Part Deux

“I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.”

Moving On

While I might post here in the future, I’m not sure.  I’ve moved to a new space.  If you’d like to know the address, shoot me an e-mail to my gmail account or leave a comment.

Pick Me Up

When you hear things like, “I’ve filed for divorce; how do I get my wife off my benefits plans,” or, “I/my baby/my father am/is sick and I need to take leave,” or, “So-and-so is being let go, could you make a packet?” it’s easy to get a little down.  My boss has told me that if I ever lose my compassion, I should not be in HR… or would be me… and that’s true.  But being compassionate (and a sensitive Cancer) definitely opens the door for having my emotions swayed by other people’s troubles.

So, in that vein, and because I never did a Thanksgiving “I am thankful for…” post, I give you: Things That Make Me Happy:

* The CLF
* Harry Potter
* This dog:
* Old episodes of Friends (specifically – Janice, Ross’ marriages, and anything from 1995 or 1996)
* Current episodes of The Office/30 Rock
* My Milwaukee crew
* The CLF
* Edward Cullen
* CHRISTMAS in Durand!
*
* My raise
* My plans for New Year’s Eve weekend
* My tiny Christmas tree
* The CLF
* The knowledge that it’s never too late
* My iPhone
* 312, Sunset Wheat, and Kwak
* My family – all the time, and in every way
* Pretty blue and white star lights around my window
* Jacob Black
* The CLF
* My “Lori Got a Raise” on-super-sale handbag
*
* My duvet
* Target
* The fact that every little thing is gonna be alright

Stuck

I haven’t been feeling prolific lately.  I haven’t been writing here… and I haven’t even been writing in a journal, which is not normal.  Even when I have started writing in a journal, I have only written a few sporadic times and then stopped; I feel a block.  And then I don’t feel I can continue in the same journal, so I have about four half-started notebooks or journals from the last few months with all sorts of repetitive thoughts and complaints and goals and feelings.  I am sick of feeling the same things over and over again and not getting an outlet from writing about it.  I feel stagnant, like I’m making no progress either on paper or in life.

It’s a frustrating feeling, and I don’t know what to do about it.

This time of year is hard, too… both professionally and personally.  When employee benefits are a major part of your job, and the renewal date for the plans is January 1… then the few months leading up to that is taken up in planning meetings, waiting for renewal numbers from carriers, creating scenarios that will work depending on what comes back for the next year, and the planning and execution of open enrollment itself.  It’s a logistical nightmare normally, made even more complicated this year by the budget issues in Illinois, and the time it takes to actually make the choices that are best for our employees.  It’s gone really well, in my opinion, but of course it’s not over yet, and may not totally be for several months.  I got a really good endorsement of my work ethic and work product this week, and it was perfect timing… motivational in this hard professional time, and validating in this time of personal confusion and stagnation.

I think one of the problems is that I’m lonely.  I’ve been lonely for a long time, and I’m just now realizing it and becoming able to put a name to it.  It started on the long drive to Seattle, and I did a really good job once I was living there to go out and meet people, get involved at work and a little in a community.  But the loneliness lingered… I don’t feel that I’ve ever been as lonely as when I finally decided to leave Seattle and had a month to get through before I could actually go.  The trip home was a brief respite experienced with my best friend in the whole world, and then I was thrust in a city that I didn’t know and had no extra money to explore thoroughly.

After I found my job and started to get to know everyone at work, the loneliness ebbed.  Weekly appointments with D and my sister made me feel I’d found a home, and meeting Madame J was another very large step in the right direction.  I don’t think I’ve done nearly as good a job as in Seattle of putting myself out there, fighting against my innate Cancerian desire to hibernate; maybe that’s because in Seattle I was truly on my own, and here I never felt so completely solitary.  I also spent a great deal of time here in Chicago trying to hold on to a relationship in which I felt both lonely and superfluous.

Now, a little over four months after the demise of my ability to desperately cling to something that was clearly not healthy, I feel more lonely than ever.  I still have a couple of really close friends who are always asking me to do things, and I cannot put into words how much it has meant to have my sister so close these last almost two years (!!).  But despite all my traveling and going-going-going, for the most part, and especially during the week, I’ve been retreating even further, turning down far more invitations, and spending more and more time alone… which is definitely counterproductive.

My word for 2009 was “nurture” … and you can tell for yourself how well I took it to heart by the fact that I had to go back and search my blog just now for what the word actually was.  While I feel like I’ve nurtured my friendships and relationships and career, I think that this has probably been the year in which I nurtured myself the least, which makes me sad.  I deserve better than this, and I have to stop waiting for someone to take care of me, and start taking care of myself.  I have great friends and an amazing family – none of whom live with me (most not even in the same city/state), and all of whom have their own lives, concerns, and agendas.  It’s not practical or fair to look to everyone else to give me what I need to give myself… and in the end, it’s not what I need or want at all.

I want to be independent instead of lonely.  I want to have a balance between going out and staying in.  I want to praise myself for and focus on the things I do well instead of lambasting myself for the things I see as failings.  I want to use my money for traveling more than I use it for handbags.  I want to be healthy instead of sedentary.  I want to stretch myself instead of being content with how things are.  I want to be confident instead of insecure.  I want to find it within myself instead of seeking it outside.

Now that I’ve realized and defined it, hopefully I will be able to fight harder against my loneliness, and to not wallow in the feeling or let it get the best of me anymore.  I also need to decide whether I want to keep “nurture” as my 2010 word and work more consistently on nurturing myself as much as I usually focus my attentions and energy outward… or if I want to choose something different or more apt in some way.  Stay tuned…

In other news, I went shopping downtown today.  I had a few gifts I needed to pick up and wanted to get out of the house and experience some holiday cheer.  [Sidebar: word to the wise, avoid the Christkindlmarket on the second-to-last Saturday before Christmas.  I made it about 20 feet into the cluster before I gave it up and went to Borders... which lasted about four minutes, before I decided that was enough shopping for one day.  My tolerance for the holiday crowd lasted a record two hours, and then I hit my limit.]  To wrap things up, here is something I saw on the way that made me feel very festive…

Dog in a sweater!

Breeze Driftin’ On By, You Know How I Feel

It has been an amazing fall.  I have traveled all over the place, visited a ton of my very best friends, and really started to round up the scattered pieces of who I used to be before I was part of a couple.

Labor Day weekend saw me in St. Louis with the Dolls and my Omaha bestie; CLF (sorta) visited the weekend of the U2 shows in Chicago; the last weekend in September was the epic Tony-Seven; the first weekend in October had me home in Durand for peace, quiet, and much-needed time with family; the next weekend was a fantastic wedding of friends in Joliet where I feel like I finally turned a corner; following that was a weekend of apple-picking and movies with Mme Julsaint; the next weekend found me in DC with the CLF enjoying the amazing fall colors and unbeatable company; all capped off by Friendsgiving last weekend, with some of my oldest, best friends in the world and a totally welcome respite from work being crazy.

What follows is mostly an account of DC and Friendsgiving, because I’ve talked about most of the other stuff, but it just occurred to me as I left work for Union Station on Friday that I have been ALL OVER the place these last few months, and have loved every.single.second.  I am incredibly lucky to have such great friends and family, and wish I were independently wealthy so I could just travel around visiting them all the time.  Alas, with the holidays coming up (and thus funds becoming more scarce), and (hopefully) open enrollment beginning soon, I will be chained to Chiacgo more… and that’s okay, too.  I love this city during the holiday season with the lights and snow and crisp weather and hats and sweaters.

So.  DC.  I flew out on a Thursday night, was delayed a tiny bit, and was retrieved from DCA by Ms. CLF in a PT Cruiser, as usual.  Also as usual, we got a tiny bit lost on the way back from the airport… which was cool by me because the weather was amahzing, and it allowed me to get this picture:

We ended up at Casey’s dive Thursday night, then spent Friday working and having lunch with a bunch of her Washington friends.  One of the best things about CLF is her delicious cooking.  This is totally fantastic pork that we put in lettuce wraps.  YUM:

Friday night, we went out to a friend’s birthday party for awhile at the W hotel, then headed to Rocket Bar, which was more my style, for drinks and shuffleboard with the other 2/3 of the triumvirate.

Saturday, we headed to Jimmy T’s for “breakfast,” and I took some photos of CLF’s street, and fall in DC, which is my favorite:

Saturday night we metro-ed over to Jaleo, which is a fantastic tapas place.  I took a pretty typical picture of the metro stop, because the public transit in DC makes the CTA even more like a piece of junk:

Here is CLF at Jaleo:

And here is me holding the unique toothpick-esque utensils that were provided at Jaleo; whether they are for the food, or for extracting the fruit from one’s sangria, I don’t really care…. you can see what I chose to use them for:
Much easier than using a straw, and much classier than using one’s fingers, or dumping the ice/fruit out at the end and eating it off one’s napkin.  Not that I have done any of those things.

After Jaleo, we chilled at Poste, having drinks outside and enjoying the last of the warm weather.  So much fun talking for hours and hours.

For some reason, I had booked a noon flight on Sunday… (wth?)… so I had to get moving pretty early.  Uneventful flight home, and (as usual) a total letdown to be CLF-less after a weekend of being together 24/7.  Sigh.

Fast forward through Halloween weekend, which was spent with the sister and doing not much of anything at all, and we arrive at Friendsgiving, which is like my second favorite holiday after Christmas!  I left last Friday on the 5:08 train, was picked up by Tony at the train station, and set off on a whirlwind of Chinese food, grocery shopping (during which I remembered everything I needed to make mojitos, but forgot the gravy – my one assigned Friendsgiving task), and travel out to Pewaukee.  The rest of the night is a blur of mojitos, friends, people arriving, Denny’s at 3 a.m. for the Rascal Flat-wich thing, and getting 9 people settled into the apartment for the night.  SO FUN.

Saturday dawned at 9 a.m., despite Tony’s protests, and we began the daunting task of getting Friendsgiving up and rolling – including 9 people showering and dressing, me getting to the store for gravy, transporting everything to the meeting room, peeling/chopping/boiling/mashing 30 pounds of potatoes, etc…  Of course it was ALL worth it, and the process was just as fun as the event.  We had  a great turnout and the food was – as always – totally delicious.  It was so so so warm on Saturday, that some of us ended up eating (and drinking) on the tables outside on the deck:

After dinner and cleaning, we headed to Waterfront for drinks… this is something I’ve never done before because I have never stayed overnight after a Friendsgiving (had NO IDEA what I was missing!)…

I have a terrible habit of putting my thumbs up in front of everyone’s cameras as they are taking pictures.  Andrea decided she had enough of that and began punishing me by taking a photo of my face thisclose to me.  So when I did this:

My punishment was this:

And later when this happened:

I was submitted to this:

Pretty hysterical… and I definitely learned my lesson after that.

Here are some more pictures from Scoot’s camera that I purloined from Facebook because I only took three (rather bad) photos the whole weekend:

Sunday was another sad day, heading home and away from all the best people.  Sigh.   Another wonderful Friendsgiving… can’t believe it’s the 5th annual.  I’ve only missed one – the 3rd – and I hope it’s something we keep doing for YEARS to come.

This is long enough, so I’m done, I think.  Now onto the holiday season – hurray!

A Neon Sign Was Flashin’ “Welcome, Come On In”

So after my sister introduced me to Robert Earl Keen in general, and the song “Feelin’ Good Again” in particular, I’ve inadvertently adopted it as a theme/fight/motivational type song as I move from summer to fall, and as I get used to being truly single again after over 4 years of serious, long-term relationships.  This shift has been accompanied by much travel, many friends, and lots and lots of beer.  Here’s what I’ve been up to:

First, I already posted briefly about this, but wanted to throw in these three pictures that I hadn’t yet posted from my trip to Naperville, because I laugh every time I see them, and this post is about feeling good.  First, Tony and I looking utterly awesome:

Here is a better one of Tony, Tianna and I:

And finally, singing “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which we always replace with the words, “Livin’ in Eau Claire:”

So much fun. Love those guys!

At the end of September, my friend Tony turned twenty-seven, and we all got together for his “Tony-Seven” birthday party!  I came up to Milwaukee on a Friday night, and he picked me up at the train station, driving us immediately to the Wicked Hop, one of my favorite Milwaukee bars.  We ordered some appetizers (and beer) and were soon joined by a Rowe and two LaBau’s.  Here is a picture of my sentiments regarding the Wicked Hop:

After drinks, Tony went home and the Pewaukee crowd and I grabbed Scoot from the train station and headed back to chez Rowe-Bau for some more beers, Cranium (minus the clay), and straight-up win, lose, or draw combined with charades.  It was crazy, but super fun!  I was on FIRE for awhile guessing Scoot’s “act but don’t speak” cards.

The next day, we went to Tony’s, got on a shuttle, and headed out to tailgate for THREE HOURS before the Brewer game.  Here is Aaron and I, looking extraordinarily weird:

There was a keg of Sprecher, and some guy had made this lethal “apple pie” concoction that was cider and, we’re told, everclear.  :-/ Totally, totally yummy!

Here is Tony and I inside Miller Park:

And then a much better picture of me, Tony, and Tianna:

After the game, we went back to Zim’s, where Tony had set up free beer and half-price appetizers.  A friend from high school who we hadn’t seen in ages stopped by, and it was great to catch up with him, and hang out with Tony and all the Tony-Seven friends.  A great time was had by all, I think I can safely say!

A couple of weekends later, I went home to Durand to hang out with my parents.  I was supposed to fly out at 6:25 p.m. from Midway on that Thursday night, but when I got to the airport, the flight was delayed until 10:45 p.m…. wow.  There was something going on with the runways in Minneapolis, and something with the weather.  I got to Midway at about 5:30 p.m., and the 2 p.m. Midway-MSP flight still hadn’t left, so everything was pushed back.  I eventually got out at about 11:30 p.m., and landed in MSP close to 1 a.m…. My amazing parents were there waiting and we headed back to Durand.

After sleeping quite late on Friday, I visited my grandma, ate my weight in some poppyroll, and then played one of many games of Scrabble with my mom.  I did not win this game, and note the coffee keeping me awake at about 1 p.m.:

Friday night was Lima church’s amazing fish fry, and a visit with my other grandparents.  Saturday, mom and I went to Eau Claire to get some warm winter clothes (for me), and a purse (for her… shockingly).  We came back to Durand for church, Alex’s Pizza (yum!) and The Time Traveler’s Wife at the theater with maybe four other people.  Love the theater in Durand, but that isn’t a hugely uplifting movie….

Sunday was more bumming around, then the yummiest meatloaf and potatoes lunch, before I headed back to the airport for my 5:30 flight.  It was only about 20 minutes late, so that worked out well, and I was home about 1 hour after landing at Midway.  Wonderful, wonderful weekend.  There’s just something so calming and relaxing about being at home:

This deer apparently finds my parents’ house to be very calming… obviously she is not at all fearful:

My awesome backyard:

My sister and I went to Hopleaf for the first time in ages, and enjoyed some Kwak:

This last weekend was Big Mike’s wedding in Joliet.  I got in on Friday night to hang out with the Dolls, who had come up for St. Louis.  We had some drinks in the hotel:

Then we went to this restaurant where they have 96-oz bongs of beer that you can share at your table:

There were more sink drinks after this, along with goldfish crackers, card games, and a “does beer complement chocolate at all?” experiment.  Tried to get to bed early, since we had a long day ahead of us on Saturday.

The wedding was at noon, and we made it there with barely five minutes to spare.  After the bride and groom grinned their way out of the church, we had four hours to kill before the cocktail hour began at 5 p.m…. a cocktail hour that would feature a full open bar, with anything we wanted, top shelf on down.  Yikes….  We tried to rein it in, but ended up at the hotel bar and having a couple of additional sink beers.  The reception was beautiful and the food was AMAZING… the best filet with goat cheese on top, cooked medium… a steak so good it made me forgo the chicken and brie that was also served.  I passed up something with brie involved.  Wow.  There was also soup, salad, twice baked potatoes, asparagus, sorbet, and of course wedding cake.  Not to mention as many bottles of both red and white wine that our table wanted, and a champagne toast.  Again, wow.

One of my friends described that night, and the whole weekend, as being “good for the soul,” and I agree wholeheartedly.  Fences were mended between quite a few people, and I had a chance to remember who I was before I became part of “Tim and Lori” or “Matt and Lori”…

Don’t get me wrong – there are still moments when I wake up and wonder what in the world happened and how I ended up here.  But without a doubt, I would rather deal with the irritating parts of being single over being made to feel completely unimportant and dispensable any day.  I’m not dispensable. I am the girl who can laugh (really loudly) at herself, the girl whose laugh people look forward to and feel great about causing, the girl who is optimistic almost to the point of stupidity, who sees the best in everyone, who is forgiving and loving and warm along with snarky and impatient and sarcastic.  I am the girl who knows that nothing that has happened in the past needs to have any effect whatsoever on the future…

I am the girl that people are excited to see walk into the room because the night is about to get more fun, and the girl that has re-realized that all of this IS real life… not some prelude to the time when I meet prince charming and get whisked off into marriage-and-family land, which is what so much of society tries to convince us.  And to remember that I would 100% without-a-fricking-doubt rather have “nobody” than just anybody.

It’s fun to remember that stuff about myself after feeling guilty, insignificant, and like I could never EVER measure up to what was expected of me for the last four years.  It’s crazy what I can convince myself of if I really try.  And it’s really reassuring to realize that I can bounce back, just like always, and that I don’t have “nobody.”  All the amazing people (some pictured above, lots not) are my support system, my family, and the reason that any loneliness I may feel from time to time is fleeting compared to the amazing life I’ve created for myself.  That loneliness and those “poor single me” moments are the dispensable and insignificant stuff… not me.

I Am Probably One of Very Few People…

… for whom Union Station and Amtrak are emotional landmines. Literally four years later, and I still get this weird sensation whenever I’m in an Amtrak station, on a train, especially heading between Milkwaukee and Chicago. Ugh. It’s anticipation crossed with despair, with a twinge of something that, if emotions had sound, would be a little like Gordon Lightfoot’s voice.

On my way to the good land for a weekend of Rowes, LaBaus, and one very special birthday boy! Brewers, booze, bars, and (of course) Cousins Subs. So excited to be going to the place that increasingly feels like home, to hang out with some of my favorite people in the world.

Something About Me…

…invites communication – both questions and confidences.

I just went to get food from my local Chinese joint, which I keep going back to because of their amahzing combination fried rice… and where they know me because I always order it “without onions or green onions.”  The motherly woman who works at the counter and always takes my orders asked me today what I did to my fingers.  When I explained to her that it was my own fault, and that I bite my fingers when I get nervous, she divulged that one of her daughters kept a teddy bear until it was so dirty that her step-daughter threw it away and told the girl, “your teddy has cancer.”  !?

She did tell me that I should just “BE CALM” and stop biting my fingers.  That’s one thing I really like about living in a big city… the total anonymity… with bursts of kindness from relative strangers with whom my life randomly intersects.  And, of course, the random confessions these strangers confer, and personal questions that they ask in order to get to know me (strange, unique, completely inconsequential me) for whatever little time we spend together.

If I Could, I Would Let it Go

The weirdest thing happened on the bus just now. CLF sent me a transcript of Bono’s spoken intro to the song “Bad” fom the 5.7.05 show I went to. I glanced at it last night, and then was on the bus today and wanted to really read it thoroughly. As I was scrolling through my gmails looking for it, what song should pop up on shuffle on my iPod?! “Bad,” of course!

This is made even weirder by the fact that I currently have maybe 5 U2 songs on my iPod. Out of 2000… Crazy huh?

Anyway, here is the intro…
“I hope that whatever it is that has you by the throat, has you by the tail, has you by the balls…whatever it is, I hope you’re free of it soon.  So [this song is] for anybody who wants to get the monkey off your back.”

I dont break easy, I have my pride

Things that are making me happy right now:

1. Gossip Girl season premiere

2.