Long time no blog!

Hola. Or, if you prefer, holla!!

Wow, it has been a while, hasn't it? So much has happened since I last posted. In fact, the first couple of weeks of this year have been very close to perfect. To talk about everything I've done in the past couple of weeks would take a lot of energy that I don't really feel like expending right now, plus you probably wouldn't really want to read about it anyway. Because, honestly, how many times can I say, "Mike and I did such-and-such and we had a great time!" before you get bored?

Actually, there was more to the past two weeks than Mike. There was my brief whirlwind trip to Las Vegas. Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Chelsea and I went to celebrate Chelsea's 21st birthday. I had a great time. We only stayed for two nights and one full day so it was an incredibly short trip, but we crammed a lot of fun and luxury into a short time. We stayed at the Bellagio and for a Vegas hotel room it was great. My favorite things were the buttons that opened and closed the drapes (You could do it from bed! It was actually really cheesy now that I think about it) and the giant bathtub. We ate at a couple of good restaurants Olives and Jasmine. We went to the hotel spa and got massages and I took a shower in the coolest shower ever. It was a "light therapy" shower. I don't know what the hell light therapy is actually supposed to do other than make easily amused people like myself happy, but the shower had three different shower heads (one that came down from above like rain) and the lighting would subtly change from red to blue to green to yellow to pink and repeat the cycle in some kind of random pattern I never did figure out even though I stood in the shower for a while. We saw Avenue Q at the Wynn Hotel and it was excellent except for the part where my Grandpa almost passed out from dehydration right before intermission. All through intermission ushers were hovering around us and there was talk of bringing in a wheelchair and calling an ambulance. Apparently my Grandpa knew that he just needed water or Gatorade and apparently my dad has seen this happen on the golf course before so they weren't worried, but all us womenfolk (ha) were pretty freaked out. I thought he was having a heart attack or something. The whole thing scared me because it made me realize that my grandparents are getting old and they won't be around forever. One day someone will have to call that ambulance, you know? It scares me. Luckily he recovered in time for the second act and I ended up really liking the show. I'm so glad I got to see it. I won $175 playing blackjack, which was really awesome because I never win anything. We also went to the Rum Jungle club at Mandalay Bay, which sucked, and Studio 54 at the MGM, which was so much fun. Chelsea and I met these guys from New Jersey who ended up being fun dance partners. I normally hate guys at clubs because they tend to just start grinding on you uninvited when you're just trying to dance with your girlfriends (Why do guys do this? Why?) but these two were actually polite. They were quite possibly the most polite guys I've ever met at a club. The guy I ended up hanging out with actually introduced himself and chatted to me for a while without making idiot comments about my "beautiful smile" or "hot legs in that skirt" or any other variety of the stupid pick up lines I usually get. Then he politely invited me to dance and once we were dancing together he didn't put his hands on me until I touched his shoulders first which I really appreciate. And then he bought me a couple of drinks when we got tired of dancing (we all danced together for two straight hours, the DJ was rockin') and at the end of the night when Chelsea and I went to head home he didn't try to kiss me and he didn't beg me to stay out longer or come back to his room with him. And the guy Chelsea was with seemed to be the same way. They weren't guys I'd be interested in dating even if there wasn't the complication of me being in Texas and them being in New Jersey, but it was the first time in a long time that I've been in a bar or club without feeling like a piece of meat to be drooled over, and I appreciated that a lot. Apparently there are still decent guys out there.

Speaking of decent guys, I had so much fun with Mike during break. I seriously can't even explain how comfortable I am with him and how much fun we have together. It feels like we've come full circle. We dated, we fell in love, we broke up because long distance relationships suck and we were only 20 years old and we needed to see what else was out there, we had some rough times and some hurtful things were said as we tried to get over each other, we realized getting over each other was impossible but we both wanted to really be done with the relationship so there were a couple of awkward years where we both tried our best to date other people and get over each other but somehow kept sleeping together each time we saw each other anyway, and all along we kept talking pretty much every day. And then came last year. We still talked a lot but not as much. Sometimes a week or two would go by with just a few text messages. And when we did talk I didn't feel needy and I didn't feel jealous. We finally got to the point where we could talk about our other relationships and although it stung a little hearing about him with other girls no longer made me want to cry. We finally reached the point where we were just really close friends who had once dated. And then this past fall we started getting to be even closer friends. We got back to talking every day again, and one night for some reason I stopped fighting it and let myself flirt with him again. And he flirted back. And then there was Thanksgiving, and then Christmas break. And now Mike describes our relationship as "best friends that sleep together" and yeah, that's pretty much exactly what this is. Whatever our relationship is right now it feels good. I feel like we're both more mature and we both understand each other better than we ever did in the past. It still sucks because we're still in limbo and we're basically stuck in a position of wanting to be together but not being able to have things the way we want them to be. And I don't think either of us want to be exclusive again unless we can be in the same place and have the full relationship we both want. So who knows if that will happen. I know I'd like it to happen, and I think he'd like it to happen, but I know that as long as we're living in different places there are a whole lot of factors that could come into play, and a whole lot can happen in a year and a half (which is probably reasonably how long it would be before we could be in the same place even if things do head that way). Basically all I know is that we have a great time together, and he makes me happier than any other person I know, and we had a really great time together this month and I suppose that's all that matters right now. I need to stop rambling.
Mike was here at my apartment with me all week and we had a great time. We were together literally 24/7 for a whole week and I never once got annoyed with him being here or wished he would get out of my space, which is pretty impressive considering how much I like being alone. We did touristy things like hanging out on 6th Street and the drag and shopping at the outlet malls, and we ate A LOT. My god, did we eat. There are all these restaurants here that Mike loves that they don't have in El Paso, so we'd basically plan our day around where we wanted to eat. Haha. We also just bummed around a lot. We'd take Cohen on walks in the park, and one night we just stayed in and rented a movie (2046, I highly recommend it), we chilled in the hot tub one night...one night we were both lying on the couch and he was watching football and I was reading and I thought wow, we are an old married couple...and I could definitely get used to this. All in all it was great.
Of course, now I'm feeling down because my apartment feels really empty and I have no idea when Mike and I are going to get to see each other again so that sucks. But I am feeling hopeful right now.
Anyway, I'm talking to Kirby online and I haven't talked to him in months so trying to do both this and that at the same time is really hard. So I'm done with this.