to handle his excessive activity...I mean, what toddler isn't extremely active? What 2 year old doesn't throw fits and have meltdowns? But now I see what they mean...it definitely is deeper than that. They have the beginnings of a problem child on their hands. 

I love Shanee and we want to be with one another, but the communication between us is just no fun anymore. We're creatures of habit these days, so there's nothing fun and exciting to talk about ever. We know each other pretty well, so everyday isn't a learning experience anymore. She knows all my secrets, she's heard all my stories. I don't have anything exciting to say to her anymore and vice versa. We know each other's sense of humor so well, we only smirk at each other's jokes these days, they're not funny anymore. We always say "i knew you were going to say that." I think that we're each in a period of transition right now and we're not at our best. I'm mildly depressed about the death of my father and the distance between her and I gets harder each day. Plus, I'm not happy with my place in life. I'm working on getting a plan together to solve a few problems...move near her, start school. She is living back with her family, which is a love-hate situation. She loves her mother and sister with everything she's got, but she hates the hell out of her step father and it makes her hate being in that house. But it's cheapest and makes the most sense. And she's looking for a job, which is stressful. I'm not sure that she's adjusting too well to life after college. I just hope that things get better once we're living in the same city and are each happier with our lives. 

My manager said something to me yesterday that really struck me. I have thought about it a lot since then. She said she feels like she is going to die young. Said that the women in her family don't live long at all. She's not very old at all and has already lived past the age her mother died. All her aunts died in their 40s. She said she already knows that she doesn't have that much time left. And she said that's why she spends so frivolously and goes on vacation all the time...she honestly feels like she's just living for today. It kind of made me wonder about my own life. My father died young and I wonder if I will live to be older than he did. I hope so. I honestly don't feel that I will share his reality...even though we're genetically very very similar. He was born with a very weak heart and it was attacked by some childhood illness. He began smoking at the age of 9 or something ridiculous like that. His eating habits were horrible and he began picking up a lot of weight in his late 20s. He never exercised. Even if I was born with a weak heart, I didn't have any major childhood illnesses, I don't smoke, I have changed my eating habits, I exercise now and am in the process of losing this weight. I feel like I am doing the things I need to do now in order to increase the quality of my life and the longevity. I do kind of feel where she's coming from though on living for today...I feel like I have a future to look forward to, but I also understand that nothing is for certain and that I should strive to enjoy the present.

I love mornings like this...zero obligation. I like to just sip my coffee, read, write, enjoy myself, relax, listen to music. Do whatever feels right.