Tumultuous Tokens of Tenderness

*also called How I Get Way Too Excited About Alliteration*

June is the month for birthdays. Baby-girl last week, the Celt this week, the next weekend is Father's Day, and then it's SO's birthday.
By the way, I'm HORRIBLE at gift giving. I hate having to wait until a specific day to give someone a present. As soon as I buy one, I want to give it away immediately.
So much time is spent on picking out something(s) that lucky guy/girl will just absolutely love and will want to keep forever that as soon as I bring it home, I turn into a four-year-old, "Guess what?!? I bought you something!! It's a surprise!!!!! ....wanna see it?!?!!??"
Even now, I know SO will occasionally pop into my blog and read all the nasty things I say about him, so I can't even put my secrets out into the world wide web. I am forced to sit on them in high anticipation, teasing him with the occasional (alright, fairly frequent--I'm sorry, sweetie!!), "You are gonna LOVE your gifts!! Want a hint?....You are going to be so excited!" And I do this type of thing with such frequency, that as soon as the special day arrives, I start getting nervous. Did I over-hype it? What if he doesn't love it as much as I thought he would? What if I led her to believe it was something else, and this isn't what she was expecting/wanting at all?
Apparently my ease of mind rests on the perfect gift-giving experience.

Fourth-of-July-an-hour-left-at-work-post

Oh, what a bad blogger I am!!! I started this so I could put some of the ramblings in my head out into the universe and I barely touch the damn thing.
Fourth of July is definitely not a big shopping day for most people. It has been so dead all day in the store, luckily there's only 45 minutes left before closing. Then I'm headed back to the house for some fried chicken, corn-on-the-cob, and s'mores around our fire pit with some friends. Not too big on fried food, but it's been a few months since I've had any, and it seems appropriate for the holiday.
The lack of activity is a happy change from the hellish night I had yesterday. By far the worst working day I have ever had in all my working days--EVER. If I had owned a gun last night, there would be blood covering the store and I would be tightly locked up. But I'm lucky enough to have the best partner in the world, and after we got home, he gave me such a wonderful night; bottle of red wine, our funny show, a good movie, an hour long walk with Chubbers around town, good dinner, and wonderfully mind-numbing sex. He made it so I could totally forget about the teenagers, the cop, the angry customers, and the stressfulness that was my Thursday at work.
I hope I tell him often enough how wonderful I think he is. My sweet metal rock star.

the not-so-girliness of me

You know those not-so-scientific polls/quizes/surveys that float ALL OVER the interweb? I've taken many of those--especially the ones that tell you if you have a male or female brain/personality/lifestyle, etc. I'm fascinated by them--mainly because no matter how many I take, I'm always at least 80% male up to 98% male at my highest (most masculine?).
Why am I so fascinated by these little tests, you may wonder? Because throughout my childhood, I was the girliest little girl you would ever meet. I LOVED pink and dresses and tea parties, and playing dress up and house, Barbies were piled in my room by the dozen along with their cars and houses; I LOATHED being dirty in any way (even sitting in our sandbox was too dirty for little Miss Me). The only un-girly things I participated in were playing NES and my love for all things Batman (which has only grown over the years). That's it. And I am not exaggerating. I even would go horseback riding on my grandfather's farm, but only with the stipulations that my horse, Lady (who did not live up to her name in the tiniest bit), was clean and saddled, and we did not go riding where either my horse nor myself would get dirty. I was such a little girly girl,that when I did manage to get myself into trouble, discipline of any nature wasn't even needed, just a mean look from a loved one would turn me into a sobbing apologetic mess.
So why the change? Actually, I remember the cause of my change from nice quiet little nerd to somewhat overbearing smart-ass...but I'm not sure if the girlyness went away at the same time--I'd say that the two are related, but they are not the same...it just baffles me is all.
I wonder how many people have such a drastic change within 15 years of living?
Now, just because I think/talk/act "like a man" (and yes, the feminist in me is shuddering at the very thought of that statement) I still have some amazing girly moments. Like with crickets, spiders don't bother me, anything that can sting me, doesn't really bother me--CRICKETS, people, crickets freak me out--they do that bizarre freakishly high jumping thing that is so unpredictable--and roaches, the very thought of a single roach will send me shivering and squeemish for HOURS. No joke.
And my current outfit is fairly girly--my summer uniform, a skirt and tshirt with flip-flops, always gets comments from my friends until they get used to the idea of me looking so much like a girl (it should be noted that I only have one female-friend that is not my sister).
In fact my very "man-ness," the lack of my girliness, is why I cannot keep female-friends. I am not a very understanding/sympathetic person. I don't know how to baby someone, I cannot console the sad, I cannot coddle the upset, I can't even care for the sick--this isn't me saying I won't do that, I've actually tried these things, but they end up awkward and I usually end up, at best, confusing, but usually offending the one I'm trying to help. I don't want it to change, people used to walk all over me, which is to say that I allowed people to walk all over me, but one fateful day when I was 13 years old, all that changed and I decided that my own happiness was WAY more important than anyone else's.
But the lack of these nuturing traits are why I cannot keep a female-frienship for more than a couple of years. At some point I get so tired of all the whining/complaining/lieing/fretting/worring/neediness of all these girls. I get fed up with trying to always boost self-esteem; consoling a fretting female is just too much work for me. I lose my patience (of which there is already not enough) and tell them what I really think (which typically is, "get over yourself") which ends up drastically offending them and sends them walking away awaiting my call back with an apology.
Of course I don't call back. If I did, that just meant I actually was sorry for speaking my mind--and that I would have to continue listening to their self-deprication for another year or so.


Mayhap it's not the fact that these people have a vagina--perhaps it's just a problem of low-self-esteem. But if anybody out there can show me a girl that is not suffering from some kind of insecurity, then perhaps I can show him/her my female-soulmate.

getting warmer!!!

I am so mad at myself--not really, just minorly irritated; I had so many plans to keep up with this silly blog--to get me back into the habit of journaling--something I used to do so very consistently and now it's only every few months. I thought being an electronic media, it might be easier for me to stay up-to-date. ah well.....
There's no time even now for catch-up. Baby-girl is gone on tour again, as she will be more and more frequently as summer approaches. I get so used to seeing her daily that I quite miss her now. Even with her occasional bouts of melancholy, she's very quickly become a dear little staple in my life. But, with her gone, this means I'm way behind on work--as the owners of my job have two small children and cannot really accomplish much when they're working.
There's still lots of good in my life, SO's still around, not going on tour, so that's been lovely. We're trying to plan out stuff we want to get for the house for the warm weather that's occasionally here (god-damn tennessee weather!!!), currently it's in the 70's but not four days ago it SNOWED and HAILED all day. Yes, and this isn't even that strange of an event for a March in good ole Tennessee.
I'm excited about the warm weather--I'd love to live somewhere that's consistently above 55 degrees all year long. I love love love New York, and if I'm going to spend my life in a place that gets cold, that may be the only place where I would happily put up with such harsh weather.

Things I'm hoping to accomplish before June : furniture I'd like to paint, carpets that still need ripping up, a darkroom that needs blacking out and a table and all sorts of various patio-type furniture that is waiting for us to come along to purchase and love it.

And there's the family vacation that's coming up--unlike just about every single year of my life, we are not going to the beach for a week (very sad) but are instead taking Oma for her 80th birthday on a six day cruise around the Bahamas (which are very lovely). I'm still pretty excited about it, as a true fire sign, being around the water puts me in an extremely calm state--it's so very hard for me to feel any type of negative emotions when I'm around any water--especially ocean. Poor SO is extremely nervous and trying not to be, bless him. He never really learned how to swim and being surrounded by water is kind of freaking him out--he's also very worried that he may not be able to bring along one of his guitars (and, frankly, I'm a little worried about that one myself) if he's not able to play everyday then he gets a bit antsy, which is a really nice way of saying very grumpy.

I suppose I should get back to work, hopefully by Sunday, we should have a table and chairs for the back patio, a firepit for the yard, and some new duds/goodies from Goodwill (the last weekend of evey month is 1/2 off each item in the store, you know).

Happy Thursday!