Restoration

Ahh.. recovery. It's a great feeling not to be ill anymore. Ok, well, almost not ill. I'm functional and certainly not as sick as I have been the last two weeks. My voice is coming back from the dead, which is such a relief for someone who's a talker and singer in cars and such. Really - losing my voice is equatable to losing a limb. It's that paralyzing for me. Girl needs to express herself audibly and that's just a tad difficult when you sound like a mute. An adorable one, hopefully, but mute nonetheless. I'm sure some people might've actually been grateful for the quiet.

SO.. what has happened with me in the few weeks before the global warming type cold took over and ravaged my unsuspecting self you might ask..? Well.. you might..

Believe it or not, all of 5'3" of yours truly was in a fashion show for starters. These were designs created by my lovely friend Kam who has some strange and quirky ideas, but they were really fun when put together and hey, she asked me to pretend I was a model for an evening. The extroverted attention whore in me could hardly turn her down.

The big night took place at Barca, a Capital Hill bar where our other friend, Wazhma, pulled her popularity strings and secured. Of course, as soon as I arrived, I situated my purse near the back wall where the only crack the size of Texas seemed to be and I watched it fall and take its little tumble turning upside down dropping everything that was important, like uh, helloo.. lip gloss.. into an unretrievable hole. Did I almost completely panic? Uh yeah. Luckily, the owner was there and after quickly surmising said idiotic move by moi, he actually busted a hole in the wall down below and retrieved the things that were actually more important than lip gloss like, oh, my KEYS and my rather spendy little number of a DIGITAL CAMERA.. But lip gloss was really was a slight priority seeing that I was going to be parading around in tights and stuff in front of strangers you know.. geez..

After that bit of distraction, the evening went on rather smoothly. Of course, none of us had ever done any modeling, but we all figured we'd watched America's Next Top Model enough that we probably had it down. Oh yeah.. like it's hard.. But then the 'real' models showed up.. If you think by 'real' models I mean bitches, then yeah, you're on the right track. But being the non-traditional type models we were, we decided to go against type, be ourselves, and just drank ourselves silly - mostly to calm our nerves a little. We got down with our bad selves in our funky designer clothes and our fabulous printed rubber boots (mine were pink polka-dotted) and cheered when we were done - very unlike the other, rather stoic, 'real' models who had very little to express other than their disdain for us, which we thought was rather humorous. But I do have to admit, most of those girls looked good. But, you know if Tyra wants to give me a call.. I might consider it... maybe..I mean, modeling's ok.. I guess.

Two days later, my best friend, Fatima, was married. This was something I was so excited to be involved in as they'd chosen to keep the ceremony very small with only their families present and a few, carefully chosen, good friends. I felt honored she'd asked me to attend. But the day before the wedding, she sort of.. stressed me out. God love Fatima.. and I mean, I love this girl, she's family to me, but she was very concerned about the relationship between her fiance and me... cuz there isn't one.. like, at all. I can count on both hands how many times, and probably close to as many minutes, I've spent in the same room with him in the last year and half they've been together. She once thought I didn't like him, which wasn't the case. We just don't know each other well and have nothing in common other than the fact we both love her to pieces. And after 'hi, how are you?' and 'goodbye'.. um.. I'm stumped on what else to discuss.

So the day before the wedding, she emailed me asking me to make sure there wouldn't be any tension for me regarding the fiance and I'm pretty confused at this point cuz I thought we'd already settled this some time ago. And tho I do want her to be honest with me and I understand this bothered her, it sort of made me a nervous wreck. I mean, I wasn't thinking ANYTHING like that WHATSOEVER and after her call, that's ALL I could think about. So, you can see where this was going..

I was on edge all day of the wedding wondering if I looked alright, if I would say anything wrong, or do anything stupid cuz that's just me. Overthinking = lots of trying too hard not to make a mistake which = making lots and LOTS of mistakes. I didn't get so drunk I made a pass at her husband or dance on the table or anything like that. I just didn't say the things she wanted to hear - even when I said she looked beautiful, cuz truly, she was absolutley stunning, she didn't hear me anyway and that STILL put her off for a good 30 minutes. So whether I said the right thing or not, it wasn't working for me. I just wanted everything to be perfect for her and I already knew she was strained with all the family in town and every other detail she had to deal with, but nothing I could say or do seemed right or calmed her at all. I should've relaxed, I should've taken the chance I wouldn't have been a complete drunken fool and just drank more, but as it was, I tried to keep my flustered self restrained and quiet and kept to my two-drink minimum.

The ceremony was really beautiful. At one point, I could tell they were just SO into each other it almost became uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong - love was doing the usual oozing out of their very pores I'm sure, but I almost tapped her on the shoulder to ask, 'uh.. are we intruding?' I thought for sure they were going to grab each other and make out right there - but of course, they didn't. They were very sweet honestly, but when I left, I was a little sad thinking for some reason, her and I had suddenly grown apart. We talked about a week later and cleared the air cuz I knew it wasn't just all in my mind - but it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought. Weddings just make people crazy. I'm never doing it.. ok.. well, maybe not never..

With all the lovey dovey thoughts running thru my head, the following weekend my other best friend, Loren, and I headed up to Vancouver, BC. We'd both become fairly sick with the nasty cold I've already discussed, but thought we could spend the time relaxing anywhere - so why stay in Seattle when we could run away for the weekend to Canada? We figured the change was bound to heal us! Well, ok, it didn't - in fact, I was completely worse by Monday morning, but the inbetween was well worth it. We dined, met up with friends, shopped when necessary - all the things you're supposed to do when on a mini vacation. Including spending time with exes. What? You don't see your ex on your vacations? Oh..well, um.. when you've dated all of Seattle and half of BC... you know..

Ali's just a given part of my life. Probably the one person I'll always love no matter what. I can't say for sure why we didn't last other than the distance between here and Vancouver wasn't good for either of us - but we could've been something big for each other. I mean, we were.. but sometimes I wonder why there are these people you never get out of your system, and for whatever reason, love just isn't enough to keep you together. It doesn't help that every time I see him my old crush is renewed and I'm reminded how great we were years ago. BUT, and there's always a 'but', this is how it's supposed to be. Really. We aren't a good match over a long period of time. We even tried again a couple of years after, but I think he only did it to humor me and it quickly burned out. So we figured out how to maintain a close friendship and I tell him he's off limits to the rest of the female population and he feigns jealousy when I'm dating someone new.. Still, it's not a bad thing for my ego, when someone has recently dumped me, to know there's always Ali, who never ceases to be amazed why a guy would be so stupid as to leave me. Call me crazy, but I love that he does that for me. He recognizes the irony in his own statement.. but again, this is how it should be and I kiss him and BC goodbye til next time.

So I had a few challenging adventures before this last week of invalid hell - and tho I've been miserable health-wise and sounded more like a female Tom Waits, my spirits have been up. I have a few new things to wear, a restored ego simply from my choice of company, and I just feel like I can breathe easier. The winter is looking decidely brighter..