I'm MOVING!

...my blog, that is. To www.bloomews.com. See ya over there. :)

I live here. I love here.

So often I forget that no matter what misfourtune, bad day, or piss-poor turnout of the best laid plans befalls me, I can walk for two minutes to Sunset Cliffs at sundown. Out here, none of that can get me, no matter how hard it tries. I won't forget that anymore.


After coming home tonight from the cliffs for the first time in a long time and a good chat with a great friend - after a beautiful sun-day of laundry, hot coffee while standing barefoot in the cool morning sun (it's the hippie gene, sorry), delicious sammiches with even more delicious company, painting, and blueberry bagel beer - I was struck with the idea that I know is my ticket to dreamland. I don't want to share it yet. (You wouldn't expect a new mother to pass around her still-slimy baby to an internet of strangers, would you?) But I will tell you, it's going to keep me awake tonight, and you wil see it all


MAY 11th, 2009
JAVA JONES COFFEE
9thand MARKET, DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO
7-10pm


And you will be leave all toasty-warm in the soul, I promise. :) So much for my "Dark and Lonely" period.

.........................................................................................................................

So we come to the second part of this blog, which was going to be me, waxing bitchy about turning 30 in some days. But being down about this really isn't coming that easily. Yes, I have grey. Way too much. I have wrinklies. My skin is more like a tyrannasaurus' armpit that a baby's butt. But I have packed a shit ton of living into the last 10 years. Thus beginning the "FUCK YEAH, MY LIFE!" list:

10 years ago. Portland, OR

Look, that's my real haircolor. (Look at all the little things you can learn. :) I was 20ish in this picture. I had done some things. Learned French and Italian. Gone to France and Italy. Traveled throughout western Europe all by myself at 19. Camped in a vicious lightning storm in Venice, and was nearly arrested and kidnapped there. And gone to my first Motley Crue show. But that was nothing compared to the next 10 years.

This list is for me, a concrete list of the things that I'm proud of. So if you think I'm just tooting my own horn, I'm not doing it for you. So scram.

First thing was the Motley Tour. 22,000 miles in a 1968 Mustang with a girl I barely knew. 33 states and Puerto Rico. Hung out with rock stars every night. Cuddled a baby tiger backstage in North Carolina.

Next, took care of my sweet, amazing ailing grandmother for a year. Leaned what it means to really love someone. Got my first tattoo.

Moved to Hollywood with Laura, that girl I barely knew and now know extremely well. No job, no place to live. 5 days later, a job, a place, and a new favorite restaurant: Hollywood Thai. That place had a sign only in Thai, horrifically delightful karaoke, and the most intoxicating smells in the universe. Worked at Nikki Sixx's Record Company Americoma Records in on Sunset Boulevard, up the street from the Whiskey and all the other hangouts of all my idols. We were in charge of fan mail, so we took home oodles of it and spent hours leafing through Motley Crue's fanmail. We sorted out the amazing (for better or worse) ones to take back and give to Nikki. We were also responsible for creating flyers to promote the label's bands and taking the nightly business-card contents of Nikki's pockets and entering them into addresse files. I had Ozzy Osbourne's handwritten phone number.

We worked at a crooked telemarketing company that sold shitty computer supplies. Our boss was childhood friends with Randy Castillo, an amazing drummer once with Ozzy, most recently with Motley Crue until stomach cancer forced him down. Dave introduced me to Randy one night not long before he died at a Carbon 9 show at the Gig on Melrose. He was so pleasant and friendly. We hung out for a while, exchaged "great-to-meet-yous" and parted ways. I got home and there was a transexual on my couch. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Randy died not long after that, and Dave invited us to the funeral. I saw my idols burst into tears. I sat through services among them. I saw my first lifeless body. I stood behind Ozzy Osbourne to pay respects. I wandered around Forest Lawn with my heart in my stomach.

I wrote for a Music magazine called "Rock City News", a Hollywood Institution of sorts. I typed up the local venue schedules and wrote reviews. This paid nothing except I was invited into the dressing room at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, the dressing room of dressing rooms in the world or Rock'n'Roll. Stupefication followed. That alone made it worth putting up with all the editor's bullshit, smelly dog, and stifling incense that he thought covered up the smell of the pot he never shared with anyone.

I got into a relationship that nearly physically killed me, and left me mostly dead in most other aspects as well. I am still recovering. So make it a point to ask me to look you in the eye. I miss being able to do that.

To escape it, I went back to school and focused on art and early childhood education. I also started volunteering in the education dept. at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. One of my top 3 passions. I walked in a pool among the most gentle of sharks and little cow-nosed rays, trigger fish and tangs. Horseshoe crabs would scramble across my feet. I touched the Giant Pacific Octopus and it touched me back. I had red sucker marks curling up my arms from a creature that is entirely alien to me yet is more of this earth than dinosaurs, sharks and trees.

I moved to San Diego. To Clairemont, with my best friend and her brand-new boyfriend Joe. Now her husband. :) I met Jen, and two months later I met my BFAM (brothafromanothamotha) Chris, "The most amazing guy I just met in Ohio" said Jen...though I swear it was only two weeks. Now they're engaged, and we are all roommates. I became a teacher at a school that, for all its minor annoyances, is the best place I've ever worked, giving me all the freedom I could want to teach these kids to be great little human beings, and have made lifelong friends as a result. My job is to encourage peace and creativity, and to administer hugs liberally. Really, I get paid to do that?

I worked with an amazing and dramatic band called Broadsyde first as a merch girl, then as a stage clothes designer of sorts. I mean, I made RAD rockstar cowboy hats and was the embodiement of the Dr. Hook lyric: "I got a freaky old lady/ named Coacaine Kitty/ Who embroiders on my jeans..."

...except I didn't do or supply cocaine. But I was called "Kitty". :) But that was where the designer part ended. Flaky musicians + flaky young directionless artist = not much. So I was a Band-Aid. Which was also a lot of fun.

I bounced around San Diego - to College area, to Hillcrest, back home to Oregon, to Poway in order to be a nanny and live the high life for a while, doing my best to help raise one of the most beautiful little souls in the Universe, Elle. My 3-year-old bff. She really IS an angel. A real one. Your heart actually feels lighter around this child.

I moved to Ocean Beach April 2007. I moved into the Palms with Chris and Jen 4 months later. In the last 2 years, I've met some of the most beautiful, soulful, influential people I've ever had the pleasure to know. I've begun to show my paintings in public and just about everyone is highly receptive. In fact, I've run into nothing negative, at least not that I've heard. Recently I've even sold some, making good money for laying a bit of my soul out for someone else to enjoy. One person that bought one is a fan of Joe Ledbetter. I am also a fan. So now, I am on the same wall as an artist that I myself respect and adore. That Blows. My. Mind.

Joe Ledbetter, "New Morning" How could you not love this??

SO. I ask you. How could I possibly manage to be negative about anything, much less a stupid birthday? I live at the edge of the earth where the sun sparkles daily and tonight the sky was actually smiling at me with the tiniest sliver of silvery moon I've ever seen. It's a breezy spring Saturday night at the beach, where Boston's "More Than a Feeling" is blaring out a neighbor's window. I have the gift to be able to spit my imagination onto a canvas. I have friends that make my heart explode with love and happiness every time I talk with them, and a job where I cannot escape unconditional love. I have at least one soul mate, and not in the sense that one would immediately think. Something better. This life.. is only going to get better from now on...to paraphrase. :) So in short, I can't be miserable. I'm Cat, and if I died tomorrow I'd be more than satisfied. But really, I can't wait to see what happens in the next 10 years. Though obviously, I have no intention of growing up entirely.

Love,

CAT

Fat Hike #3

I made it! I didn't think I was going to! Last week was a bit of a clusterfuck but I stuck it out and here I am in Palm Springs. Last night was the street fair and fishbowls of strawberry margaritas, and an unsettling time of trying to explain to my mom what "bukakke" is. <>

Today had me and my little sister hiking through the desert wilderness to a huge waterfall. And more margaritas.

Lizzie over freezing cold water...in the desert.


Moi:Under lots and lots of rock.

This is snowmelt. Cold enough to make your bones ache, even in the middle of the desert.

What I like about little jaunts like these is the silence. I'm lucky enough to have a sister who has as deep and profound a respect for nature as I do. We don't have to be constantly chattering the entire way. We can be silent, and appreciate the spiritual nature of a place like this. Quiet enough to sneak up on lizards and dragonflies.

So...for some reason I'm feeling a little low right now, so rather than bitch it out, I'm gonna go... all I have to say is, "Le sigh".

Artist's Brain

An artists' brain is not, as you may have been led to believe, an enigma wrapped in a mystery tied up in a riddle. We just like to experiment. Well, I do , anyway.
My process begins with a theme or a thought. This one is based on "Avant-garde" and "The truest representation of self".
Well, avant-garde is a french term meaning "forward look". That the idea that doing things that haven't been done yet is art in and of itself whether it's complex and classically gorgeous, something that took effort, or something like the R. Mutt Urinal. Dude signed his name on a urinal, and it's one of the most famous pieces of art...why? Because it is. I will not be doing that, I am attempting to convey an awakening, of sorts.

My truest sense of self. I perceive myself as kind of like...this sounds so stupid...like an inactive volcano. There's a lot of stuff going on - and free-flowing - just under the surface, which itself is fairly solid and unchanging. There's my mood, which sets the tone for everything, there's an kinetic freeway of thoughts on top of that, scored by random new information and bursts of energy and hiccups of inactvity. There are the peacemakers sprinkled on top, those thought and ideas and fancies that keep everything else in check, riding around on the currents and filling in where they're needed most. And there's a heatbeat on top of that, Making sure all this hustle-bustle continues every moment of every day.

Then there's the world and influences and relationships and inventions and information and discoveries and all the things you choose to accept or ignore. I think the point of being alive is to grow from existence to awareness of not only the unknown and misunderstood world that surrounds you, but the understandind of that inner melee as well, The more you understand it the more of it that is revealed to you and the more of it that you can reveal to the world.

So yeah, I'm painting that.

The first choice is color. I feel emotions in color. Does anyone else do this? The second choice is application. Sideways or tall? Vertical or horizontal brushstrokes? (Cat: you do better vertical strokes, so if you are trying to convey grace and harmony and fluidity don't try to do it sideways.) Finally there's the final layer, which is usually a THING, as I don't do abstract much because it usually looks like 80's Hypercolor shit when I do. So. Here's what I came up with. Which actually ends up making this post kinda obsolete, because it's a different painting on a different canvas. That's part of the process too. ;)\

Another lesson next time. :)

"Hope" is a four-letter word

I am looking at a stack of cash. It's probably the most cash I've had at once. I'm still a couple hundred short for the immediate deposit, and another 2000 short for the rest which is due I-don't-know-when.

I am not really the type to worry about money, which makes me also not the type to save money. Money is kind of a dirty word in my head. I realize the gravity of this shortcoming, especially in light of current affairs. So, I was most impressed with myself for being able to stash away this much, for a personal journey, no less. As a means to an end, not Just in Case. However, I am SOOO tempted to blow it right now.

"Don't worry about it and the money will come to you." But the deadline is coming and I'm broke and there are so many things I want to do right now. What about, "Don't worry about it and the opportunity will come to you?" But what about seizing opportunities when the come? But what about the rest of my plans, that will surely involve opportunities like this again and again. That's the hope anyway. Hope. Another semi-dirty word.

It's hard for me to nail down what I really want. I am a negativity avoider and a worst-case scenarioist. I want to be a positivity embracer. As Neil puts it in Emergency: "They die happy dreaming of heaven. We die miserably worrying about hell." Please note that neither one survives.

The Law of Attraction says that what you think is what you create. I want to think and BELIEVE that the money I need will come, that the love I need will come, that the work I want will come, and I want to go seek out those things. In order to do that I face working myself to the brink of insanity or at least deep into the bowels of sleep-deprivation and crabbiness. I face soul-crushing and life-altering rejection. Or I face success in everything which has a whole new set of unknown hurdles and expectations. No great thing was ever acheived with the guarantee of success. I really just need to have more faith in myself that I can handle whatever the consequences of my actions may be, for better or worse, and the knowledge that hopefully (adding a quarter to the swear jar) things are working out the best for me in the long run.

So am I to leave my savings untouched and wait for the rest of it to roll in, and give up stressing about it? I'd love to do that. But that's delayed gratification, something I hate and see almost as punishment.
Do I take it off the shelf and spend it tweaking my car, so that I don't run it into the ground and have to face spending the wad on a rusty hoopty anyway? That's my negativity avoidance speaking. Unpleasant yet practical...
Do I use it toward my craft, do I spend it on a treasure hunt, do I use it to get things that make me feel better day by day? Embrace the positive?
Do I use it for things I've needed to buy for some time?
Do I do more research and base this decision on logic and reality rather than whims and impulses, like I usually do?

I think I know the right answer. But if anyone has any suggestions, I am wide open.

Love,
CAT

The Whoa factor and run-on sentence-o-rama

I don't even know the number of times I've said "whoa" recently. And I don't mean it in the equestrian sense. I mean is as an expletive to demonstrate my incredulity at how dramatic, for better or worse, life has been lately.

You ever have those weekends that are so full of adventure that when you go to work on Monday you whisper a little sigh of relief? That's how this weekend was, and how every weekend should be. It is my goal to live adventurously at least 5 days of 7, and I think I did pretty well.

Friday I skipped out of work early, and though I usually don't run unless something large and savage is chasing me, I ran out the door to go pick up my best friend and her husband for a relatively impromptu trip to Los Angeles for a party to honor my friend Neil Strauss and the release of his new book "Emergency - This Book Will Save Your Life". It was held at a club in Hollywood that I can only describe as 40's New York glamour meets H.R. Geiger. In the corner by the bar laid out was a very large, very sleepy arctic wolf. Her name was Glacier, and she was pretty smelly. But I cuddled her anyway. She's an animal from a place called Amazing Animal Productions where one can take a 125-hr course and become a certified wild animal trainer. (This is now officially on my list of things I need to do.)

Neil came out and gave his ad-libbed speech about the book and apologized for not being able to provide us all with hands-on training as he had been able to do in New York, where he had given the crowd a lesson in picking locks and using shards from aluminum cans to make knives, much to the horror of the manager of the host book store. Instead, he invited a member of the Los Angeles Search and Rescue squad, which he himself has officially joined, to talk about the cause, which is definitely a higher calling, something I'm not sure I would have the stomach for, but yet another reason I respect Neil so much: a testament to the fact that you can be a wonderful, if not socially adept person, reinvent yourself to be one of the cool kids, and in his case, an international seduction guru (go to http://www.stylelife.com/ if you don't believe me) and still be a wonderful, caring person, never losing that sweet little nerd-at-heart self that Laura and I met in Chattanooga, TN.

Here's Neil on the right with his adorable girlfriend Dita and the search and rescue guy.

It was also fun since Laura, Joe and I were right in front and as he was mentioning his book on Motley Crue, he called Laura and I out in front of a room of about 200 as having done that same adventure alongside him, which meant I was a popular girl that night instead of the wallflower I tend to be.

After getting $60 of liquor in me (one mixed drink and 4 shots...oh yeah...I totally forgot drinking in Hollywood with drain your pockets faster than a Gypsy Strip Club) I got the moxie up to find Neil and see if I could have a chat with him about art. Long story short, I need to have a painting done for him by next Thursday, a prospect that is at once exhilerating and terrifying. Avant-Garde. I wish I'd paid better attention in Art History. In any event, I'll post the end result here once I figure out what the heck I'm going to do. "The truest expression of yourself" he said. Oh, my god.

Neil left early, having to be up with Search and Rescue for medical stand-by duty, so we left as this place that was advertised as "un-Hollywood" turned into pretty much the most Hollywood place I've ever been, with beautiful, sweaty bodies packed tightly on the strobe-lit dance floor and women standing on top to the booths, each texting furiously with shiny skirts so short they had to shave, and I don't mean their legs. We stumbled outside, got a Mexican hotdog from a roving cart ( which is just a hotdog wrapped in sizzling bacon...omigod) which might've been better had Laura not discovered a little blue was of abc gum in the napkin the vendor gaver her with her dog. Ew. Cab to the hotel, hot shower to rid myself of the film of smoke, drink and other people's sweat and crawling into bed felt soooo good.

The book itself, btw, is amazing. I am not through it yet, but along with training wild animals, I will not only be renewing my passport in this country, I plan on attaining on from another as well. If there is one thing Neil is great at, it's hooks. Everything is SO interesting and it's imperative you read the next chapter or the curiosity will kill you.

I will leave you with the advice to get this book into your sweaty mitts, and enjoy lessons such as How to Protect Yourself from Hackers, Inflation and Celine Dion; Life-Saving Properties of Toilet Tanks; How to Become Immortal; Why You Should Think of the Zoo as a Restaurant; Where to Swim Across the Border; Proper Care and Handling of Hawaiian Tropic Girls; Secrets of Escaped Felons, Tips on Death Cult Etiquette; and Your Odds of Dying Horribly.

These are things we all need to know, I believe.

I got home to word that I was to receive a new bed with the arrival of Jen's dad and stepmom who were bringing us a trailer full of new (to us) furniture, which means that for the last two nights I've done this glorious thing called "sleeping". Apparently, we need it to live. I feel MUCH better, spending less time lying contorted on a lumpy futon cursing the Japanese for ever coming up with such a thing.

The rest of the weekend was spent drinking wine with old and new friends, going to church for possibly the most uncomfortable hour of my life...that's probably for a different post...and going fishing of the OB pier for the first time. No fish though. Also spent another beautiful afternoon at the Chula Vista Nature Center.

A last note: The CVNC is set to close in June, and this is absoutely heartbreaking to me. It is small, it is far away and it it under-advertised. But it is also, IMHO, far more aestheically pleasing than Scripps Aquarium, with more innovative habitat designs, art for sale on the walls, and an interactive shark and ray touch pool. We were lucky enough to get there right before feeding time. Like any animal, the rays get conditioned to being fed at a certain time every day so for 20 minutes before feeding, they were extremely social. Anyone who knows me well knows I am HIGHLY tactile and quite the animal lover, so I was most at peace there, stroking their velvety wings as they fluttered by my hands, ocassionally passing over my fingers for an exploratory kiss (they are bottom feeders, and their teeth are set far back in their mouths. In order to get crabs and shrimp from under the sand they have a pretty incredible vaccuum, and they'll suck your fingers up to see if they're perchance made of squid. Then they smack you with a fin in disappointment.) There is also a huge raptor exhibit, with golden and bald eagles, 4 different kinds of owls, turkey vultures and hawks, not to mention a variety of animals native to SD including snakes, lizards, birds, and bugs, the cutest being little starburst swimming beetles that look like a cross between a ladybug and a tiny turtle. The whole center is set deep in protected wetlands and has about a mile and a half for walking trails that take you along a bit of the South Bay. Not only do I highly recommend visiting this place, but I implore you to help try and save it by going to http://www.savethechulavistanaturecenter.com/ There are links to sign a petition, to email the City manager, and, if you are so blessed, to donate.

And if ANYONE needs someone to go with, I will jump at the chance. It's only $6 admission.

So that's it for tonight. I'm sleepy and have a comfy bed soflty calling my name. Take care of yourself.

Love,

CAT

Inner arguments

So, since I'm foregoing all my fabulous plans tonight in favor of staying in bed under 6 blankets and still somehow freezing to death, I thought I'd blog. You know, to pass the time. So, don't expect much, I guess, is what I'm getting at. I'm just waiting for Tropic Thunder to finish downloading. Only two hours of rambling. Dig it.

So work, as of late, is becoming an increasingly miserable place to be, leaving me to go home with something akin to rotten oatmeal that fills my soul by the end of the day. Which brings me to my first thought of the evening, gossip.
Gossip is one of those things that is just plain bad for you. The quickest way to the self-destruction of any group of people is to turn on one another and that's the only thing gossip does. I personally defend it as "getting things off my chest". I believe the information I spread, whether I've seen in with my own eyes or have anecdotal evidence to back up my opinion, and am looking for somone else who believes it too, someone to commiserate with...possibly the worst form of friendship. I don't save these things for my journal of even for telling people I don't work with because they don't care. I know what I do, what we ALL do is wrong and bad and is going to end up in nothing but hurt feelings, but there's little way to avoid it. Today I was hearing rumblings of bad vibes and I said, "rise above it. We're here for the kids, ONLY." But I'll be damned if I didn't see something that lit my fire and caused me to forget abot the kids and go right down that twisted rabbit hole of hatred and venom. Life and relationships are like, hard and stuff.


"Just tell them how you feel."

Thanks, I'd like to keep my job.

"Even though you hate being there for most of your waking hours? Isn't that a waste of your life, not being happy where you are?"

Look, to pay my rent I need a job. I have no one to rely on should I lose it, then it's back to Oregon. F-------- THAT.

"Then find a different job. One closer to home. Check that little Lutheran preschool up the street."

The place I'm at now has always been up and down. I'm sure it'll go up again. At some point this will all come to a head and we'll have it out (preschool teacher cagematch!) and everything will be hunky-dory again...right?

"Whatever you say, Cat."

Dammit. Sussed me out.

"Yep"

Ok, second point of the night: what I'm happy about.

"Great"

Ok. um. Ummmm...umumumumumummm.....

".....Really?"

Come onn, I'm sick!!! All I've done is eat and sleep for the past week which makes me feel totally crappy, and have gotten up to go to work, which makes me feel even crappier!!! What??

"You have a body to be sick, a job that desperately needs you to be there, friends that miss you and want you to feel better."

You had to go there. My kids, my friends yeah...but the body?

"Hey, that's all your choices there, don't even drag me into that clusterfuck. I made it perfect, you've torn it to shreds. You have allll the tools you need to fix it, so..."

God, you're a jerk.

":)"

.....

"Ok, so can I ask you what in the hell happened last night?? You were on your way to church, and at the last minute you went grocery shopping instead?? WTF?"

Yeah, that. Sorry. I wanted to go, but I got a little worried. I feel like such a poser there. I know no one could tell, but it bothers me. I don't know if it bothers me that I'm there in the first place or if it bothers me that I'm so resistant to the every facet of it.

"Stop being so dramatic. You are not. You're worried about what people will think if you believe in God?"

Yes.

"You weren't worried in second grade when you told those little brats that you DIDN'T believe in God."

Yeah, and look what happened. Maybe I should've been. Thanks for that by the way. They're a real testament to how cool your people are."

"They're kids. Sometimes they misinterpret things. Even things with the best of intentions. And you worry about the dummbest shit anyway. You second guess every action you take, you worry about how you look, what you do, why you do it, who you are, who you like, why you like them and what you can do to get them to like you back! Don't you realize this is ALL part and parcel of who you are and everything's the way it it because it's going to fall into place for you later? Shit, Cat. Be a little patient."

You're telling ME to be patient!?! I've been patient my whole life!! I've been pretty damn good!! What the fuck, Yo? When the hell are you going to be on my side!?!

"You're asking me to be on your side, and you say you don't even believe in me? I AM on your side. I always have been. NOW who's being patient? You are 11,260 days old today! I have been waiting 11,260 days for you to come around!!! You meet me halfway and we'll talk about granting wishes like I'm a fucking genie or something. It doesn't work like that. Keep doing what you're doing, but do it BETTER. And things will come around. Maybe not the way you want them to, but if you would just fucking trust me for ONE MINUTE....damn, you're frustrating."

...Hmph. Touche. I'd like to leave this conversation now.

"You know I'm right, that's why."

God, yes! Isn't that your thing? Being right all the time?

"Would you just think about it? Please? I'm an ok guy. I have a number of people who would write me a decent reference. I'm not asking you to marry me for crying out loud, I just wanna be friends. Do you doubt all your friends like this??"

Sometimes.

"This goes back to that constant self-doubt. That is the MEANEST thing you can do! The worst! It hurts me so deeply that you would do that! You don't believe the wonderful things I know to be true about you, the things your friends say about you...they're your friends, why would they lie to you?? I know, you've been with some bad, bad people. I did that to teach you how to protect yourself from people and things that are BAD, not to cower from people and things that are obviously GOOD!! Please, ease up on yourself. Do what you want, feel however you want about whoever you want. You are beautiful, baggy eyes, uber-deluxe love-handles and all. Just listen to my words, you tell the kids that all day every day, How frustrated do you get when they look right at you, hear your words and go and do the exact opposite of what you tell them?"

...Touche, again.

"Yeah. Now multiply it by 11,260 and you get how frustrated I get sometimes."

*shuffles feet*

"I love you. She loves you, he loves you, they love you, we love you. The only person missing is you."

Oh come on, I love myself!

"Not like I do. Not unconditionally. You work on that. Then things will start aligning in order for you."

How am I supposed to do that after 11,260 days of not?

"It hasn't been that long for you. You can't count your baby years, your toddler years. You were just tickled with yourself then. You have to get back to that. I am that i am, right? Well, you are that you are. Stop thinking about it, and just be. You can't really go wrong. It's so easy. And there are so many people, like you who make it so difficult. You make yourself sick making things difficult. You can't even enjoy being sick! You body is giving you permission to go to bed at 7pm! To snuggle in bed while everyone else is out rushing around like ants! Friggin' RELAX please!!!"

Well, when you put it like that...it does sound easy.

"THANK YOU. Shit."

I'll work on it. My movie is nearly finished, and my throat is sore. Can I go snuggle in bed, with my comforter around my ears, and watch my movie with an icy drink while the wind moans eerily past my window?

"What movie is it?"

Tropic Thunder.

"Oh shit, that movie is hilarious. Yes, go. Good talk, Caitlin."

Thanks. And yeah, it was.