Reconciling Saints

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Londonsquared proclaims "Fine in Oh-Nine!"

That's right kids, let's start this off right! Mlle_aubergine and I did by hitting the gym for lunch to keep up with our FABULOUS selves and make sure we're good to go for her FABULOUS party in Paris this spring.

I'm supposed to be doing a year in review today, technically, however, I got wind of London's new mantra and I had to share.

SO! This year was something, wasn't it??

Let's review:
- January - Got married... AGAIN! If this one doesn't stick, I'm done with this marriage business! Met Neely of the Lexington Contingency and she came to my wedding! Had a HUGE party with my GREAT friends...thank you thank you thank you to all that came... that was the best time EVER! and thank you to Amanda and Stephen for staying with us for most of that time/ hosting the party room.

- February - Quit job, met Matt of the Lexington Contingency, moved out of old (but AWESOME!) apartment and shipped everything in one of those PODS type things to Portland. What a month! Can you say exhausted?! Still, I felt so free!

- March - Went to Europe for the whole month and met up with London, Liad, Ami, Leigh, Ezra, Chloe, Joe, Amanda, Luke and their friend Tim. AMAZING!

- April - huh... well there was the bullshit Fiasco, hiring a lawyer, My sister's wedding, moving in with my parents, the boyo's move to PDX, staying at Chez London, Linda and Dylan being super fucking amazing! Oh and Malia's baby shower on the hottest day of the year! Half bad, half good; this month made me realize that out of bad comes some good... and I have some amazing people in my life.

- May - the fiasco continues, my birthday, outings with Liz, never leaving the gym (if you lived with your parents, what would you do?), going very close to the edge of insanity due to my mother, missing the boyo, getting the boyo for my birthday (Again, Linda's AWESOME ... she got everyone to pitch in to fly him down AND we got our own little hotel room for a week... I was walking funny for 3 days after he left), the most surreal thing ever, and May 29th was "Here's Where the Story Ends"... 2nd miracle.

- June - More outings with Liz ( the Good Luck Bar!), Big Sonic Heaven, Robert's graduation, moving to PDX, moving in with Mlle_ aubergine, feeling FREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

- July - unemployed but happy, being a good house elf, the boyo is unemployed, living in the City and the boyo living in the sticks, still happy, in awe of new city, my brother's wedding (parents express concern that I may be an alcoholic), land long-term temp job, meeting ALL sorts of people, writing writing and more writing, realizing I hate Summer no matter where I live, movie night.

- August - staying at Sir William's ('cause he's a nice boyo), living in the same place with the boyo, Lou(!!!), Breaking Dawn, the boyo's birthday, getting longer hours at the temp job, happy happy happy, finding our own place, things are coming together... slowly but surely.

- September - New place, Coidric and M's wedding, start writing for ourpdx.net, first time at the coast, first time camping, The Graveyard Book, Coidric puts me in contact with current job, whenever things look like they might get worse, they somehow get better.

- October - New job (thanks to Coidric), Leigh's birthday (return to LA), HALLOWEEN, love new job, love writing on this blog and on ourpdx, meeting MORE new people, loving my new city.

- November - NaNoWriMo, gym a lot with no results, Let the Right One In, Ignite Portland 4, Thanksgiving with the in-laws (kinda weird), Thanksgiving on the coast (The island of misfit toys), Diana and Prime's wedding (20 sided dice!) ... and all SORTS of inspiration!

- December - finished NaNoWriMo (that's 50,056 words baby! Now to edit it!), Pocket Heather's visit to Portland, got sick, got sick again, snowed in (!!!), drinking in local bars due to being snowed in, more writing, Melissa Lion's writing class, Back Fence PDX, lovely friends, and all out lovely year.

WOW!
that's a lot.

I wouldn't be anyone else :) Thank you to all that support me and that I call "friend," I couldn't have done it without you!

...was what I told Cedric today at lunch.

So today we decided we were going to try out the new little french place called Chez Joly for lunch. My lunch partners today were Cedric and William and we had a good time talking about this, that, and the other. You know, like you do. We had a marvelous little lunch!

Oddly we were discussing how certain clubs in certain places won't let you in unless you're a)rich b) famous or c) special (unique/cool/etc.). It was agreed that Cedric would most likely be allowed in, but he had to work what he's got (which isn't difficult as Cedric is just... well... Cedric!)

So as we were leaving the owner was talking with us asked if we were painters or actors or ... something! There were odd stutters from around the table as William answered that he was a programmer, Cedric just answered that no, we weren't anybody and I sorter "er"d and "umm"d. Mainly I said neither yes nor no because my first thought was to say, "Yes, but no one you've heard of yet!" My second thought was to just say that I was a writer but this was negated by my third thought which is the fact that I don't write for a living, I just sort of dabble and technically my job title is analyst. Hence the "er"s and "umm"s. We thanked the owner and said we were basically no one he'd heard of and went on our merry way.

As we left, William argued that he was a programmer and I argued that whenever anyone asks you if you're special or if you are somebody, you say YES! Mostly because I do believe we are "somebody!" and also because I do believe that we are very interesting people (William, Cedric and I as well as the people we know).

I think it's proven just by the fact that someone thinks we're "somebody" even when technically (by definition in social and pop-culture terms) we're not!

OK... I'm gonna 'fess up, kids.

I'm down. I can usually cheer myself up out of this and they seem to work temporarily but in the long run I've just been sorter "eh" all day and at points I'm fighting off tears mostly because I don't know what's affecting me so much!

Partially I feel a bit disconnected with my friends so far away. Also there's the writing issue I'm having as I'm not getting a lot of feedback from those that I gave the draft I have of the novel I was working on. I wonder if I ask too much, if it's just too busy of a time for me to expect anyone to read it. Perhaps I should hire an editor.

I feel slightly out of touch and yet I feel hopeful. I know this will pass, but I can't seem to shake it.

What do I do? My bag of tricks is empty and I've no cheerleaders.