Ahm a 'Merican. Ahr yoo 'Merican 'nuff ta hand'lit??
lol.
Had a little "birth day" get together last night (Saturday) with my whole Chicago family (sans friends :( sadly), as most of them are busy any other weekend this month. 2 full families, 2 grandparents, and then me - 11 of us in total. Just did a good ole' 'Merican cook-out - loaded cheeseburgers, hot dogs, baked beans (omg yum), prolly the worst potato salad ever purchased :P, lime-aid, and corn chips & salsa. Got everything grilled-up outside JUST before the day's threatening clouds dropped their load of rain on us.
It just seemed like a get-together until there was actually a chocolate-frosted white cake in front of me, with 27 candles on it... That has been the only moment so far I've registered "OMG I'm turning 27 years old!!!!"
I keep coming back to this because I keep trying to repeat it enough times to myself to make it real. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem at all possible.
I totally feel age 26. I'm cool with 26. 26 I can handle.
27 just seems SO amazingly foreign, and I can't even tell why. It seems as if it would be on par with a family of real live Wookies moving in across the street, and waving to me as they carried in groceries - as if it were all perfectly normal. THAT is how odd "27" seems to me.
Anyways... it was nice & low-key fun & had some laughs with my 4 boy cuzins :) Got to see Stuie, finally - haven't seen him since last time I was in the city, and even if that's only been a week or 2, it seems like FOREVER to me, out here, alone, in suburbia.
It's been all over the news today, but the tornado action & destruction they've been mentioning for "the MidWest" was actually pretty close to us here, I guess. Sky looked threatening all day, for sure - I never saw anything, but "Will County" is apparently where I am located these days, and it's where some of the tornadoes hit :P
I love weather.
I am a huge fan of our atmosphere, and Natural physical world.
Maybe it's why I don't actually feel scared at all, even when I say things like, "Ooh.. that's scary that it's near us." I sort of just go into "safety alert mode" - years of life with "flood watches" and snow storms and watching heat-lightning filled skies from the porch of my house in my hometown of Warsaw, NY (Genesee Valley) later combined with camping as a kid, then camping as a counselor who was responsible for the safety of others beyond my self - and it's all just an easy acceptance of the world as it works. It's not some angry God or even a benign one - it's just the Flow, the Real, the Way.
It's just how things happen.
I've never even really found rainy days to be that cliche "gloomy & depressing" I hear so many other people quote. Rochester, NY, has an average of 293 days a year of "over-cast" days out of a possible 365 days in a year - now THAT'S fuckin' gloomy & depression oriented weather possibilities for you, I can say for sure. Sun would come out, and it was like a switch had been thrown in my spirit & body - OMG NATURAL LIIIIIIGHT!!!!! wheeeeeeeeeeee! - hahha.
I am far more inspired and fascinated and intent about the weather than actually having fear of or for it.
I "fear" stuff like arachnids, and bugs, and water I can't see through, and Time constraints, and travel & job situations that give me panic/anxiety attacks. I fear people - family & friends - falling asleep while driving and perhaps being in an accident. I fear giving in to the frequent urge to lean far-too-forward as I walk down a flight of steps (it's not vertigo - but it's this reallllly weird feeling/desire) and try to reach the bottom with my face instead of my feet.
Weather I can deal with. Weather, I like. Rain, floods, high winds, snow blizzards - makes me wonder if I should become a meteorologist or one of those crazy guys in the rain coats "reporting live!" from the beach where the hurricane is hitting in visual range behind them, hahhaa.
Only weather thing I will use swear words towards to convey my dislike & disapproval of is fucking ICE. Fuck you, ice!!!! Dammit, I do not like ice. >:P
SO! Tornado wise!! = We're okay. Didn't get hit or anything. But it's weird to really begin to form the mind set of "being a MidWesterner", as propelled by a specific wariness of my atmospheric environmental impact levels.
Oh - gifties ::
from the Brinkman family :: got a METRA Rail 10-Ride train fare pass!
from the Conover family (Stu & 'rents) :: got $50 cash towards my "new mattress/ bed" fund :)
I actually sat down to note the fact that my grandma Sue & I are going to the 9:50pm showing of "Kung-Pow Panda" (Kung-Fu Panda??) or whatever the name of that new "animated Panda with Jack Black's voice in a martial arts movie" is, hahahha. It looks awesome. I'm psyched :)
Ha. That's all, really, lol.
~
Had a little "birth day" get together last night (Saturday) with my whole Chicago family (sans friends :( sadly), as most of them are busy any other weekend this month. 2 full families, 2 grandparents, and then me - 11 of us in total. Just did a good ole' 'Merican cook-out - loaded cheeseburgers, hot dogs, baked beans (omg yum), prolly the worst potato salad ever purchased :P, lime-aid, and corn chips & salsa. Got everything grilled-up outside JUST before the day's threatening clouds dropped their load of rain on us.
It just seemed like a get-together until there was actually a chocolate-frosted white cake in front of me, with 27 candles on it... That has been the only moment so far I've registered "OMG I'm turning 27 years old!!!!"
I keep coming back to this because I keep trying to repeat it enough times to myself to make it real. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem at all possible.
I totally feel age 26. I'm cool with 26. 26 I can handle.
27 just seems SO amazingly foreign, and I can't even tell why. It seems as if it would be on par with a family of real live Wookies moving in across the street, and waving to me as they carried in groceries - as if it were all perfectly normal. THAT is how odd "27" seems to me.
Anyways... it was nice & low-key fun & had some laughs with my 4 boy cuzins :) Got to see Stuie, finally - haven't seen him since last time I was in the city, and even if that's only been a week or 2, it seems like FOREVER to me, out here, alone, in suburbia.
It's been all over the news today, but the tornado action & destruction they've been mentioning for "the MidWest" was actually pretty close to us here, I guess. Sky looked threatening all day, for sure - I never saw anything, but "Will County" is apparently where I am located these days, and it's where some of the tornadoes hit :P
I love weather.
I am a huge fan of our atmosphere, and Natural physical world.
Maybe it's why I don't actually feel scared at all, even when I say things like, "Ooh.. that's scary that it's near us." I sort of just go into "safety alert mode" - years of life with "flood watches" and snow storms and watching heat-lightning filled skies from the porch of my house in my hometown of Warsaw, NY (Genesee Valley) later combined with camping as a kid, then camping as a counselor who was responsible for the safety of others beyond my self - and it's all just an easy acceptance of the world as it works. It's not some angry God or even a benign one - it's just the Flow, the Real, the Way.
It's just how things happen.
I've never even really found rainy days to be that cliche "gloomy & depressing" I hear so many other people quote. Rochester, NY, has an average of 293 days a year of "over-cast" days out of a possible 365 days in a year - now THAT'S fuckin' gloomy & depression oriented weather possibilities for you, I can say for sure. Sun would come out, and it was like a switch had been thrown in my spirit & body - OMG NATURAL LIIIIIIGHT!!!!! wheeeeeeeeeeee! - hahha.
I am far more inspired and fascinated and intent about the weather than actually having fear of or for it.
I "fear" stuff like arachnids, and bugs, and water I can't see through, and Time constraints, and travel & job situations that give me panic/anxiety attacks. I fear people - family & friends - falling asleep while driving and perhaps being in an accident. I fear giving in to the frequent urge to lean far-too-forward as I walk down a flight of steps (it's not vertigo - but it's this reallllly weird feeling/desire) and try to reach the bottom with my face instead of my feet.
Weather I can deal with. Weather, I like. Rain, floods, high winds, snow blizzards - makes me wonder if I should become a meteorologist or one of those crazy guys in the rain coats "reporting live!" from the beach where the hurricane is hitting in visual range behind them, hahhaa.
Only weather thing I will use swear words towards to convey my dislike & disapproval of is fucking ICE. Fuck you, ice!!!! Dammit, I do not like ice. >:P
SO! Tornado wise!! = We're okay. Didn't get hit or anything. But it's weird to really begin to form the mind set of "being a MidWesterner", as propelled by a specific wariness of my atmospheric environmental impact levels.
Oh - gifties ::
I actually sat down to note the fact that my grandma Sue & I are going to the 9:50pm showing of "Kung-Pow Panda" (Kung-Fu Panda??) or whatever the name of that new "animated Panda with Jack Black's voice in a martial arts movie" is, hahahha. It looks awesome. I'm psyched :)
Ha. That's all, really, lol.
~