too excited to sleep. june 8th.

i have a feeling that there will be more than one post with this title in the coming weeks. i should enumerate them.

the past couple days have been whirlwind-y. i survived the dreaded catering without a scratch.

though i pulled it off on only a three or so hour nap, and definitely hungover.

i only had two drinks. but i think the bartended hooked me up. leaving the bar, i was fine. it takes me two drinks to match kit's one. always. her ipa's are too much for her to down quickly.

and i had told myself one drink.

and i had two.

and we were walking back to my-your. i picked up the laundry she so generously let me do, two days in a row. i was fine.

giggling, goofy, but fine. and then got my stuff, and walking down her stairs thought, 'uh-oh.'

and then on the street, slightly swaying, digging in my bag for a smoke. because i really needed another one.

and up my stairs and into a spinny bed. i drank water all night. i tried to sleep. i was sweating, and dizzy. it was rough.


i couldn't sleep, so i got up and went outside to get my ipod out of my car. and i had another cig and sat on the stoop writing, which is what i do almost every single time i smoke at my apartment. i kinda love it.

so i had this thing.

in my past crazy-tea life, i'd have called it fate, or a sign, or something like that.

i was stuck in my head over coffee. same shit as every other day. the conversation. what i want to say. how i want to say it. how i want to present certain information. also, how to ask the earth shattering question, whether to just kiss him at the end of the night. how to ask him to a drink, whether i use fb as a platform, or send a text because he gave me his number six months ago. if he'd even know it was me.

and i wrote one word. and added a letter, which spelled his name. and wrote some random line about him.

and this ladybug landed on my journal. towards the top of the page. his name was the last line.

and i watched her walk down the page, and take a turn and walk across the line of text with his name.

i picked her up on my fingernail, and tried to count the dots on her back, but couldn't see straight to count, in all honesty. and she flew away.

i flipped the journal over to write the next line.

and she landed again, and walked across that.

i almost told her to go away, but didn't want to be the crazy lady talking to herself at midnight outside. to a ladybug.

so i picked her up again, finished my smoke, and walked inside.

on my way in, i had one more line i had to get down. it was something neat that i didn't want to lose forever. so i picked up my closed journal from my bed, and opened it. wrote the one line.

guess who followed me inside? she landed on the page. i think i might have said, 'ok, lady. time to go.'

when i took her up on my nail, she climbed up my right arm, to the crook. took her on my other nail. she walked up my left arm.

walking her to the window, she flew away right before i could put her out the window.

it was crazy.


i fell asleep sometime after 1230. woke up at 4 with shin splints that kept me up until the catering.


the thing with the ladybug is this:

i was living in lake tahoe. i'd had my ass good and kicked. my granny had died. and i couldn't get home in time for her funeral, because of how far i was from home.

it killed me. i'd already had a rough time. my heart was broken by this boy two years younger than me who had run off to college and never written me back. and who liked my friend more than he liked me. and i'd gotten fired from my coffee job by a bitchass boss who never liked me. i was two weeks into a job in the town video rental store. which i loved, by the way. it was the raddest job. i watched the goonies almost every day.

anyway, i was sitting on my front porch, smoking. crying and writing. eleven years ago, see a trend?

part of me was ready to leave. and part of me felt like i was giving up too soon. that i was really loving it there, even though i wasn't. i had a kickass roommate who more than made up for the shitty one i'd started out with.

they'd thrown a going away party for me, and given me this awesome goodbye journal that my friends had all written and drawn in for me.

so emotions were high. and i was leaving in a day or two.

and this ladybug landed on me or my journal. i don't know which. but eleven was my lucky number then, and had been for a while, and that's how many spots she had.

i know i wrote a little piece about her, and that i'd taken it as a sign that i was going to be okay. and that it was okay to go home. and return to my old friends, and my old life. that i could get over living at home with the parents. yet again. which is where i stayed until i was married.

but that ladybug was really cool.

and now, all these years later, thinking about going home, though not moving. and thinking about how nervous my belly is about this stupid boy i used to hang out with.

and she wouldn't go away. and it just kinda floored me.


fast-forward to today.

when i found travel scrabble for a two-part adventure. one camping, one at home. hopefully in a bar. hopefully with that boy.


and i got a lot accomplished today. work was nuts. tomorrow will be also.

and when i asked my online friends to help me think of camping stuff to not forget, i got a ton of responses. i mean, biggest response in the history of posts.


what ended up happening was this:

i looked up the night sky website.

and oh. my. god.

every planet will be in the sky. mars at dawn each day. saturn at midnight each night. every other one, including pluto. and even a comet.

it's unbelievable. i guess it is why they time the star party this way.


in any case, all that got me reeling. i mean, i was pacing the apartment, picking up things and putting it next to the cooler in my living room. things i cannot forget. telling kit what to add to the list.


i realized that in three little days, about this time, i'll be staring down the elusive saturn.

my planet.

the one i wanted coffee to show me with his fancy little telescope. the one that he didn't even acknowlege my request of.


i will see it. and it will be amazing.


i just cannot wait. there are other things i want to buy in preparation for this trip. like binoculars and a little star chart, so i know what i am looking at.

i want to bring that 1953 star book i have.

the one that, all those years ago, i was shocked and appalled to have coffee show me, in his own collection.

what are the fucking chances? i am nearly certain i got mine thrifting. and i don't remember the story behind his. but i've loved mine to death. so much that the cover is no longer part of the book.


and all of this nonsense, all of these things. they would all have been little signs to me in my old former life.

but now i don't want signs. i don't want to encourage this unreasonable behavior. i don't want to think that tiny little insignificant coincidences play any kind of a role in my adult life. i don't want to read into it. i don't want them to give weight to things.

and then twenty or so comments into the camping question, my friend posted a link to a site about telescopes and astronomy for amateurs.

and what's the big bold first word on the site? coffee's name.

yep. that's right. right there. in big ass bold print.


it's almost too much to take. it has always been this way. there are too many shooting stars in the night sky, for starters.


i remember the night i told nina that i still cried for him, last summer. and how, when i went to watch tv with ever afterwards, there was a cartoon on tv. and the boy character's name was his. and the other character kept saying it over and over.

and in that paranoid stoned way, i kept thinking, 'i'm so busted' with a blushed face.


how, driving in delaware, after december, i was thinking about him, and parked next to a car that was exactly his old car. and pulled out of that parking lot to drive behind a car that was also his dog's name.


things were always like that before. it got me into so much trouble. there were so many signs, that eventually nothing had any real meaning anymore. because everything stood for something else. there was nothing real, only signs.


but tonight there was something else to be excited about.

this trip is three short days away. and if i go to sleep, right now, it will be two.