she loves me

I fell in love with her at first sight when her picture was transmitted onto my cell phone, and I had to figure out a way to get her from Kentucky to New Mexico, which I did.

That was 2 1/2 years and many miles ago. Come to think of it, many, many miles.

So, I fell in love at first sight, but I think it's taken her longer. And our trust has been longer in forming. She's spent more time not listening to me than obeying (it seems like), she's killed things and chased more. She's run away and left me crying. She would rather pace obsessively over a cat on the back deck then snuggle with me on the couch.

And yet in her own way she worships the ground I walk on. It's just taken us longer to get there and we've not fully arrived. But do you ever really?

Right now, she's laying under the table at my feet. People can get up and go; she stays. I get up, she follows. While I'm puttering (as I often do) she gets tired of following me from room-to-room so she has a general location where she can lay and watch. She obeys. She listens to me. It's (more so of) a yin-yang.

Being laid up for the past few days has made her more aware of me. She's not used to me being in one place for very long so at first she was confused over my stationary behavior yet she had an awareness that something was wrong. She parked herself by the side of my bed and slept when I slept. Then she alternated between jumping on my bed and laying next to me/on me, or just saying hi.

It's another pivotal moment in our relationship. Pivotal to and from what I'm not really sure. But it's another step in our forward journey of getting acquainted, me falling in love and her falling in love with me.

Welcome to an entire post (complete with pictures) about my dog, Skye.

it could've been the adventure you wanted

I had enough clarity at the age of 24 to know that the lonely adventure I was living at the base of the Black Range Mountains in Silver City, New Mexico was one I would miss.

And I was right.

So although I grew despondent and fought moments of depression and loneliness, I reveled in the adventure I was livingn in my old adobe house.

That's the beauty of living in the moment. It's your moment to live in now. For all its angst and sadness and stress and celebration, the little moments add up to big adventures and before you know it, they're gone.

One adventure done and the threads of another being woven.

I miss my New Mexico adventure just like I miss my Kentucky adventure, my Texas adventure and the myriads of adventures in other places.

But the moments I'm living now will add up to a grand adventure that I will surely miss one day.

So I'm living it up, this crazy moment-by-moment life that equals one helluva ride.

some (oral surgery) words strung together

Forty-eight hours later - still no pain! A little headache every once in awhile and a bruised sensation on my face, but no pain.

I think I might have taken one too many pain pills last night when I got confused on the time. I woke up at 7-something thinking it was 10, but it wasn't and I'd just taken a pain pill at 6. That caused a couple hours of sleeping disorientation and some crazy dreams. Crazy. I have emailed the appropriate people who the dreams were about. They were almost too good to pass up.

Monsters, Inc. ran on repeat last night. I think it played four times.

I'm a teeny bit swollen, but not black and blue. I've been able to speak coherently since the gauze came out Wednesday night.

Hungry? Yes. I'm afraid when this is over I won't want to speak the words "mashed potatoes" ever again, much less eat them. I tried to eat chicken noodleless soup last night with soggy crackers, but then my sister told me I didn't want form of food getting stuck in the holes where teeth once were. So I fed that to the dogs and ate chicken noodleless/crackerless soup.

Speaking of, it's MP time and maybe some frozen yogurt.

so far so good

It took 55 minutes and my teeth were gone.

I was awake for the whole thing, but couldn't feel anything aside from pressure. The IV sedation wasn't knock-you-out sedation, apparently. I didn't mind it. Not that I really had a choice.

I'm glad I shaved my legs. The overseeing doctor rubbed my leg a couple times.

I remember the ride home and remember sleeping a little bit.

I'm just resting now and have about a three-minute limit for how long I can be up before I feel extremely nauseasous and like I'm about to pass about. I haven't eaten anything since last night but I'm not hungry. And I'm a little scared to eat and send my sensitive mouth into a hellish bout of irritation. Right now, it's pretty peaceful.

My family is awesome. My mom is bringing me drugs and liquid. My little brother set me up with a TV and DVD player. My sisters have visited in shifts. My dog hasn't left the bedroom without me except to drink out of the toilet a couple times. My friends are texting and a little disappointed I'm as coherent as I am. :)

I'm glad I'm awake enough to enjoy the fact that I'm resting.

how I would handle sticky teen situations

I was taking a bath tonight to shave my legs. If, in some twist of fate, my pants have to be ripped off in an emergency during oral surgery tomorrow, I would like for my legs to be clean-shaven.

So I was shaving and reading a woman's magazine. A section called for answers to handling "tricky teen situations", which somehow when I first read that, my mind saw "sticky." Anyway. As I was reading the questions, I had my own answers (I have an opinion about everything) and thought I'd share.

"My 13-year-old wants a Facebook acount. But I don't think he's old enough."
Then, no. If you don't think the kid is old enough, he's not. Go with your gut. He's also probably not old enough to drive a car or shave.

"My 14-year-old daughter wants to start dating. Is that too young?"
Hell, yes. Until you're old enough for a date to occur in a location other than the school cafeteria, you're too young. It's a negative. She'll get over it.

"My son posted a video of himself on YouTube. Should I worry?"
Depends on what 'himself' consists of. Flexing his muscles in the mirror? Not so much worry. A Weineresque photo/video? Yeah, I'd worry. And then I'd take it down and beat his ass.

"I found a sext message on my teen's cell phone. What should I do?"
Strip them of any electronic priveleges including but not limited to, cell phones, pagers, beepers, television remote, garage door opener...and then send them to a towerless undisclosed location. Yes. I'm telling you to overreact.

be the bigger douche-bag (in this case)

I am an expert douche-bag spotter.

And that's why it's easy to recognize when I'm being a total douche.

Sometimes I shame myself.

So.

M@tch.com claims that one in every five relationship forms online. In my "uh-huh, oh yeah?" frame of mind, I jump on the little thing we call the Internet and I cruise. I cruise my M@tch.com profile, because what's a single chick without a M@tch.com profile? She's like french fries without ketchup, peanut butter and no jelly, bread sans butter.

So I'm on M@tch. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm paired up with this guy and M@tch tells me the following:
1) you both fancy felines
2) like you, he's not a smoker
3) like you, he likes weight lifting.

I hate cats and I've never weight lifted.

Okay, maybe 'hate' and 'never' are too strong. But out of all the things on my profile (a profile that doesn't even mention cats or weight lifting) those are the things my online algorithym decides to capitalize on? M@tch don't know me.

And then I move on.

Next guy. Attractive. 17 pictures. 17 pictures can mean one thing (maybe two). Conceited and arrogant. But I look anyway, and I start chuckling because the first 10were self-poses attempting to be casual. I was mocking him. Inside, I was definitely laughing.

What a douche.

And then I read his profile.

Dude runs a foster care home for displaced teenage boys and is opening a home for pregnant teenagers.

Who's the douche-bag now?

the perils of oral surgery aren't that perilous

I guess I’ve always had a flare for the dramatic, but when I say I could die Wednesday, it’s not a joke.

One out of 350,000 patients sedated for dentistry die each year.

And aside from that terrifying number, there are really no other statistics to raise concern.

Boring.

I’m approaching Wednesday as if I’m taking an overseas five-day hiatus. That’s how excited I am to have five teeth removed and spend five days alternating between the couch and bed with my gauze-stuffed mouth.

Don’t be misled.

I know there will be pain involved. But where there is pain, there are good drugs and where there are good drugs there is surely sleep.

And so, while there are bound to be elements of cry-babiness going on, because I’m dramatic like that sometimes, I’m relishing in the thought of the moments after the pain and good drugs and sleep.

You know, when my teeth won’t break off on soggy Wheat Thins.