in another life---

I am coming to a problem point in the life of my phone. you see, i am running out of room for voicemails.
did you see that story about the old man who is suing the phone company because they accidently lost his voicemails when he got an new phone or something? He had saved on there his wife's recorded greeting and perhaps a message from her. She had passed away a year ago or something and he played the messages everyday, maybe multiple times in order to hear her voice again. he loved her. he missed her. it reminded him of her.
and then the phone company went off and erased it. hes unhappy. understandably so, perhaps. hopefully, they said they could retrieve it and put it onto a cassette or cd for him. that would be a better option, anyway. he could probably skip the suing if he got that.
it might need to be something i look into. my voicemail is quickly filling up. and its because i have to save all these messages from ever ago--but i need them. they remind me of so many things--the sound of your voice. what i thought about when such-and-such happened. how things were back then. how things are now, and that really, its not even almost all bad. And some of the messages just flat out make me so happy, or even make me absolutely giggle.
so i cant erase them, you see. but i cant exactly continue at the rate im going. does anyone know a way around this?

Also, i am coming to a problem point in my career, perhaps. about a week ago, i was in the shower (where most of the best thoughts inveribly come to you--when you have no place to write them down. do they make shower-wall-pens-that-dont-wash-out-till-later?) and i decided that my current job wasnt working for me (actually, i had been pondering that for a while.) but the meetings, the regimented schedule, the dress code, the enormous responsibility. these are not words that really fit in with my way of life, you know?? i decided that the thing i really want to be is a nurse.
not kidding.
the reasons for this are many-fold.
1. awesome dress code.
2. i would get to talk to all kinds of amazing people. and hear their stories.
3. desks wouldnt be a part of my life. neither would the kinds of meetings i usually get in on here.
4. i am great in emergencies. great.
5. ever since i learned about cells, i've had a total thing for medicine. i am a sucker for cells, you see.
6. good benefits/pay
7. flexible schedule. i dont even think i mind the night thing, and plus, i would only have to work like 3-4 days a week. awesome.
8. nurses are always needed.
9. there is plenty of scope for the imagination. i think heather and renee actually subplanted this thought in my head with their recent anne of green gables marathon, even though i, unfortunately, couldnt be present. plus, also, ive been reading emily of new moon lately. thats close enough. the whole "soothing fever brows, and a rich patient carrying you off with him to the mediterranian" is drastically appealing. im done with cold.
10.my mother and grandmother were also nurses. i wouldnt want to quit the family tradition.
11. plus, i would just be a really awesome nurse.

the cons are:
1. i dont like throw-up.
2. not exactly trained for it. and dont have the more money required for school.
3. everytime ive mentioned it thus far to anyone, they've laughed their heads off. not sure why.

see? i think all signs point to the fact that i should be a nurse, definately. oh well. we shall see, wont we?
(what is the past tense of "shall"???)

im sitting at work right now, actually, and the boy is asleep in my chair, the one all the way across my cubicle. its a good 3 feet away. (i got the luxury office. haha. its really not so bad except for the grayness of it and the no windows thing. oh, and the i-can-hear-everything-going-on-ever thing. i have added a bit to it, which im sure seems strange to the others that work here, but i could not do positively any work without it, and its hard enough to do it as it is.) its a perfect saturday, except for 1) its not quite warm enough 2) there are no windows and 3) i am sitting at work, surrounded by piles of baby bottles and camoflauge silent auction items for the clay shoot. there is a part of work i know nothing--absolutely nothing about, i tell you. why anyone would want to pay a bazillion dollars to come shoot fake orange things? men. geh.
which reminds me: the lady who trained me here told me if things ever got too hard, then i could just get married and have a baby. that way i could quit, but they wouldnt hate me for it. im thinking about taking her up on that advice. i dont quite know how to decide about such, though. i overanalyze, perhaps!

i have been reading again what our mothers didnt tell us, by danielle crittendon. if youre a girl, or guy, i suppose, read it. it has changed my life. seriously.

i also need some more good music to listen to.

speaking of fake orange things, have i ever mentioned that i dont like oranges? i dont. or orange juice. my mother told me i couldnt go to college until i learned to like orange juice, because that is a life skill, but i managed to get there anyway, without liking it. also, lately, i have been drinking real cow's milk--like straight from a cow with no inbetween steps. dont worry, its cold, though. i have had two different kinds (one from the next town over, which actually, i think was transplanted from kentucky, and the other kind from wisconsin.) i actually like the wisconsin kind better, but they both taste just like milk. except, i guess its way better for you. so says jed. it is one of the ironies of life that the boy is so incredibly health conscious, and i am so incredibly....not. but shoot, if i can get some highly necessary-change-your-life-omega-something-or-other that will dramatically impact and improve my health by doing something that i love and would doing anyway? im all for it. (if you want to dramatically change your health and life, too, ill give you his email address because he knows how or something.)

also, for the next month or something (Starting yesterday) we will have 11-12 people living in my house. all my extra makeup has already been commendeered to play princesses. these girls are crazy. they even have their own made up languages and writing and back-stories. back-stories! im so glad they have that. my bestfriend was a great back-storier, and that changed my life, too. but its a good thing that most mornings im too tired to put on any makeup except the mostest absoultely necessary. alas. maybe when i get to be a princess ill take up eyeliner once again--a luxury most of us can ill afford, i'd say.

inventing invention

i had the best breakfast almost of my life the other week.
i wouldnt necessarily say its better than eggs and grits and buscuits and gravy, etc., (homemade or wafflehouse!) or better than a cinnamon roll and hashbrown from mcdonalds, or even french toast and breakfast potatoes at perkins at 11p.m., because those things are good (and some of my absolute favorites), and they have their place.
my breakfast consisted of:
-- a boiled egg (in one of those cool egg dishes.)
-- ham
-- fresh bread and butter
-- a banana
-- chocolate dip for the banana
-- hot chocolate and water

it was so good! ---a different kind of good than the others--a kind of good that was lingering and inspiring and that i want to imitate regularly. i think it was for three reasons:
1. it was fresh and simple and not complicated.
2. it has all necessary things that you love most, and is reasonably healthy: protein, carbs, fruit, chocolate.
3. it is reproduceable.
in fact, i am reproducing it right now. im multi-tasking! and eating a boiled egg (with the outside of the yolk turned grey, which is really the only way i like the yolk.) and a quarter of a gondola, half a banana and some truffle kisses. (so good.) and i am happy about this.

why dont we live like that --all the time?
{2.20.08}
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of course, that was 3 weeks ago, and the original even longer ago than that.
we dont live like that because it is hard to keep up, i think.
today for lunch, for example, i will probably eat peanut butter and jelly (the peanut butter will have omega-3 fatty acids artificially added, because i feel guilty not being healthy enough. i think the bread is smushed. also, i plan on having popcorn (and m&ms---individual sized bags are awesome.) because i've been wanting that. This is the time of year that i want popcorn constantly. unexplainably.
it is warm outside today. this is a change that i welcome. which is a rare enough event.
i think i should try to write on this everyday. i think that i will plan to do this at lunch. i have decided that it is more productive for me not to leave the building if i can help it. although, once its quite warm outside, i plan on walking down to the downtown courthouse square and listening to the provided (and often sketchy) lunch music. plus, its exercise that way. two birds with one stone, no?

even once it gets warmer i might even just want to sit outside and not do a single thing but look at the clouds. i dont do that enough.

nevermind. i just heard there was pizza downstairs for lunch, which i will probably eat instead of the pb&j on squishy bread. goodbye, omega-3s. and smushy bread. i have heard this about pizza: that even when its bad, its good. and also, that you generally cant have too much of it.
although, the pizza does throw off the popcorn plan.

i need to write on here more. i feel tooo smushed under everything, and it is hard to balance and i absolutely cannot live up to all of the expectations. the end. i will use this to remember what is beautiful in this town (if there is such a thing)and in this life (that is here, just hiding). ((( keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise, i suppose.)))
also, do the small bits of beauty outweigh everything else? its hard to say.

i was looking in my notebook just now to see if i had thought of any other gems that i had forgotten about. not really, but i found these two:
1. "Could love have ensued out of order and perfection? maybe. but probably not."
2. "cluelessness is the mother of invention."

these are true, i think. sometimes i surprise myself when the things i do manage to get down on paper are still _true_true later.

once, in first grade, i tried every conceivable way to spell "once." (ALSO---excellent movie. i finally saw it, and i fell in love with it.) ones, wonce~who knows what all i wrote. my teacher was standing over my shoulder and told me all my ways were wrong, helped me erase them, and let me *finally* figure out the best way (i just wrote the best way to spell it??!?!? i meant the *only* way) to spell it. and i have never forgotten how since.