A little more than a year later any wiser?

Where to begin... Well for starters I am the worlds worst blogger, in fact I am surprised I even try, but I do love reading my entries and I recollecting about times I have actually managed to record on this here blog thingy. So alas I will try again.

So what's in a year. Apparently a lot, for starters I moved home to the sprawling metropolis that is Kansas City, Missouri. I can honestly say it's the best decision I've made in years. I started and will complete my Masters in Education in December. I just got a job teaching Art to K-8 graders in a small Catholic School (super pumped for the hilarity that will no doubt ensue). And of course continued down my rapid road towards train wreck city. As I sit now I am currently resting on on cheek as I seemed to have bruised/broken my tail bone in a wee slip off a diving board after enjoying a few beer-skies at some local establishments. Kids do not drink and dive... no really don't. I am actually incredibly lucky I didn't do anything worse. Perhaps another self imposed hiatus? Only time will tell.

I have been enjoying an incredible group of girl friends who are just as crazy and carefree as me. We have been on Slam-Piece Mission 2k11 all summer, consider it an extension of Mission Make-Out or Destination Robert Downey Jr., or any other boy crazy period in my life. I must say I am enjoying it, meeting a variety of intriguing men who range in height, style, and just about everything else. I can honestly say this Summer has been one of the most fun in my life, even with the sad postponement of my Australia Trip due to the new job.

Most of all I must say the biggest perk of my return is getting to spend all the time I want with this little nugget:

My niece Mary Jane. I know and have read all the stories about people falling in love with their children the moment they are born, and for once I actually agree with a cliche. I have loved this little lady since the days she was born and continue to only love her more as I see her personality develop into a little person. She literally makes my day on a regular basis and I can't imagine being 9 hours away from her.

So yes this was an abbreviated sum up of oh about 15 months but you get the picture. Until next time, which will hopefully not be in 15 months, adios compadres.

I have an excuse...

Don't I always. This time it's a keeper though. I was blacked out most of the weekend and therefor unable to blog for all you ladies and gents. My big going away party was in fact a big success. I don't remember signing out my tab or anything that followed but I know I had a great time and that is thanks to my fantastic crop of crazy friends I have here in this delightful city.

Other highlights from the weekend- The return of beloved nose piercing, now that I am a student again I can pull it off, my entire 6 hour love-fest with RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo. That's right I watched RuPaul's Drag Race for 6 full hours and don't regret one moment of it. Okay so I was hungover and completely unable to reach for the remote in my state but I loved this show. Everyone knows I love a good Drag Queen, after living in Boystown for two years I have witnessed more knock down drag (no pun intended) out fights, big boobs, and running mascara, it felt like I was watching my version of "Who Are The People in Your Neighborhood". Ru you are fierce and I love everything about you especially when your tag line is "Don't Fuck this Up." A little harsher then Tim Gunn's "Make it Work" but I love it and you.

Now suffering from the infamous two day hang over I will retire from typing as my brain most certainly will explode. As Ru would say it's time for me to "Sashay Away".

A day at the races... well sort of.

So last night as noted I attended a Lost watch party at a local bar. What I failed to remember until I was literally sitting there 3 hours early with a miller lite (it was a special, not my choice) that this bar was in fact an off track betting establishment. So as I waited for Kiera I surveyed the scene, and boy was it a scene. The split was about 50/50 day traders and slightly homeless looking people. I was the youngest by at least 20 years. So far this Lost party seemed to have lost me.

As Kiera arrived and surveyed the scene we tried using one of her new I-phone apps that allows you to take several pictures with anyone noticing because it looks like you are talking on your phone. Needless to say it was not quite accurately capturing the crowd so too bad for you all no pictures of this said crowd.

As 7pm neared a couple of Losties showed up, the first equally as confused as us to what this is all about in her mid to late 30s. She was one of those people who always tries to start up conversations with people they don't know. The second a super dork for the ages and clearly a repeat offender of this event. The crowd was looking grim and not at all as described in the metromix review. People continued to trickle in as we were forced to watch dancing with the stars in surround sound and in walked the king dork with his super sweet "Bolt", yes the Disney dog, shirt. The only possible way this could get better is if the table next too us reserved for 6 guys who "can't speak English but can read it" was some quorum of hot dutch supermodels. No such luck, they weren't bad looking, but not good looking (we were still the hottest things in the whole bar) and they were Russian.

Finally Lost started and man was it a good one, love that Desmond. And lucky for these jokers they stayed quiet the whole time so I didn't have to beat anyone. 4 beers and turkey sliders later it was over and Kiera and I walked home. Needless to say we won't be repeat customers.

Blame it on the rain...

Yeah I forgot yesterday, but like Milli Vanilli I am blaming it on the rain. I love stormy nights and I love nothing more then sleeping during them. So yes, I fell asleep with out posting my blog from yesterday.

So less than a week in I have already missed a day, too bad I can't back date this thing. But hey I am right back on the horse and that's what counts. My blog yesterday was going to be about how I recently started following Jesus on twitter (@Jesus). Needless to say the character behind this twitter is hilarious. I am a Catholic person but hey if you can't have sense of humor about religion it can be a very scary thing. For all of you twatters out there (that just sounds gross) follow @Jesus, its well worth your time. Case and point friday's tweet -"Just hanging around"- awful yet amazing all at once.

Today post is about how I had the most amazing thing just happen to me. It was almost like finding gold at the end of the rainbow. Comcast is giving me 25.76 back... Yes you heard right they are paying me, between this and the CTA I might just have died and gone to heaven. Too soon @Jesus? For all of you apartment dwellers out there I am hoping for some kind of credit to come to me from my landlord making it the perfect trifecta of amazingness. We shall see.

I am off to a "Lost" watch party at a bar tonight. I will have to see how it goes as normally when people talk during "Lost" I want to punch them in the face. So everyone cross their fingers that there will be no battery charges pressed tonight.

3 Weeks left in Chicago, I can't believe this is actually happening!

Sugar High

Kids on sugar should be monitored closely, I however am not a good guard at that gate. Instead I am currently watching "The Princess and The Frog" with two sobbing children coming off a serious sugar high.

I made my triumphant return to twitter today, and quiet frankly overwhelmed. There is no way I can read a month worth of tweets, so sorry twitter folk, I am just picking it up from now.

Cute line of that night, two year old Allison saying she wanted to sit next to me because "she just loves me so much". Makes the wailing slightly less agitating.

Happy Easter all!

Engagement Season

Another one bites the dust, I say this clearly as a joke because I am in fact very happy for my friends who are currently getting engaged. But what is it about late March/early April that sends people marching down the aisle. I get the Christmas/New Years engagements but I guess it could be that a lot of people start dating in the start of spring when we head out of winter hibernation so this I guess could explain the phenomenon. I've had 4 friends get engaged in the last two weekends.

It makes me begin to wonder, since college I have not dated 1 person for longer then about two weeks. Does this mean I have relationship ADD or perhaps am too judgy or impatient to just let things flow? I don't know, but being the girl that everyone thought would get married first I am certainly no where close to the top half of my friends. Am I happy or sad I have made that kind of commitment yet? I am not really sure. I feel immediately happy when my friends announce their engagements and then there is a bit of a sense of dread that I am perpetually single. I mean to be honest I would love to be at that stage in my life right now, but for whatever reason things just didn't go as planned. So instead I fall into the always the bridesmaid never the bride category as of late.

I can sympathize with the lead character in 27 dresses. For much of my adult life I have been in love with two people, both who I will never be with, so instead I have spent most of my time talking myself out of other relationships and keeping myself busy just helping other people get married. I have pointed out that I am in fact "Good Luck Chuck" every guy I have dated from high school on has married the girl he dated after me. Does this make me a lucky charm, a cursed person? I don't know. Needless to say for a girl who works at a Psychology School I certainly could take a trip down the hall to get this all sorted out.

But then there is the stubborn Irish woman in me that says, wait a tick, maybe I am just fine the way I am and haven't found Mr. Right. That could be in fact correct, but needless to say if I see one more status change on Facebook I might die... (okay that's dramatic) But it is starting to stink being in the back of the pack, my friends are entering a new and awesome stage in their adult life and they want to be friends with people in the same stage of life. I have seen it before with my older brothers friends. The few friends of his who are not married with kids yet feel somewhat left behind in perpetual young adulthood, (which I believe does have it's perks), but can end up looking like one of my second cousins who is 50+ and still acts 20 looking for the next gig (his photography career is still almost "taking off") and the next beer.

So on this Easter Eve, I ask all my readers out there (all 2-4) what are your thoughts on this subject, do you get excited when friends get engaged? Do you get enraged? Depressed? All I know is that I wish I had the excuse that my thriving career was taking up my time, instead my only excuse is I like to go out and get loaded with my friends (which I will never regret!).

So you thought I forgot did you...

Well I almost did but have now fear, I am here to blog you into boredom.

Last night I once again went out for some adult beverages with girl friends from work, only this time we stayed classy and went to a great river north Irish bar called The Kerryman. Lucky for us (and them) the beer special was too good to pass up. So we stayed, we drank, we judged girls going to Manor on a Thursday night looking like 10 cent hookers. Our waiter, who I called River due to his resemblance to the late actor River Phoenix, was a peach! Cute and chivalrous, he saved me from a near epic fall. Classic.

This afternoon we went to our new favorite Friday lunch spot Mafia Salads. No it's not really called Mafia salads we just call it that because it looks like it's front for some seedy extra curricular activities. Needless to say they make great salads, or if you are me a delicious "Grown Up" grilled cheese. We proceeded to people watch and I explained my mother's tendency to make up back stories for people she is people watching. For example, when we were kids and my parent would take us to Royals or Chiefs games my mom would tell us that all the concessions people were actually families and that the O'Riley family used to be the beer people but then they all had a drinking problem so now they are on peanut duty. And this explains why I grew up to be such a people watching enthusiast and can make up a back story for my fake alter-ego when out and about on town in moments.

We also discussed sibling fights and how entertaining they are especially as you age. We all agreed that the pinch and twist or the leg hair pull are the only way to combat older brothers and that we still get in silly fights with our siblings to this day. My older brother Joe and I got in to a fight a couple years ago (he was probably 23 and I was 21) over the remote and like the adults we were at the time I ran away with the remote with him in hot pursuit (mind you there is a tv in every damn room of my parents house.) Forgetting that my mom had just had the carpets cleaned we sailed through the living room in socked feet and proceed to continue on into the kitchen and boom, flat backed, cut to the both of us lying on the kitchen floor the remote in pieces. Needless to say I don't think siblings ever grow up.

Today its out to dinner with Emily and Kiera and then tomorrow I am out to Naperthrill to hang with my cousin and her kids one last time for Chicago Easter. There is no doubt hilarity will ensue.