so when someone close to you hurts you, what do you do? if its someone you’ve been dating, usually you stop seeing each other and you get over it by not seeing them anymore and trying to move on as best you can. time heals just about all the wounds you’ll ever have. but what if you still want to be friends? is it possible? even with the range of emotions this person is causing you – sadness, anger, fear, confusion, frustration, and the good old basic heart ache – can you forgive and make something new out of the relationship you once had? the hard part in lot of breakups is having to get used to the person not being there anymore. but when you’ve created a new, unexperienced sort of breakup with someone who doesn’t go by the usual rules, you have to readapt instead. they want to be there for you even though they’re the cause of the hurt. do you let them? can you move on by letting them be there for you when they’ve caused the hurt? can you forgive and forge a new relationship? these are the questions i’ve been asking myself lately. time will tell, i suppose. that’s what i keep telling myself anyway. would my life be better without this person? ultimately the answer to that question is no. so i must learn to deal with new, strange things all over again. will it be worth it? i certainly hope so. time will tell, as usual. and for now, i just keep moving forward as best i can.

i had a very irish weekend. friday night was spent at maloney’s for the pre-irish festivities while saturday was party time at heather’s. hope you had an equally enjoyable day/night/weekend of drinking. see party photos here. i accomplished my goal for the weekend and i didn’t get hung over at all. hell yes.

After reading Alyssa’s post I spotted a few more books that I had read that weren’t on my list. It’s a long list though, come on. Give me some credit for missing things.

Additions:
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Native Son – Richard Wright

Someday I’ll update my GoodReads account and list the things I want to read. Maybe it’ll help me when I’m at the bookstore! I’ll just have to remember to bring the list with me to the store. It won’t do me much good if it’s just sitting on the internets.

Of the “1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” (says some guy), I’ve read:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
Beloved – Toni Morrison
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Summer – Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

36 out of 1,001. Ah well. Of the things on the list I have read, some were force fed from school. If I ever have to read another Edith Wharton book, I’ll shoot myself.

I also just joined Good Reads, a neat site that reminds me somewhat of myspace… but uh, just with books.

Last week wasn’t exactly the best week of my life, and now that it’s over I can talk about it somewhat. Had the quick trip to Massachusetts to visit my family and my sick grandmother (we call her Memere). Memere was fairly out of it most of the time we were at the hospital, but she did have some moments of clarity in which she recognized me and held my hand and smiled at me. She was doing okay – not eating too much, bedridden, a bit doped up on medication and had her lucid moments. It was strange to see her this way, not quite the Memere that I remembered, but some semblance of her was still there. I saw tons and tons of relatives, some I didn’t recognize but who knew me and I got to experience a bit of how fast things travel through the “family grapevine”. Got to see a bit of snow, a nice 5 minute whiteout as the arctic front came in, had some delicious fried calms which I can only seem to get on the East Coast and pretty much coasted through our very short trip. We left Lemonister and headed out for Hartford, CT at 4am last Tuesday and with the wind chill it was probably in the negative teens. Got back to 73 degree weather in San Diego and instantly starting melting. Oy. All in all it was good to see her and the family I hardly ever get to see. I’m not much like them – they’re pretty much all chatterboxes while I’m this quiet little listener.

I’ve been pretty sad the past few days, and not due my grandmother, but some other things that have been going on that … eh, I don’t really want to post about here. Let’s just say that I’m trying to learn about new beginnings and how to deal with new situations that I haven’t been placed in before. That some people you meet in life are so special and awesome that even though things don’t go how you expected them to, that it doesn’t necessarily always mean the end, but perhaps a new start to hopefully a new path that you hadn’t expected to walk along and that you can tread on together.

New obsessions: Heroes. Six more weeks til a new episode?! Why the hell did I watch all the episodes this weekend? Damn me. Also, someone got me into liking Coldplay and I find myself listening to it again and again, with a special focus on “The Scientist”, among others. Damn it. I didn’t know I liked Coldplay. I wasn’t paying attention, I guess.

PS – Do you know what song the title of my post is from? I hope so, because it’s awesome and you should know it.

I could write a weekend recap, but why when Alyssa already did? All I have to add is that bar hopping within walking distance of the place you are going to sleep later is pretty awesome, waffles + chicken is a damn fine idea (thank you, Roscoe), seeing old friends who you haven’t seen in years is both weird and fun, and I should spend more time with cute boys that karaoke. Well, maybe just one boy in particular. Maybe.

This upcoming weekend I’m making a pretty much last minute trip to Massachusetts with my dad to see my family. My grandmother has been in the hospital since, oh, December I think. She broke her foot and then had to go into the nursing home and then got an infection and then … shit went down. She’s still in the hospital (she’s moved hospitals) and it’s almost March now. From what I hear she’s doing better, but for awhile the doctors just didn’t know what the hell was going on with her and if she would even make it. We got a message on our machine today from my Aunt Joyce saying that she was doing okay, but that she thought she saw my dad there and she was saying hello to him and smiling. It sounded kind of eerie to me, I can’t explain it. But it will be good to see her, even though I fear it might be for the last time. I’m not quite sure how to feel about it yet. I’ve just been going through each day until we leave and I’ll deal with it when it comes. Oh, crazy feelings. I don’t know what to do with you. I’m sad that she’s been so ill, but I’ll be happy to see her. But I’ll be thinking, is this the last time I’m going to see her? I’ve never had anyone close to me die before, or really been close to death, that I’m not sure how to deal with it quite yet. Not that she’s even gone yet! Maybe I’m just getting ahead of myself. Babble, babble. Blargh, blargh. I’m depressing myself. I’m going to bed.