my eyes hurt

its true. all day today my eyes were hurty...or at least for most of the afternoon. i was thinking about it in a bit of delerium between interviews i was transcribing and wondered briefly if the pain was a result of my denial about leaving albuquerque. don't get me wrong, i know that i'm leaving...but the fact that its happening rather soon is still not quite on my radar. its there when i realize that i have only a few days to finish transcribing interviews (i finished 3 today) and packing all my worldy possessions, but then that panick quickly subsides into my current state....total denial. so maybe my eyes hurt from the tears that i'm forcing back. or maybe i was looking at a computer screen for too long today. regardless, i need to write a bit about my denial. this is mostly to assure my wonderful friends here that i'm not a total robot. don't let my ...hmmm...what's the word...stony, icy, no...um, ambivalent (?) tone and/or facial expressions fool you. ignore the fact that i don't quite choke up at the thought of missing life here. i fully assure you that its not because i don't have emotions about it. i do. i have a lot. i've met some freakin' fantastic people here and albuquerque has become home. it is not easy to leave. i know that. it makes my heart do crazy things at times and prevents sleep at night on more occassions than i will admit (but to which mike could probably attest since it sometimes results with my knee in the middle of his back.) the deal is...i can't think about it yet, because its gonna hurt too much. so instead, i focus on getting items on my big ass list completed and flit about in a haze about the fact that i leave this home in a little over a week. what i'm banking on is that my new path in iowa is going to be really great...and that i can come visit a lot. :)

so, please know dear friends that my exterior will probably not convey what i'm thinking and feeling right now. i've wanted to sit down and write cards to people and let them know how much they've meant to me over the past 20 months or so, but doing that now would make it all too real. its more likely that will happen when things slow down and i'm back in iowa. (just ask my texas friends how this went....it was a freakin' whirlwind when i left there which probably didn't hit me until after the truck was unloaded in ABQ.) i'll try not to be a total robot, but i can't guarantee that i won't be able to express how much you all have meant to me. i am blessed in so many ways to have the chance to move around, because i get the great gift of friends in varied places. it's crazy awesome. :) for reals.

okay, just wanted to clear that up real quick. :D i managed to cross three things off the list of fun stuff to do over the past 4 days and did a few things that weren't on the list but that i was hoping to do (see the simpsons movie, eat a breakfast burrito, obtain the 206 balloon fiesta postcard, etc.) the next few days will be busy and i hope very productive. (oh, i tried to go to juan's broken tacos but they didn't have any broken tacos...figure that one out. and i spilled a metric assload of wine in my car through no fault of my own, so now the saturn smells a lot like a vineyard. its been a busy week already!)

time for some sleep...i hope.

updating the list

i was talking to mike about how i move in like 3 weeks and he pointed out that its more like 2 weeks. what's up with this summer going so fast? fortunately, i'm done working the retail gig (pier 1 in case you were wondering) so i have some time to get a lot of things done. in fact, tonight i'm going to make a big list of things i need to get done before i move so i can sleep better at night. in the meantime though, i thought i should update the list of things i wanted to do in ABQ before i moved to see where things stood. so, here goes:

• breakfast at gold st. cafe (must eat that red chili bacon again before i go) -haven't done this one yet, though mike and i went for lunch a while ago and we had BLTs. maybe i can still get this one done since i love a good breakfast
• a trip up to the peak -went with father dennis
  
• drinks and merriment at the restaurant at the base of the mountain at twilight time -went with mike and father dennis. it was great!
  
• maybe a trip to the zoo -thank goodness father dennis visited. we did this too.
  
• isotopes game -didn't get this done.
  
• bowling at isleta casino (its way fun) -there was speculation about going this weekend
  
• a day trip to santa fe and/or taos -went to santa fe with father dennis and to see bob schneider there with kirk
  
• winery trip (at least to st. clair for the wine flight) -monday night
  
• feast at tucanos -mike and i went a while ago, so that can count. not sure we'll get back before i move.
  
• lots of pie shack - done and will likely do again
  
• cocktail party at kate's -vetoed due to cardboard boxes everywhere. :)
  
• grill outs - done
  
• lots of fun times with friends for sure in varied forms- done and will do more of i hope
  
• beer afternoon at kelly's -its planned
  
• lunch at juan's broken taco -any takers?
  
• a trip to dagmar's german food sometime- haven't done this either. maybe lunch one day.
  

i keep remembering the obvious, which is that i will be back to visit, so its not completely imperative that i complete the list in the next two weeks. god knows i have enough to do, but i hope to fit some of these fun things in too.

lots of fun so far in july. mike and i went to galveston to hang out with his family at the beach. it was a great time. i read a book (love walked in...its really good and it amazed me that i can read a 300 page book in 3 days. if only academic books went that fast), got a little sunburned, and had a great time just relaxing. :)

i've sure there's more to update but i'm distracted by packing that i need to do, so i'm off. i'll write more soon.

the thin horizon of a plan is almost clear

i'm sure it's no surprise that the title of this blog comes from a song i love. that seems to be my thing. :) this is actually the first line of the wood song by the indigo girls, which is one of my favorite songs of all time and resonates with me a lot at the moment. there was a time during my freshman year when i would listen to this CD non-stop and since i'm preparing to move back to my alma mater, it is even more appropriate.

for me this song is about life, especially in the sense that we don't always know what is coming next or what will happen with the various decisions we make. and that if we did know, we would be missing out on the good part of living. the uncertainty teaches us and helps us grow as people. it makes things exciting. keeps us on our toes.

for whatever reason, though this message is one that i try to keep in mind, it is not always easy to do so. especially now that i'm less than a month away from another transition in my life. and its slowly hitting me how much things are going to change soon. mike will attest that though i had a GREAT time at my going away party this weekend, i did lose it a bit after the guests had left or passed out. i'm sure many tasty drinks didn't help much, but it was one of those moments when i realized how lucky i am to have great friends here and how hard its going to be to leave and start over.

this also brings me to realizations that haven't quite sunk in yet.

• i will only (knock on wood) have to have one job starting soon
• summers off
• though i'm moving to iowa, i can still come visit my peeps in ABQ
• i get to hang out with friends that i haven't seen in so long which is going to be great
• i can go visit my family more than once or twice a year

maybe this should all be a no-brainer, but it just isn't quite real yet. i'm not sure if that makes sense, but the reality of leaving ABQ is getting realer. and the cool things about IA are in my head, but don't seem real yet. i'm excited about those things, but also aware that it's going to be tough to leave a place where i've made so many awesome connections. ultimately, i know it will be okay. i've been fortunate in a way to get to live in a bunch of places since i've graduated from college, which means that i have a bunch of friends everywhere. i need to think of this as a "see ya later" and not a good-bye. because i will be back. (whoa...arnold schwartzenegger moment.)

so, as i get closer to the move date and the new start, i will try to keep in mind the message of this song. i'm looking forward to the new fun in IA for sure, because there will be lots of cool things about this move. even if it isn't all together easy.

(only one more week at the retail job! woo!)

viva las vegas!

mike and i went to vegas over the weekend and we had a great time. we planned the trip a while ago so we could see richard cheese in concert. i thought vegas would be super busy that weekend since saturday was 7.7.7 day, but it didn't seem any more crowded than when i've been there in the past. it was really, really, really hot though. i made the comment once that it felt like we were in a windy oven, since even the breeze was hot. saturday we visited a bunch of casinos so i could check them out after eating lunch at p.f. changs. (our hotel was great and within close walking distance to p.f. changs and the hard rock hotel where we saw the concert.) we gambled a bit hoping to win a bunch of money on the luckiest day of the century, but keno was not kind to us. :D mike did win some cash on a wheel of fortune slot machine, so that was good! that night we went to the venetian and checked out the shops. mike ended up getting a great deal on a watch he wanted, so that was rad! on past trips to vegas we'd end up going to sleep around 5 a.m. or something wacky like that. i think vegas usually makes you lose all sense of time. this time around though, mike and i were both sleepies at about 11:30, so it was an early night. the next day we ate yummy breakfast at terrible's casino across the street from our digs. it was yummy and came with lots and lots of champagne. after that we eventually went back to the strip to go to the bellagio so that mike could get me my going away present. i love it!! and we took these pictures (solo me and me and mike) in the botanical garden. we hung out at our hotel after that and then took a taxi to get in-n-out burger, which was actually the most expensive meal we had the whole weekend. :D luckily we had a crazy cab driver who kept us entertained the entire time with tails of eating monkey (which apparently tastes like frog legs.) we ate back in the room, relaxed, and then got ready to go get in line for richard cheese. it was a bit of a cluster f#ck once we got to the hard rock. we waited in a long line for longer than expected to get in and then waited longer than expected for the show to start (and probably spent more than expected on drinks.)
the show was great though and i actually talked to richard cheese during it. or i suppose he talked to me first. i won't get into the details but i'll just say that he was singing a lords of acid song at this point. we had a really fun time overall and i'm even looking forward to going back in august. here's hoping that it isn't as hot!!

in other news, i'll be giving my notice this week at the retail place and the big going away party is this weekend. i anticipate that it will be off the f---in chain.

better get busy packing. or sleeping.