OK, so I’m not going into detail, but I’m pretty freaked out. It’s not funny,
people, that if you know who I am and you’re not going to tell me who you are.
Not cool. My name isn’t anywhere on this blog. If you are using it in comments,
present yourself, either by comment or email, and leave YOUR contact
information, or stay off my freakin’ comments! Or, comply with the fact that
OBVIOUSLY, I would like to remain somewhat anonymous and leave me alone. But
trust me, and ask DG, who knew me during my teenage angst years, playing with my
mind is not a game you want to play. That said, I’ll expect to know who you are
shortly, or see a quick disappearing act on your part. Thanks.

I had Taco Bueno for lunch today and my tummy feels all
squishy/nauseus/gonna-blow-chunks-ish. Ugh.

It’s a topic I’ve been mulling over lately. This internet world isn’t as small
as we’d all like to believe. When I first started blogging, less than a [very
long] year ago, it was a joy, a pleasure, and something I couldn’t wait to share
with the world each morning–and each afternoon, and each evening. Pleasure soon
became chore, and as I started to get to know other blogger’s worlds, I began to
realize how collision-oriented this whole blog thing could actually be. There is
no room for deception in it. My writings tend to come straight from the heart,
and I know that there are people who I would not want reading this. My parents,
my sister, for one. And there are days when I wish the people who do read this
didn’t know it even existed, so I could freakin go off on stuff. And even if the
people who read this didn’t know me, and didn’t know each other, it wouldn’t
take long for me to have an entirely new set of cyber-soap friends, because
there are days when that’s what this is. One big freaking Soap Opera Blog. They
should pay me to write this stuff down. On another dimension, I’m sitting in
Drew’s office typing this, whilst he is busy cleaning crap out of here,
revealing inches of dust underneath. We did this same thing to his living room
the other day, and I invented a new form of dustrag. Having found himself, like
a typical bachelor, out of dustrags, paper towels, dishcloths, washrags, and
paper napkins, we were left with one option for dusting–the Roll o’ Toilet
Paper. (Keep in mind, that being out of all those things also means that we
substituted toilet paper for napkins at dinner). However, I discovered that if
you use the entire roll, and carefully glide it over surfaces, that the toilet
paper picks up dust rather well, and then you can just tear off the used sheets
and VOILA! Underneath, you have the rest of a clean roll to keep dusting with!
Keep in mind, this does not work for damp surfaces, as the liquid will soak
through all layers of the TP and ruin the whole roll.

Drew has a blog! And, if everyone will do me a darling favor to earn some good
karma and go to the OK Gazette site and vote for Phil and Drew for best radio
show, best website, and vote for Jamestown for best car wash for my Dad! Thanks
all!

A recent commentor told me to roll with it and quit whining. A gentle reminder
that there is someone who reads this blog, despite the fact that I thought my
sparatic writing had lowered readership. Thank you. However, I use this blog TO
whine. I’m not going to quit whining. If a girl’s gotta vent, it’s probably
better vented here than to annoy the rest of my family and friends with it. I
read other people’s blogs who whine alot, too, and I find I usually learn the
most from the gripers, as long as they’re solution-seekers as well, which I try
to be. As far as rolling with punches, I think I do pretty darn well. Show me
anyone (besides DG), who has managed to fit as much as I have into the past two
years. Starting a company, buying a house, all with NO money, is something I
pat myself on the back for. If the punches had kept me down, I wouldn’t be
where I am today. I admit that I have been very discouraged of late. It’s very
hard to stay optimistic some days. Those days I usually end up blogging.
Sorry. So, Allison, I guess we have something in common. I use the blog to
whine, you use the comments to bitch. I know you don’t know me, but if you did,
and we were talking over drinks, I hope you’d be laughing with me right now.
All the best, and keep reading!

It’s been an exhausting past two days. So many issues seem to be thrown at me
from all directions, on top of work, which normally keeps my plate pretty full.
I just got back from a Bible study I’ve been doing with three other women, and
I’m wiped out. Ready to crawl back into bed, cry for a while, and sleep until
tomorrow. It’s amazing how you can think the relationship you are in is all
hunky-dory, and then the trust curveball gets thrown. It’s happened to more
people than I can count lately. I’ve seen all sorts of people cheating on wives
and girlfriends; I’ve seen deceit surface after relationships have ended; I’ve
seen situations far above reproach turn terribly sour from playing horrible
guessing games; I’ve seen ostriches with their heads in holes pretending it
isn’t going on, watching the most basic foundation of a
relationship-TRUST-crumble. I had alot of opportunity to think about it last
night, when my own trustworthiness was called into question in my own
relationship. It’s amazing how fast a relationship can fall apart when you pull
the trust away from it. All of a sudden, the world becomes this horribly
suspicious place, for you, the people who love you, the people you love. I need
a freakin break. I’m about to fall apart here. I’m more than tired, more than
worn out, more than exhausted. I’m tired of being a hamster in the wheel, going
nowhere. I want to go SOMEWHERE. I need publicity. I need my floors to be
refinished. I need money. I need my accounts to pay me the $14,000 they
currently owe me. I need kitchen countertops, cabinet doors, a stove that
works, and a sink with a disposal. I need a new sofa. I need rugs. It’s a
below standard level of living at the moment, I tell you. I need some sales. I
need people to PAY ME! I need some faith. I need to be able to trust someone
with my heart. I need to believe the truth about myself through God’s eyes, not
some stupid marketing firm. I really need to have faith.

I don’t want to do anything today. It’s an ongoing problem I’ve been having
since Drew and I got back from Chicago. Complete demotivation. I’m sitting
here, surrounded by boxes of merchandise that need to go out, but I can’t seem
to pull myself off of ebay, away from my Dr. Pepper, to bend over long enough to
put the stuff in a box. I think the part that really gets me is that there is
no immediate pay back. This Net 30 stuff does not work well with my brain. I
want money NOW. Anyway, I did get my hair cut. I have bangs. I’m not sure
how long I’ll like the bangs, you’ll know next time you see me pushing my hair
out of my face and griping that it was a bad idea. Guess I’m gonna go pack
some boxes.

I made the long-put-off appointment today to have the floors in my house
refinished. Talk about stressful. So far, I’ve only put a couple hundred dollars
into paint to redo the place, thanks to my Dad’s handy efforts and my cousin
Marshall’s muscle power. Friday, August 31, they’re going to install matching
hardwood in my dining room and kitchen at the tune of $6.95 per squarefoot. Keep
in mind–the most expensive tile I could find was $4 a square foot. But the wood
is just going to look better. Sigh. I think I should have a kegger before then,
just because I’m going to be a whole lot more reluctant about spilling beer on
them afterwards. The FABULOUS news is that the floors will be finished by the
end of the first week of August! Yippee! And I’ll have a whole three weeks
before we have to move the office in. You guys have no idea (well maybe DG does)
how much better it’s gonna look. I’m actually almost excited to put down the
cash, just because it’s not going to be me having to redo it all. And seriously,
I ought to have a big ole party before then, right?

Today has been a busy day. At 9:30 this morning, I was at the office, answering
questions, finishing some sketches and dealing with the fact that last night I
discovered last night that someone in Las Vegas has been using my social
security number. Talk about complicated. I’m not even getting into that right
now. So I’m tired. And hungry. I was tired at 6:00, and hungry at 7:00. Having
established plans with Drew to see him tonight, I was postponing dinner and
prolonging work until I knew he got off– at 7:00. So I left the office at
seven, went and picked up some fresh, spicy, shaved-straight-from-the-deli
turkey right across the street from the office. I had to drop some stuff off at
my parents, swing by my house and pick up some stuff, and then back to the
office, to pick up what I forgot when I went to get the turkey. Oh, and I
stopped to fill up my “0 miles to empty tank” car on the way. So it was 7:30 and
I have one errand left to do–get these sticky puff things at Michaels that I
have to use to put together 150 birth announcements tonight; but I can’t do that
with fresh turkey in the car and 150 degree heat outside. So I’m thinking I can
drop off the turkey at Drew’s and then head to Michael’s, right? Wrong. I have
to kill 45 minutes. Tired, hungry me all of a sudden becomes very disenchanted
with postponing tired and hungry for another three-quarters of an hour. Nothing
has ever sounded better than a margarita does at the moment. I’m literally so
tired I could just cry. So I took the turkey to the office, left it in the
fridge there. Now I’ve blogged about it a bit, which makes me feel slightly
better about the situation. And now, since it’s only 8:00 and I still have
another fifteen minutes to get rid of, I’m going home. To my house, not to
Drew’s. I guess I could sit here and stare at the computer screen for awhile,
but considering that the web is pretty well surfed by me on a regular basis,
that’s almost a chore. I don’t want a chore. I’m tired, remember? And by the
time I get to my house, it will be 8:15, and if I was to turn around and go to
Drew’s it would be 8:30 and I would have officially killed an hour and a half
from the time I got off work. Talk about frustrating. I guess I could have just
said “OK” when he said, “How about 45 minutes?”, but the tired, hungry me was
just thinking about being not tired and not hungry anymore and said, “What the
hell am I supposed to do for 45 minutes?” So I’m taking suggestions. Does anyone
have any idea how to kill 45 minutes?

Guess what? I just paid a million bills today. Ok, not a million, but a good
3,000 at least. The bank account is back to negative, but, the bills are paid,
amazingly enough. Considering I’m owed 10 times the amount I’m overdrawn, you’d
think it wouldn’t be that big a deal. We’ll see if it’s a big deal tomorrow. I’d
better get something besides a swanky advertisement in the mail. All I got today
was a J.Crew catalog. I got an email from a rep this past week that said it was
hard getting new lines into stores. I’m not surprised. There are only twenty
four million imprintable lines out there, most of us “new”, all of us with the
latest, greatest since Wonder came out with sliced bread. I’m hoping cashflow
kills off a couple of competitors while I starve. The good news is that I have
until August 31 to be out of my office, instead of the first, which gives me
approximately thirty more days to procrastinate. My cousin and his girlfriend
came up today to help finish painting the kitchen cabinets. My dad did half of
them two weeks ago, and in a sudden burst of energy last night I made a huge
mess unpacking knick knacks all over them. I have a ton of crap. Watch out ebay,
here I come.