Booze Hound

Hi.

Does anybody know how to republish their entire blog in blogger beta? It's annoying me that all the posts don't look the same anymore, but I can't seem to figure out how to just republish the whole blog (which I think would solve my problem, right?). Anyway, if you know how to do it, let me know.

I was walking Cohen around my old elementary school this afternoon and I ran into my fifth grade teacher. She recognized me walking down the street and said hello and we chatted for a minute. Afterwards I couldn't decide if I should be horrified that I apparently still look more or less the same as I did as an 11 year old or if I should be flattered that someone who taught me thirteen years ago still remembers me at all.

And yes, I'm home for the holidays. So far nothing all that exciting or crazy has happened, although I did take Cohen to my dad's bar on Saturday night, on my dad and grandpa's insistence. The bar was packed with hundreds of people watching the Cowboys game, but Dad just carried Cohen into the bar. For a while nobody even really noticed he was there since he just lay under the table eating a new bone I'd brought for him. Then during the second half of the game he sat on Dad's lap. It was really cute, actually. He was a really good boy and didn't bark at all, and everyone in the bar was coming over to pet him so he was in basset hound heaven. Too bad we're not more like Europe, where well-behaved dogs are allowed in many of the bars and stores and nobody bats an eye.

I feel like I was going to tell a couple more stories, but I guess I've forgotten them.

Also, I suppose I should mention it's my goal to not see Mike while I'm home. I just finally snapped last week, realized that I'm lying to myself when I am saying I just want us to be friends when obviously I was still hoping for something more, and realized that if he's about to start dating seriously again I don't want to be around at all when that happens. It hurts too much. I've also acknowledged that I'm not going to be able to get over him fully and completely until I meet someone else to think about, but talking to him in the meantime was hard as often as it was fun. I still hope that we're going to be friends someday, but I know I'm just not to that point yet and I can't keep rushing myself to get there. So in the spirit of the new year and a clean slate I decided to just stop talking to him for a while and wait until I am honestly completely over him and really don't care about his half dozen hos. Then I'll start talking to him again. I just can't be sad about him anymore, you know? It has been almost a whole year. And that's not to say I'm moping about him constantly, because that's definitely not the case. There are many days now when I honestly don't care, and I've managed to go entire six week periods without having a cry about it. But there were also still days when he'd be talking about a new girl and it would make me really, really sad. And I just can't do that to myself anymore. Even one hour of crying about him at this point is too much, you know? If he's going to have a girlfriend other than me, I just don't need to witness it at this point. And someday when I once again have a boyfriend of my own or I've finally been single long enough to be ninety five percent comfortable with it and I finally realize in my heart what I already know in my head, which is that I'm mourning the idea of our relationship more than our relationship itself and that I am just as happy without him as I would have been with him (if not more so), then we'll start talking again. But not until then. Or at least, that's what I'm trying to make myself do.

It's hard, especially being here in El Paso, which is admittedly a bit boring when for the time being the only people I have to go out with are my parents (not that my parents don't bring the party, because they do, as you well know). But I guess in theory I am here to visit my FAMILY and maybe it's about time to make up for the five years of holidays in which I probably saw more of my boyfriend/ex than I did of my dad. But you know, it's not as hard as I thought it would be, and not nearly as hard as this was when I first tried it back in July. In fact, I almost feel like I could actually get used to this.

It's the smart thing to do. And it's going to make me stronger in the long run. And that's my motto for the coming year. If it doesn't make me stronger or smarter, then it has no place in my life in 2007. (And happier, I suppose, although I've discovered that complete happiness is actually pretty fleeting, so making a choice just because "it will make me happy" doesn't really work. Plus "it will make me happy" allows for choices like kissing inappropriate men and drinking that fifth vodka tonic, and I don't think a good life mantra should easily allow for such choices...at least not at this point in my life. So I figure it's better to aim for overall peace and contentment, which is really just a deeper sort of happiness anyway, right? Stronger+smarter=happier in the long run anyway, I figure).