Saturday, December 15, 2012

Simple Saturday

ahhh... good morning (:
We didn't do one stinkin' thing of worth today. We're in recovery mode, still, from last night. It wasn't that we did anything extravagant, more that we're just gettin' old and staying out so far past our bedtimes beats us up. Haha. I was grateful this morning for good coffee, the light breeze, and a sunny backyard surrounding the pool. Not a bad way to wake up, even if we're all a little groggy still.

Oh, and I had a little friend for most of the morning. Meet Cecil! 
'ello, little friend! | little fluffy blanket ninja
^ That's Becca and Justine's little puffball puppy.. I'm typically not sold on little dogs, but he's a sweetheart and dedicated himself to a mode of hospitality for pretty much my entire stay thus far.

Things we did today:
Breakfast.
Jam Session: Mumford & Sons, Avett Brothers, Florence & the Machine, Ray LaMontagne.
Nothing.
Errands : Get Kalyn's car, Urban Outfitters, Zumiez.
Lunch.
Nothing. + Nap.
Thai Food & Redbox.

I'm not at all bothered by our lack of adventuristic plans today. Sure, we soooorta perhaps thwarted a day of my visiting, but the fact is, it's been rainy here all day anyway, and to be honest, the simple change of scenery is enough for me at this point. I'm happy.

Wake us up in the mornin' time (:

xo | cmd

Scottsdale Friday | Happy Birthday Keifer!


I love .... my best friend.
[i also love backdated posts. womp womp womp]


Today was originally intentioned to be a hiking trip up Camelback. That didn't happen.

Instead, Kalyn and I ended up running around all over Scottsdale with Keifer in the early part of the day. We stopped at The Praying Monk, this killer little dive restaurant/bar for some late morning relaxing and some super-early celebrating of Keifer's birthday [HBD!!].

birthday rum apple pie? yes please
keifer & chris | happy birthday, keifer!
Once we were finished there, Kalyn and I dedicated ourselves to an afternoon at the five story mall in Scottsdale for a Christmas shopping/evening wear bonanza. It paid off.

love her. ♥
cori. kalyn. justine. becca | "it's go time"
It was a real roommate outing for Kalyn, Becca and Justine; I was just there to visit and enjoy the entire experience, too. Needless to say, it was a blast.  

Stop 1 : Lodge.
hang loose, & shout out to all the ohio people we met tonight.. in arizona!
Stop 2 : El Hefe.
cori & cody! | cincinnati pride!
Stop 3 [final destination] : Smash Boxx
ok, so yes, we were running on a hang loose theme for most of the night..
... plus i stole some guy's hat... and glasses. antics....
keifer. kalyn. cori. | happy friday!!
Then the fun kicked in.... I'll spare a lot of the details along the way, but the gist of it equated to us not being able to hunt down a valet employee to retrieve Kalyn's keys at the end of the night, so it was by cab that we finally made it home. We'll deal witih Kalyn's car when the sun gets back up.

Til then... whoa. Happy Friday. Happy birthday, Keifer. 
&& Happy ME. I've needed this.
See you in the morning!

xo | cmd

Friday, December 14, 2012

Kick ROCKS, IL - HELLO, PHOENIX!

Welp, as far as work went today, I was like an impending high school graduate with a severe case of senioritis. I'm not sure where the morning went, but I was fine with that. I think I zoned out for the last half hour before I actually left. 

airlift me..... 
Anyway, it's raining in Arizona.

Seems fitting; apparently that's a rarity out here, but for now it goes well with the aura of things that are quite out of character and far from the norm. 

--- I have got to find some way to block myself from accessing a keyboard after 1) a certain time at night or 2) after certain mental capacities have been altered or stopped all together. *sigh. Freakin' VINO….
---- I need new friends that [while in similar states of mind] don't encourage me to start writing at these totally inappropriate times, too, so they can read it WITH me for the first time in the real morning. Ya jerks.. haha.

The first thing I thought of when I touched down at PHX was the overwhelming amount of sssssstuff on my mind that I'd be spilling everywhere when my best friend when she picked me up from the airport. The gal next to me on the plane agreed that it seemed more like a six hour flight than the short 3.5 we'd been airborne, so I was more than ready to be on solid ground. After some minor disconnect on discourse - gate assignment, I found myself in that familiar little green Jeep with the Ohio plates, bound out to Tempe with a girl who might as well be a direct extension of myself. I'm in Phoenix, with Kalyn…. and Becca…… and Justine. Since I believe perfection is relative; this is definitely on point in my book. 

kalyn. cori. justine. becca | postinos
First stop: Postino's. If there's one grand idea for converting an old post office, it would be transforming it into a wine bar with killer food and the most courteous, laid-back wait staff to boot. That pretty sums up this place, and it wasn't but a few minutes into the dinner run that I realized how much I'd missed my best friend and the liberty we have with each other to be the raw and so far sheerly uncensored characters that we are. Add the Jones girls to the mix and dinner really couldn't have been any better. We wined, we dined, and we wined some more before we made it back to their house and staked out our real estate on the couch. 

Apparently, I'm not the only one running in place when it comes to conquering my loose cannon brain on love, the pursuit of "happy", avoidance of pain and the general direction of that whole weird life thing. It didn't help that in seeking some accountability in perhaps the form of, "No Cori…put your phone away," I was met with "Mama. DO IT." [you'd only have to hear her say it once to imagine it clear as day again] … Inhibiitions are usually asleep by 3:30 in the morning (….hello), but I do know that some of my best A-grade quality papers in college were done in the wee hours. Sooo, in addition to ill-advised phone calls, I'm no stranger to late-night-writing with a side of morning-after-literary-regret. It's like [that] shot of truth serum that makes your head spin and dissolves whatever filter you had left between your brain and your mouth. In some cases, it's the heart and mouth disconnect you have to fear, but that… is another day. Right now I'm just thankful for auto spellcheck. [Red. lines. everywhere…lol]. Oh, and I sure as day returned the favor on the phone call advice, KALYN….. we can scold each other in the morning. Haha. 

love you, kp
I haven't laughed so hard in one evening in a long time. I kinda forgot how well we know the other and how KP is just as ruthlessly blunt and inappropriate as I am. Haha. We've swapped just about all of our most recent and vicious stories, in great detail from start to the present [end  isn't really applicable for either of us, unfortunately], and I've only been here for less than 12 hours. In spite of the way my gut has decided to remain twisted and tense for the time being, there is nothing quite like having your best friend there to reiterate to me that I am a thoroughly messed-up individual AND that she probably wouldn't love me if I were any. other. way. Especially when we're both in stitches laughing at each other, doubled over so hard that we're crying and our sides hurt. 

I needed this. 
It's only day one of four.
Whoa.

Tomorrow [well, later today, but I'll clarify since this is backdated…. again] we'll be hiking Camelback, eating more food, and gearing up for the debacle that will inevitably be five of us girls at Greasewood Flats: Bluegrass, food, cowboys & mechanical bulls, and a steady flow of libations are sure to generate some tales for the taping…. stay tuned.

Hello, Phoenix. (: 

xo | cmd

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Express @ Edisons : The Work Party (:

Oh, and btw it's 12.12.12! That means absolutely NOTHING, other than in 9 days, we're supposedly all going to be wiped clean off the planet and erased from the state of current existence.

battle gear? mmmk.

Sure. At least I won't have to write any resolutions I won't keep in the first place. It's an even bigger shame that I don't believe in the Mayan hype and therefore can't blame any lethargy or senioritis on the projected end of my existence.

Speakin' of work, we had our official work party tonight, in celebration of our office and all that we do to drive each other nuts on a daily basis (:

Management chose Edison's in Edwardsville. Haha. For those of you who, like me had no idea what that is - it's laser tag [hello, senior pre-prom]. Ali insisted on suiting up in battle gear, so she and her sister showed up equipped with face paint and bandanas. Did we decline? Of course not. I'm unfortunately among the first to jump at the chance to make an idiot out of myself. Usually it's unintentional anywa, so I've just learned to embrace it. Hah.

Anyway, we ate, we drank, we shot each other with some lasers, and we arcaded. It was definitely a step back into the kid side of all of us, but I don't think any of us are ashamed of our inner child.

like an episode of tropic thunder
eep : glen carbon | linda. diana. marc. cori. ali. tonya
redneck holiday blowout. pretty standard stuff.
don't spill. don't...... spill.
possibly my favorite from the evening...
edison's point system hard at work...
I love these people, even the ones that drive me up one side of a wall and down the other. We've all got something of a dysfunctional relationship, but that works for us and we've come to terms with each other's quirks.

Merry early Christmas, friends!!

xo | cmd

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Head Over Heart


That didn't happen until about 1:30 AM [yeah, busters, this is backdated.... DEAL w/ it]..

At this very second, I'm exhausted in every facet of the word; this is sure to be blunt.... I have a history of exposing those nerves when my filters are down.

Here's the thing:

Without divulging too much about where I am on an emotional play-by-play, I'll start by saying that I have about a million +1 faults on which I need to start focusing. I know none of us are perfect, but then again I've always believed that to be a term relative to the eyes of each individual beholder. Even so, I am, generically speaking, still a stone's throw outside of what most people would think to be even close to that.

I'm a freaking mess.
+ I've been attracting company.
+ I'm paying for it now.

I'm still brushing off the grains of sand left over from that clogged hourglass that finally busted in my hands. I couldn't save my marriage, but what was worse was that I spent an exorbitant amount of time just existing within the walls of something that I'd already vacated emotionally. I'm still not sold on what's worse: failing to maintain that type of committment, or failing to admit the reality of it being too late to salvage. Jury's out, indefinitely.

And then there's the risk of idling at a state of emotional nothingness: it's an ugly form of purgatory in which I kind of floated around for months, feeling no hint of yearning, endearment or otherwise descriptive form of attachment to anyone at all in a romantic capacity. Not my husband, but not anyone outside of it all, either. I'm no stranger to internalizing my thoughts, for the sake of exposing some sort of nerve that could unravel me to the core if the wrong person were to touch it, I usually just disappear to that weird corner of my brain that's silent. Either way, I shut down like a seasonal summer job and laid off all those little emotional workers until further notice.

That's always when I get blindsided. You'd think by now I would've learned. Patterns are only patterns if they happen the same way more than once.

Tonight I had to confront a demon of mine that had previously been restrained on the other side of an moat-encircled titanium fortress. I don't feel like shoveling all of the details word-for-word here, but I will summarize it by reminding myself that maturity is acquired by experience, and with enough of it, can be applied even unwillingly to situations that aren't going my way. As I sat avoiding eye contact with someone who is essentially my personality counterpart in dude form, I admitted to me that I had stepped outside that fortress and essentially kayaked across the moat just to lay on the grass and wait for the bugs to bite. There are other people out here besides me, and I am better at observing than actually being observed. It boils down to a respect issue; I think of what I would desire if the tables were turned and I were her and she were me, and my conscience takes over. It makes me sick to hurt people, but above that I start to loathe myself when I impose regret on other people. GOOD PEOPLE.

Sorry doesn't even begin to cut it, even though I've been shushed for it.

Letting go is hard.
Walking away is harder.
Getting in the car and leaving is demonstrated strength. [Thank you.]

- An acknowledging half-smile for you if you've been there.
It 's way too late for me to be attempting to translate the encrypted codes my head and my heart are exchanging. I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and execute a plan of channeling myself wholly into my work, which has always proved to be beneficial [for which I'm grateful]; my most productive days are the ones I'm trying to avoid altogether.. haha. [Laugh with me here; I'm not self-destructive!]

Head over Heart = WIN.
I still have my friend. That's all that matters.
Sometimes that doesn't even happen.
Life's GOOD.

xo | cmd

Monday, December 10, 2012

Friend Shoutout: Jennica

I had a conversation today [in a moment of extreme frustration, weakness and vulnerability] with one of those friends from home who I know without doubt I can trust.

meet jen. miss you, my dear friend!! 
She's one of those girls - those rare girls who can relate to the real stuff in your life. We've been there for each other for years now, and after tonight, I was reminded of just how thankful I am for Jennica [& the handful of friends like her that I have in my life]. 

circa 2008 : super fancy!
Jen lives in Utah now, and I'm more than a little ashamed that I haven't seen her in as long as it's been. 

oh. how. i. love. her.
Long story short, this girl is one of the greatest friends a girl could ever want, and I'm thankful she's mine and that I'm one of hers. Life's too short to go through it without great friends. 

Utah is now officially on my MUST-DO list. SOON. 

Just sayin'. Thanks again, Jen... love you! 

xo | cmd

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Reprise of Charlie...

Remember Charlie?
I watched this this morning after I had a weird dream that I trying to explain this exact video to some random classroom in a nother country, in a foreign language I somehow spoke fluently. No matter how many times I see it, I still laugh.

 
Hope you enjoy it, too :)
 
xo | cmd