Time Machine

Time Machine…August 21, 2005

Something strange happened last night. It was around 1am, I was still up with mom watching tv and I heard her downstairs yelling up at me that my phone was ringing. She said "Jenni, your phone's buzzing" (its set on vibrate) "who would call you this late?" I immediately thought it was Dave, since he gets off work so late and maybe he thought I'd be up, and then my second thought was maybe it was Bill since I had just talked him through a dillemma earlier in the day...but I never imagined who it actually was! It was Sean. He was my boyfriend through high school and college, until I broke it off with him after 7 years because I wanted to date other people. I occasionally get an email from him, just catching up on what is new in his life, and I reply back. I guess you could say we have re-kindled a friendship. He recently got a camera phone, so I sent my phone number in an email one day so he could send me the pictures of his brothers wedding. So he has my number, but I never thought hed use it. I saw the LCD display 1 MISSED CALL and I clicked on view and heard myself say outloud "mom, Sean Kelly is calling me..." she was as surprised as I was and we sat there looking at eachother like what do we do now? Then the phone buzzed again and I saw 1 NEW VOICE MAIL blinking at me. I laughed like an evil school girl and clicked listen, I thought this ought to be good, I wondered if he was drunk-calling me. Mom and I put our ears to the receiver listening for an old familiar voice but what we got was something just wierd. It sounded like something not of this world, like a loud buzzing of sorts. We looked at eachother again with furrowed brows, what the heck was that? We listened again two more times and couldnt make it out. I decided he may have accidentally called me, it happens sometimes to me if I leave my phone open. I sent him a text message just in case, "WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?" and mom adn I laughed and went off to our beds. Half an hour later I get "SORRY BOUT THAT, THAT WAS STEVIE B, SHOULDNT HAVE DONE THAT" okay, he is at a Stevie B concert and wanted to share a song with me or something. No big deal. He has sent me picture messages before with sound from aconcert a few weeks ago...but then I started to think. I wonder what song that was...a little backstory: Sean and I loved Stevie B in high school, he had some great love songs back then, and we thought of a couple of them as "our songs". In fact!!! I just remembered this, the night we lost our virginities to eachother, we were playing Stevie B! Ok, so now this is making a little more sense. Okay, no biggie. I sent him a reply that said "NO PROB, I COULDNT HEAR IT ANYWAY. WHAT SONG WAS THAT?" I got back "I TOTALY GOT CAUGHT UP IN OLD MEMORIES, THAT WAS NOT COOL!" I figured he was drunk.

This morning I got another text from him "I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THAT LAST NIGHT! I DRANK WAY TOO MUCH! WE HAD SO MUCH FUN THOUGH! DONT WORRY ABOUT WHAT SONG IT WAS, I WAS JUST STUPID DRUNK!" Too funny!

Its not a big deal to me, it was something we shared a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. And that is one of the main reasons I love music the way I do. I can hear a song and it brings me right back to where I was when I first heard it. Sean was probably just in the moment and thought of me because of his memories. I downloaded a bunch of Stevie B songs this morning, and man did it bring me back to high school memories!! I remember listening to the radio late at night, when I should have been asleep on a school night and hearing those songs just oblivious to the real world. Caught up in my own little bubble of a world where I existed only with my friends and my boyfriend with no worries at all. I remember taping some of these songs and writing down the lyrics to pass in a note to Sean in school. I remember being so caught up in what I thought was love at that moment that nothing else existed. Boy did I have a lot to learn! And here I am, 14 years later listening to music and saying "oh I remember that song!". Wow, its amazing how fast things can change, and how fast time has passed us by. Its funny to talk to him now, we have both changed so much, but we still have those tiny little things that make us the same as we once were. Its hard to believe how much I have changed since then. I think a little bit of me is still the same as I was back then. Music is like a time machine sometimes.

The Veil

The Veil…August 20, 2005


Last night, mom and I had a night to ourselves, so we had a little girls' night of sorts. We ordered pizza, had a couple of drinkies, watched a chick flick and talked about Sarah's wedding shower. We are going to throw Sarah a lingerie shower so she can have all the pretty things she needs, but mostly because that's what mom had when she got married and she still talks about it like it was the best thing ever. She even still has some of the items that were given to her for her wedding shower; this was over 35 years ago mind you. So after our chick flick we went into mom's boudoir where she pulled out her droors, so to speak, and showed off some of the items she got when she was married. Some were racy, and some were just nice pretty girly things. She was disappointed that she didn't have a lot of the things she thought she did from back then, but figured maybe they were somewhere in the house. So we went on a search. We looked in all the cedar chests full of old baby clothes, linens and such, but no lingerie. She decided wherever they were, she would probably also find her wedding veil there also. Apparently she had been looking for that as well and couldn't find it. We never found the nightgowns, but we did find her veil. It was wrapped in an old garment bag from a dry cleaners, stuffed into the top of a closet in one of the guest bedrooms. She was so happy we found it. At one point I came out of the bathroom and found her on the couch in front of the TV wearing it. I snapped a couple of pictures before she took it off.

The Old World…

The Old World…August 19, 2005
A couple of weeks ago I went with dad to go visit Big Daddy, who is now in a care facility in Corsicanna. He had pneumonia pretty bad and now has to go to physical therapy every day so that he can gain the strength to walk on his own again...hes almost there, but still needs help. Hes so independant, so I know its hard for him to be there and not at his house like he is used to. Sarah drove in with Nathan for the visit too so we got a nice visit in with him. It was a little surreal walking into the "old folks home" as I had never been in one before. The minute we walked in I observed nurses running around like crazy, elderly men and women in the hallways, either there because they wanted to take a walk, or there because thats how far they got in their wheelchairs before stopping for a nap. I heard a tiny voice off in the distance, very faint, but I could just make out what he was saying. "please get me out of bed, help me. Please get me out of my bed. Somebody come help me. Please get me out of bed..." every time someone walked by his room he repeated this sad, but twistedly funny, little cry for help. The nurses have become so numb to all the sounds and noises coming from the nurses station, and from the individual rooms occupied by people who depend on them. There seemed to be a constant beeping coming from the central station, where no nurses could be found. They are probably deaf to it by now, hearing it so often on a daily basis. We visited with Big Daddy for a little while while at the same time his roommate, a 96 year old man was being visited by his family as well. He was so deaf that Big Daddy could talk about him while he sat right next to him, and wouldnt know what he was saying to us. But the older man got around better than Big Daddy could, and hes about 10 years older! After about 20 minutes a man walked in, not very old but he was lost. He obviously had alshiemers, but seemed accepting of it. He exclaimed "well look who we have here" and grinned with a big wide smile at all of us. He looked at Big Daddy and his roomate and then decided this was'nt his room and told us so. Then he asked Big Daddy if he would go with him to the bathroom, and Big Daddy shook his head no and told him "not in here" and giggled at him. The nurse must have been looking for him and came in after him. He continued out the hall and went into every room until he found the one he belonged in. We could hear him every so often, repeat "look who we have here" and then a nurse would come in after him and tell him to apologise to the nice lady for barging in on her in her room. It was sadly amusing, and depressing at the same time. It made me not want to get old, ever. It made me want to take better care of my mind and body. I dont want to get old, But I know it is coming...and I cant stop it.

We got him to smile

The past few weeks

The past few weeks…August 16, 2005

Yay!!! Finally everything is working out for me! Lets see, so much has happened in the last few weeks...

I met a man, and I am soooo in love, his name is Dave. He is perfect for me, and I am perfect for him. I dont know why Ive been looking for a man who is opposite of me, and it never works out. Dave is just like me, it is almost eerie how much we have in common. We are both transplants from San Diego, and he went to a high school that was only a few miles away from where I went to school. He is 4 years older, Ive never really dated older men, except for Sean through high school and college, but we both have young personalities. He has a warped sense of humor like mine, and the first time I went over to his house he was watching Monty Python's Holy Grail...it was then I knew we would get along brilliantly! There is just so much to say about him! (Bear with me Im going to be wordy) One of the things that I instantly loved about him is that he is a music freak like me! We both have such an eclectic collection of music that it is hard to distinguish any particular music style that we like best. Hes more into classic rock, and Im more into pop and 80's. He likes all the same songs I do, in fact the other day he played Def Leppard and Oingo Boingo!!!! Love it! And he sings along sometimes hee hee. Music is a huge deal to me, it is a big part of my life and to meet someone who feels the same about it means so much to me. I feel like I can finally express myself through the music I want to listen to, because he likes the same music I do. I havent been able to listen to what I want, even in the car with my ex...he wasnt very open minded when it came to music. Now I can listen to country, 80's, pop...whatever I want to! It feels so great to just be able to be myself around him. He lets me be a dork, and I let him be a dork and we are dorks together. YAY for dorks! On our second date we took a drive to see the progress of the house hes having built, he was playing a bunch of random songs in his truck. My Sharona came on and on the part of the song where they sing "mieeieeieeeiee woo!" We both did the same thing and sang along with it and threw our hands up in the air "woo!" heee heeee...it ws hilarious, maybe you had to be there. Hes kind of quiet, but is super funny and has a great sense of humor. He is slowly becoming more talkative. Im a little quiet too, I always have been so I can understand him. He knows more music trivia than I do, and that is so cool. Sometimes we even say the same things at the same times, and have jinxed eachother a lot in conversation. He comes from a family like mine, he has one brother and his parents have been married forever. He wants to get married one day, and be a father. And thats what I want, so we share the same goals in life. And do you know how awesome it feels to actually know this? To actualy be with someone who shares the same ideals for the future is so amazing, its such a great feeling. I can finally exhale. He is the most communicative man I have ever known. We talk every day on instant messenger, and he sends me at least one email a day, and they are always full of his thoughts. Its nice to know a man who likes to communicate. He is romantic too, he made me a mix CD!!!! the songs are love songs and when we listened to them he told me that all of the songs he put on there for me, either meant what he wanted to say to me, or reflected the way he felt about me. How totaly sweet!!!! Ugh, Im so in love. Im in progress of making him a CD now :) I feel like I have butterflies in my stomach all the time now! I am so excited about this, so excited. There is so much more to say about him, I could go on and on, but Ill wait for another entry.

I finally got a duplex too!!! Its so cute, two stories, two bedrooms two bathrooms, a fireplace, and a big fenced yard for Cody. I sign the lease this week and can move in September 1. Dave and I will both be moving around the same time so we can help eachother. His house will be finished right around the same time. He will live about half an hour away from me, but I think he will come over most every night after he gets off work at 11. I cant wait to get settled. I may have to wait until after labor day weekend, because of our annual "Womens weekend" that we have every year on Labor Day weekend. All the women of our family get together and just veg out. We cook and eat and drink and smoke and bitch...its a blast! Its hard to believe its been a year already since the last one we had in Midland. This year mom wanted to have it at their house in Austin. We are also having my sisters wedding shower that weekend. Mom thought it would be cute to have a slumber party. Its going to be so much fun.

Dave and I have been inseperable for the last few days. Its hard living at home because I want to have a normal relationship and stay over at his house sometimes ya know? So we are both looking forward to me moving out. Last week we hung out with another couple he knows and went bowling, they are nice and I look forward to "double dating" with them again, they are a fun couple. On Saturday we went to a classic car show and then he came over to meet mom and dad. We had a beer and chatted with them while we played with Cody...who loves him by the way. Dave is very much like my dad so I think they will get along well. He has such a strong work ethic, he hasnt missed a day of work in two years. He had been on a shift that had him working from 11pm to 7am, but now his shift is 3pm to 11pm so he can have a normal life. So I wont get to see him as much. Last week I was at his house every night for 7 days. this week I dont get to see him until thursday. It will work out better when I move. Well hes online now so Im off to chat!