Apple Pie...

So the apple pie is bubbling away, and it gives me a chance to pause and reflect on the weekend...now, those of you who know me best already know that I was a little sad because my friend, who I have been corresponding with on and off for 17 years died in a car crash. So, that lent itself to some bad behavior on my part. There was an abundance of alcohol comsumption, (unfortunately with no resultant hang-over, which just leads to more alcohol consumption) a lot of lonliness, and some serious...ummmmmmmm....well, let's just call it unwise decision-making. But I am determined not to let all that ruin the new week. By God, I will be happy if it kills me! I will get my work done in a pleasant and productive manner. I will respond with all haste to posts on Facebook, myspace, and blogger.com, and I will write e-mails back to the people who wrote me last year who I blew off. I will practice again on Saturday because the practice that I just had made me unGodly sore, so I clearly need to do it again. Damn it...I will be happy! Or, maybe I won't do any of that, and instead I will crawl inside of my hidey hole and sleep for three days...it's a toss up.

Friends...

I miss my friend. And I know what the real response to this statement would be if I talked with my other friends about it. "He's so mean to you." "He doesn't act like your friend." "How can you miss someone who does such horrible stuff?" But here's the deal...there were some good times. And I mean really good. We laughed insanely. We sat quietly and watched movies. We had rambling talks about nonsense. So maybe you can't get everything from one person, and that's OK. Maybe one person can't contain all of the things that we need. But the problem is that I am running short on friends. I am running low on people who I can touch and who can touch me back. I love, love, love my long distance friends. They are awesome. Some of them have been my friends for an incredibly long time and I wouldn't trade them for the world. But the lonliness is crushing. Most of the time, the weight of it is bearable. But today....today, I miss my friend.

Men...

So here's my thing...I absolutely love, and I mean love men in uniform. And not mall cops or home-owners association security guards, but actual men in uniform. Can't help it. But the best part of the whole thing is that while they are usually the best at their chosen profession, and can usually fix everything...they are also the biggest Peter Pans on the planet. They have the strangest, insecure, and yet, Alpha male thing I have ever seen. I have no clue why that is so attractive. It might have something to do with the fact that I don't want a man who talks about his feelings. No share time, no bull-crap about how you need to let me know your inner most thoughts. No, you don't. Once the bounds of our relationship are established, I mostly just want to hear, "I love you," or some variant thereof to confirm that I am loved, and that's it. If I ask if my ass looks fat in something, tell me the truth. I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know. Go play poker with your friends, watch football on Sunday, tinker in the garage...as long as you fix things when they break, are home for dinner, play with our kids, and we can screw like crazy whenever we like...I'm pretty much good. If you want to go out and screw some other woman, we're done. No forgiveness and no take backs. I think I love those men in uniforms because they denote a certain rigidity of personality that lends itself to stability and dependability and predictability. I don't want to have to try and figure out who you are going to be today, and if I know some basic things about you, I won't have to. Honor, integrity, loyalty. That's all that I need. Seems like a reasonable request.

Baking...

OK, so not to toot my own horn or anything but I make an excellent banana bread. No really, it's some good shit. But just when I start to have an ego about this latest excursion in to baking, the universe reminded me that ego is not such a good thing. Today I tried to make chocolate chip cookies. But like the dumbass that I am, I tried to sneak through with the pre-packaged Betty Crocker cookie mix. Of course, it is Betty Crocker, so it should be fine, right? But here's the thing...they don't make it for high elevations. So, when I pulled them out of the oven, they were the size of dinner plates, crispy on the edges and chewy in the middle. What the crap! So this is a two fold smack down...first because I had too much ego about the banana bread and then because I tried to cut corners and go the easy route. Mother-humper! That's it, I am not baking for at least a solid week. Nothing. Seriously.