Sometimes its just the simplest thing...

...that can make you feel alright again. I'm a lover of the little things, life's easy pleasures. A slyly-human-looking peanut that I can make dance around on the table and give a little voice to. The wind blowing my pajama pants just so against my legs. The first time it smells like the next season. Really, really enormous (or tiny) versions of anything at all.

But sometimes you just have a total SHIT day and no amount of tiny humanesque peanuts will erase it. Like mine, this past Friday. It all began Thursday evening, with an uber-rude text from the ex-boyfriend and a bunch of uber-annoying texts from stereo-stalker (more on this, below). Though it didn't dampen my cheery mood as Thursday night was girls-dinner at my place. ALWAYS good for the soul. --- So, Friday. I get to work and pen an email to the ex asking (as I've asked at least a thousand times over the past four months) for some space and privacy and for him to respect me enough to leave me alone. Receive a nasty email in response, prompting me to, like a dumbass, engage with yet another email in return. What exactly these nasty emails were about, I'm not even sure. I can't bring myself to go back and read them because they're hurtful and awful and I don't want any of that in my life. I do know that I was so upset and confused and pissed off and freaked out that I ended up sending him an email telling him I hated him, and listing off a good fifty or so reasons why, complete with examples of his poor treatment of me throughout the course of our relationship. I think I thought it would make me feel better. But it didn't. It made me feel all of the pain I used to feel when those things happened, and then have to go hide in the bathroom at work and cry and throw up my lunch.


Also, Friday, I was being bombarded with texts from stereo-stalker - this ridiculous guy that I bought a stereo from on Craigslist who I owe $18.00 to. Yes, you read that right: eighteen dollars. And he is HOUNDING me. "I really need that money, can you leave it on your porch?" Um, sorry, you really need eighteen dollars? Dude drives a brand new Audi, just moved to California and lived with his parents for a few months, decided to move back, owns a clothing company (local, sure, but still)... I mean, he's an artist, but I seriously don't think he's a starving artist. Just a STALKER. I told him I thought his fervent attempts to get his money were just a ruse to try and see me again (which he has been attempting since I bought the stereo from him in JUNE). And then he sends a nasty text saying he never wants to see me again but he wants his money, can he come over in an hour? Sorry asshole, it's girls night and no, I'm not making a special trip to the ATM for your fucking $18.00. I responded that he needed to send me his address and I would mail him his money, and after I ignored his next 10 texts about coming over, he finally sent the address. As of today, he hasn't contacted me since. So maybe I finally have one guy that I don't want to talk to who will actually leave me alone.


A smattering of other crap that happened Friday: Secretary at work is leaving, Friday is her last day. I've been assigned one of her attorneys to support in her absence. So I'm thinking Friday I will get my own desk clean and organized and ready to begin working for this attorney on Monday. But apparently she decided that I would report for duty on Friday, because she hadn't done much of anything to prepare for her departure. So I did ALL of his work on Friday, and had all of her disorganized crap dumped on my desk, plus all of my own work. So I'm swamped and trying not to cry all day and was here until 6:30. On a Friday.


So I get home and decide to take the dog for a relaxing walk over to Memory Grove/City Creek. All is well until we're way up in the canyon/creek and Rascal hears some skateboarders on the paved road above us. He tears off up the bank and onto the road to chase them, and I hear them all shouting "Oh, shit! Whoa! Get away dog!" And I'm yelling "STOP!" but they can't hear me and aren't stopping. The bank is too steep for me scramble up, so I have to run all the way back down the creek trail until I can cut over to the road, nearly knock some woman who is meditating off a bridge and into the creek, get up onto the road and these guys still haven't stopped, and are all the way down at the end near where the road goes into the neighborhood (and there is traffic). So I'm screaming for them to stop, lose a flip flop and keep running, and tear the hell out of the bottom of my foot. Finally, they stop and my dog just comes right on back, smiling at me when he gets there, like "Hey, look what I did! I chased those scary rolling men away!"


So at this point I just sit down on the grass and cry.


And then my friend Richy calls and asks if I want to go get dinner. I'm not sure I'm in much of the mood for anything, but knew what I really wanted was a hug, and I wasn't going to get that sitting around my house alone feeling sorry for myself. So we decide on Charlie Chow's, which I did not have high hopes for at all. And it was AWESOME. You get to make your own chinese food! And then they cook it and bring it to your table! And then you get to do it AGAIN! And so we did that a few times, watched the Olympics while we ate and got to see Phelps win his 7th medal. All of which was very exciting for me because I don't have TV and so haven't seen one ounce of the Olympics. And I had a nice big glass of wine and Richy made me laugh and suddenly I realized I felt a hell of a lot better.


And then we took his motorcycle up into the foothills, and some sort of magical mystery mix of wind-in-my-hair and arms around Richy and amazingly gorgeous evening with fall breezes blowing in just sort of cleansed me. We parked and hiked around through the tall grasses under the nearly full moon and saw all of the lights of the city and the outline of the Wasatch and everything was all blue and shimmery and perfect for however long we were up there. At one point he jumped out from behind a tree and scared the living hell out of me and I jumped and screamed and suddenly we were laughing so hard we nearly fell on the ground. And with that, it was a new day. Even at the end of a shit one.



The lights of our fair city, from the foothills above the Aves:

Richy under a full moon.

Watching the clouds roll by...