WOW

WOW. Last night was AWESOME. I have never had a better time sitting outside of a Starbucks and chatting for hours.

Not sure what she thinks of me. Though she did make a comment about how ironic it is that all kinds of people want to get back in touch with you when you become interested in someone… she did say the exact words “interested in someone” while sitting with me.

She is deaf… she can speak just fine, and hear a LITTLE… and relies a lot on lip-reading. She does best with people who are good with sign language. So I’m glad I know some ASL. I want to get to know her better.



She is also a writer. She works on a poetry collection and also is 4 or 5 chapters into a novel. She let me read two poems and the first chapter of her book. Very, very intriguing stuff.

She shared a few very personal things with me... those things are safe with me and will go no further than that Starbucks table where they were spoken. I respect her for her honesty.

LOUD ASIANS!!

At Starbucks. In Towne Center. OR "Centre" if you're all snooty and culturally savvy. Heh...

I am sitting outside because there was a very loud table of Asian patrons... coupled with the very irritating music... had to break outta there. Meeting my new friend who, as far as I can tell, is very cool and very worth getting to know better. I hope she likes me. I mean... I hope she finds me interesting and wants to get to know me too. AND I hope she finds me attractive. Because she is definitely attractive. *grin*

Funny... before, I would not have stopped to wonder if someone would be attracted to me. I would just know they would be. Regardless of all the rest of my pluses and minuses, I'm sure that confidence alone had a lot to do with people being attracted to me. A couple of bad experiences in a row can wear a person down. OIE VEY!! heh...

So... on to other topics.

Actually she is here now so... hehe Later :)

Keepin' It Real

So. I'm getting to know new people. And liking it.

Everybody has their pros and cons if you think of that person in a "more than friends" way - but if I keep it in the frame of friendship, I have not met one person that doesn't rock. I love meeting new people and learning about them. And I guess the element of possibility is exciting. :)

But... right now... the idea of committing to someone and NOT continuing to meet new people... is not appealing to me. I'm not getting INVOLVED with anyone beyond conversation and a little flirting, so far... and I'm liking it that way.

I have met one person who would be totally down for meaningless sex, heh... and don't get me wrong, she's beautiful and a lot of fun to talk to... but that's where it would end with her. She lives far away and has her own boatload of drama... though I appreciate that she is totally open and honest about that, even without being asked. But that's really not my desire.

So I'm tryin' to keep it really real. And be honest, even with myself, which is sometimes harder than being honest with anyone else... :)

Canaan!

Wow. The Canaan Band from MCC in St. Petersburg, FL came an played our service today. It was huge and incredible. Awesome time.



At the end of the service, I prayed while Pastor Keith was talking about the communion. "Lord, x-out my emotions... let your heart flow straight through me to the people I pray for...". I love serving as a prayer partner at the end of services.

I feel like, and pray, that my prayers are prophetic. That they don't come out of my head, but straight from the mouth of God's Spirit. I also know that I am so much happier when my life is doused in God so I'm going to keep praying for that and actively seeking it.

There was a theme in the prayers today: HEALING. God kept saying He uses our wounds to make us fit to convey healing to others. And as, out of our need, we give God's healing to other people, we receive double that in healing from God within ourselves.

Amazing.

I have also been praying for opportunity. Today in church I was thinking, wow, it would be so hard to leave here... and I felt God say with a smile on His face, "You've been praying for opportunity! You need to be ready and prepared when I bring one your way!" Meaning, it could be any form of opportunity (I was initially thinking long the lines of EMPLOYMENT opportunities... but I am reminded... God is bigger than that...) - any form of opportunity, and it could place me anyWHERE! I have an excitement deep in my middle now. God REALLY WAS LISTENING when I prayed that! Heh... kind of like, well DUH Nicole, what'd ya think? But I needed that reminder. I appreciate that excitement and anticipation. I needed a fresh sense of anticipation in my life.

I want to research the concept of "Canaan" because I believe in that lies a lesson for me. :)

can't know

People are so confusing. You think you understand them, then BLAM, you are reminded that you do NOT.

I have this friend… from a long time ago… that I just cannot figure out. I guess I should not be so worried about “figuring her out” because, really, I guess her life is none of my business.

But I seem to be magnetically drawn toward frustration, so my mind is stuck.

When Carrie and I were together, I made a piece of art that represented my perception of her. It was a picture of a shadowed door, long unopened, with scraggly tree branches hanging down in front of it. Because I never felt like I could really get a good understanding of what was going on inside her. I think I’ve felt that way about most people in my life, actually.

“I CAN’T KNOW!!”

A constant grinding to know more, to understand more, to dissect to the point of splitting apart neutrons and protons…

I think I have been this way for as long as I can remember. I wonder why. Woops, there I go again… I think I wonder why more than anyone I know.

I wonder why that is… haha just kidding…

Here’s my theory on me: I think it goes back to some deep craving and yearning to know and to be known. On the deepest level of emotional intimacy.

In a way, it’s been disappointing because I have never found anyone who wanted to know me as deeply as I wanted to know them. But maybe that’s just… maybe they’re right, and I’m strange. Actually, I bet if anyone came nosing around my business the way my brain noses around the business of other people… I would think they were a freak. I would probably get the creeps toward them and avoid them like a bad germ.

So I guess I’m a bad germ. :)

It’s psychology and understanding and KNOWING… I feed on stuff like that. So why in the world didn’t I go into THAT when I was in college… dunno. A million reasons.

And here I sit, with a BA in Social Work and an MBA in Health Care Management, working as a receptionist for a petrochemical giant. I have to believe that God has plans I know not of… and that He is bigger than my weird, winding path of strange decisions.

I bet He knows why. :)

Crazy Dreams and Dollar Tree Adventures

Wow. Sitting in Starbucks in DS. This very loud, traveling, hispanic family of very hyper children stopped in to fill their frenetic young with hot chocolate and double-chocolate coffee cake. I along with everyone who works here breathed a heavy sigh of relief when they left. Que serah serah.

There is a chick working here who I really kind of like. My luck she's straight. But she's just really neat. Just sayin'. I guess I could at least learn her name.

It is 7:29 p.m. and I am here with no makeup and severe bedhead. But I am happy and I think that is what matters. :) I woke up around 8, let Luna out, loved on Hippie, distributed animal food, let Luna back in, put Hippie away and went back to sleep. Then I woke up again later, never checked the time, let Hippie out of his kennel to stretch his legs (as long as he doesn't jump, that's ok, per the vet) and so that he and Leroy could get to know each other. Cleaned up the house a little. Drank some beer. Put Hippie up, laid on the couch with a book and some food - and Leroy. He is the sweetest little furball I have known, probably ever. Wherever I am, he is there, as close as possible. Sweet little kitty.

Fell back asleep until about 3:30. Actually my phone said 3:33 when I woke up so I made a wish. Laid there thinking for awhile, realized I needed to take my meds, got up, got dressed, took Luna out for a minute, and decided to get out of the house for a little while.

So, the crazy dreams I mentioned in the title... these all happened during the periods of time when I was asleep in my bed, not this afternoon on the couch. Some odd sexual dreams, weird scenarios, fuzzy details... then at some point the scenario switched.

I was in a low-lit room, in a circle of people, like a group meeting or something... Kathy and Julia were there, and so was my mom. Turned out, my mom was throwing a party in celebration of my life, that I had survived my 1992 accident. But in real life it was an MVA; in the dream, the accident was that I had been shot. I had been hanging out with a group of friends. This girl was checking out this handgun, just turning it over and over, looking at it, and it accidentally went off and I was shot. Just like with my real-life MVA, I had no first-hand memory of the event of what had taken place after it. Apparently, though, I had barely survived and had to go through all kinds of rehab like in real life.

**Note, in the midst of this blog, I have relocated... met my rock star friend Melinda at this CC's. Great chat, great company. Very valuable friend she is :)

So, back to the dream... my mom had made this enormous, almost poster board-sized book for me with the entire story of the shooting, newspaper clippings, police reports, pictures, hospital records, the whole 9 yards. And although I wanted to look over it later, she insisted I sit right there and read the whole book right then. I wanted to visit with my friends who had come to the party, but she insisted I read the book.

You know how dreams are kind of patchworked together and don't always completely make sense... so the book said Kathy and Julia had been there when the shooting happened. But after some thought, I realized they hadn't even been my friends when it happened. I asked them about it and they said they actually HAD been. I was confused.

I also found out in this book that they had taken in the girl who'd shot me... let her live with them, "employed" them as their housekeeper to pay her "rent"... and I was flattered thinking how nice that they let me stay with them for free (which they did, in real life). Then I felt betrayed in a sense... because this girl freaking SHOT me, and they were supposedly my friends... and they took her in?? Kathy said but oh, she had nowhere to go; it was the only right thing to do, bla bla bla... but it just didn't sit well with me.

Anyway, I'm sure I could go through that dream and research the symbolism of each part of it, but I can pretty much figure it out. I think anyone who knows me, who sat down and thought over it could pretty much figure it out. I've had experiences with betrayal before... right now it's awkward for me to know that dear friends of mine, many of them, are still friends with Carrie... which is normal; I broke up with her, they didn't... I guess I should research the rest of the dream though. I do always learn a lot from doing that.

One thing I've realized is that the people who show up in my dreams usually don't represent those actual people; they represent a concept. I've often had dreams about my mom turning on me and doing horrible things... it wasn't my MOM, though; it was just the concept of people I trusted, turning on me or letting me down. So the dream, though it had Kathy and Julia making cameo appearances, was not literally about those two betraying my trust. Make sense? LOL

Anyway. It's been a weird day. I am about to go to the "District" aka the police station... Melinda's on the desk tonight and invited me to come and sit a spell. I believe I will take her up on that because I've been lacking in the area of friends and company. Julia notwithstanding... but for the most part it's been work with the guys and home with the pets. :) A little conversation and laughter is good for the soul.

Pet Wabi-Sabi

Sitting here, agitated that work is not over yet. I am grateful for my job. Just ready to go home for the day. I’ve been pretty fidgety today.

I don’t think I could ever achieve a true state of Zen. My mind is going 90 to nothing almost 24 hours a day. It gets to be exhausting.

One issue figured out today: what to do with the cats. I absolutely can NOT take in stray cats right now. It’s a horrible domino effect… take in one because I feel guilty… take in another because I feel guilty for taking in one and not the other… etcetera etcetera. Mercy me. I can’t do it. One day maybe I will get a place with a big barn that I can fill with stray cats who need a place to call home. The walls of the barn will be lined with low feeding troughs kept filled with every variety of cat food. And there will be NO LITTER BOXES!! Which is the beauty and genius behind having OUTDOOR cats.  Then I will never turn away another homeless cat.

For now, I will feed them when I am able and spay/neuter when I have the resources. But I have to keep my home in order or I will go crazy.

And especially right now, Hippie needs peace of mind while his leg finished healing. My poor sweet little guy. He comes first. Period.

Ha… I suppose I need to maintain a state of “Pet Wabi-Sabi.” Not too much; just enough, kept neat and clean yet allowing for natural imperfection. Luna’s shedding adds continuously to that state of imperfection. Haha And keeping the litter box scooped when necessary contributes to the clean aspect. Totally. I believe I have just come up with a new theme for my home life. Have to tell Cheyenne. 

Orange Chairs and an Irritating Blonde

Those are what is near me. I forgot to take my controlled substances today. Probably why I'm irritable.

Okay she got up. Good. Okay.

It's been a day. I slept til 1:00. P.M., yes, that 1:00.

I was over at Julia and Kathy's very late last night, doing laundry and watching Comedy Central's Friday Night Stand-Up. Well, with Julia... Kathy had to go to work. They both mean so much to me. They are SO KIND... and open to having me around, and they're nice to Luna... they have helped me over and over and over in numerous ways, they are generous and loving and... they ACCEPT me.

It feels so good to be accepted.

I feel kind of suspended in mid-air lately. I'm kind of lonely, but protective of my aloneness and my independance. And a little insecure, truth be told. I'm defensive... don't want to open up to anyone and risk being hurt. I'm embarrassed of where I live, excuse excuse excuse, I could come up with excuses all day.

But I think the wise thing to do in uncertainty is... to do NOTHING. LOL Rather than risk doing something wrong... I shall just maintain.

As long as I keep busy, I'm okay. Last week, I got to church late so I wasn't able to be part of the praise team OR serve as a prayer partner at the end of service. And I cried through the service. It was awful. Tomorrow, I will try hard to be on time so I can have things to DO, to keep myself busy, so my mind doesn't cry.