Thoughts and Update

So I saw the interview with Barbara Walters and Terri Irwin last night. This was the first interview she gave since Steve died. The entire time I just thought, "these two were made for each other...it was like a down under fairy book come true..." At times, she referred to Steve as her prince and the anecdotes she shared would make anybody cry. In some ways I had that as well...and just didn't realize it or took it for granted.

As I move forward, dating has been pretty hard. I'm forcing myself to move forward but 0nly feel like I'm going backwards. I end up disappointing people that I date because my heart and soul is just not into it. Most just want the insta-lationship; add water and go. A few think they love me after a couple dinners. Of course there's always the ones that just want the one-night deal... I guess I'm at a point that I know exactly what I want and there are very few people in this world that can fill that application. The person, whomever he may be, will be the luckiest guy ever- as well I. He won't even have to waddle in front of me in a swamp to protect me from crocs either!

My friend Dan came down over the weekend from Michigan. He is considering a move away from his small town to somewhere warmer and where people outnumber cows. We went to Mirror the first night and he got this blue martini of some sort with a glow bracelet as garnish. It was freakn' cool! I ended up having a Almond Cigar...it was an amazing drink actually...with I think whiskey, amaretto almond liqueur, and lime juice. Unfortunately I was driving for the evening so my alcohol intake was minimal. Dan had the shrimp pasta and was nothing like he thought. It had artichokes, unknown greens, and some other interesting spices...I liked it though but very untraditional. I ended up having the chicken cordon bleu which also was very untraditional. It was small piece of chicken grilled with goat cheese and maybe canadian ham on a bed of mushrooms and olives. I actually liked it alot but the portion was awful. When the dinner portion is not enough to soak up one alcoholic drink- then it's not enough!

From dinner, we headed over to Tribe to drink some more. It was a weird music video night- lots of mixed old scary videos and newer ones. There were a few cute guys but usually they look good from a distance but the prada falls out of their mouth when they talk. <--- Total turn off. We made our way to Lucky's Garage afterwards, of course he's nice and tipsy and I'm about there too. (It's always fun to find drink transactions on your credit card that you don't remember ordering lol) From there we headed over to the Chute for the 1AM drag show. We picked out a table up front before the show started and I had told him about The Pantomime Rage, Bianca Paige. I think he was scared about what I was getting him into hehe. Shortly after I told him about her, Miss Piage came up behind us to say hello. Of course the raspy smoker's coughed-up-lung voice took Dan by complete surprise. Luckily he was already nice and toasty so was a bit slow. It was a good show- I had a couple of cran-mandarin vodkas and we called it a night.

So here goes the highlight of the evening. About 2 miles from my apartment on Nolensville, Dan, out of the blue, says, "STOP!" I looked at him and smiled and thought he had to pee or something. He says it again and he had this sickly disgruntled look on his face- and I turned into the next parking lot I possibly could. Next thing I hear my door open and it SPEWED! I thought, whew, I made it and it's all outside the car. Upon further inspection my thoughts were wrong. He actually threw up starting front the front windshield in front of him, onto my right front speaker, then my right side window, down the armrest, onto the carpet, then outside the car, and on his arm. And yes I cleaned it up the next day too... and no, you don't want to know what 8-9 jack and cokes smell like back outside the body.

Sunday- we headed over to Downtown for the whole sober tourist walk thru. It was simply a beautiful day; not too hot and not cold but a steady cool breeze under the sun. We went to Demos' for lunch and was probably the best meal I had in weeks- and the least expensive! From there we walked onto Commerce, 2nd Ave, Church St, 1st Ave, the Shelby Pedestrian Bridge, back down Broadway, and up 3rd Ave. Here are some scenery...




Check out the rest of the photos at www.flickr.com/photos/rcp120778

Anyways, that's my weekend. I'm really glad that I toured the city after being here almost 7 months!

Balance

Life is about balance; without it we become like a seesaw with mordidly obese person on one end and a small child on the other. Life becomes painful, unpredicatable, and difficult to sustain. Throughout life, we struggle to find balance in everything we do- work, food, entertainment, friends, and of course the ultimate balance of a mate.

JB and I weren't able to find that balance. The seesaw sometimes seemed to be and could have but there were always factors that made it tip one way or another. I was angry at myself and started to regret choices that I made. But in retrospect, the seesaw wouldn't have become balanced unless I gave up a bit of myself and self anger is not the answer. And since my catch phrase says I've been reassembled, no point in breaking it all over again.

The advice for people out there with an unbalanced life: examine yourself first and be able to live with yourself now. Take each variable out until you are balanced with yourself and your own life before trying to add to it. My grasshopper rant on this topic is done.