I'm happiest at home with my family. I really am nothing without them.

My best friend is really pissing me off. She's not being honest with herself or with me. It's really depressing and tiring watching yet another of my friends' lives fall apart. Divorce, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, depression, cheating, greed...none of them seem to see the link between those things and their unhappiness. I guess I'm just not as understanding as I always thought I was.

The leaves are starting to fall. If I close my eyes, I can see and smell those golden piles of yellows, reds, and earthy brown. I love autumn and all the holidays and things associated with it.

Last wednesday, I bought a case of water and stuck it under my cart. I paid and got out to the parking lot before I realized that I hadn't paid for the water. I didn't go back in.

I lost 26 pounds this summer and today I went and bought my very first bikini to wear into the hot tub this winter. I will always have body issues, so I will never wear it in public, but the feeling of power that comes from being confident enough to buy one in the first place is pretty intoxicating. I still have to lose more, but it's fun being able to shop in the "cute" racks again.

I'm afraid that I'm going to turn into my mother and have the same screwed relationship with my daughter as I always had with my mom, and she with hers. There's a lot of pressure to break the vicious cycle. I want to do it and I think I can. I know I'll try.

I want to make something out of nothing and have it be a work of art. I envy artistic people. It must be so wonderful to take some art supplies, a piece of wood, a webpage, or any canvas and make something beautiful out of it that people enjoy looking at. But I don't have a direction and never felt especially talented at anything I've ever tried. Sometimes you just have to leave it to the professionals.

I'm grateful for this sounding board. If no one reads it, or 2,000 strangers do....at least I'm not holding it in....at least I can be forced to be honest with myself.

There it is...in black and white.

There's strength in vulnerability. 

I had a dream the other night that I was with a group of friends playing dodgeball with hotdogs in a school gymnasium. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what it means, but I can't stop thinking about it. Maybe this will help get it out of my head.

On July 14, I went to see Nickelback in concert. I had a spectacular time because we tailgated in the parking lot for 6 hours before the concert ( so I might have been slightly tipsy going in ) , but also because they just threw an awesome party of a concert. Daughtry opened, then Staind performed, and then Nickelback. As it turned out, Nickelback was filming a segment for the video for "Rockstar". We had to chant "Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar" over and over again until they were satisfied with the result, so when/if you see the video and they're showing the crowd while that line is being said, you can rest more comfortably at night knowing that a girl you barely know from the internet appeared in it, lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces and most likely too short to be recognizable anyway. Alas, so much for my 15 minutes of fame.

My only other concert experiences were  The Judds and Conway Twitty, who are country artists that my parents took me to when I was very young, Garth Brooks as a teenager, and in the last 10 years- Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, and this one. Which got me to thinking: Everyone always talks about the great concerts they've been to, whether it be because of the group and singing itself, the genre, the pyrotechnics, the openers, whatever....but hardly anyone I talk to ever brings up any horrible concerts they've attended. I don't mean ones you were forced to go to or ones that the headliner never showed up or anything like that. I mean the one you were truly looking forward to going to, but in the end you wish you hadn't. Anybody have an experience like that? I'd love to hear it.

 

I created my profile awhile ago, but I'm finding it hard to fill it with content. Not because I don't have things that interest me, or because I have nothing to say, but because I don't know what I want it to be about. A general idea, a theme, seems easy enough for other people to come up with. I see blogs and references to other "spaces" online everyday. Perhaps that's part of the problem. We're already overloaded with so much information, what could I possibly say that hasn't already been said in 15 other languages? Of course, the really tempting thing to do is just complain about everyone and everything that I see in the news or in person that just totally rubs me the wrong way. Heck, people like Anderson Cooper and Bill O'Reilly get paid to do that, right? I just don't know if it's for me. I haven't found my niche.

 So be patient with me.

I guess starting something like this forces you to discover things about yourself, and apparently I really need to do that. Because I DO have something to say.

I just don't know what it is yet.