Happy Birthday, Kara!!

May it be mad fun!

Happy birthday Kara! Happy birthday, Trudy! Happy postiversary, Fred.

Happy birthday, Trudy and Tyrone/Kara

Send help! I'm trapped under a cat!

Both animals decided to attack with maximum cuteness, so I'm wedged into the corner of the couch by the dog along my right side -- he just stretched again and wedged me more firmly -- and reduced to one-hand typing by my generally standoffish cat lying on my belly and left arm.

She just turned over to face me, and I'm dead of the cute. Also, I think the motion created by my typing is bothering her, so I'll have to stop now. Goodbye, cruel world! Have them put on my tombstone, "she was overcome by cat love."

vw, if you agreed to go into work today, then you should. IJS.

Well, yes. I probably should have. But, you know what? I didn't. Also, I wasn't really asking for advice about this decision. If I was, I may have given all of the thinking behind the decision, and you may have seen the situation differently.

Whee! More birthday wishes.

GC, she's recently gotten into HK, in fact has a hot pink backpack with silver flowers and an HK decal for birthday/school.

She's also getting a Hello Kitty book from Amazon with fingerpuppets about going to school (late, dang it; though it's okay since we're celebrating all week), A Miffy balloon, a family of Nemo fish and bubble bath for the bath, a dinosaur cake today and one again next Sunday to share with the relatives and some pretty clothes from Auntie Sarah.

She chose ziti drowning in cheese sauce, green peas, and watermelon for her birthday dinner. her cake this weekend will be blueberry crumble with fleeing dinosaurs. Next weekend will be a cake with dinosaurs happily in their valley (from the movie Dinosaur) to share with the relatives and some point midweek will probably be movie/popcorn night in her honor. She may even convince us all to play chutes and ladders with her.

Goodbye Emily. We'll miss you.

Happy Birthday Kara!

Happy Birthday Trudy!

Bows before all the Buffista parents

I have even more respect for all of you than before. James cried "mama" most of the night in the most pathetic of baby voices with the trembly lip and all. Between holding him all evening and entertaining David, I am so.very.tired. I am amazed at the people that do this every day.

I am miserable. Mind-numbingly, cry-your-way-through-a-box-of-kleenex miserable. The short version (and really, the details are entirely unimportant) is that Crush!Boy most definitely does not share my feelings. And all I had to do to find that out was to stick my neck out and risk being all vulnerable.

Which culminated in a crying jag in front of a group of people who I'm just getting to know, which was embarrassing as hell, and then they were all really really really nice to me, which I can't even bear. It would have been easier if they had told me to suck it up and deal. I can't handle people being nice to me when they don't know me all that well, because all I can think is that if they knew me better they wouldn't be so nice.

To clear up any lingering doubt on my (stupid, stupid, stupid) part, Crush!Boy called me this morning and said "It seems like you're interested in me." I said "Actually, I don't know you very well, but I'd like to get to know you better; that's pretty much where I am."

He wasn't a jerk or anything; he was very kind, but said that he doesn't feel "that way" towards me, not looking for a relationship, etc., etc., I'm a great girl, etc., etc.

Other than the crushing disappointment and the overwhelming certainty that there is no human being on the face of the planet who will ever ever *ever* feel "that way" towards me, I'm also utterly embarrassed that he would feel he needed to say "Hey, do you like me? Because....DON'T!!!" I've had that happen to me before, a few years ago, and it's just moritfying, like I'm so repellent that the guy has to run a preemptive strike to stop me from naming our future babies. Like me being interested in him is such a horrible, horrible thing that he needs to cut me off at the knees.

(Can you imagine what a wreck I'd be if he had been mean about it? Because he really, truly, wasn't.)

It just comes down to (1) I was glaringly, embarrassingly obvious, like a big dopey 14-year-old; (2) Crush!Boy isn't interested in me; and (3) that makes me feel like every horrible thing I've ever been told about myself (i.e., "Boys will like you if you just lose some weight," courtesy of my mom, for 20 YEARS) is clearly true. And if it's not because I'm a big fat lump, then it has to be because of me, my personality, which is even worse.

And now I have to shower and go have lunch with one of my oldest friends, who's in town for the weekend, and I need to pull myself together and not cry all over him, because who wants to deal with that? I mean, *I* don't even want to deal with me right now.

I feel rotten. Which you may have already gathered.

Oh Steph. That sucks so much. The voices are so loud at times like these, and none of them are true. You're wonderful just as you are, and people like you even more when they get to know you, not less. I know that voice. It's hateful. Ease-ma to you.