white toe

white toe, originally uploaded by pinprick.

this year has been somewhat exasperating at times. yes, i met someone i'm head-over-heels for. yes, i get to go on a fabulous vacation to a city i've only barely seen. yes, i got a new job that kicks my old jobs ass. at the same time, i lost a parent. i came to a difficult decision to end some friendships that were pretty shitty. there's been some illness and bad news in D's family. for all the ups, are these downs that seriously just suck. at times i feel fairly philosophical and okay, dealing with crap as it comes and trying to make the best of it. other times you'll find me in a sobbing heap in the shower. i don't know what this is like for other people, but i have a feeling this is actually kind of normal.

the weather's getting nicer by the day. flowers and trees bloom, and i start sneezing like a sonofabitch. apt metaphor, yes? the other day the boychild decided he didn't want to eat meat anymore, right on the heels of his father and i talking about how we think we're eating too much meat (and sort of poorly in general). we were all in agreement; cutting down on meat is a good thing, although to be fair we might sneak some bacon in on occasion. or not. i had a perfectly lovely vegan lunch today, and it didn't require any big effort on my part. tonight's dinner plans are also vegan, by a fluke. white bean and garlic soup, with crusty bread and a side salad. in addition to eating less meat we're going to try to plan out our dinner's in advance. i'm going to become a domestic engineer, to be sure. menu planning seems hokey, but is a good way to plot out what we need from the store and get stuff ready in advance (so we don't cop out and eat out when nothing's ready and we're starving). kitchen time at the house is my favorite thing anyway, so working on makig that a bit more efficient and pleasant seems like a good investment. it might save us some money as well, which will be nice when we go to chicago.

other than this, i'm just busy trying to make it through every day. sometimes this seems like a task, other days, not so much. i miss my pop, i miss him a lot. it strikes me at the strangest times. looking through some of his cd's the other day i was struck with the knowledge that i wouldn't be able to share musical discoveries with him, wouldn't be able to burn him cd's, wouldn't hear what he was listening to and what he thought i should be listening to. it made me cry, but it made me happy that we always had that in common. he introduced me to neko case, and i introduced him to the white stripes. we swapped cd's and fought over what to listen to in the car. who am i going to burn a copy of middle cyclone for now?