Do you ever just stare at yourself so long you no longer recognize yourself? I feel as though my eyes change. They become empty. Hollow. Lost. And then all of a sudden the fill up with life. And it cycles back and forth till I feel exceptionally strange.

I'm really happy that I didn't bypass Anchorage. I was able to spend some quality time with Amanda, Chelsea and reconnect with Jason. Wicked rad. My flights home were on time and uneventful. What was eventful however was me winning $500 for the halftime score on the Superbowl. Mom apparently bought me a square on a board and my numbers won at halftime! Exciting stuff. Mom kept $100 for the squares and then we went halfsies so I walked away with $200. Pretty much awesome because of my unexpected car costs and plane change fees and such. Lovely surprise. Marty picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at her place, she had more errands to run. I had a snack drank like 5 glasses of water and pooped out hardcore. I didn't sleep amazingly well because I had to get up and pee like 3 times but I slept reasonably well. Woke up Monday morning not so bright and early and went and picked up my rental. And thus began what turned out to be my week in Anchorage.

Once in my first car rental ever I decided to get my mittens from Marty's and then do exactly what I wanted. I got some food and then started running around for my Mom. Ironic that that's what I wanted to do but hey, I wanted to get it done as soon as possible so I wouldn't have to worry about it because at this point I was still going home on Wednesday. So I went to Fred Meyer and picked up stuff for my Mom and a few treasures for myself. I got some really great earrings and a new pair of knee high socks. Then I went to Walmart and picked up some things that I couldn't find at Fred Meyer and then Carrs when I could find everything else at the other two stores. At this point it was almost two and I had a relative date to keep so I scooted on over to Pete and Doris's and sat and visited with them for about an hour and a half. It was great seeing them and Pete gave me some books to read and study, math ones of course and Doris gave me some of the best felted slipper socks my feet have ever seen. (I'm loving them, wore them last night and this morning.) I was somewhat over Mom shopping and decided to go to Value Village and do some Sissy shopping. Oh man, I found some treasures. Books, movies, and clothes. Amazing! I called Chelsea and left her a message and then called Amanda and connected on the phone with her. She was working but wanted to meet up later. So I went to Marty's and played online a bit and just relaxed. At the appointed time I cruised on over to Borders to meet up with Amanda and had some marvelous coffee and me time. I love coffee and me time, especially around strangers where I can write or read and people watch all at once. Oh man. Perfy. Amanda came and we visited and caught up, I totally got to gawk at her rock and Chelsea connected with us and invited us over to Lee's for dinner. She came and grabbed us, we picked up some beer and found ourselves in Lee's living room. It ended up just being us three girls kind of having our own little catch up party and laughing and goofing off like we were in high school. It was the first time us three had been in the same place just hanging back and chilling in years. Great stuff I say. At about 10:30 Chelsea, Amanda, and I cruised over picked up our cars and then went to Chelsea and Jason's. We played a game, I won!, and then Amanda had to get home cause she had an early meeting the next day. Everyone else hunkered down and watched tv till we slowly dropped to unconsciousness one by one.

Best friends

The next day I woke up and slowly motivated. I hopped in my car and did some more fun shopping. I got myself a new bathing suit, went to a different value village than the one I went to the day before. I had some more time so I decided to drop by Sportsman Warehouse to see if my friend Jason was working. Some of my other friends had seen him there and we'd kind of lost touch over the years. ( We're pictured below and yes we always act like that when we're chilling.) He's now married to a really cool gal named Frannie and has a new doggie named Lucy. :) It was flipping awesome to reconnect. He wanted to hang out that night (Koot's and Trivia, awesome) and got my number and such and I got his, but of course his cell was at home. Anywho... When he tried to find the place that I was staying he got a little lost and went without me but then called me afterwards. So I went over to his place and we totally rocked Wii for a good bit. He killed me at tennis, bowling and cow racing. But I was the champ at boxing because it's awesome and totally my favorite Wii sport. We played a few other ones to... Ping pong was somewhat even. Fishing was 2/3 him and 1/3 me. And shooting was fairly even as well. It was marvelous. Then we watched Kung Fu Panda. There is no price for awesomeness. Great movie. Fricking hilarious, good kid message. Be yourself, ya dig? He totally started snoring about halfway through the movie but I stayed up for the whole thing.

Typical :)

Wednesday, day three, the day I was supposed to go home but the day before I decided to stay through Sunday because things were finally going so well for me in Anchorage. Normally there is bitter disappointment because my friends don't return phone calls or don't show up and do what they say they're going to do. But this time things were different. Everyone did what they said they were going to do and were returning and answering phone calls. Awesomeness. So I woke up and went and got breakfast/lunch and read some of Deep River and wrote in my journal. I love sitting in a busy place and just watching people and having that background noise and movement all around me quieting my mind. It's close to perfection. That's part of why I love doing things by myself. There's no need for mindless conversation or just filler conversation. No awkward silences. No need to entertain or be entertained. I love it. Wednesday slowed cruised by, I went to Title Wave and browsed and read and browsed and read. I totally found a great book for Karis and mine's road trip in 2010. We're totally rocking the coast to coast thing all over seeing things like the biggest radio flyer and the Spam Museum and fun stuff like that. I think we're planning on staying in a treehouse in Oregon. Pretty much ridiculously rad. I also got 3 other books to add to the 50 or so that I have already that need to be read. And I read! It's crazy. I need to kick one of my habits. Beading. Knitting. Reading. Music. Movies. Writing. Crap. I love 'em all and don't think I want to quit anything. Oh well. Marty, Sandy, Kenny and I went to the Thai Orchid for a late lunch/early dinner. Amazing. I love that place. Garlic Calamari. Number 91. Everytime. So so f*cking amazing. Afterwards I cruised on over to Amanda's for some coffee and one on one catch up time. We kinda had a rough patch but things are really smoothing out nicely. I've really missed having her in my life. And spending time with her just made that all the more clear. We talked about what the little things and the big things and also just sat for awhile. Then we started looking at wedding dresses. She's getting married to a fella named Rob Pittman and asked me to be in the wedding. :) Couldn't say no, didn't want to say no. So I'll be in my second wedding within a year or two. Means a lot to me to be asked even if I am somewhat of a curmudgeon. (I think that's spelled correctly.)

Oh yes, this happened

I woke up nice and slow on Thursday. I looked at the clock at 7:30 and went back to sleep. Repeated the process at 8:00, 9:30, 10:30, and finally just decided it wasn't worth it anymore and got up at 11:00. I hate when my sleep is all funky like that. I wish I could just sleep in like a normal person. The big event today was Postsecret. I went over to Chelsea's at about 6:15 while it was dumping snow outside. Seriously dumping. I was practically crawling. We headed to the University after she scarfed down a yogurt and then met Amanda there. It was really interesting. Frank Miller talked for a bit and then read secrets that weren't able to be published and then there was a sharing time. It was kinda funny and kinda cheesey but actually kinda cool at the same time. I don't know. It wasn't exactly what I expected but it was awesome to share it with Amanda and Chelsea. Afterwards Amanda had to do a dance thing and Chelsea and I picked up Justin, Rueben and Lee and went to first tap at the Bear's Tooth. A hippy band was playing so we mostly ended up standing around in the lobby drinking beer of course. We hung out for a quite a bit and of course the evening ended up downtown at the Gaslight no less. And guess what I did? I'm sure a glance to the right will tell you that I rode a mechanical bull for the first time. And yes I was fair intoxicated but it was bloody brilliant and I loved it and now of course I'm considering becoming a professional mechanical bull rider. Ha. If only. That would only be too cool. Definitely too cool for me.

The next morning Jason made omelets, which were so f*cking good and just what the doctor ordered. Yum yum in my tum. Then I went to Marty's and was going to take a nap but I got a phone call from my mother dearest saying that I had to call someone at Boulder back. Apparently my transcripts didn't make it to the math department so I had to go to the University there and order transcripts and hop online and order some from Fort Lewis as well. So much for nap time. But I figure the grad school thing is kind of important so I went for it. I wasn't up for much so I got some coffee and went to see He's Just Not That Into You. Which I really enjoyed and laughed at and related to and actually, yes I'll say it, loved. Reading was in order afterwards and the night ended with me and Jason rocking the pants off of Super Mario Galaxy on Wii for hours and hours. He stayed up till 3:30 or so and I stayed up a little past 4:00 playing. So much fun. And we're such good kids about it too, sharing and taking our turns.

Amanda trying on wedding dresses

Jason got up and went ice fishing I said screw it and slept till 11:30 or so before waking up and playing a bit more Super Mario Galaxy before deciding I had to get the rest of my Mom's shopping done, seeing how I was leaving the next day. I called Amanda was supposed to call me for breakfast and we decided to get breakfast at about 2:00 pm. :) Rock. We went to the Snow City Cafe which was very yummy and highly recommended. Totally on a different tier than Leroy's, and yet I still like Leroy's better. Maybe it's all the memories there. Afterwards Amanda was awesome enough to come do some shopping with me so we could hang out more. She asked if we could stop by Anderson's Bridal shop and I was more than willing to watch her parade around and try dresses on. There were a lot of really bad dresses and a few okay ones. It seems like there was always something off about each dress that she tried on. The sales lady was either really annoyed with us or really amused by us. Quite possibly a combination of both. We however had a really great time, being goofy, being ourselves, doing whatever we wanted. After one more errand I had to drop her off so she could get ready for her evening. I boxed up everything, it miraculously fit into two boxes and then went to the airport post office, which is where I ran into Leona. We mailed our packages and then chatted for a little bit. She's going to come over sometime and we're totally gonna rock the Wii. I'm down. :) I'll challenge anyone anytime! Then Jason called and we totally zoned out to Super Mario Galaxy for one last evening. We were both up till 4:00 am this time and then instead of couch crashing I went back to Marty's because I had to get up and return the car and check in and all that jazz. Harder than I thought. I couldn't even pull myself out of bed until 11:00, which coincidentally was when the car was supposed to be returned. Oops. So I drug myself up, packed up my last minute stuff and headed out to refuel and return. Once that was accomplished Marty picked me up, I checked in (screw Hageland/Frontier), and then I picked up chinese food to bring home. I hate carrying food home. The plane was late but the plane ride was fine. It was bloody amazing to hug my Momma hello. :) I missed her. We visited over chinese and then I started unpacking. By unpacking I mean throwing my clothes in front of my closet and tossing everything else on my desk. Awesome. Needless to say, it's great to be home. I slept so f*cking hard that night that I had a headache in the morning. But it was sooo what I needed and the headache was cured with two advil and 3 cups of coffee.