My friend Michelle has a tatoo that reads "The beauty of just letting go..."
I think about that tattoo a lot these days. And in a lot of different context.
It is so simple and speaks volumes.
Seems the older I get, the more important "letting go" becomes and the harder it is to do.
I guess nothing beautiful comes easy, so I'll just have to keep trying.
-MA
I had another one of those days this past weekend…those days I ache for the familiarity and warmness of DC. It is amazing how much I internalized that city, and well really, the larger DC, the whole metro area surrounding the city. I didn’t just live there, I felt “there”, it had a pulse that set my internal idol.
But when I really try to put my finger on it, what it was that so bonded me to that place, it was that I came of age there…
I guess most people do that in high school, but for me those years were strife with anxiety. I didn’t learn who I was - I learned how to survive in a violent home. I learned how not to be suffocated by poverty. I learned that a person can have two faces, especially where alcohol is involved. I spent every moment planning and carefully crafting my way out (…maybe that’s why shawshank redemption is my favorite movie, I never thought of that way before, but anyway I digress)…then I went to college, fell in love, and spent five years drowning my neuroticism and inner turmoil with another person’s stillness and peace… image my surprise to learn that that supposed peace never existed in his reality but rather was created by mine for self preservation. His outer actions simply fit the mold. It was moving to DC that eventually closed that chapter in my life. Though I tried to revisit it, it never felt the same – it just felt wrong. So I was set free in DC, free to grow and make all the mistakes that teach you who you are NOT, to experience life in more effervescent emotions, to live by my own agenda, to fumble and blunder, to overcome and accomplish the things that teach you who your ARE, to find every nook and cranny of the city… and to eventually find resolve. I am so thankful for resolve and the resulting good decisions, the best decisions. I guess after all that, after all I found, it is fitting that I would find him, the best him, the forever him. It is as if the city said, I’ve finally given you the best I ever can, move along now…but I guess it was really me who said that to the city. I can see it being a VERY strange place to some but to me its existence is necessary to life. It is forever part of me.
-MA
This year's River Riot was awesome! We had a much larger group, and the line-up was great. The Exies, Fuel, Papa Roach, Buck Cherry, Hinder, and Incubus. Drinking beer all day, chilling with your best friends, and trying to keep up with the youngens in the pit, while 300 pound guys land on your head trying to crowd-surf... all in all, a pretty amazing day. Not to mention that the weather was perfect!! Mandy, Lisa, Chris, Bruce, Timmy, Aaron, Tracy, Ernie, and Krystal... thanks for the good times. And BARBIE, thanks for DDing us yet again this year. Soon it will be your turn to have all the fun. All things considered, 2007 topped out last year's. What do you think girls? 
After a ridiculous day at work, thanks to an exercise, I finally stumbled into the house. As my tradition goes, I grab a Miller out of the fridge, and head down to the computer to check my email. This led to me being the first to AIM Sarah at OmahaNightLive.com and consequently winning a pair of tickets to go see the VIOLENT FEMMES tonight at STIR located in Harrah's Casino.
Hundreds of thousands of people .... dead from violence and disease... claims by most nations of genocide... Darfur, Sudan.
This is brutality, mass murder, genocide going on as we speak, yet most have no idea what I am talking about. I will admit, the situation in Western Sudan is quite confusing to me, but the immensity of it is much more astounding. Since the fighting started in Feb. 2003, it has been calculated (accuracy is as confusing) that between 200,000 to 450,000 people have been killed through violence and disease!!!!! Since October of 2006, that's only 8 months ago, about 2.5 million people have been displaced! What is going on? The players: Sudanese military, along with the Janjaweed VS. various rebel groups (Sudan Liberation Movement, Justice and Equality Movement)
The Janjaweed are militia (primarily recruited from camel-herding nomads). The Sudanese government claims that they do not support these militia, yet they are providing them with financial and other support. Also, it has become apparent that the government has been destroying evidence and tampering with sites of violence, essentially to cover it's actual depth of involvement in all of this.
~~~ DEZ
Apparently my kitty Mirage thinks she is centerfold material!
NO PEEKING DON!!
These are pictures from my first dress shopping experience with my Maid of Honor (MOH) Desiree or Dezi or Dizzy D or what ever affectionate pet name strikes my fancy. Dez was such a trooper, she was helping pick out the best dresses and taking them out of the bags, setting them up for me, helping "secure" them on, and then hanging them back up for me. She was AWESOME! Keep in mind the pics where I'm actually wearing a dress were pics snapped in the dressing room as this place would not allow us to take pics out on the main floor with the platforms and mirrors. Not sure what that is all about! It's ok though, because it means there are no spoiler pics of what I might actually look like walking down the aisle. Anyways, it was a great day with my MOH and props to her for picking at the dress that looked the best!
-Mary Ann
My one and only girl Dez came to visit me in San Diego for the first time! It wasn't long before we were wining, dj-ing, and dancing. Warning...serious sillyness within...
Sorry for the delay in pictures friends. I just got back from the desert, where we weren't allowed access. And right now I'm in San Diego visiting my best friend. Here are the pics from our celebration with Omaha Night Life for New Year's 2006!! We had an amazing Limo Bus and bar-hopped across town and finished off in Iowa, to take full advantage of the extra hour of drinking time. Amanda, Lisa, Chris, Billy, Jess.... it was so incredible to spend it with you guys. Enjoy the randomness. And please, for your own sake, withold any judgement. 
So it finally sinks in, it sinks into my understanding, and it sinks my heart
People can act so caring and play so dumb when called out on their own actions
This simply will not fly
I don’t know why I want to believe in everyone so desperately
Being a perpetual optimist is depressing and the irony of that is overwhelming
I put too much stalk in how others behave,
The past year and a half, several interesting life events collided and I’ve had the misfortune of at once running into the worst of immaturity and ill intensions I’ve ever seen from my same sex and worse, from a once thought close friend
I’ve seen spitefulness the likes of which I never experienced before
I’ve seen jealousy just spew from people I’m quite sure don’t have the capacity of thought to even identify it as an emotion
I’ve seen passive aggressiveness a little too close for comfort
I’ve seen spinning desperation and one-sided shallow competition
I’ve seen clueless self centeredness
I’ve seen strangeness
I am repulsed
Girls, little girls, presenting themselves as women and playing childish games
They see something they want
But, they do not see that it is the very nature of who they choose to be that prevents them from having it
So… they lash out, and I have suffered
My suffering is my responsibility, but the negative effects of the past year a half have accumulated into a true challenge to my psyche
My inner most confidence in myself and others, while never lost, has at times faltered
To have been there, to have experienced it, is to internalize it
Then how do you separate this from who you are?
How do you choose all the players in your life?
How do you REALLY just let go of that which is not what you are about?
Absolute resolve.
Against those trying break others down so that they have something to stand on
I say…find your own ground, stop mucking through quicksand and then wondering why you continue to sink.
Jenny was able to meet up with me in San Jose, and from there we took the 'road less traveled' through the mountains in her rented SUV. Our destination, Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica... where the rainforest meets the ocean. It is the smallest of the 20 National Parks in Costa Rica, yet it is the 2nd most visited. Home to sloths, squirrel monkeys, etc... it is a magical place. We met some really great people, and enjoyed the night life as well. There is also a restaurant that was built around an airplane... this is one of two secret planes that the CIA intended to deploy secretly to Nicaragua during the Iran-Contra affair... it's a really great story. Enjoy.
