Eventful day

Viva La Revolución!

I am Renée, master of my own destiny! My nails can be whatever they darn well want to be and I don't need no stinking gel polish to tell me how to live my life!

Paula suggested that I just paint over the gel polish and I looked it up and apparently it might make this manicure last for longer than normal, too. So I went a little crazy,  and in celebration I put the whole galaxy on my nails.

Yeah, they look pretty sweet, don't they? Pinterest gave me the idea. And it's even better in person because they are so darn sparkly.

Oh, sparkles, I missed you!

Boy, it was a super eventful day- I have so much to say-- I may split this into two blogs and just talk about the mac and cheese tomorrow... so if you've read this far and haven't read anything about mac and cheese... well then you have something to look forward to tomorrow, don't cha??

Today I got on facebook and someone said they had extra tickets to Tent Theatre. Now this may come as a shock to you, but I'd never gone to Tent Theatre in all my years in Springfield. Nathan and I kept meaning to, but they sell out quickly and you just never know when the weather isn't going to be miserable. So I said I wanted to go and so I did. The weather was amazing for it, btw. (We saw 9 to 5 and it was good. I don't think I really cared for the *show* that much, but I really liked most of the actors' performances. Which probably sounds confusing to you but makes perfect sense to me.)

So in preparation for Tent Theatre, I just stayed at Starbucks all afternoon.... like from 2:30 to 7:45....ok that wasn't very eventful, I admit it. But at 7:30 it got really exciting.

Let's just say I learned a fun fact today: Electricity can run through wire that is ON FIRE.  Electricity = amazing.

What you don't want to leave it at that?? *sigh* Fine.

There was a fire across Glenstone, and there is suspicion that this caused some circuits/transformers to get overloaded. All I know is that at 7:30, the lights in Starbucks went off and everything shutting down at once sounded really cool. Then the lights came back up about 30 seconds later and then went down again about a minute later. Then came back up at half power with creepily flickering lights. Then someone said the "telephone pole" (Pretty sure it was an electric pole, not a telephone pole) outside was on fire.... I went outside, and sure enough it looked like a sparkler up there.... What was burning I have no idea, because pretty sure wire and metal aren't flammable and why do they have flammable things around electric currents anyway?

So the Starbucks people had to close the store down and go home, cause they kinda need electricity to do... well... everything. I'm concerned for their milk/cream supply tomorrow. I liked how the guy who is in the National Guard was all "We need to start shutting the store down now or else we are gonna lose the light." Yep, that dude's been trained in practicalities. Meanwhile one girl was texting her mom and her mother asked if her car was near the pole and she was like, "Oh yeah, guys, we should move our cars!"

Pretty sure she isn't in the military.

This was apparently a motherly concern because my mom was also concerned about the status of my car when I posted about this on facebook. I gave her a hard time about not understanding that just because a hybrid has an electric engine doesn't mean it breaks anytime it's near something else electric that breaks, but I'm pretty sure she was actually concerned about the pole falling on my car or something.

But don't worry, Mom. It was just the top of pole that was burning... you know, the metal part.

Hey, maybe someone put some napalm on the electric pole! That would explain a lot.

and also raise a lot of questions...

For instance: ""Blimey! 'Ow did you even get it up there? There's no' even a road there!" (My British GPS gets confused by elevations.)

Sardines and Edleweiss

I was at Katie and Jonny's until 2 in the morning. It was quite fun and I laughed a lot. You know, I would be perfectly content to do this every night, though I'm sure I'd want to change/add people from time to time. And I'd have to start writing my blog in the afternoon, cause starting this at 2 is not my greatest idea ever. I have decided for sure, though, that I'm going to put my book of questions in my car, so that, when the situation arises, I have a go-to resource for all sorts of random questions.

I love nights like this, when something spontaneous and almost magical seems to happen, everyone is in just the right temperament and suddenly early birds are staying up till past midnight, and no one wants to leave because they are having such a good time. These were the nights that college was made of for me, and part of the reason why I look back on college with such fond memories. They are a lot harder to come by these days. Everyone has to be so responsible and go to work and live in their own homes and be so adult-y. Sometimes I feel like the kid who's knocked on every door in the neighborhood and all the parents told me,"No, little Susie can't come out to play." But tonight? We had just enough people to play a killer game of sardines, all over the neighborhood.

Seriously, want to know a really fun time I had once? Playing Sardines in and around the library and then the quad on campus. We were in pairs to make it "safe." I don't even remember who all was there, but it was great. I wish I had the run of Juanita K, or JQH Arena for a night, or heck, even Craig Hall! ... I'd get a group of 20-30 people give them flashlights, turn off all the lights and play Sardines... it would be so fun! Ok, don't know what "Sardines" is? Go to this site-- it's pretty easy to understand. 

I drove around quite a bit today, and brought my gas mileage up from 43 mpg to 48.2... I'm shooting for over 50.... Seriously, it's like driving around a video game.

Ok, I should go to bed. I just sat here for about 10 minutes looking at the screen not even thinking about what to write, just thinking about playing Sardines and video games... and what I'm going to do tomorrow, and everything I did today and what I could go eat, cause it's 3 AM and I ate at 7PM... and none of that is really even very interesting it's just taking my brain that long to process everything... Plus church tomorrow... you know... that's going on...  So perhaps, my dear ones it is time for me to lay my head down upon my pillow.

Adieu, until the morrow.

Random thought: I really wish Edleweiss from the Sound of Music was an Austrian folk song, instead of a song they just wrote for the Sound of Music. But I just learned it was the last song that Rogers and Hammerstein ever wrote together, so that makes it a little better. (Hammerstein died from stomach cancer 9 months later.) That it is their last song together is poetic and so sad.

The Path of Pretension

So remember that benefit night that I mentioned the Religious Studies Club at Missouri State was holding? It's coming up on Thursday. If you want more information you can go to the facebook page. I'm planning on being there the whole time... It just feels like something I can do... be a figurehead... people will be there because they loved Nathan... and I'm as close as it gets these days.

Sometimes, I have flashbacks... Isn't that weird? It's not like it was 'Nam or anything... but I flashback to that ICU room... I flashback to his last heartbeats... I flashback to the last time I touched him. No one will ever be able to convince me there isn't a soul. I've seen the difference.

People don't want to talk about the hard stuff... the heavy stuff...  Heck, I don't want to talk about that stuff, most of the time. Only when it's late and there is no one to talk to... that's the only time I want to talk about it... Maybe subconsciously I do that on purpose... Cause if there is no one to talk to then I can just sit and feel sorry for myself and not worry about passing on burdens... I know, I know, you've all told me I shouldn't worry about passing on burdens... that people want to help.. and I know they do... but I also know that this isn't something that everyone is equipped to bear. And to be quite honest it's not the type of stuff that I can share with just anyone. You can call it trust issues or abandonment issues... I call it the inescapable fragility of the human psyche... ok, fine, I don't call it that at all, I was just choosing the path of pretension. /tangent/ Ha! I like it! -Come, walk with me down the path of pretension. /end tangent/ I just don't know what to call it. Chemistry and timing, I suppose. Sheer blasted picky-ness, even.

I really like talking in accents. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before...but it's true... Nothing beats a wee bit of the brogue, or a smatt-ah-rin' of a good Cockney accent to keep yah day movin' alung, guv'nah. (Seriously, way easier to talk in a Cockney accent if you use guv'nah in every sentence.) This is the reason I was happy to play 5 different roles in my senior play... 5 roles= 5 accents. Yumpin Yimminy! All I want is for the world to play along with me... won't you? Nathan never would... he'd always get too self-conscious... I got him to do an accent once... I think we were in the Wal-mart parking lot... and I just finally pestered him to death and he said one thing... in a very respectable accent, I might add... but he'd never say anything else... It's funny the things that we get embarrassed by, isn't it... I think him talking in an accent is one of the very few times that I ever saw him nervous about anything. It was completely adorable.

We were gonna do community theatre together someday... Mainly because I thought it would be super fun to do together and I wanted to share one of my first loves with him... Plus, I always wanted to be in one of those theatre families that we had back in Memphis, where the whole gang was involved. Not only that, but it's really convenient to have couples in community theatre shows... you can have them kiss on stage and no one cares. :) Oh community theatre... I love thee, well.

You know... I don't think that I'm going to stop talking about Nathan... Sometimes I think I should, because people don't know what to do with it... but he's part of who I am....So I guess I'm gonna have to find a future someone who can handle it. I'm aware of Nathan's flaws/shortcomings... he's not on some pedestal of perfection (oooh the P alliterations, they flow like wine, tonight!) But Nathan is a part of me, now... I'll never be able to pretend as though he wasn't.... and I wouldn't want to.