Okay, now that I've got all the talking I need out of the way, and in such an extremely condensed way that I feel I could sleep all night now, after having gone through that ordeal, let's get this very clear: I am too young, too immature, too irrational and too inexperienced. I have not been dating Zack long enough, nor have I even known him long enough, nor has he had enough life experience. Yes, he is still in high school, yes, both of us, at current, have crummy, underpaid jobs, yes, I have seemingly yet to resolve my fidelity issues entirely, as well as issues from my romantic past. Your damn right if you think we may have arrived at this illogically, and if you've got something to say about how I was adimant, before, that this kind of thing was not for me, that's because you apparently know me rather well. Oh, yeah, and both he and I are both prone to neurotic, if not psychotic activity- in fact, this is the same guy who used to wear a necklace of my yearbook picture around his neck to get to sleep! I'm the same girl who was sent to Saint Mary's mental ward due to suicide threats on THIS VERY BLOG. Yes, I am his first girlfriend, and yeah, we've only been dating for three months.

But, to get the news out of the way, Zack and I are now engaged. There you have it. So all that shit up there, as well as anything you can feel free to add to the list, can fuck the fuck off. We'll deal. You, on the other hand, have no obligation to.

Congratulations to me, from me, and from relatively no one else. Props to those who have been genuinely supportive, namely Casey, Andrew, Jenn and Jacquie, and the rest of you...well, you've got your oppurtunity now, don't you?

I apologize for the abrasiveness of this post towards those of you who are emotionally vulnerable due to this announcement, but I am going to now commence with being happy for myself and my fiancé because YES, I do love him and YES! he does love me.

On with it.

Another great Casey moment....much as all of them tend to be. It's past due that I mention Casey is the shiznit. So let's go straight to the conversation. It's edited a great deal for content....Casey tends to get told everything, as he's one person I genuinely have no reason to hide anything from. That also means that there are references in there to something that a lot of you don't know about yet, but I intend to everyone about it whom I meant to before announcing it publicly tonight, and I doubt anyone really bothers to read the Casey/Me conversations I post here anyway. Your loss. Casey's the boi, boi!

Linda: you realize it's impossible to read your icon if you don't already know what it says, right?
Casey: yeah, I figured.
Casey: I should have stuck with "cool like adolf"
Linda: nah, hold up a minute
Linda: I designed one that's slightly clearer
Casey: ah. you cropped the opening graphic thing. thanks.
Linda: haha, yeah, designed wasn't really the right word
Linda: but it shows better
Casey: it does, thanks.
Linda: I could actually design one...
Casey: don't worry about it. get a hobby. obsess about your fiancé.
Linda: you know what sucks, is tic tac toe
Linda: no one ever fucking wins, and if they do, it's inevitably because they had the first turn and got the middle square
Casey: word
Linda: why would I obsess over my fiancé? He's not even somebody that I could potentially cheat on him with...
Casey: hahah.
Linda: I've decided that what I should do- and what I probably won't end up doing out of sheer laziness and apathy- is right a handbook for what I am and am not allowed to do
Linda: my biggest problem in a situation where I could cross a line is that I have no idea WHEN that line is crossed until it's glaringly obvious from three miles behind me
Linda: I was thinking about writing a really, really intensive legal-sounding study of what is and is not appropriate, making it into a pamphlet, having people quiz me on it until it was memorized and then carrying around copies to give to people as a quick
explanation when I'm in a potentially infidelous situation
Casey: wow. you've got a problem.
Linda: A week ago, I'd barely evne thought about it my past any longer. But my counselor always used to tell me these things are natural, and they're okay, because I'm still young, and, quote, "this is the reason you don't have a ring on your finger"
Casey: uh-oh
Linda: I'm never even enjoying these thigns by the time they get to the point where it's definitely wrong, because I'm already obsessing over whether or not it's already definitely wrong....it's just that I have a problem stopping things.
Casey: I see. uh, maybe your fiancé should write this manual.
Linda: I don't want him to know I even need a manual
Linda: telling him that I'm afraid of my own weakness to the point of having to obsess over it this much....how afraid is that going to make him?
Casey: maybe write each other manuals. men have a greater tendency to cheat, so he'll assume you're worried about him.
Linda: besides, I can put realistic demands on myself, so long as I'm not in that situation. Looking back on them, I know exactly where they should have stopped.
Linda: ha! ha ha ha!!!
Casey: ok, nevermind.
Linda: firstly, Zack knows very well about my past. Secondly..yeah, he wouldn't cheat on me...he's one of those incredibly devoted guys
Linda: Anyways, I can write a realistic manual. I can give myself leeway to joke around with friends, masturbate to the idea of random strangers, and distract you from ethnography and very clearly rule out anything that will hurt me, him, or anyone
else involved.
Linda: If I had the drive.
Linda: Wanna get paid to write a manual for me?
Casey: I'm a bit backed up in terms of writing right now
Casey: especially when it comes to things I'm not qualified to discuss.
Linda: yeah, but come on, think about it- this is going to get distributed to any and every person that I get into questionable sexual situations with. Your work would be more widely read than Stephen King.
Casey: huh. I'll think about it.
Linda: They'd have it in drawers in hotels, right next to the bible
Casey: ha.
Linda: they'd start distributing it with the phone book
Casey: aite, I've got to go to work now. I'll talk to you later.
Linda: lata. what time you there till?
Casey: uh, 9 I think.
Casey: the duration
Linda: perhaps I'll show, if I can find someone to drag
Linda: preferrably a straight female so I don't cheat on Zack during the car ride
Linda: don't look even vaguely attractive tonight, though- I don't want to lose control and hand you a marker.
Casey: understood.
Linda: later, el casey-nova

So yeah...my humblest apologies if you read that and you happen to be one of the people that I should have addressed certain things that were made obvious in that one-on-one before I could get to you. I assure you, I meant to. But fuck it, saves me the trouble of having to be the bearer of- in your cases- bad news, right?

Ah, I so easily could have edited. I'm an insensitve bitch. On with it.

My love for the number 37 does NOT extend to it's converse- having played MASH online enough times so that I remember, partially, which selections will be chosen for my genuine favorite number (for instance it's always the mansion, and always whatever I put in the first slot for number of kids) I decided it was only fair to mix it up a bit and let fate play it's part. I decided 73 was a logical choice. Motherfucker.

You will live in Shack
You will drive a White Hyundai Elantra.
You will marry Zack and have 3 kids.
You will be a Masseuse in Lewiston.

Aside from marrying Zack, those are by far the worst MASH results I've ever received. I do not want any children, aside from one I plan to adopt late in life, I don't want to be a masseuse for the rest of my life, and I'd rather die than stay in the lisbon area, let alone live in Lewiston- in a shack??? I can put up with an Elantra, even hating white as I do, but my other options were a Porsche, Harley, SAAB, and that new mid-sized Kia SUV thing...maybe it's called a sorrento?

I always put in at least one option I don't really like in every category, because it seems fair, but damn...that sucks. I'm going to use the exact same options I did, but go back and use 37. I already know I'll be living in a mansion, let's find out where, though.

As I'm waiting, I can tell you what it's crossing off- the very first thing it determined is that I will not marry Zack...bastards...Nor Casey....Nor Elorza...oh, man, that makes it down to Jeff and Chad. I'm either a stripper or a Poet....Poet...Chad...Red Harley...no kids...Tijuana.....

I'm going to be a poet living in a Tijuana mansion with Chad and no children, driving a red Harley. I always, always, always get Chad and a Harley. Goddamnit. I'm changing the order of this bullshit, and I'm going to use a totally new number......84.

Some of the options are changed, but I've set it to do it's worse. This is the definitive one, Ladies and Gentlemen. For tonight, anyway. I got dishes to do.

You will live in Mansion.
You will drive a Silver Harley.
You will marry Zack and have 2 (natural) kids.
You will be a Author in Tijuana.

Ahhh dip, it's all good. 'Cept that 2 kids thing....but as long as it's not till our late thirties, and they grow up looking like a perfect cross between their mother and father- a boy and a girl, let's say, the boy with his father's...ah, fuck, his father's everything, except maybe my skin and my hair color. The girl, though, she'll have his gorgeous hair, and my shape of eyes, but bigger, like his. I can't decide on her lips, because I like both of ours, maybe some perfect combination. Characteristically, be independent like me but devoted like him. They'll have my strength and his sensitivity. They'll have my ambition and his work ethic. And they'll be able to speak Spanish, growing up in Tijuana and all, but I'll teach them french and italian (I'll know it by then), and he can send them beautiful foreign poetry that they'll understand better than he does. We'll always tell them how beautiful and intelligent they are, and they'll never have to doubt anything.

Maybe they won't ever have to work at a meaningless job, but I do, so I'm done for now. On with it.

Jeff currently has a story-snippet posted on his blog that's incredibly well-written. Even knowing, as I always have, what he is capable of, I am taken aback by it- the precise vocabulary, the vivid mood, his ability to put so much into so little. Right now, I am wishing I were half the writer he was.

I'm also, however, wishing I weren't at work, so I don't have time to sit around and praise friends and ex-lovers and the like. I must start cooking up a storm.

Big day today, though. Even if not for the fact that I should be working, it's probably best that iron out all the potentially wrinkled edges before going and making the events of this evening public domain....I don't know if that even made sense. I've been awake for 35 straight hours...which isn't as impressive as I thought it would be...but I've got five hours left of my shift, and a fe things to take care of before I can go home and finally find my bed....and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep....

Fucking poem. On with it.