hal linden is just a prima donna

that's just for you, libbeth. i don't even remember who hal linden is.

i cried when i left charlotte today. i miss my friend. i miss the closeness we used to have and it makes me sad that our lives have gone in such different directions. i love north carolina; i love the area and the people and the accent makes me laugh. perhaps when i get my life on track i'll look into jobs in the area. but it doesn't make any sense to subject me or my kittehs to another major upheaval anytime soon. i need to get some things sorted out.

so i'm sitting in chicago. and on the way in we came in from the north, giving me a full view of downtown chicago and navy pier; the ferris wheel was all lit up and the downtown is gorgeous. the hancock center has its red, white and blue stripe along the observatory - it's just amazing to see. and the whole thing just makes my heart sort of ache for the times that eddy and i spent here. we both loved chicago: the baseball games and bubba gump, the pier and the shops, and all the hotels and taxis. one thing we both enjoyed was traveling. now we just enjoy traveling separately, going different directions. (that's sort of metaphorical as well as seriously literal.) and for the record, i don't miss *him* - i just miss some of the things we did as a couple even though it seemed like we stopped being a couple long before we actually split up. but whatever.

anyway. so i'm seated in 8a on my way to ord. the passengers in 8b abd 8c proceeded to make out the entire way here; it was gross because she was about 14 and seriously retarded (like seriously, she was retarded) and he was old and should have known better than to make out with a retarded 14-year-old. yuk.

jesus. wtf is that damn ding-dong noise? i'm going to start punching babies if someone doesn't turn that shit off.

so i've applied for a job with another airline. this position would take me all over the place; i wouldn't be stationed in dsm. i don't want to work for an airline if i have to work in dsm. i've also found a job in clt that i'm interested in and may apply for. something has to be done; i have to get back on track. as much as i enjoy living in my high school bedroom and staring up at the extremely creepy marines poster that jorge hung in my old room, i think it's time to figure out something to do with my life. living at home with the folks isn't going to cut it. although my dad has offered me a place to live if things with mom "don't work out." what the fuck? i'm not married to her; what is there to "work out?" i think i'm pretty sure he 's insane, but in a sometimes entertaining sort of way, like a kid that never grew up and now he's being forced to act like an adult. it's only working for him sometimes. what a bizarro thing to say to your kid.

so i woke up this morning COVERED in bruises. and the more i move, the more bruises appear. i believe the cause of this is white water rafting, although libbeth's son tried to stab me with various pieces of cutlery over the course of my trip. i could blame it on him, but he's so stinking cute i just can't bring myself to do it. i have bruises on my legs and butt, and on my thumb (that one hurts ba-ad).

guess what i found in nc? ziti. like real ziti, not penne, not large elbow macaroni - real ziti. so i bought four boxes. and then i remembered that i bought three pairs of shoes and that i don't have my own kitchen, so getting the ziti home became a non-issue. i left it in a bag and asked libbeth to mail it to me. no rush; i'll have to paypal the postage to her or something because i forgot to give it to her before i left. or maybe i'll just send her the recipe and they can make my wonderful baked ziti. because it's the best fucking ziti ever.

king bee is coming to get me tonight. he'll pick me up in dsm, drive me to chariton to get my car and then drive back to dsm for work. an hour to get to dsm, an hour to chariton, and another hour back. and he has to be in dsm for work at 0600 tomorrow morning. i told him he didn't have to do it - i could find somebody else to bring me home, someone who didn't have to work tomorrow but he was insistent. what do you tell someone who's more interested in you than you are in them? he's told me he's talked to his parents about me, he's talked to his friends about me, and he's invited me to go camping with his family next weekend. i've told my mom his first name and that he sometimes lives in indianola when he's not at home in chariton. do you see what i mean? i'm not sure what to do about that...

anyway. i'm going to go find a bathroom and make sure i'm sitting at the right gate.

loves and kisses, superimissmybestfriendjanel

brass monkey

i'm here. i'm in charlotte, with one of my very best friends in the whole wide world and her wonderful family. she has beautiful children and a great husband and an adorable house. and a really thick southern accent which just cracks me up. so far i've had awesome pizza, a tour of million dollar homes in the charlotte area, chocolate chicken for dinner and i played wii. and i royally suck, unless my competition is a four year old. but that is some fun shit. i need a wii. but libbeth has an adorable life here in n.c. and i'm happy for her.

today was stressful. traveling is always stressful. especially travelling with checked bags. i'm not good at checking luggage but the tsa can suck my nut; i refuse to adhere to their 3-1-1 bullshit and therefore i'm forced to check luggage so i can have my 24 oz. bottle of lubriderm lotion with me while i vacay. which is sort of stupid, because i buy the cocoa/shea butter kind and i have never seen as many kinds of cocoa butter lotion as i did today while we were at walgreens. and it's probly better and cheaper than my super size lubriderm stuff.

speaking of walgreens... we were in the baby aisle because libbeth has a baby and i found these. i did not even know that these sort of tests were even available. but isn't it sort of funny that they're sitting next to one another on the shelf?


yeah. this cracked me up.

so king bee has called several times. i guess in chariton they have a beer tent for the 04july holiday, right uptown on the square and in plain sight of all the police officers that want to stand and watch you take your drunk ass right from the beer tent to your car and then home. pretty stupid if you ask me, but technically no one is asking me and probably won't ask me so i'm going to offer my opinion here anyway because i can and that's what i do and i'd like to see you try to stop me. what the fuck was i talking about?

right. beer tent. chariton. king bee. so king bee has called several times today; i wasn't sure but i thought maybe he missed me. yup. i was right. he called this evening to confirm that he misses me. and then some. and then it got sort of incoherent, still very sweet, but hard to understand so i told him to go to bed, sleep it off and call me in the morning. and then i think he said "it."

so much for that one.

i'm going to go to bed now. tomorrow we are lighting shit on fire in the yard and eating bbq and watching the movie "cars" and listening to hannah montana and playing with the baby. i have no idea what's going on the rest of the week, somebody said the zoo and the mountains and possibly the richard petty driving experience, but honestly they have really comfy sofas that probly need holding down, and you all know how i feel about that.

gnite. happy fourth. be safe. :)

ps. negative. woot!

i sold buicks in the bathroom yesterday. yuk.

ahhh, the feel of new ink. i love it. i always forget how much it hurts in the beginning - the outline almost always makes me cry. but the gentle pressure of the coloring makes it all better. if they'd stop asking if i was alright i'd probly go to sleep.

aya: west african symbol of one who has endured adversity in life. fucking sweet.

that one guy - i'm going to have to come up with a name for him, calling him that one guy isn't going to work anymore. what can i call him? asshole seems a little harsh, and besides, that's my pet name for libbeth. dickhead also seems a little rough and that's what i call roberto anyway... i'm not sure what to call him. generally, i'll only give you a blog name if i think you're going to be someone of importance in my life. the last couple names i doled out turned out to belong to pieces of shit.

i may have to think about this... i've seen him three times in the last week, and a couple in the week prior. he's already asked to see me before i leave and when i get back. for someone who referred to "this" as "nothing" it sure seems to have the substance of "something", at the very least. i'm not really okay with that, but what do you say? i like him well enough, he's entertaining. did i tell you he's a little younger than i? not like high school young, but young. he's about five years younger than i. i know, right? wtf?

anyway, i'll get to a name for him sooner or later. i'm not coming up with anything terribly creative at the moment and you know i won't settle for second rate, especially second rate blog names.

anyway. i was telling you about my new tattoo. that one guy wanted to go with, which sort of surprised me, he's not really into body art as a form of self expression. he sat and talked to the artist, ryan anderson at sacred skin on sw 9th - i highly recommend him, and then we went to dinner. i love breakfast for dinner. i refused to go out last night on the grounds that i needed to live my giver (ha!) a rest because i think nate tried to kill me the night before with his custom-made concoction, the dirty grizz (ingredients unknown). so i went to nigel's and watched iron chef and showed her the new ink and then went home and went to bed. i was seriously lacking for sleep; like seven hours in two days. the janel does not function well on little sleep.

i leave for charlotte in a couple of days. i've talked to libbeth a few times the last couple of days. it's amazing that even though i haven't seen her in years we can still talk like we're 17 and only 6 miles apart. she still cracks me up. i met her on my first day of school in the raging metropolis that is corydon, she had pink hair and i wore green chuck taylors. she brought me airplane peanuts and a friendship was forged. she's the best: incredibly beautiful and intimidatingly smart - and she's always there for me when i need her. i can call her out of the blue after two years and we fall back into conversation like we'd just talked the day before. i'm so excited to see her, even if we do just sit on her sofa and i help her clean. :) the last time i saw her she was pregnant with her little boy; he's three now and she's had another one, chloe, that i'm super excited to meet. i love other people's kids.

i'm at the whippy dip. i should probly look as though i'm working. more laters...