through these glasses

sleepdeprived

I rather like sleep, have always been a big fan of getting the recommended 8 hours a night, and generally think a well rested soul is a happy one. All of four hours for the last two nights running, and a probable two tonight go a long way towards explaining why little things like my laptop ceasing to send anything to any printer from one critical program have nearly pushed me over the edge. I think if I would have had my passport on me today, I just might have gone to the airport instead of going to a board meeting tonight. Hopping a plane and disappearing into the south seas sounds like a much better plan than another sleepless
night wrestling with a freelance project that has taken on a life of its own.

god and i aren't talking today

not that this will come as a surprise, but i hate cancer (the disease, not the astrological sign. some of my favorite people are cancers, which may be odd for the typical aries girl. but more often than not, they feel like kindred spirits, perhaps because i have cancer as my rising sing. but i digress...). the tentative joy of one mom in remission doesn't change the fact that i'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. the bottomless sorrow at lives lost too early. lives that rocked like none before with souls i miss each and every day. and now the intense anger at life, the universe and everything that another mom is on this particular villian's list. it's times like this where i get really good at questioning a higher power. ok, fine. it isn't questioning as much as shaking my fists at the heavens and demanding answers i know won't be forthcoming any time soon.

note to self...

...don't start new projects with new clients when mercury is retrograding. all those things they say about vital pieces of information being omitted, communication snafus, and unforeseen blockages during that time? they're not kidding. mercury has retrograded all over the first new fleelance client and it has me wanting to pull up stakes and move to timbuktu. ...if only that were a viable option...

crushing

There's nothing like starting out the morning with an unexpected call from a long forgotten crush. Even better, he's calling to thank you for a copy of a cd he's still enjoying, years later. Also, to tell you how smart, sassy, beautiful, wickedly funny and all around great you are. "I've always thought you were the cat's meow." he said.

The catch?

His fiance's best friend's brother is single, "about your age and lives in your neighborhood; would you be interested in meeting him?"

sigh.

sure, why not. The jury's still out on the last fix-up (roommate 1.0's wife's best friend's stylist. yes, stylist. I know what you're thinking. Statistically speaking, the chance that he plays for my team are pretty slim. still, first contact has been made, and so far there's a speck of promise there. time will tell if it's promising for me, or if I need to instead be setting him up with a certain law student who shares my taste in men), but my new year's resolution was to not say no to dates, no matter where they came from. The idea was to release positive dating energy into the universe and see what happens. so far it's gotten me two out of the blue phone calls. I wouldn't say that's a raging success, but it's certainly not a bad start.

what i did on my summer vacation

A week on Madeline Island was like summer camp for grown-ups--a summer camp where you get an entire condo with queen size beds instead of lumpy bunks to sleep on, no curfews, and a full kitchen. We were spitting distance from the lake, a hop, skip and a splash away from the pool, and walking distance from the local watering hole.

Upon hearing where we were headed, everyone said, "You have to go to Tom's Burned Down Cafe. We can't explain it, you just have to trust us." Trust them we did, especially since every local we asked where we should go in the evenings gave the same answer: "Tommy's."

It's been described as the Carnegie Hall of Junkyards or a tree fort for adults. I would have said it's what P.T Barnum might have built if he had dropped acid in the 70s and never quite made it into the new millennium. On an island where a small bottle of vodka costs $30, Tommy's $3 vodka tonic was a bargain and a godsend (not that we'd know what local prices for alcohol were because we'd, say, perhaps, run out of what we'd brought for an entire week on the second day...).

Two nights running, Big10 and I were taken with a girl who showed up late in the evening, barefoot*, with the most beautiful dog following her. The dog kept a watchful eye as his girl bounced from one conversation to another, ever watchful, ignoring everyone in the bar but her. As a human, he would have been the creepy overbearing boyfriend who tears you away from your friends bit by bit. As a dog, he was the most charming thing ever.

Strange things, time-warppy things, happen at Tommy's. One night, we were all propositioned by the same guy who wanted us to follow him to a remote part of the island for a "private party." Yeah, I so don't think so. I can just see the headlines: "Local retiree exposed as serial killer - all that's left of a trio of vacationing friends is their teeth." That same night, we may have accidentally dragged a couple of poor UW Med students out of the closet before they were ready. The next night, we were invited to crash, of all things, a honeymoon. By night four we were regulars who were greeted by name when we walked in.

In the end, though, even summer camp has to end. We ferried back to the mainland, back to reality, and back to big impersonal bars where you have to wear your shoes and (wo)man's best friend can't belly up to the bar.
__________

* Suddenly, a long-forgotten story of a college friend's sister makes more sense. She went to Madeline Island one summer to go sailing. That fall, she put off college for a semester. By the time I heard the story, she'd dropped out of college and had been living on the island and off the grid for five years. When my friend tried asking her the whys and howcomes of her lifechoice, he always got the same cryptic response: "I don't like wearing shoes."