A New Page

Wow, has it been six months already?

So I'm starting up again, this time firm in my desire to be part of this new (to me) online community.

I have a new laptop, with better recording equipment so here is my plan:

Although I might still bring you the boring (of late) details of my love life, this blog will be morphing into something different altogether. It will be a music blog. I will post at least once a week - maybe following in some friends concepts of automatic updates to ease the pressure- and I will be posting not only my own music and ideas and concepts, but also hopefully music from others and reviews from around town and maybe even some guest appearances from local artists.

I have set my begin date as the first week of October so I will keep people posted and maybe even start up a new site.

The Return of Surfer-Dude???

I am a woman that believes in grand gestures.

Having said that, I don't believe that I had ever experienced a grand gesture or really even believed that I would in my lifetime. There had been many opportunities for grand gestures. Times when I could have been persuaded by even the smallest of them. But it never happened.

Until now...when I got something substantially larger than a small grand gesture. It was truly grand.

Surfer-Dude is one of the most verbally un-emotional creatures I think I have ever come across. Any "serious" relationship talk of any kind sends him screaming in the opposite direction.

Thankfully I do boyspeak!
I'm able to tackle most relationships in lingo that's easy for him to swallow and relate to. I use crass language and say things like "but shit, ya know, it's cool. we can do whatever you want" and then I just gently nudge in the direction that I want him to go. That way, there's no pressure to find the words to fix something, but he gets the general idea of what I want and need.

I use pet names that are non-threatening. I call him "Buttface" much more regularly than I call him "babe" and tell him I'm going to kick him (sweetly) instead of telling him how happy he makes me.
Foreplay rarely includes roses and candlelight and much more often includes teasing and wrestling.
Don't get me wrong. For the most part, I actually prefer all of this. I'm not a gushy kind of girl. I'm a little uncomfortable with the modern idea of "romance" with all of its frillyness and ooze.

Because of my boyspeak abilities, Surfer-Dude was the first to drop the "I love you" bomb. And that man has the ability to hold so much love in his eyes it hurts me to look at him. I rarely need to hear it come out of his mouth. But sometimes a girl just needs some verbal affirmation.

Especially when there are problems in the relationship and all he can seem to point out are the negatives. The reasons that we shouldn't be together and the things that we should change about ourselves.
Especially when we're thousands of miles apart and technically broken up.
Especially since we are friends first and lovers second and there needs to be a distinction between the two.

So we tried the friend thing for 6 months. Most of the time it was fine. I think that Surfer-Dude is an amazing person. He's complex and rough around the edges and I can't help but totally and absolutely believe in him and appreciate him for everything that he is.

But sometimes it wasn't fine. I would get off the phone with him and feel horrible. I'd feel angry and empty and frustrated.
So one evening after one particularly frustrating phone conversation, I called him back. I was mad. I was prepared to end any friendship we had in order to get some closure.

Me: What the hell are we doing? We talk all the time and you want to come visit but you say you wont come if i'm seeing someone else. But you say you don't want to be with me. WHAT THE FUCK??!! Are you still in love with me or not?

Then the most amazing thing happened. Surfer-Dude's shell cracked. Then it completely broke open. He told me that he's still in love with me. That I'm one of a kind. That he doesn't care if I change anything about myself, that he wants me no matter what. He told me that he gave me up because he wanted me to follow my dreams and didn't want to hold me back. He told me how beautiful he thinks I am and how much he loved being with me.

With a shaky voice dropped to almost a whisper he told me everything that I needed to hear from him. Everything that I was positive I would never hear. Everything I had doubted was washed away in the most intense emotionally outpouring that I have ever been a part of.

Of course this was riddled with a lot of stuttering and extra words thrown in. But it wouldn't have been the same if it were cut and dry. It wasn't the words so much as the attitude behind it all. It was like hearing him say "I love you" for the first time all over again. So frightened and vulnerable and so human.
It also wasn't helped by me bawling throughout the whole thing.

So i don't know where this leaves Surfer-Dude and I. He's planning a visit. And possibly a move. Even though the gesture is done, I will need a follow through in order to stay sane about this whole thing.

But I love him. And I'm happy. All of the emotion and happiness that I have been suppressing for 6 months just keeps bubbling up until I feel overwhelmed with hope.

Thank you, Surfer-Dude for making me feel like a fairy-tale princess if only for a few moments.

A Texting World

I really dislike text messaging for conversations. It's fine for "hey what's up" or "are you busy" but not for long, involved conversations. Especially when it involves issues that need to be worked out.


Text Problem #1

Yesterday afternoon I started recieving texts from a number I wasn't familiar with. After several "who is this" texts, the person tells me. It's my asshole ex-boyfriend from oh-so long ago.

Mr. Drobb and I started dating because of my friend Mr. Radio Personality. Mr. RP and I were close friends in high school. He was a few years ahead of me in school and ended up moving to Northern California to go to college. I kept in touch and somehow eventually started a ridiculous long-distance relationship with his dorm roommate, Mr. Drobb. After a few months, my new long-distance fling decided to come visit me on his 21st birthday. I was 16 and fairly smitten, but obviously an idiot. We had fun, but I soon found out that he was kind of a jerk. My family didn't really like him and he treated me like crap. He went back to California and I broke up with him. He didn't like that and moved up to Alaska to try and win me back.
Being the sucker that I am sometimes I gave him a second chance. I wasn't into it and ended it about a month after he moved to town.
Two years ago I happened to run into him at the Emergency room when I took a friend who had busted his elbow in during the middle of the night. We talked and caught up for awhile, I found out he had gotten married, and everything was fairly cordial. He was flirty, but I didn't take offense at the time.

So for the past 24 hours he has been bugging me through the world of text messages. He started texting innapropriately fairly quickly. Asking me who I was seeing and telling me how much he likes large breasts and can't get enough of them and can't we be friends.

I told him no, we can't be friends. He kept texting.
I told him to leave me alone.
I told him that now I remember why i broke up with him in the first place.
Yet he still texts.
Why don't some men understand NO!!!!????

Here's my note to Mr. Drobb:

I don't care if you're bored in your marriage. I don't care that you now hate Juneau and have decided to move back to California. I don't care where your life is headed. I don't care that you hate the snow and are working at the hospital. I don't care that you like large breasts. I don't care that you're thinking about me.
Stop it.
Stop it.
Stop it.

Leave the past in the past and leave me the hell alone.
And no, i'm not going to take the time to text all of that.
I'm just going to ignore you until you stop.

Texting Problem #2

So I had this band. And in this band I had a bassist. This bassist happens to particularly know how to get on my nerves. We haven't hung out or seen each other in a long time. I've been back in town and busy and blah blah blah
My excuses are not the point of this story.

He likes to text. He's got kids in their late teens and twenties and it just happens to be a way he likes to communicate.
So he decides to take out all of his frustration on me in text message land because of something he's heard from someone else about something that I said.
I'm not good at getting my point across in text. I have a weird sense of humor that seems not to translate well to text form.
So I call him some names, but not really. I just say something to the effect of "don't act like a dick" because I learned that if you say don't act like something then you're actually not calling them that thing.
Then he calls me some names. And doesn't really sugarcoat his.

And I want to break my phone.


So here's my note to Bassist Man:

Don't text me about heresay.
Don't text me telling me to have a great life and that you wish me the best when what you really want to say is "i'm unhappy with you and how things have been going"
Don't call me names in print.... I cannot be faulted if I hold it against you at a later date.

Oh, and by the way. I am not a diva.

A little workday math

I love my job.



Ok before I go into my day, let me preface it by saying that my job is not all fun and sunshine. Working in the social service industry can be exhausting and all-consuming at times but I am lucky. I have great clients and great co-workers.



I love Mondays because Miss MD and Mr RT and I get to hang out all day. We catch up on all of the latest gossip within and without work and have ridiculous conversations with topics such as:



How many women do you think Brett Michaels has actually slept with?



Is it possible to sleep with thousands of people in a lifetime?



If you can become a virtuoso at anything after 10,000 hours of practice, how long will it take to become a master at sex?



Although it's pretty impossible to find the answer to the first question we did some math and did figure out the last two.



If you live to be 84 years old, lose your virginity at 14 and have sex every day for the rest of your life (accounting for leap years) you can have sex with 25,567 people in a lifetime.

If you have sex an hour a day (or 7 hours a week) you can become a sexual virtuoso in as little as 27 years. So, considering again that you lose your virginity at 14, you can become a master by the age of 41.

No wonder I like older men.

And this kind of answers the first question as well. Not about the number of women Brett Michaels has slept with but, considering he is 45 years old and has probably slept with A LOT of women, he's most likely very amazing in the sack.

I just can't get past the bandana/hairpiece. Sorry Brett

It's not VOID!

Oh and in relation to the post below:

Making out and fooling around does not make my ban on dating null and void. I declined sex (small applause for me) and am still happily single. Somewhat happily single. Anyway, just wanted to clear up any confusion.

For the Lack of Tongue

Let's just put this out there first and foremost....

I enjoy kissing. Very much. I enjoy the feel of lips on lips and tongues exploring mouths and the taste of spit intermingling. I like soft kisses with no moisture and I like mashing lips together so hard with a tongue down the throat. I like it all. And I like variety. Maybe not so hygenic and pretty to think about, but I don't think it should be.

True kissing, especially with a boyfriend/serious significant other, should have tongue. Period.

There's no "I'm not really into tongue." or "I don't like if it gets messy." It's gonna get messy sometimes, especially when it's passionate. One of our bodies natural responses to sexual arousal is an increase in salivary gland output. So we should put that to good use.

So...

The next guy I date has to be a good kisser. I believe that I'm making that a new criteria. Which would put ex-Surfer Dude out of the running for any possible future dating action.
Which actually might take some pressure of me.

Which leads me to...

I made out with this guy the other night. I will call him Mr. X. I will not explain how I know Mr. X, except to say that the other night was not the first time. In fact, it is the third time in a few months that such a thing has happened.

1. I was really drunk. Like so drunk we made out in a parking lot and I ended up passing out in my car. Like only the 3rd time in my life (the other two being New Years) that I've ever blacked out even somewhat.

2. I was still drunk, but not nearly as much so and I brought him home. We made out, fooled around, and he was gone by the time I woke up the next morning. He left some marks on me; partly my fault because I'm easily bruised, but partly his because he chose inopportune spots to roughly kiss.

3. We were both a bit less drunk again and he came over to my new apartment. We went to bed, fooled around, had some laughs and some fun, and both slept for the rest of the morning. When I awoke I was surprised to find some new - although a little less conspicuous - marks, and ended up leaving him asleep in my bed while I trotted off to class.

My point in this whole thing is that Mr. X, rather unfortunately, is a good kisser. No, not just a good kisser. A great kisser. The first time I thought so, the second time I thought not, but this third one has definitely reintroduced me to the power of a good kiss.

Mr. DD was not a good kisser. He wasn't a fan of any tongue being involved in the kiss and therefore it lacked passion.
Ex-Surfer Dude did not lack passion, but still lacked tongue. I dated this guy for almost 2 years and I can count the number of times we touched tongues on both of my hands.

Am I wrong to want some tongue? Is tongue not in style anymore? I used to find plenty of tongue, along with plenty of people that really liked my kissing style. So i'm a little confused to why the last two boyfriends haven't liked it at all.

And of course there's Mr. X, who I should not even be attracted to by any means for so many different reasons, that I am wildly attracted to. Mostly because he kisses me with tongue. And because he laughs when I'm silly.

Oh crap what the hell am I getting into.

The best Valentine's Day ever

I was supposed to go on vacation last fall. I had two weeks before school started in L.A. to find a place, hang out on the beach, head to the desert, or just have fun with the ex, Surfer Boy, before becoming a slave to the educational institution once again.

Instead, I broke my foot a week before leaving, so my options for fun would be limited...

Then I came down with pneumonia and ended up back in Alaska after two horrendous weeks mostly alone in random hotel rooms barely able to eat, sleep, or function at all.

So now, 6 months later, here I am on the ferry to Haines for a wonderful Valentine's Day girl weekend extravaganza.

My friends, Ms. JB and MD have both been having a pretty rough time the last month and Ms. MD decided she couldn't take it anymore and needed to get out. So on the fly, we reserved three walk-on tickets on the fast ferry, rooms at a bed and breakfast (with a hot tub) and packed up our skis and snowshoes.

I'm mostly excited about the hot tub. I've been having dreams about the hot tub. Every night since we decided to go. Best case scenario we'll be the only people staying at the Bed and Breakfast and we can all hot tub naked with the bottle of wine that I have shoved in my backpack.

As far as Valentine's Day goes, I think this will go down as one of my favorites. I have chocolate in my bag, plenty of snow gear for fun outside, two of my closest friends, wine, and ferry boats. It's only for two days but that's all the vacation I need.

Update on DD

I suppose everyone deserves an update.

Seeing him went alright.

I gave him the shirt.

He looks ridiculously good in sapphire blue.

But suprisingly, I'm getting over it. We're attempting to be "friends" and through that I've had to deal with quite a bit of his drama. It certainly is a different side of him than I saw while we were dating.

He was supposed to come to my housewarming party and I made it explicitly clear that "she" was not invited. I did not, however, expect that he would lie to her about where he was going and create a whole "situation" for himself. Plus I guess she was mad because he bought me a blender for my housewarming present and she doesn't even have a blender. I found that part of it rather amusing.

He's promised to help me with a project I'm working on for my Pa-Pa in North Carolina. That means 45 minutes every week of alone time with him. Blech.

I never ever wanted to be in this position. Now I'm the "other woman". It feels like shit.

But it's getting better, and I care less and less every day. And he really doesn't have anything to do with my dating ban.

Ok maybe just a little bit. :)

The yearly "Swearing Off"

So it's been awhile since my last post and there are a few things that I can say.

-Beer and laptops do not mix. Especially when it involves your roommate/very close friend. And it's her fault that your laptop is not working anymore. And it's a touchy subject because neither of you are very good with confrontation and you're on pain medication and irritable.

-If you want a housewarming party filled with adorable, available men, have it on a day when you know there will be bad weather. That way you can invite all of your girlfriends knowing they wont show up, and all of your male friends who decided to brave the weather will bring their cute friends that you've never met before. Oh, and have a foosball table.

-If you do too many things involving your wrists, you have a very high likliehood of developing tendonitis, carpal tunnel, or both. Those things include: moving lots of furniture/decorating new apartment, takings ceramics/intro to wheel throwing, taking many classes that involve typing, getting really involved in sign language, and playing guitar. All at the same time. Damn.
a. Steroids suck big time. Especially Prednisone. It doesn't matter how much inflammation they reduce. They suck. Vicodin sucks too, but not nearly as much. It just gives you fucked up dreams about tiny dinosaurs that try to lick you so you kick them into a sliding glass door.


-If you fill out one of those stupid questionnares on Facebook entitled "25 things about me"...try to put things that are actually somewhat interesting that everyone doesn't already know about you, like: any muted jazz trumpet (especially Miles Davis) makes me weak in the knees and all tingly in my nether regions.

-When you hear from a friend in Ecuador, even if you're feeling particularly shitty at the moment, put on a happy face and actually try to have a decent conversation.

-Girlfriends are incredible, enough said.



So in other news, I've decided to willfully remove myself from the dating scene for six months. I feel like there are so many other things that I really need to focus on. It feels bad to say this but it's been a wake up call lately hanging out with a good friend of mine. She's in her mid-twenties and obsessed with men. Almost desperate around them. It's given me a good dose of what not to do. So it's done. If I am asked out, I will say "I'm flattered, but I'm not dating right now. If you want to hang out, I'm up for that, but nothing more."
Ok maybe not exactly that, but something to that degree.
And it's already been two months since I last had sex. And I've never gone more than six. So I'm not sure yet whether I'm going to consider sex a part of this whole deal. We'll see. Eight months without might just break me.

Wish me luck.

A home to dry my snowy boots in.

I have a new house.

Ms. R and I have been waiting for years to be roommates. We were neighbors for awhile and spent so much time in one another's apartments it seemed silly that we didn't live together. She left to travel and then spend a year in New Zealand and I took off to L.A. Neither of us planned on being back in Juneau anytime soon. Yet as fate would have it, both ended up drawn back to the black hole that is Juneau, Alaska and decided to finally live together.

Our apartment search began a few weeks ago when she got back into town. We drove around, looking at locations, talking about the types of things we wanted in a home. Our list was as follows:
-Not too many neighbors (not a big apartment complex/building)
-Windows (it gets so damn dark in the winter...it's just a neccessity)
-No apartment where the owner lives next door
-Semi-accessible location with parking close-by (we like to entertain fairly regularly)
-A cool landlord

We looked at around 10 places but one stood out so starkly from the rest. Not only did we find a place that fit all of our criteria.... we got so much more.

It's a duplex up above town that has an amazing view of downtown, the docks, the bridge, and the channel. It has a deck and plenty of windows with lots of sun all year round. The landlord is an extremely nice older gentleman who built the house himself and lives a few miles away. We have a garage the size of a boat builder's shop with 10 ft. ceilings and can fit 3 cars front to back with a woodstove and washer/dryer. We have a neighbor (who we haven't met yet) that's a younger (30's we're guessing) guy who seems to have similar hours to us, and the walls are really well insulated between the two sides. The landlord dropped the rent $100 for us and dropped the deposit down as well. Every time I step inside I get a little flutter in my chest. It's perfect for us. I'm in love....... with a house.

The scary thing for both Ms. R and I was the 1-year lease. Neither of us have signed anything like that before and we were both a little apprehensive. It's hard to be a twenty-something and commit to a whole year of anything, much less a house, but I feel like it's the right thing to do.


School starts again tomorrow and although I'm looking forward to it, I'm also a little scared. I will see DD first thing after I get off work and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I got him a christmas present. It's a really nice shirt that i ordered for him. I know he'll like it, and I can't really give it to anyone else, or take it back, so I'm at a loss. Maybe I'll just hold onto it for awhile.

Needless Rejection

Rejection is a funny thing. It can happen when you least expect it and can lead to very funny emotional responses. Just add alcohol.

I didn't know what I expected from New Year's Eve.

When you break up with someone it's easy to move on. You've still got your pride and confidence intact. In fact, in many cases, confidence can be boosted by ending a not so desirable relationship with someone. Confidence, however, takes a huge blow when you're on the other end of things. All of the sudden that pride and spark that you felt when you walked into a room is gone, and strange feelings like desperation, dejection, and even desolation seem to surge in to fill in where your pride has been hacked away at. No one wants to be the desperate one.

There's this karmic rule of dating that deals with pride. It says that when you're unaware and unconcerned with dating and relationships and finding "the right one", your pride and confidence swell. When your confidence swells, members of the opposite sex start throwing themselves at you. Especially when you're trying to focus on something else, like work, or family, or schooling. The more of them you turn away the more that are attracted multiply until finally you give in. Now in .08% (i'm not a statistician, just a realist) of cases when you give in to that person persuing you, it will result in a lifetime of happiness. For the rest of the time (and the rest of us) it leads to one of the first scenarios set out in this entry. You either break up with them - in which case you go on with the good confidence cycle - or you end up with scenario number 2. They break up with you. In which case, as previously mentioned, the pride becomes hacked away at and desperation sets in. Now before Dave, I was on top of my game without wanting it or trying to be. Then i gave in to Dave and I guess I didn't realize that....well.... I was scenario 2. I had been broken up with. As much as I'd like to make it in my control, it wasn't.

So I went out on New Years. And I got drunk on New Years. Very Very Drunk. Like whiskey shots with beer backs drunk. Like kissing female friends on the lips drunk.

And I was rejected, which is the worst of all because it was a needless rejection. I shouldn't have been rejected at all.

My brother's friend Electrician Man or EM for short, just moved to town a couple of months ago. Me being the nice sister that I am, and knowing that he didn't know anyone, took him under my wing a bit. I showed him around, hung out with him occassionally, introduced him to people. Now I'll admit, I flirted with him. But I never crossed any lines. I never physically came on to him. I never hinted at anything other than what it was: a girl being nice to her brother's friend.

So EM, Ms. R and I went out to the bars. It was close to midnight and I drank too much too quickly. EM and I were just standing there, talking, laughing, hanging out when he looked at me and said for no reason "Oh Brooke, if you weren't my best friend's little sister....but I just can't". And I got angry. Why did he have the right to say anything like that. If it was because he liked me, then it's a cop-out. A way to preemt any deeper feelings he might have for me. And if it's because he thought that I might want something more and was trying to let me down easier he could've done it in any different setting at any different time.
So I joked about it, then joked some more, then at midnight, to ease my hurt pride....

I kissed him. For no reason. Because my confidence had been torn away for no reason by someone I had no interest in anyway. Because I felt like I had been stripped of my manhood and I'M NOT EVEN A MAN.

Then I drank more. And I tried to talk to him about why it hurt me so much. Then I cried.

I became that girl. That girl that gets drunk and cries in the middle of a crowded bar. I've never been that girl. I've never wanted to be that girl.

So I'm an idiot. But it makes you figure out who cares enough.
The rest of the night is blurry. I called in a favor from a friend later when I guess I left EM's house blacked out and my friend let me stay at his apartment. He let me sleep in his bed, he let me cuddle, he kept me from getting handsy, and he listened to me the next morning all hungover and grumpy.

So yes, rejection sucks, and it hurts. But maybe it's there for a reason. Maybe our ego needs rejection to regenerate, so the next time, I'll be ready and in the right mind frame for my .08% chance at landing "the right one".