hula hoops and hampster wheels

I've never spent so much ime in bed for one whole weekend - I've slept hours and hours on end, watched the movies I picked up on friday night which included: The Jane Austen Book Club, American Gangster, No Reservations and Once --- which was about music or somthing, & I fell asleep almost immediately after pushing play. You guessed it -- I'm sick. I'm pretty sure it's an ear infection/sinus infection because when ever I yawn or burp like the delicate flower I am, my ears pop and I feel better for maybe 5 minutes.

I'm drinking lots of tea, honey/lemon water --- I'm considering torturing myself with the clove of garlic. I'm off to run to the store to get some OTC medicine. I'm sick of mucus so I think I"m going to have popsicles and oj for dinner -- maybe some crackers since I need my carbs. Maybe I'll make soup -- ahhh I'm too lazy to actually make soup today, I might open and heat up a can of soup. Not the same I know. I know this next part will come as a complete shock -- I'm sick of diet coke. I've been drinking water - tea and oj like crazy. Gatorade sounds good right now -- ok I better go to the store and stock up on supplies.

I'm blaming Day Light Savings.

So my birthday is coming up -- and I've been recalling the best and worst of the birthdays of the past.

The worst birthday -- by far was 2004. I was in Winona, my friends had moved away - my parents forgot it was my birthday -- kind of hard since it's my Grandma's birthday as well -- but they forgot to call anyway -- I walked to the grocery store, picked up a round birthday cake -- and ate the whole thing while watching Seinfeld re-runs.

My kindergarten birthday party was fantastic -- my parents hauled me and my friends to the Chucky Cheese in a Motorhome and we ate pizza and played games.

Once in awhile my birthday will fall on Easter -- it's happened twice so far, once when I was 8 or 9 and I spent the Saturday before out with my Grandma -- we went shopping and I sat on the Easter Bunny's lap for a picture. The second time it fell on Easter -- was not so fantastic -- it was my 21st birthday -- and since I was older than most of my friends -- I ended up going to the Gay 90's with 2 underage friends but it was ok since it was 18+ night and one of the friends sister drove us there --- and I was inebriated - gone with the wind, or two sheets to the wind -- and apparently I was sharing my drink and was kicked out. We went back to the friends house- and then we got up at 4 in the morning -- only for me to drive us back to Winona, hung over --- and tired and I had to work at 7:30. Not so much fun.

The following year included one two many drinks as well and I learned the valuable lesson that one should not eat macaroni and cheese after consuming large quantities of alcohol -- as it will liquefy and want a show stopping exit. I hate to vomit, so lesson learned.

Last year for my birthday -- I had a quite weekend away at Gwen's -- I probably disappointed her - because my loud obnoxious drinking phases has ended --- I can still be loud and obnoxious mind you-- I'm just not a good drinker -- a couple beers or a couple bloody mary's and I'm good.

I don't remember a lot of my earlier birthdays -- or they all blur together -- a bunch of girls watching Annie or some other cheesy movie in sleeping bags out in the living room floor, I remember going to a religious shrine and meeting a bishop for my birthday, I was thrilled then - but I was also probably 8 -- how lame were my parents!

Once thing has remained constant --- my mother is obsessed with getting multiple birthday cards --- I've also adapted this practice - but I limit myself to two, she will get 8 -- and we get a birthday card each day for the week of our birthdays.


This year for my birthday --- I just want to go out to dinner and cuddle on the couch with Dave watching some wonderful Monday night TV- -- it's bad enough my birthday is on a Monday. God knows I don't need the cake or the fuss -- maybe some anti wrinkle cream? OK not yet.

Ok so I can be a sap sometimes. Dave & I went to Stillwater last month - and while we were there - we went into a couple antique shops -- and my favorite thing to look at - all though lame and uncovetted are the post cards -- more specifically the post cards with messages on them -- I could probably sit and mill through these all day looking for some torrid love affair, some thoughtful expression of tenderness from miles apart -- but most of the time it's about the weather and the affairs of the day-- that's life though, it all boils down to the weather and tedious things we do.

Sooo as my procrastination project from writing the book I've almost completed and outline for -- I'm working on a epistolary novel --- a novel of just letters, one sided as though the reader was the receiver of the letters -- so the it would be epistolary and 2nd person narrative... I'm not sure if it will work -- I'm basically assuming the reader is my lover,(since they are after all love letters) but I can't assume the reader knows anything because in the 2nd person narrative the letter is the only source of information.

So I started out trying to write a love letter to Dave, but all I can do is picture him rolling on the floor laughing at me being Super Sap -- I send him greeting cards -- and they are short and sweet - sometimes funny.

So I've been doing some research looking for perfect love letter -- not to mock up and send to Dave -- I 'll stick to my greeting card practices there -- but for my epistolary novel.

Love Letters :

Civil War Letters:
http://spec.lib.vt.edu/cwlove/

Amusing Letters:
http://www.girlfriendstealer.com/index.php?name=News&new_topic=9

Some odd love letters: click on the color boxes to read:
http://www.sleeptrip.com/300loveletters/2.html

I'm still not finding what I want to read --- probably cause a love letter -- when written correctly has to appeal to the humanity of the reader. Maybe I have no humanity? Nah, I'm just finding crap -- total crap.

For those of you who know --and those of you don't I have been the recipient of some horrible - cheesy love letters from someone we'll call B -- they arrived daily at my mailbox, and were filled with god awful poetry and ungrammatical sentence structure -- i.e. the never ending sentence. Anyways -- it's always nice to get mail -- -but the love letter should be the once in awhile occurrence as opposed to the daily annoyance.

Maybe -- I should do a book on post its -- what we write on post its -- I'd probably have more success finding adequate post its for inspiration...

Soooo main character Gladys has some details,

She's a nurse at a small town hospital --- think Winona or Princeton or something equally as small. She loves her job, but she's not the best at it, she klutzy and is alway knocking over bed pans, running into wheel chairs and basically any inatimate object found on earth, and she's known as The Bruiser when it comes to drawing blood and inserting IVs. But she's great at listening and caring for people and she's smart when it comes to working in the field -- she just lacks finess.
She a little chubby -- think size 12, which is really not that chubby morelike standard -- but you know everyone thinks in terms of the size 0 -- per societies lame, yet perpetual shove of unrealistic-unhealthy ideal down the throats of the american public at large -- ok off my soap box -- so she's not Barbie, probably Barbie's opposite, she's shorter - 5-4 ish , (in my book that's tall!) brown curly hair that -- (has a frieghtful reaction to humidity) modest bust size, she's not ample, but she's not concave (all though, that could explain her klutziness?) She likes to run and go canoeing on the river, but refuses to do aerobics cause the thought of spandex freightens her. She has blue eyeballs and a cute nose. Her overall appearance is that of everywoman -- not a super model , un-super model, tv star, heck she's not even an anchorwoman -- but then again she wasn't beaten with an ugly stick either.
She lives alone, ok she has a pet --- a pet rabbit, FooFoo who is always escaping, hiding and destroying but she loves him and so she tolerates his quirks. Her home is a quaint house, she had a hypochondriac of a patient leave it to her in her will, the woman had ailments miles long and no family to tell them to so with her frequent visits to the hospital Gladys and Ruby build a friendship as Ruby lives vicareously through Gladys tales of an almost-but not quite 30 something. But as funny as some of Ruby's ailments or suspected ailments are -- she gets ill and passes and she leaves her small stucco home and tacky furnishings to Gladys. And Gladys misses her - so she leaves some of the furnishings including the pink bath room as Gladys left them. She tries to bea good homeowner --- but she has a several disastorous episodes, but with the help of her new friend Louis who happens to work at the local lowes/home depot/ menards/ hardware/ lumber / home improvement extravagza store.
She's dating -- she's had a series of boyfriends - dates and flirations but everything seems to back fire -- until she meets mystery man --and decides to give up on the whole love thing all together. or alternatively -- she falls in loves - puts a picket fence around her tiny home and grows cabbage patch kids... haha ok just kiding. Ok so I don't know how the love life is going to play out exactly....
She's got the best friends -- Fran, Leila, Delaney they plan a trip to go to Seattle for some ridiculous coffee bean enthusiatist hobby she has. They have mini- adventures annually and Gladys' friend Delaney sends a scrapbook to her each year. She has friends from town, friends from the hospital, friends from college and childhood friends that pop in and out of Gladys life -- but on a daily basis she feels a little alone -- since she's not married, not putting up the white fence and not poping out babies -- this is why she enjoys the company of Ruby so much -- because she's old and alone -- and aside from being a little medically confused she's had a great life. But Gladys still likes to live vicarsouly through her friend Sheila and her tormented marriage... Roger and his litany of boy toys, Anna and her swelling baby belly and pastel addiction. And of course several other people and almost cliched situations --- I know this part needs work.

But it's progress so far even if it is all rough and somewhat scattered.