so i got on the train today and there was this guy that doesn't usually ride in the car i ride in every day. he was like all flustered when he finally sat down and i was like jeez, buddy, relax. i had already been reading my book for like 5 minutes. so i noticed right away when i looked up when he sat down that he was looking straight at me. i hate it when people do that, it's totally weird. i mean it's one thing if you're just looking around and you catch eyes with someone else just looking around too, but when you catch someone staring at you, it's weird. and this guy was definitely staring at me. so on the train i always just read my book the entire 45 minutes, and i could just feel this guy's eyes burning into me the whole time. i could literally see him staring at me the entire time in my peripheral vision over my book. why, i do not know. he was completely creepy. weird creepy staring guy on the train. i brushed it off and laughed about it until Bart's mom got me all worried about him being a stalker or something...i sure hope he isn't there again tomorrow.

on a lighter note, literally, it was light out when i got out of work today!!!!!!!! that is EXCELLENT!!!! spring is coming :) well...not really that soon seeing as i'm still wearing long underwear under my work clothes, but still, it's getting lighter out and that is awesome :)

and also, i had a few little revelations today:
1) I MISS BART

wait...that's all.

guseac25 (6:25:27 PM): I just downloaded the N'SYNC Greatest Hits Album to my Ipod! Did you even know there was a N'SYNC Greatest Hits Album?!? Can you just imagine the hours of listening pleasure?!?

is it bad that i actually got really excited about this revelation and actually did imagine the hours of listening pleasure? eeeeek...

i've written 2 blog posts in the last 2 days, but i haven't posted either of them. (obviously.) i can't seem to get my thoughts together coherently and confidently enough to relay them to anyone outside of my head. here are some of the main things i can come up with, without surrounding context:

a) i am terrified, scared out of my mind
b) i'm stuck
c) i think i need to make changes
d) i haven't lived up to anyone's expectations, including my own
e) i'm alone
f) i feel like i'm losing everything

i think i need some help.

it was sooooooooooo windy today...in the Windy City. go figure.

happy new year, i can't sleep. poop.

well for once, the people who almost never come through came through. i guess if you have a little faith in the goodness of people, sometimes it works out. now we just have to have faith in the goodness of airlines...which could be a problem...but i don't really think so. everything will work out and a week from now, the world will be right.

in the meantime, i really need to clean my sty of an apartment. and my cat really needs to quit puking everywhere. no more milk for him!

today i found one of the best things i've found on the internet in a long time. a prize gem for a girl like me. it's the blog of a Soldier deployed to iraq who likes to call himself the last of the liberal soldier. it was incredibly slow today at work, and i somehow stumbled across his page in the midst of fumbling around through various news stories and photos. http://halfjack.typepad.com/halfjackcom/ i would HIGHLY highly recommend checking it out if you have any small interest whatsoever in politics, the war, our peers, soldiers, the army, the media, shit, just life in general. i absolutely love regular people who have a great talent for writing about the life that is so regular for them and so alien to most of us. Bart is most definitely at the top of that category of people, though he has neglected his blog quite a bit more on his afghanistan deployment than his time spent in iraq. if he was actually able to blog in afghanistan, the reasons why he can't now would show through. anyway, this guy is also a very talented amateur photographer with a real knack for manipulating his photos to show what he was really trying to capture when he took them. the link to his flickr photo page is on the blog. i also suggest checking that out. i have a strange feeling that spencer batchelder is going to become one of the many iraq war bloggers who publishes a book a little later.

and following in the footsteps of the cold, slow, sad feeling i get from reading about soldiers in combat, i received Bart's battallion's newsletter today. i ball my eyes out every single time i read it. every time, never fails. i am so incredibly proud of all of their accomplishments...these men are absolutely extraordinary in every way. put whatever bitter feelings aside about the politics and whatever else surrounding these wars...these men are risking their lives every second of the day for a year to truly help a country get onto its feet and to ultimately try their hardest to protect our own country and the rest of the west from any further distruction. yes they may have signed on the dotted line, but they believe in their cause and they're fighting for all the right reasons. it blows my mind every time i think about it. which is probably why it brings tears to my eyes. they're tears of pride and joy for the love of my life, tears of sadness for those we have lost, tears of anger at the fact these young men with families and babies and friends and mothers and fathers have to go through hell, tears of excitement and happiness at the thought they are almost ready to come home...among many other mixed emotions. i can say with confidence that i have learned and grown a lot this year because of Bart and his deployment and all the various things that go along with it. i will forever be a better, smarter, and stronger person because of it. and i never want to go through it again.

for the first time in at least a year, i feel like i'm aimlessly floundering, wandering around inside my head, not knowing what to do or say or think or feel. i've been very sure of myself for a long time now, and all of a sudden i feel like i'm losing grip on everything. i don't know why...totally unexpected...totally scaring me...and there's nothing i can do about it. i'm not sure how i could go from not questioning a thing to questioning everything. every unoccupied second i have, my mind is absolutely racing. and actually when my mind is occupied, it's still doing double duty lately. it's so strange how certain things can happen and just cause an explosion. i go from crying uncontrollably to being raving mad to just depressed and sad to happy and content...difficult to explain. difficult to get through, and even moreso because there will be no dealing with any part of it for a few more months. possibly a reason i'm having a hard time getting past it right now. but that's besides the point really. i should be able to handle myself. just really hard to be alone right now, i guess. and trying to come to terms with the fact that might not change. and struggling with everything else, from money to my complexion. is it the holidays that does this shit? jeez. i miss my friends, i miss my family, i miss Bart, i miss his family, i miss my damn Grandma Minnie so much i can't help but cry every time i think about how i didn't cry at her funeral. i practically yelled at my Grandma Suzie over thanksgiving about how no one even cared to let me have anything from Grandma's house when she died...just a random sampling of thoughts. wonderful, right? toss in a little bit of "the unit" style missions for the next 5 years, and you've got yourself a jumbled up little girl. i want my mommy. and i want my Bart home. NOW. for good.

i've been ordered to update, so update i will. (yes, Sergeant Lauzon!)

i bought my mommy wicked tickets for Christmas. actually it's for a combined Christmas/50th birthday present. (don't tell anyone my mom is turning 50 next july!!) i'm super stoked. we'll be going feb. 17. i've heard nothing but good things about the show, so i'm very excited to see it. plus i just love the theatre and it will be a blast! plus it's a sweet gift that will mean a lot to my mom and that's what i was going for. though she is already getting aggravated by how memorable i'm making her 50th, this is in a good way and she'll just have to live with it! luckily, other than that big gift, i didn't have to buy too many this year, which is good for my financial situation. by the time i'll be giving Bart his Christmas present when he gets back, i won't have to be so worried about money anymore. then i can spoil him rotten, just like usual :) i think i'm still bitter he's not letting me buy him a present...guess that'll just make it bigger and better when he does get it and it'll just bite him right in the butt that he didn't let me do it in the first place! i think my favorite part about Christmastime is giving presents. i love getting really cool, thoughtful gifts that put smiles on the faces of those who mean most to me :) *tear* i'm all Christmas spirit up in here!!! really, i am. my Christmas tree is just lovely :) it's decorated with all the most wonderful ornaments i've been receiving as gifts since i was a little little girl. and now i finally have my own tree to put them on. i even started my own personal collection with one ornament for Bart and one for myself. Bart's is a patriotic Santa, and mine is a little Brewer riding a scooter!!! very cool :)

and speaking of Bart and being happy, he makes me the happiest girl in the whole wide world!!! i love him so much and i fall more and more in love with him every single day :) continuing on with my story, recently the army stopped sucking so much, just a little bit, and we've been able to email over the past few days and for the next few days. FRICKIN SWEET!!!!! honestly, i think that everyday people who don't have to go through tough deployments don't realize that one email a day is like a frickin gift from heaven...how special and important it really is. many people take for granted the constant communication that the world of today in America provides. not me, and not ever again. i long for days with regular phone calls and calls on the way home from work, "hey honey, you need me to pick up anything on my way home?" and chatting on the couch about our days...i can't even describe how amazing it is to see an email from Bart when i wake up in the morning!! and another one today at work!!!! i feel like i might just explode with happiness and excitement!!! being able to keep in halfway decent contact is absolutely wonderful. i am embracing it for all it's worth until it's so rudely taken away from us again! every i love you means the world to me :) plus it provides just a little taste of the Bart humor and personality i miss so much and love so dearly. i can't wait to have it back every day!

today when i was walking to the oriental box office to get my wicked tickets, i passed through the little christkindl german market across the street from my building. they have some portajohns there, and all day long i could not stop laughing because this is what i saw: HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM PORTAJOHN! hahahhaahaaaaa does anyone else think that is ridiculously hilarious??!!!??? damn, i hope so because i really laughed my ass off when i saw it! associating portable toilets and that horribly strong smelling blue goo with happy holidays just seems wrong on so many levels...

so i just got the part to make my computer turn on. finally!! i was without my beloved toshiba for ONE WHOLE WEEK!!!! yeah, this girl was not a happy camper!!! i can't even believe i had to go through a weekend with no internet access. not cool at all! i have become one of those incredibly internet dependent people; i literally almost can't live without it! college has definitely made me that way. having to have a computer and having ethernet constantly at your fingertips will do that to a person. and i realize it's a little ridiculous, most people live without the internet or computers just fine, but not me, and i will freely admit it!!! it is probably the one thing that i refuse to give up, no matter how poor i am, no matter what situation i am in. unless i am in the caribbean or something, i want to be able to get on the internet!!! it's how i communicate with my friends, it's how i stay up on what's happening in the world (i refuse to watch the tv news), it's how i communicate with Bart a lot of the time, it's the damn information superhighway!! all i can say is that i am very thankful i purchased the service plan for my computer at best buy. thank you for the free replacement parts :) next time, just get them here a little quicker!!!! :)

other than that, same old same old. work is fine. getting better. i have sooooo much to learn, but i'm getting there. my boss absolutely loves me and thinks i am doing wonderfully. she has praised me a myriad of times since i started, and has told me great things like i have a good intuition for the business. that's quite the compliment coming from her, considering she has 30 years in the property management business. i think i'm in a good spot, even though it might take a year or so to get the ball rolling down the path i would like it to roll down quickly...if that made any sense. but everyone has to earn their stripes and start at the bottom to get to the top. i'm ok with that, as long as i'm getting meaningful experience in the meantime, which i am. and i'm also getting holiday presents and really swanky parties at excellent chicago locations :) sweet!

haven't heard from Bart in a while and it's making me sad. i miss him so much :( i'd do anything to have him home sooner than march. but i'd also just plain do anything for him, so waiting falls under that category. anyway, random, i know, but that's what my blog is for :) expressing my strange thoughts and feelings, most of the which are love for my baby!!!