After 18 years of being a daughter, and being a friend to my dad,
sometimes
I
still don't
know what to say to him.

But I love him.

I always wonder what'd be like to be married to Bob Dylan.
When he was younger, and changing the world a lot.

I wonder what he'd say, when we got up and ate breakfast. Or when we'd look through the mail. I wonder if he wouldn't speak to me at all, and if we'd hate each other.
If he'd write songs about me. If he would keep a fishtank.

I just wonder what it would be like for the woman that was married to him. I need to read his biography I think.
That's what's next in knowing.

Noah and I have developed a routine for when I leave.
It sounds really juvenile, but I tell him "Bye bye," and then he tells me not to talk to strangers. Then, just like that, I leave.

I don't know how it happened.

But anyways, I love it when the patients that are rude leave. When you come in and notice that their room is empty, and their bed is made and waiting for someone new. Someone nice. Someone who won't ask you to make dentist appointments for them.

I like house sitting so far. I can nap and nobody tells me to do the dishes. Because I don't make any dishes.

I don't seem obvious, do I?

Chewin' all my nails off.
Watching my feet turn white as the blood drains out of them and never comes back. Listening to Jimmy Eat. Wondering when we're ever going to hit take off, in here. I'm getting itchy, getting antsy, getting tired
TIRED
tired
of waiting for you God. Just give me the answers already.
If I'm going to be honest with You, You gotta give me something to hold onto.

So I did go back to bed, you know?
And I stayed there. First I listened to Natalie Merchant and then Rufus Wainright's version of Hallelujah a few times, pulled the covers up over my head, and fell asleep til 2:38. I am afraid of everything at this point. What every day is like, without structure. It makes me nervous thinking about it even right now.

Kelsea got me to leave my bed and follow her around town to Starbucks with Zach and Matt Miller, and then to a series of stores for Christmas shopping. I didn't find anything for anyone else, but bought myself the best of the Pixies. Then we went up to the University, for one of the last times to her dorm, so she could write her R.A. a cryptic note about her leaving for good, put some toothpaste in the holes in the wall, and then came back to our own town for band practice.

So, I like music. And that is one reason to get out of bed, I think. At least today. I'm not so afraid of tomorrow, because of music.

"With your feet in the air and your head on the ground..."
-Pixies

I took just one sip of coffee to take the taste of yucky orange ibuprofen out of my mouth. Then I just sat the mug down and walked away.
I plan on sleeping this morning.

Last night after meeting Ashley for tan Mocha Lattes, we went to Joey's and ate Chinese food and played games with the RockU, and I listened to Killer's all the way home in the rain. It sets a certain mood I think, and driving becomes a tertiary function. That's how accidents happen.
But I pulled in the garage at 11:34 and went to bed without preparing at all for my Finance 1050 exam.

So I woke at 6:30 this morning to do some major assignments that I had either lost or forgotten to do, turned them in, took my test (not having studied for it at all, are you kidding me? Me, study?) and I'm back again, in the kitchen making eggs, and feeling like I have a certain hole in my heart.
The sort of hole that you have when you either feel like you are falling in love, missing someone, or you find out you aren't going on vacation this year.
Like someone used your 1942 Cabernet to marinate steak.
Like your brother drove your car into a sound wall in West Valley.
Like you broke your arm and you don't have health insurance.

Hmmmm. I mean, it's just a little hole. Life will go on, you can still do the dishes. You can take a nap. The morning will still go on being an absolutely gorgeous part of God's creation, but you will go back to bed to fix the hole that aches. That Jesus surrounds, but takes His time filling.

Last night, we all went to a Christmas party at the Whitney's, which was very nice. As always, Josh had some good games picked out for us,
and we all said our goodbyes to
Jake.
Even though he's not leaving for two weeks.
It was like a fairwell party, almost.

BUT THEN, we went to Ben and Andrew's and played cards all night, and walked to Smith's at twelve, to get everything you could possibly need for the best-night-ever. Ben got some Mountain Dew, which even Kelsea drank (even though she doesn't drink pop) and I drank some, even though it was one in the morning, and I was going to take my biology final eight hours later.
So we played Uno and B.S. for hours, watched Andrew play X-box and then we went out to the creepy cellar/laundry room that has no floor, and lots of holes in the walls, and is pretty dang scary. And so Andrew pretended we were locked in of course.
So, it was a really good night.

A really, really good night.

give the gift of long hair this holiday season
greets the marqee of the hair salon on state.

Oh, it's days like this. I've been up for soooooo many hours. I worked a twelve, just because they needed the help, and I've been sort of liking being rich lately. Hmmm, I should work on that.

But what is also very nice is seeing Stranger than Fiction. Again. With your friends, and laughing, and listening to Spoon, and just being okay with things. Being alright and not crying all the way home. I love that.
I love text messages, I love it when my heart stops beating for a minute when I'm eating candy in the dark.

I cut too much hair off again. So I'm putting it up in bobby pins and pretending I didn't.

"Those are bad for you," Kyle told me, referring to my drink at the coffee shop.
"But what isn't, these days?" I asked him, and he shrugged.
I know that I shouldn't consume so much sugar. And I know I should eat food, so that when I have food, I'm not wolfing it down because I'm starving.
"I have the bird flu," Kyle says, coughing.
"I'm really sorry about that, it's pretty bad, isn't it?" And he nods.
So we go sit down and drink our drinks and open our laptops and stare out the window. We don't talk to each other or listen to music. We just sniffle and think about our haircuts.

"We're going to have a party when all this is over," one patient said to me, grinning at me as I walked out the door. I love it when they're happy on sleeping medication.

I breathe caffeine.

And the truth is, I always put a packet of sugar in the fat free yogurt, because they don't taste very good.

"I sure look better with my shoes and my pants on," my ninety-one year old patient assured me at 5am this morning.
He's been trying to convince me for the last hour and a half to go get his shoes and pants, so he can walk around. What he won't understand is that his hip is broken.
He keeps mumbling as I leave, and I can still hear him across the hall.
He's made it completely clear to two nurses, and me, that we are all going to be reported to the authorities for trying to kill him. That he has a tape recorder under his bed, and "all of this is being recorded."

And I remember why I love doing what I do.