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Name: Ann
Country: United States
State: Colorado
Metro: Denver
Birthday: 1/1/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: Acting, Singing, Indiana Jones, Running, Rowing, Traveling, getting money so I can be famous.
Expertise: All of the above, and then some...
Occupation: Other
Industry: Other
Message: message me
AIM:  LODD1436
Member Since:
2/15/2004
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| Today is one year. One year that Austin and I have been together as a couple. I became we one year ago and now we is us. Today I am here and he is there. There must be a reason.
We are occupying different spheres of the same world. I live in a world where I work a five day week for forty hours. His week is also measured by hours, only he pays for his hours while I get paid for mine. He spends time on stage being a character or delving into the minds of others while I spend time with characters wanting as me to know what's in their mind.
Should we be at dinner now? Should we be drinking wine now? Should we be out dancing right now? I'd like to say yes but since we are not it must not be the case.
Our lives are still about learning. I am learning in the working world and he is learning in the educational field. We are living in different worlds but learning the same things. It's almost as if we are getting twice the bang for the buck, at least when it comes to learning about the world that is not us.
I miss you.
These reasons we don't understand. I try to tell myself that this day is just another day, and arbitrary day that means no more or less than every other day since we met but somehow it is different. It is symbolic, 356 consecutive days have been marked by civilizations, men, women, couples, countries and planets. In the end, though, we have changed. Changed for the better be it in 356 days/weeks/months/years. I love him and this time apart is for a reason that neither he nor I could ever tell. That is what I am going to have to accept for the time being. Austin, I'll see you in 24 days at the airport and tonight in my dreams.
Love,
Ann | | |
| My next door neighbor dared me to try doing a cartwheel today.
I didn't think I could do it.
But I did it. It ruled. | | |
| For those of you who have ever visited the Cherry Creek shopping center in Denver, CO then you should be familiar with the giant, climbable food playground for children.
I was taking Charlie (my current ward) to go play on the giant pig-meat slide when I was confronted with a terribly contrived picture of an all American caucasian couple hugging in front of their new pre-fab home in middle-suburbia. The cynical part of me immediately jumped to the sarcasm and thought, "Jeeze, how freaking predictable, a pre-fab couple in a pre-fab picture looking less than fab." But then a single thought struck me-I love being hugged. As I took one last-second look at the couple I thought about my darling and myself. The pre-fab couple have something I don't, physical contact. It doesn't have to be this way. I have been doing this to myself. I figured since I didn't have Austin near me I would have to be that cold girl is almost as good as an icecicle because she is so far away from her significant other. I grow cold in feeling and thought and become jaded. By opening myself to hugs from others, physical contact in general I'll start to warm my cold facade. Now, thinking about it I wonder if I'm not so terribly cynical because of the fact that I have been so standoffish in the past. I've never been the Koala, huggy-touchy type and that has suited me just fine but then I remember how soft a hug is and I get kinda mushy. Huh.
It takes some time to melt my heart but after about five seconds of a hug I turn into a bonafide Pollyanna. Especially after a Terrell hug (the best around). It just takes that extra second of care, that hug that lasts too long, not in the creepy way, to change my mood. Maybe instead of holding this eternal cold flame while I'm away from Austin I'm only hurting myself and others. I think I owe it to myself and the others around me to melt, and now is the time.
I guess what I'm trying to say is go and hug someone. It may seem cheap or contrived but just give em a hug. Don't hold on forever but hold on that extra second (unless you think they like you and you don't like them and you don't want them to get the wrong idea). Love thy friend, neighbor who person who needs a hug.
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| So. Remember way back when I went to the Bronx ER because a student was sick? This night, my friends, I was there from 2am until 5:30am for me. I went to sleep at around 10pm the night before and was woken up at about 12am by some phone calls and I noticed I couldn't get back to sleep due to the fact that my eye was so swollen, red and painful!
I call Michael 2 hours later knowing full well that he has been through his share of hospitals and he would understand. So we roll out in the Bronx to the hospital and there they move fairly quickly to take my BP and heart rate. My heart rate at the time was 35 bpm so they freaked. I tried to tell them it was 2am and I had just woken up, that I was a runner and usually had a very low heart rate and that I was from a high altitude and my body just didn't need to work as hard to do all the same stuff. There must have been some mix up in the communication because after one 30 min sit on a heart monitor they decided that and EKG was in order.
Now, normally an EKG would not be a problem but as I was in my pj's I wasn't wearing a bra and as humiliating as lifting my shirt in front of an orderly usually would be, I had to add to that the fact that I was nude under my brand new NY Yankees shirt.
There I sit, cold, alone (Michael had to wait in the lobby) and worried that I was in some way broken. I watch as people shuffle in and out of the ER some black, some hispanic, some Puerto Rican and it became painfully clear how much I stuck out. The small, shivering white mass in the corner of the Bronx ER. I felt terribly out of place but I stuck it out. I saw some interesting things. There was the (I shit you not) crack whore who was maybe 90 lbs and 5 foot 4 who was being restrained by 4 NYPD officers and was eventually tied to the bed. Or the hispanic woman sitting with her ill daughter who brought me a blanket because she saw the goosebumps on my arm. My personal favorite was the narcoleptic hispanic woman who would spontainiously wake up and sing bad english songs in spanish.
As I sat the only things I had to keep me company were my bad old magazine and my heart monitor which I would watch change as I grew nervous, cold or bored. I was left alone and wired for some time until the machine shut off on it's own. I then decided that it was high time to unplug myself and see what the deal was. I (painfully) pulled all of the sticky things off my body and marched up to the nurses' station to ask what was up! I came to find out that they were waiting for ONE TINY BOTTLE OF DROPS!
I wish the heart monitor was still hooked up. I was livid, tired, and I just wanted to go home. Then it hit me:
I WAS ALLERGIC TO THE BRONX, THE BRONX MAKES ME SICK!
Finally at around 5:30 I was allowed to leave since they got the 1 TINY bottle of eye drops that they needed to give me to let me leave. They THEN informed me, on my way out of the door, that I would need to come back the next day so I could see an eye doctor because all of their machines were broken that would diagnose my eye.
I left that hospital at dawn. My first Bronx sunrise and I was leaving a wiser woman. I'm getting out of this hellhole. I will NEVER, EVER step foot in the Bronx again. | | |
| I got the odd sense to blog all of the sudden. As for my usual lists of things about the Bronx that are odd or that I hate or otherwise, I'm going to try and set them aside for the time being.
I have six measly days left in this place. Six days for the world to fall apart. I am treading with more caution then I ever have before. It's really scary knowing that my time in NY can be measured in the single digits. I have heaps of things to do before the site closes down. Lists running through my head like whoh. But at the end of this I know there is a light. I have a light, about 8 hours south of here. All of this shall pass by, quickly and painlessly, I hope but what I have down there, who I have down there is that which stays. The man I love. That amazing that can take me away from this. Well, him with the help of two planes and a truck.
Now, yes, I have seen some amazing things in this city here we call THE BRONX. I have seen some sad sights of humanity and some funny bits of life have shone through. As Michael Long and I drove up a steep hill here on the way to a storage unit the trunk of the mini-van we were riding in flung open spilling, among other things: 8 Monopoly games, 3 boxes of NSLC polos, 1 empty cooler and 2 large JBL speaker stands. (Ok, so that was a list but bear with me.) I pull the mini-van over in the middle of the busy street and a gay man (michael), white girl (me) running down a hill for board games and conference swag. The street people came out of nowhere and helped us move all of our stuff from the road to the sidewalk. It was funny and fun. (See also: me on my scooter during my first SM job in Waco).
Another fun thing is the random celebrityness of the place. I was at Yankee stadium picking up some tickets for a bachelor party and I needed to pee. So I walked half way around the Bronx (aka Yankee Stadium) and entered some Yankee club office. As I was showing the man my ID to get into the potty, silly I know, there was a commotion behind me. I turn to see Mr. George Steinbrenner behind me entering his office. I was luckily wearing my NSLC garb, navy blue and white, and said a pleasant good morning!
Oh, and Spike Lee was sitting outside a lecture hall on campus the other day.
I'm so ready to be with you again Austin. This place is nothing.
I love you. Peace. I'm out.
By the way, speaking of out, on this 100+ degree week the University has just informed us that we will not have A/C because NY is going dark. Cool...no wait...hot. | | |
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