Where I Come Crawling Back To This Half-Assed Endeavor

Hello, invisible and self-imagined blog readership!

I've completely fallen off the face of the planet, but there is good news - the gravitational pull of the Earth was so great, that I was sucked right back in. Which is good, because I was getting kind of tired of holding my breath, or something.

Anyhow, I suppose there is some catching up to do. Here's a very quick recap: After my 'end-date', I started my own small Etsy business, selling witty greeting cards and gorgeous trinkets, became a world class photographer shooting weddings for the elite, traveled the world and marveled at all of it's mysteries, and became indipendantly wealthy.

Alright, so as you may have guessed, that was a bit of an exaggeration. I mostly sat around in sweatpants, watched bad daytime television, piddled around with some crafts, and enjoyed doing nothing. I also spent my first month of free time drinking a considerate amount (with other people, in social settings, no need to worry!) but did actually get up to some traveling. Which was utterly fantastic.

I went down to SLC to meet the mister for two weeks, since he was still working down there after my 'end date', and we had fun exploring the fast and furious pace of bustling SLC. We also got a few road trips in, one to Vegas (woooowieee) and one to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Yellowstone Park. The first was bombing through the desert in a rented H3 Hummer, listening to techno and hip hop with a coworker, the second was meandering through a few states just the two of us, listening to Tom Petty (fabulous road trip music) and Pearl Jam. Both were perfect. While the boy was at work, I spent my time reading, surfing the net, sleeping in, and enjoying the free pool at the apartment complex being rented for us. AAhh, the good life. Swimming laps was starting to get me into great shape, I might add!

Once I got back, I still had some 'alone' time, before boy joined me. I spent this time doing a fair share of clubbing, boozing, and participating in drunken stupidity involving kissing crystal skulls filled with vodka, taking pictures of people sticking pens up their noses, and trying to convince VERY drunken friends that they should keep their clothes on in public, thank you very much. Especially while on the Skytrain.

Once the boy joined me, we enjoyed sleeping in on a regular basis, lazing about, spending time with our cats, and doing a lot of, well, nothing. There was also some excitement somewhere in there - we decided to take a leap, and go on a trip to Europe. Neither of us had ever been off the continent before, and he hasn't even been to Mexico yet, so this was *very* exciting. We both fancy ourselves as travelers, and aside from goals like a career, paying off our mortgage and buying a house in addition to the condo, we want to travel travel travel.

Travel we did, for a three week, whirl-wind tour of Europe. We used a tour company, and planned to spend some 'alone time' before and after the trip. The tour company we used was Contiki, which I have mixed feelings about. We chose it because it was economic, and we liked that there was a restricted age group of 18 to 35. We didn't want to wait for 65 year old Frannie to drag her ass back to the bus after a long and difficult bowel movement, when we should really be spending more time sipping wine in Florence. And that was certainly never an issue with Contiki.

Our trip started with us flying into London, spending 3 days on our own there, and then meeting up with our tour group. The tour then took us to Paris, Lucerne, Nice/Monaco, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Venice, Munich, Vienna, Prague, St Goar, and ended in Amsterdam. After Amsterdam, we were scheduled to travel to Berlin for a bit, and then to end our travels with 5 more days in Paris. Unfortunately, my fiance caught pneumonia in Amsterdam, and after spending several days bed-ridden, we flew home on an emergency basis and ended the trip early. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. He's had pneumonia once before, which lasted six months and nearly killed him. Since our tour ended in Amsterdam, I was all alone in a strange country, taking care of someone that could barely walk himself to the bathroom. The flurry of doctors calls, travel agent calls, health insurance calls, trip insurance calls, errands to find prescription medication, and pleas to have him try and actually eat was all very exhausting, and emotionally draining. Luckily, he got sick in a country with very good healthcare. Even better, a large majority of the people in Amsterdam speak English. None of them know what the word 'pharmacy' means, but I managed to work it out.

I'm rather proud of myself for making it through that, being so organized, and stepping up to the plate to be the one in charge, the one forming the plan. Because it was really scary, and there wasn't really anyone to help. A few calls home now and then provided emotional support, and the hotel staff were simply amazing. Aside from not getting to see Berlin, or spend more time in Paris, and missing Amsterdam entirely (while we were there for 3 days, all of this time was spent in the hotel. I don't even know what the city looks like by day!) the trip was amazing.

I'm so happy that we gave ourselves a chance to do something like that, and that we have these amazing memories. We've been back for a few weeks, are more broke than we've ever been, job hunting, and looking forward to Christmas. We're not giving eachother gifts this year, simply because we can't afford to. Instead, we're focusing on our immediate families, and have gotten them all something truly meaningful and delightful.

So I've not yet taken over the world with my uhmayzing photography and crafting skillz just yet, but I have a few solid ideas and plans in place. We've been living off of macaroni and cheese, 'splurged' on a bottle of coke the other day, and are occasionally tense. I'm going to need to get an intermediary job before I can really persue photography, simply because I need money for gear, and want to take a few classes to round out my skills and knowledge base.

I'm resolving to write more often, as I find it both enjoyable, and therapeutic. When I was younger, I loved to write, and throughout grade school and middle school, was well known for my short stories. So I guess my claim to fame is that kids in my classes grades 3 through 9 loved my short stories, and were always asking the teacher to let me read them. My favourite writing exercise was something conceived by Mrs. Carston, who taught me in grades 5 and 7. She would give the class a black and white colouring page, and ask us to write short stories centering around the characters in the picture.

I haven't written in years, and realize that any adult with an ounce of post-secondary education specializing in the area of writing will probably find my musings uneducated, boring, and simple, but that's ok. I'll tell myself that, anyways. If I get to the point where people are reading this, and they hate my musings, I'll try to tell myself that at least they don't feel indifferent. Because someone feeling indifferent about your work is worse than them hating it - at least, if they hate it, you've moved them to feel something. Which is almost a success all in itself, because isn't that the purpose of any art form? To make someone feel? Not that I think of this shitty ass blog here as 'art', that feels kind of presumptuous. But anyhooo....

There you have it, my recap in a nutshell. I'll elaborate on certain topics touched upon in this entry, at some point, and even hope to get some picture action going on, but for now, it's 2:39 am and I think I'm going to go eat more chocolate chip cookies. Because that's what unemployed people do at 2:39am on a Monday morning.