Home for Thanksgiving

After 2 hours stuck in traffic it finally picked up a bit on our way out of Boston. I guess everyone flees Boston the first chance they can. It's not that Boston isn't wonderful, it is, but it is SO irritating too. I could write an entire post on how to find food in Boston, not the precooked kind. Well, actually I could do one on restaurants too. There's this great little Thai place...

I digress.

Our 3 1/2 hour trip was exactly 2 hours longer than it should have been. It was so long that Gerd actually broke down and had a McDonalds hamburger. I can tell you that, for him, that's like pouring acid down your throat, willingly.

But yay, we made it, to find out that we'd be taking over Mom and Wally's bedroom because they had to fire their handy man. They've been putting a new bathroom in upstairs and they guy pretty much left a side of their house exposed to the outdoors for a week, in winter. They're just plain lucky it hasn't snowed yet. Anyway we said we didn't care if it was frigid upstairs (which it is) or that there isn't any electrity (which there is not). We would rough the elements, but my parents being my parents said no, we're guests.

Guests, in my parents house. Nope, not really. Gerd's the guest, they'd stick me on the floor in a sleeping bag. But it's nice that they're so considerate to my guy. I think they're afraid to drive him away, now that I've got a keeper :)

So today we head over to the Big Family Thanksgiving full of New Yorkers who talk over themselves regularly. Perhaps they just wanted to make sure Gerd had enough beauty sleep before trying to understand 14 people talking at the same time, in English of course.

I suppose I should write something sappy about what I'm giving thanks for this Thanksgiving, but I'll save that for another post. No I won't, I give thanks for everything. Still sappy. Oh well.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Relationships

I am so glad I'm with Gerd. Besides all of the lovey dovey stuff, the fact that he floats my boat, so on and so forth, I am so glad not to be single anymore.

Okay there are days when I miss some things about singlehood. Not because we argued or anything, we almost never argue. I'm just used to being alone and it's familiar to me. I'll never get my solar power green house with a self-sustaining garden near my mother's house now. But maybe I wouldn't have been able to have it all on my own either.

I've had a lot of failed relationships. Most of the time it was me ending things because things didn't seem right or we were going in different directions. True, I've been dumped too. It took me YEARS to get over Devon. I was engaged, he was married, and STILL it was hard to be around him. But despite all of these different men in my life I've never felt so connected to anyone, ever. It's almost a bit scary, because I know we're in it for good. I know it's not going to be easy, although it's easy right now. And I know he feels the same way. Definitely scary.

We have a common friend who is unhappily single. He keeps asking me what women want and what he can do to find the right woman. Hell if I know. I mean, meeting Gerd was a complete fluke, and I almost didn't go out with him a second time. He didn't know how long he would stay in Boston, he was east German and I was in the military with clearances, I didn't know if I should take the chance. Sure glad I did.

So our friend doesn't know how to naturally pick up a girl without either being completely obvious or a little creepy. He's a perfectly nice guy, he just isn't the best at social situations. For instance, he met a girl at a conference, they chatted, he felt that she was interested in him, but they parted without contact information. He claims he didn't go farther because he was a conference, and who picks women up at conferences, that she lived in NYC, and why look for a long distance relationship, that he got interrupted by a colleague, and he didn't have the opportunity to get her number. SO, he found her on the internet. She had mentioned what school she went to, he knew her name, he easily found her on Facebook.

Now, maybe it's just me, but I don't particularly like to be researched on the internet. Not that there's much about me out there. A google search for Bethany Vaughn yields multiple hits, but not for this one. And I thought my name was unique. As far as I'm concerned he missed his chance, a girls got to know a guys interested, and brushing her off because he was thinking too much isn't really a turn on. Anyway, maybe someone else would think it's flattering. He says they "shared a moment". Well, sometimes moments last and sometimes they're just pleasant moments in time that make life move along just a little smoother. Who knows though, maybe they'll connect on Facebook. Facebook is a whole different blog waiting to happen.

All I can say is, glad I'm done with that.

fur skin guilt

So, I love IKEA. I love walking in and seeing all the modern edges and decorations. I wish I could just transport some of their model rooms into my house. Honestly, I think I missed my calling, I wish I'd studied interior design. Okay, maybe not, but I do really like decorating.

During my last trip to IKEA I bought stuff to make the spare bedroom more of a room and less of a closet and, when picking out a rug for the floor I saw a fur skin rug that I thought would look great downstairs in front of the fireplace. I tend to get distracted from time to time.

Anyway I got everything home, it all looks great, yada yada, and then I realize the fur skin rug really is a fur skin rug.

I mean, why would I think that a sheep skin rug at IKEA really is the real deal. It's meant to look nice, but overall IKEA seems to try to be as green and friendly as possible.

So I keep telling myself that surely the rug distributors used the rest of the sheep for some sort of food like purpose and the skins would otherwise be used somehow else or thrown away. Yet I feel guilty, like by buying the rug I created the demand for animal slaughter.

My cats really, really like it though. They curl up in it and purr, and often sniff, lick, and kneed the rug whenever we're sitting nearby.

So I guess I'm keeping it, because really, what else is there to do? I guess I could sell it on craigslist, but it's not like suddenly there's one less sheep skin rug in the world. Now I'm wishing that I'd just thought before I bought. As usual I got an idea and ran for it, not really contemplating what I was doing.

But it stays, and it looks nice (if you don't mind dead carcasses on the floor) and it's definitely warm. I guess the best thing you can do with something that is a bit of a waste is use it and appreciate it so that at least it has some purpose. My cats definitely appreciate it.

Christmas shopping

Why is it that I keep spending money when I really shouldn't. I mean, I'm not bankrupt yet, and I do have savings, but lets face it, I don't have a job and who knows when I'll get one. Okay I know why, it's Christmas, but still.

So, in the past week I've bought:

- Christmas gifts for the boyfriend, not the fun ones, the boring he needs it stuff
- Stocking stuffers for both mothers. Small things that were WAY more than I expected
- A snowboard, boots, and bindings (used for $100) so I can switch out my binding and give Gerd my spare snowboard parts. (not a Christmas gift, but it should be)
- Four books, one calendar, and one magazine...I knew I should have stayed out of the book store. (only one was a Christmas gift, the others were MINE MINE MINE)
- Christmas subscriptions for my step-sister and friend.

So I would have liked to keep this year's Christmas budget to $200, but I blew that. Not only am I already above the limit, I have TONS of presents still to buy.

Arg. I love Christmas, I hate Christmas, when do I get to put up the Christmas lights?

Gay pride day and a panic attack

Sometimes I forget that I really do have Post Traumatic Stress. I can go months without any real problems. Sure I get stressed on a regular basis, but mostly it's manageable, or at least not anything worse than others go through.

But then there are the days that remind me that I have a problem. Today was one of those days. It started out okay, I began to substitute teach for CFS again, in a 3rd grade classroom. They had an assembly today, a Gay Pride Day assembly with the entire school and guests from the community. While I never deal well with crowds I was doing pretty well. We got through songs and speeches, but during the last song, We are Family, as everyone began to form a conga line someone set off firecrackers.

Fireworks of any time are a horrible trigger for me. I know I shouldn't break down in tears, it's not even logical that I have such a hard time with them. In Iraq I never even flinched as mortar fire came down. Still here I freak out, which I did as I tried to flee the gym before breaking out in tears. I almost made it, but not quite.

I don't know what's worse the knowledge that I can't control my own reactions to a perfectly safe sound or the embarrassment of others seeing me loose my cool. Perhaps it's the fear that people will believe that I'm damaged, which of course I am, but I don't want to admit, or it's a feeling of failure that I wasn't able to take care of myself enough to prevent the situation from occurring.

If I was dealing with the stress of not finding a job and of writing my thesis better would I still have broken into tears at the sound of poppers? If I were exercising regularly and meditating would I still panic? I know healthy things for me to do and yet I don't seem to do them.

The school nurse suggested a shot of Ecstasy. Really. Apparently clinical trials show that one dose of the drug eliminates PTSD. I'm a bit sceptical of any easy fix, although it would be nice to never have to deal with panic attacks again. I'm more likely, however, to continue to try my more holistic approaches.

Job search driving me crazy

Since I got out of the Army I don't have a job anymore. For a change I decided to substitute teach at a Quaker school in Cambridge. I got to watch kids out out the Treaty of Versailles today. There was chaos, it was wonderful. Darcy did a great job with the kids and it made me so sad that I don't have my own classroom.

I've been in a panic all day thinking about not having a job. I know I can't really find one yet, not until Gerd and I get back from our Christmas trip to Europe, but that doesn't stop me from worrying. And, might I mention, I still have a master's thesis hiding in the wings waiting to be written.

It was enough to give me hives. Yep, really, big ugly welts all over my body. Actually it all started last week and I was drugged with Benedryl all weekend attempting to sooth my skin. They appeared to be going away, until I took a hot shower. Apparently that's the worst thing ever you can do for a rash. Anyway, I seem to wake up itchy get better through the day and then go to bed scratching again. And today's stress, that's right, today's stress caused more welts to appear.

But have I mentioned that I have the ultimate best boyfriend in the entire universe. Usually he thinks I want something when I speak like that, but it's true. He's pretty awesome. Yesterday when he came home he played love songs on his guitar for me, and tonight he tried to get my computer to hook up to the TV so I could watch yesterday's NCIS episode on the "big screen".

He tells me I'm not going to end up destitute on the street. He even said that if I don't find anything by next year we could always go back to my job in New Mexico. I figure he thinks he's safe because surely even I can find a stable job within a year...but it's nice to hear. As much as I love New Mexico he knows there's no way I'd last that long without finding something, anything, to keep me busy. Otherwise I'd be tempted to not find a job.

But there are too many shoes that need a good home for me to be unemployed, so no need for concern.

Why don't I write anymore?

When I was traveling though Europe I used to send big long e-mails to all of my friends. Some of them were even interesting. The point was, I wrote...a lot. My e-mails were long rambling accounts of things I'd encountered along the way. And then I stopped traveling...and therefore stopped writing.

Expect I didn't really stop traveling.

So, what I mean by that is I'm not on some long adventure living in a foreign country, instead I have a home, and a boyfriend, and 3 cats. So instead of one huge trip, I take multiple little trips regularly.

A traveler really can't stop traveling. Although I did try.

I bought a house. I kept one job for two years. I set up a retirement account.

But as usual, it didn't last.

The only difference was, I wasn't writing it all down. I never told the story about how I contrived to get a plot in Boston's Victory Gardens, and when I got it, it came with a duck we named Charlie. And I never mentioned my move to Boston and the three different houses I've lived in during the past year. Now that I think about it, I still owe Fitchburg some library books.

So who knows, maybe I can keep writing. Life is one big trip.