When he moves away, I'll cry.

A very good friend of mine quite recently had a bit to drink and let me know he was, basically, not feelin' the love from me. So, I've decided to honor him with a blog:

He knows when I'm upset even before I realize that I'm upset.

When I'm upset, he does little things to make me happy (like play music he knows I like).

Once, when I was doubled over in pain, he took me to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for me and did the whole, "Can't you see she's in pain? Hurry!" routine.

He barely knew me and followed me to a friend's house where I was dropping off my car, despite the fact that I took a wrong turn and pulled over to get my bearings right near a curious-looking fellow who he believed I was going to for drugs.

He has no qualms about eating something that has been near or in my children's mouths.

I can usually count on him to "come along for the ride" if I need to drive somewhere and don't want to go alone.

He carries heavy things for me. Even those "heavy" things that I probably could carry but don't really want to carry.

He is, by far, the funniest person I know.

He trusts me.

I can tell him exactly what I'm thinking or feeling all the time without fear of judgement or rejection.

We have both seen each other cry.

My extended family knows him ("But he's so tall..." - Guess what statement received this response--HA!)

He's important enough to me that I blogged about him. I hope Michael's not pissed that I've blogged about another man, my kids, the cat and the dog, but not him.

A title just seems really unnecessary right now

My God, I love being inspired. The whole process of inspiration was what got me into teaching way back when . . . What a lifetime ago that was.

I’m such a sucker for a good tale, motivational talk, memoir-like conversation. Maybe I’m easily manipulated, but I love the feeling I get when suddenly everything is clear and there’s this fire inside of me burning to do something magical.

I had a class in college that used to really get me going. It was just a writing class—a class to teach writing, actually. Yet, instead of learning how to teach others to write, it would charge me into my own creative consciousness and for a moment (or two), I felt anything was possible. This is probably what made me a good teacher . . . I prescribed to my own doctrine.

I’ve come to appreciate the fact that I am not a creator, but a chronicler of sorts. When inspiration strikes me, I don’t suddenly invent something miraculous. Instead, I find myself in a pensive and open state where I am able to see things so clearly, and I feel compelled to capture the essence of my clarity.

The cause of my passion this evening? I finally saw the film version of Rent. I know, I know—horrible for a person who lives and breathes theatre every day. How dare I wait so long? I have my reasons, one quite sillier than the next. In any event, the clarity I’ve found right now is really just an affirmation of the wonderful life that I am so grateful to have. The details are small enough to look silly on paper, so I’ll breathe them all in silently and enjoy them, and be happy to share with anyone who asks.

Big Bang Piggy Bankin'

Well, it's been over a week, but we recently took a lovely road trip to Vegas. Aside from our overnight Sedona excursion in March, this was the first road trip Michael and I had taken alone in a while (before we were married, in fact). We also discovered around the third day that it was the longest we had been completely alone with each other since the twins were born. As much as I love my children, it was very nice to spend some quality time with my Michael.

I always try not to laundry list events, so I'll try anecdotal highlights. You might say that's just a fancy way to laundry list, and I'd say, well, it's my blog so I'll do whatever I want.

All the single guys in Vegas wear the same uniform. It's true. Michael and I took great pleasure in our people-watching activities, an enjoyable pasttime in a place like Las Vegas. Apparently, it's fashionable for young men to wear jeans, black dress shoes and an untucked and vertically-striped blue shirt (preferably light blue; although, darker shades of blue may also be acceptable). If they have hair, it is to be short on the sides and sort of spike up a bit on top. This might not sound like a big deal, but it cracked us up to see a group of five guys, all hanging out in a bar, all wearing the exact same outfit. I hadn't seen something like that since my UofA days when I would see flocks of sorority girls walking down the street--All wearing the same black, flared pants, black wedge/slides, and gaping v-neck shirt. And they all had shoulder-length blonde hair. All of them. If they didn't have blonde hair, they dyed it. If they didn't have short hair, they cut it. Seriously. I can see the image perfectly . . . walking by the Delta Delta Delta house on my way to go read books onto tape for blind students . . . (I am such a nice person!--Joe, that was for you).

White socks do not go with black dress shoes. OK, so this I knew before I went to Vegas, but I promised to embarrass our friend James. We were fortunate to have our good friends James and Heather join us for an evening out in Vegas. We had a fabulous time eating, drinking, playing, etc., but I thoroughly enjoyed the white sock experience. Thanks to James and Heather, we had special passes to a very exclusive lounge called The House of Blues Foundation Room. It's at the tippy-top of Mandalay Bay, and it was the coolest bar/lounge I have ever been to. We had a man-servant. I'll leave it at that. Anyway, before we could get into the club, the guys had to meet dress code inspection. Michael passed, but James needed to put on pants and black shoes, so up we went to their gorgeous suite. Apparently, James didn't receive the memo about needing jeans, black shoes, and the blue stiped button-down shirt, so he was in a bit of a pickle as he tried to piece together an outfit that would meet the approval of the fancy-schmancy bouncer. The biggest concern: socks. James brought dress shoes but no dress socks, so it was white or nothing. He really wanted to wear no socks at all, but I thought that would be extremely uncomfortable, and Heather and I told him to suck it up and wear the white socks--no one would see because his pants were plenty long. Then, of course, Michael sticks out his leg and reveals that he was actually wearing little white golf socks with his black shoes--not, of course, out of necessity, mind you. James was so embarrased to be wearing white socks and black dress shoes, that I felt the best thing would be to assure him that I would blog about him so everyone out there in my shared cyberspace world would know . . . James Scriven wore white socks with black dress shoes.

Big Bang Piggy Bankin' was once at Mandalay Bay, but it is no longer there and may actually no longer be in existence. Poor Heather. She purposely booked her hotel room at Mandalay Bay so she could play a slot machine called Big Bang Piggy Bankin'. We looked everywhere for her game, and after a few drinks we were very vocal with the Mandalay Bay casino staff and had them on their walkie-talkies trying to locate the machine. Alas, Heather never got to play her game.