pepper the perpetually slobbery dog... 

zoe the sad little muzzled dog 

pablo the cat waves earnestly to the camera. 

one of the frogs we raised last spring 

yipee I was born!

it's my birthday on Monday. yeah, Happy Birthday and all, thanks. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for all the joy (on the same day the people I babysit for made me a cake and so did my roommates, yes, it's really very nice of them, very nice), the cards in the mail, the gifts and stuff, or cliched because I feel old turning 28, but yeah, it's my birthday.

the only thing I am happy about is the fact that because its my birthday, all my friends and some of my family are willing to convene together and spend time with me. tomorrow at 11am, we're going to the bar down the alley and we're gonna have a birthday brunch in my honor.

I don't have any other plans for the brunch because with the number of people and the kind of people they are, I just can't tell how the day is going to go. I'm, for once in my life, comfortable enough to say that I'm going to wing the whole thing.

anyway, I hope everyone who comes doesn't take it upon themselves to bake me a birthday cake because then I'll be eating cake for breakfast lunch and dinner for a while.

to me it seems like there's really nothing accomplished about having a birthday, you know it's not like I got a book published or graduated college, then I'd really want some celebrating and such.

it's like instead of saying happy birthday they should say, "hooray, you managed to stay alive another year!"

thank you thank you, though some of the credit has to go to my mom and the people who love me who put up with me and love me anyway.

cheers.

your best bet on a long bus ride through Indiana 

the brewing vats (all used equipment) 

bourbon beer at bell's brewery 

did fresh air just waft into my life?

yesterday, I worked a shift for a friend at a different location of the sbux. It was the best time I've had working for the corporate giant to date. All because of a vibrant young man who knew everyone's name and who everyone seemed to know, his candor and glee as he worked was so infectious and so different than the staff at my store (with the exception of maybe the half hearted humor of two people) that I found myself actually enjoying my time and was not exhausted for the rest of the day, even though I had only four hours of sleep and worked at 4:45 a.m.!

I always enjoy meeting new people, maybe because of my job I've just grown accustomed to it and learned to like it, but I especially like the idea of meeting someone who exudes a sense of comfortableness with themselves and their surroundings, someone who is amazingly articulate and intelligent and someone who makes me laugh. I told someone that he is like the male version of me and that I want him to be my best friend. Of course I only want to be friends with people who are just like me. Funny, irreverant, bright, good natured, and yet, contradictorily, sensitive and irritable, and hopelessly misanthropic.

It seems I've already gotten my wish, as he invited me to see an offbeat play at an out of the way theater today, and I enthusiastically agreed to go.

of course, the delicate issue of my being boyfriended happened to not come up. I suppose as a girl who delights in others I may have given him the wrong idea. I suppose as a guy who is single, he may have gotten the wrong idea. I know it is lame to say, but I just didn't know how to bring it up without making things all weird. I really didn't intend on not telling him. as this has happened before, and sometimes has turned out none too badly, resulting in some of my very good friends (like Lehn and Pete, for instance), I am hopeful that all will be well.

I am just not very good at dealing with the hot potato of being liked. Sometimes at bars, I have very long interesting conversations with men who are drunk and looking for a good time and I innocently prattle on and on until they ask me for my phone number. I'm too modest to think that they might actually like me, too embarassed to point out that they shouldn't, and don't handle the boyfriend as pertinent information for fear that they might feel somehow rejected. anyway, it is not a big deal. I think that the most adult logic I've formed about the whole affair of male female relationships is just because you like someone or you're attracted to them (physically or mentally) doesn't mean you have to sleep with them.

yes, I said adult.