All I need

I dreamt about the most amazing kiss. A mouth masterpiece to trump all losses, it was amazing. I want to be held and touched and gazed at and and and. The feeling that my stomach gets; the uneasy "OMG." I can't get away from it, I want it. These lips are plush and waiting for the key-mouth to just thrust in and unlock this ice cold block. My cards read so well and yet I am still just as frigid a bitch as ever. 

I wish I was as daring as 16. I would just go over to your house and thank Gawd for a reason to see you again. I really loved you. I really fucking loved you and could have and would have taken care of you until I was physically incapable. 

I would have held you and desired you and needed only you to feel complete. "In the night time we are found. Misty sorrow swoop unbound, whisper you mean it, say you'll stay. Hold my heart till brighter days." I wanted you to dance on my throne. Will I ever find this they call "Good Love?" 

Yay!

I got my tickets!!! 

So Happy I Could Die 2...

I fucking did it. I bloody fucking mother shit ass hole fucking kick-over-a-trash can did it. Almost one year here and I'm going to be an unemployed full time SLCC student. I hadn't realized how close I was to finishing in Baltimore. I figured I wouldn't get the opportunity to finish what I had started in 2010. I thought I would be tied down and then I remembered the only person that can tie me down is me and I cut this bitch loose last year. I'm tired of the ongoing nonsense that is my job and I am tired of the eye-rolling bad decisions that keep getting made and I am at the top of my game (so to speak) for what I can do with the education I have. The life raft that is my experience is slowly sinking under the weight of my demands for better wages, hours and working conditions. I can no longer get by on my good looks and sharp wit.
Bre said that when I graduate from college I can have a High School Prom themed graduation party. I am going to rent out a gym from the YWCA and literally have the prom I never had. There will be balloon garlands for photo ops, spiked punch and 90's dance music. The idea of this is worth another three years of school in order to get my BS. What will I do without my ball and chain career (which is sad because I love this work)? Who will pay my mortgage? I don't know, and frankly, I don't really care. I know it will work out and this is just another leap off the high dive and by now I am so fucking good at it there is barely a splash. Hanging on to jobs and relationships that are going no where and offer no emotional support for me are more easy to ditch than ever. I won't be hounded, silenced, belittled or made to feel less than what I know I am. Never has anyone accused me of being a door mat and I refuse to start now. So...I will hope for the best and prepare for the better. The bills will get paid somehow and I will continue to surprise myself, how nice.

My date to my graduation Prom

My perfect dress!!!

Jackpot

I spent Saturday afternoon with a dear old friend and her beautiful brand new baby girl. We went to the Acorn Antiques Show in Weber County. It was so much fun to bring the baby along and hear all the townsfolk coo over her admiringly. I loved carrying her around in that vest!

That is cream soda in my hand by the way

We encountered many interesting people who felt the need to give my friend every last piece of their mind when it came to babies. She was a regular celeb and with it comes the shit like what the dealer (who sold me a jackpot pair of clip- on earrings) shared: "I can smell your  breast milk." It is a strange thing to say, is it not?

 Anyway, here are the earrings.

We carried on in our journey; I made a point to have this sweet baby model every piece of rhinestone jewelry I could find. We then decided to take a break for lunch where we made our way to Javier's. 

I need someone to burp me like this after I eat

 When our diapers were changed and the spit up wiped off we headed back to the show. We were lucky enough to come upon Gladys Goose. She is a temperamental little bitch and her mother has a side arm (which should tell you something about northern Utah). She wouldn't let me pet her but for a moment and then she nibbled at my gold ID bracelet. 

Gladys Goose with her gun-toatin' mama

We were exhausted afterwards, if her face doesn't just say it all.

I'm tired Aunt ReRe

                                            

Speechless

The wax on my fire sprinkler has reached its melting point. The jets of water are a half a second from spewing forth enough force to knock a girl to her knees and leave her feeling blindsided and soaked through. I remember when I felt this afraid. I remember when this uncertainty crippled me mentally, emotionally. The headaches, the twitching eye lids, the pervasive fear of what was over the edge. I have cut my nose off to spite my face before, and I say I grew a better looking nose back. But can I get away with it again? Now? Maybe this time it's my ear, or lips or twitchy eyelid? I quit Starbucks and it made my career take on a whole new existence, it changed me, made me confident and sure. Can I quit my job and go to school full time? In 3 years I will have my BA in Recreation Therapy if I want to, I really could. Hearing myself say it out loud and then thinking "I could do this." makes me cry. I sob and weep and carry on like I haven't in awhile. I can't believe it could be really true, I can do this and just like everything else I can do this myself. I could take a year off to get my AA and then matriculate and before you can say "alumni" I'll be doing what I came here to do, for keeps this time. I have reached the pinnacle of where I can go and what I can do here until I finish school. I'm moving too fast for even me now, I am scaring myself with how quick I adapt. Is this the scariest thing I will have done this far? Maybe. Leaving Starbucks after six years was pretty fucking heavy. Quitting the work force all together is...unspeakable. Do people with mortgages do things like this? How do they survive? It's all so emotional for me, this yearning and completeness I know will be there for me is the true oasis in this desert of my "career." The tears come, the years feel like nothing. I spent four years watching my brother achieve his young ambition and now it will finally be ok for me to let go and fall straight into the uncertainty that I make a point never to experience. I thrive on knowing, I am a clairvoyant for everyone but myself. My cards say I have the ship, anchor, heart, lilies, clouds, fox, park, star, and key. They are just symbols on cards. My life is like a Chinese fan opening up. My life is like Esther Williams in Ziegfeld Follies. My life is like a cat o nine tails. My life is like a broken magic 8 ball. It is decidedly so. 

Land Locket

The Great Salt Lake is a tease. You get there and it smells salty like the ocean, there are a million seagulls and sailboats bobbing; but it's a sham. To look at a map of the U.S. is to see just what a promise a lake of this magnitude holds. It makes you feel like you do live next to the ocean...if the ocean had no sharks and starfish and whales and dolphins and seals and seahorses and mermaids. Nothing can truly survive in it's waters with the exception of brine shrimp. There is a special bird though, Wilson's Phalarope, that uses the GSL as it's staging ground, apparently the biggest in the world. I wish I could live on Antelope Island. I wish I knew not of the modern world as it is right now and I wore skins and made fossil necklaces. I wish I lived close to the ocean again, or had a small summer home on the Chesapeake Bay or a cabin in Vancouver. I once thought I was going to get to live in Whidbey Island again, for a brief synapse of time. I want all the natural elements. I want the mountains I want the naked sea I want the thrushes in the ponds with fish and turtles and snakes and frogs. I want the threat of fire season coupled with crippling winters. I want a fishing village i want a snowy chalet with a pitched roof. I want all the stars and sunsets and moonrises and morning glory. I just want the ocean again. I need to hear it with my own ears. I contemplate the disaster that would be me flying into Baltimore and renting a car for a two hour drive to the beach I feel is mine just to stand there on the shore in the middle of the night and 

and


wish I had the black cotton blanket with the different colored triangle patches quilted in so I could lay on it and look at the night sky and listen to the lapping waves licking up on the sand; the sound of dogs howling in the distance. I got what I wanted, I have what I came here for. My heart always wants the most, wants the utmost of what I think I can make true. I could rent this place. easily. I could move again. I want to go where LIW lived when her family left the prairie. They lived in a dugout covered with sod next to a creek with a swimming hole. I could do that, I could build a place like that. Soda Springs. That's where it will be.

and

I am living at the bottom of prehistoric Lake Bonneville which was just a really shallow sea. I am a mermaid living at the bottom of a dried up sea.

Un-sweetened

It's so hot in my room right now it's ghastly. I was hoping the high pressure system would grant us some reprieve from the day, but no. I spent the afternoon with Oma drinking mimosas and eating the most delicious pasta carbonara I have ever had in my life. My car is back in the shop for the rear wheel bearings again and the front strut. Oma asks why I don't buy a new car and give my dad the Cabrio. How nice of her to think I can afford that. I'm a single woman making pennies to pay a mortgage, HOA fees, three credit cards, home owners insurance, car insurance, cable/Internet, and the electricity. Not to mention gas, groceries, baby kitty, and money to go out and drink when I feel frisky. It's a wonder I can afford to live the way I do now besides even pretending like I could afford a new car. She's delusional, just like when she thought I could offer $104k for a condo with a $142k asking price. Just plain ridiculous. The heat! The heat...I'm listening to The Troggs "With A Girl Like You" and I want someone to kiss me on the mouth in this heat, just to do it. My windows are all open and I can hear so much happening in the night. Someone is watching Seinfeld and talking on the phone. There is also music, I don't know where from. I can smell food cooking and perfume. Baby K is licking my knee, probably the salt from my sweat. There is no breeze, just hot stagnate air. I think about East Canyon, Dimple Dell. How cool the water would feel, night air soothing my frazzled nerves. I can't wait to go camping. I can't wait to swim in the Pontneuf, soak in the cold spring. I have to remind myself it's only a few more weeks. You have never felt so clean and alive until you jump stark naked into a 40 degree cold spring on a 104 degree day; there simply is nothing like it. The water is clear and the pool is almost 20 feet deep. You can see all the way to the rocky bottom. I want to close my eyes and jump in, open them under water. The last time I was there we had swam naked for an hour and when I got out I cut my knee on the volcanic rock. I put my black jean skirt on and looked for something to clean the wound with. All we had was our clothing, a blanket and a bottle of vodka. I poured a little on the cut and bit my tongue through the burn. Those pictures of me are priceless I'm sure, topless in the grass, jean skirt riding up with a bloody knee and a bottle of vodka. One for the camping history books I suppose. 

It's hard being baby k with her best fur coat on in this heat. 

In a nutshell

I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I'm completely through with dating. I don't want to be asked "where did you grow up?" Or "are your breasts real?" anymore (I feel like I have been talking about my bewbs a lot lately and it's probably because I am asked about them a lot). It's nobody's buisness! Bre says I'm horrible at dating and I agree only because I just.never.did.it. Truth. I either had a boyfriend or I didn't, I never have just flirted and met different guys on purpose. I wish I was having fun and I want to let my guard down but I can't, I won't. I wanted to go dancing at the Garage with those boys but I couldn't. I wanted to say yes but I said no and stayed with my girls. I'm too tired, I'm exhausted. It's a Friday night and I'm writing in my diary (so to speak) like a middle schooler who was too chicken shit to go driving with the bad boys after the school dance. I want to be brave again, to let loose. I can't though, I'm too old and far gone. 

Summer-Twilight-Homebrew-Music

There are many reasons why I moved back to Salt Lake (I have documented numerous emotional ones) but my favorite ones have to do with the outdoors + live music + food scene here. I just purchased my season tickets for the Twilight Concert Series at Pioneer Park. The lineups in the past have been exceptional but I swear, this year takes the live music cake. The price is the most incredible part, $35 will get you Belle & Sebastian, The National, MGMT, Empire of the Sun (!!!), Erykah Badu (I must have listened to "On & On" a hundred times a day in middle school), Kid Cudi (hello "Pursuit of Happiness") and...THE FLAMING LIPS!!! Not to mention all the excitement that "TBA" stirs in my perfectly developed chest. I am over the blue moon...and on top of all of that Bre and I are seeing The Postal Service at Saltair at the end of the month.

The food truck scene is slowly getting it's footing here but still leaves much to be desired (I was totally spoiled by Baltimore's FT scene). Craft Lake City is happening August 9-10th and they are promising to offer more selections of artisan foods as well as food trucks! I want a banh mi from Lewis Bros. in one hand with a So Cupcake cupcake in the other and an Epic 825 ale between my legs. Last year we went a little late and I was more interested in buying screenprints of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man crashing into the Salt Lake Temple and a patriotic looking Airstream.

I can just imagine myself in the heart of July, in a long dress with a big hat covering a mass of curls and sunglasses hiding my made-up eyes. Pouting lips reading off future predictions for leery concert-goers in exchange for beers and stories on the park lawn. This will be a beautiful summer.

Today

I missed Elm's Beach.

Wandering in the sunlight.
Plucking glinting shards from their
sandy graves.
The cardinals playing in the grass.
Lapping waves, sometimes crashing.
Grey, Blue, Yellow, White, Pink days

Remembering a time when I was hurting.
Walking straight faced across the iced pond.
Wanting to hear a crack.
Hearing my heart beat instead.

Another time.
I felt so free that day with you.
I had taken other boys there.
High School and beyond.
You were my favorite, my companion.
I knew you then.

Let's go to the place where mermaids live.
Take me there, again.

Being abrupt

I think your band is vulgar.
I think you were showing weakness when you got up so quickly to hug me, you did it because you knew I was annoyed.
Perhaps we could have had a second chance but you never called me.
Why would you bother even going to that show when you knew I would be there, when I loved them probably before you ever did, not that you would know that. How classy of you to be so friendly with my friends and cousin and let Ferrari or whatever that bartenders name was make me "whatever the lady would like." How classless of me to lean over the bar and pronounce giddily "a root beer minderaser would suit me just fine." I was so irritated to see you riding a bike home, it makes me think you had a DUI or something. Again, I think your band is vulgar and disgusting and not that funny. I felt so stupid getting you and Oldtimer mixed up. We never would have gone to Burt's had I known they were playing and that you would be there, cross my heart. I felt obnoxious wearing that dress, or "gown." I felt so out of place, who could imagine? Out of place in my own damn bar. I swear I went there before you ever did but I know that can't possibly be true. I went upstairs to sit in the chair I usually read fortunes in. I forgot my cards that night. It was a rookie mistake, I should've known better.
I certainly looked the part. Hair braided and pinned up with small wildflowers. My breasts felt so full and round, and looked even better in that gown. Who wears a gown to a punk show? I don't know, certainly not me! I was a victim of dyslexia while reading SLUG. Regardless, while I was practically passed out alone upstairs in the gypsy witch office chair, you and my cousin were out back talking about what a "big misunderstanding" it all was and how the entire ride home Bre and I listened to Summer Camp and I just kept telling her how totally full of manure you were. How maybe, in hindsight, you made a huge mistake and yet you have done nothing to rectify it. So don't you dare cry wolf and then act like I'm not going to show up axe in hand. You had every opportunity to tell me this yourself and you didn't. And maybe I don't have time to wonder about you anymore because I probably never really liked you in the first place. But it wasn't fair of you to rob me of the opportunity to see if I even felt something. I told you, I just wanted you to hear my Rodney Dangerfield record, not spend the fucking night (or spend the night fucking, whatever). I'm just saying, for someone who can get up on stage in gold spandex and pull his dick out and talk about the most vile things into a crowd of people, was I really more terrifying than that? How dare you talk about wanting to see me again, I'm upstairs practically faint and you are standing outside with the smokers and you don't smoke! I'll be rudely cold shouldering you for ever now. Throwing glances and rarely speaking to you until Burt's closes down or one of us moves away (and I'll tell you right now, it won't be me). Spare me your "misunderstood" feelings, you had time and you let it tick off and wind down. I'm not waiting for anyone now, you either are or you aren't. You either will or you won't. Of course someday you will regret this, more than you ever will now. You'll be like the man in the Shel Silverstein poem, the one who freezes his dreams. When he becomes an old cold man he will heat them up and soak his feet and remember the glory days. You wouldn't need to freeze your dream if your dream was holding your hand, if your dream loved you.

Private Dick

Have you ever felt like you were being followed? Everyone stalks these days, whether they readily admit it or not, they do. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have highlighted the voyeur in us all and if you told me you never searched for the Mean Girl from 8th grade or your elementary school crush and then followed their profiles for at least a week I would probably call you a liar.

The men of Bored to Death, probably stoned and drunk on white wine

I got to live out one of my fantasy careers last night while staking out my co-workers husband. She is convinced that he is cheating on her with a waitress at the restaurant where he works. She felt desperate enough to come to me for help (people have always felt comfortable with asking me for unconventional favors). I told her I would bring my cousin along for assistance in our surveillance. We had to be discreet, we definitely had to be sober and in no way could we giggle. This was a serious matter and it required serious women.

Operation Silvestre
9:00pm: We head to Starbucks for a pre-stakeout coffee and restroom break
9:15pm: On the road heading to south Salt Lake City
9:40pm: We arrive at our targets place of business, we park directly behind him so as to get a good view of the suspects in question.
9:45pm: The cheating husband in question still has another 15 minutes before his work closes, Bre and I check my POF account and take another restroom break at a nearby hotel.
10:00pm: I receive a phone call from my co-worker, she is in the parking lot to but on the other side of us. She is hiding in the backseat while my other two coworkers are surveying the vicinity. I tell her to lay low.
10:15pm: The dishwasher leaves leaving only two cars in the parking lot, presumably the suspect and the co-worker who may be the female he is cheating with.
10:20pm: Bre and I do a perimeter check and surround the building. We look very suspicious already because we are two of the whitest girls in a largely Hispanic neighborhood. Bre smokes cigarettes and I yell angrily to no one in my phone.
10:21pm: Suspect and Hispanic female are spotted through a plate glass window. They are talking and it is hard to see them because the restaurant is dark.
10:22pm: We walk back to the car and stand outside smoking. The suspect comes out and gets something out of his car and goes back in. He seems a tad leery of Bre and I and rightfully so, we are totally spying on him.
10:23pm: My co-worker calls and asks if we saw what he got out of the car; she thinks it was a condom.
10:25pm: My co-worker calls again and asks us to another perimeter search. We get out and walk to the side of the buisness where it looks like they are in the back room. I don't see any damning evidence and we make our way back to the car.
10:35pm My co-worker calls AGAIN and says she just called her husband and he said there were still customers in the restaurant. Obviously this is a lie, he says he will be home in 20 minutes.
10:45pm: No sign of the suspect and the female co-worker. Whatever they are doing, it's happening out of our sight.
10:55pm: My co-worker calls YET AGAIN and says she just called her husband and he told her he was getting on the freeway now. I feel awful for her that he is lying but we still have no rock-solid evidence of anything thus far.
11:00pm: we move the surveillance car to the other side of the parking lot, I believe the suspect knows he is being watched but that could have been just me being paranoid.
11:15pm: Suspect and female co-worker FINALLY leave a full hour and fifteen minutes after the restaurant closed and an hour after the last employee left. It is clear to me that they were POSSIBLY fooling around.
11:17pm: We begin following the female co-worker home, she definitely knows we are following her and does everything in her power to lose us on the highway but she doesn't. She is trailed to the 1300 South exit off of I-215. We follow her down to Emery Street and hang back so as not to spook her. We are overtaken by a truck turning left and we momentarily lose her. After cruising the streets looking for her Jeep we finally decide that we were evaded. I check my phone and see that my co-worker has called me 12 times! I call her back and let her know that she should probably hire a real P.I. if she plans on getting any solid picture and surveillance evidence against him.
11:30pm: Bre and I decide to get french fries and go home to watch the rest of episode 22 of season 4 of Toddlers & Tiaras before bed. The life of a private eye is a lonely one.

Lesson learned? I don't know, I do feel awful for my co-worker though. Being a woman scorned myself I guess I just relate to that desperate feeling you get when you feel like you have no choice. Luckily for me, I was not married with children and I could easily step away from my shitty situation.  I don't know if I will ever be really good at stalking someone, I am not very covert but it was sort of fun to stake someone out, and sort of boring.

CRUSHED.PEARLS PRIVATE DICK PLAYLIST

1. Nightcall by Kavinsky
2. Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos
3. All of Fever Ray
4. Kid by The Pretenders
5. Demons by Sleigh Bells
6. All Your Gold by Bat For Lashes
7. Tigerlily by La Roux
8. Pyramids by Frank Ocean