He does what he can.

While I am still sad that Bear's absence is going to be longer than we had hoped, I have to give him credit - he really has done his best on this trip to get as much face time as possible with me on Skype and give me as much attention as he can.

Most evenings after I get home from work we'll talk for a for a while, sometimes on the weekends we'll just leave the camera for hours on as we work on projects separately, occasionally he'll get into bed and just leave his laptop open until the battery dies after he falls asleep.

It's no substitute for having my living, breathing dude snuggled up to me on the couch with our kitties, but it's a lot better than relying on phone calls, emails and letters to stay in touch, of course.

As bummed out as I was last week after finding out about Christmas, there's really nothing he could've done to be a better boyfriend.

On Monday, Seattle was hit with snow. My coworker who lives near me had ridden her bike to work, so I volunteered to give her a ride home. On my way from her apartment to my own (it took an hour to go from work to her place to my place - all in West Seattle,) I quickly realized my cute little Hyundai is not made for inclement weather. There was a near death experience and a major curb check that trashed one of my front rims; by the time I made it home I was sore, tired and a more than a little freaked out. I opened my mail only to find my one year anniversary gift waiting for me - a gift card for a manicure, pedicure and massage at the salon he goes to for his haircuts in Seattle.

Tuesday was a "Snow Day" and the day he told me he wasn't scheduled to come home before December 25th.

Wednesday, I cried a lot. He tried to reassure me a lot.

Thursday (Thanksgiving,) was our anniversary.

Historically, The Madre and I never found much use for the whole big turkey dinner. That didn't change after I got out on my own, but we wanted to spend time together (um, that's the real meaning of the holidays, riiiight?) so she took me to breakfast at one of our local go-to diners and we chatted for a while.

Once I got home I pulled the Christmas tree out of storage, since Bear and I had already decided to put it up "together" before he told me he wouldn't be here for the actual holiday. It's a pre-lit, 3 foot artificial cutie - perfectly sized for my apartment. Most of the ornaments were the ones with sentimental value that I convinced Ma to left me have when I moved out, but Bear did get me a few more at Turkfest and I had some traditional balls to fill up space.

We got on Skype and after the usual catch up for the day and "love yous" and "happy anniversaries," I popped on some holiday music and got down to setting it up. He worked on music and occasionally gave input, even suggesting maybe we just leave it up for the next year to make up for him not being here for Christmas. While I can't imagine that happening, especially since we'll be moving into a bigger place as soon as possible when he returns, the idea cheered me up.

***One of the many many many reasons I love him - even from across the planet he puts a huge smile on my face.***

When I finally finished up, he was definitely ready for bed (I always forget if Turkey is 9 or 10 hours ahead, but the bottom line is - boyfriend stays up really late to be able to see me,) so I left the laptop open and kept working around my place until I was sure he had drifted off to sleep.

Our relationship has been a little unconventional, but I will give him this - Bear is doing everything in his power to keep me happy despite the distance. As sad as I can get sometimes, I know that I am a very lucky girl to have such a devoted guy itching to come home to me.

Color me disappointed (<----understatement of the year.)

Geez, there are so many ways I could catch y'all up here because it's been a while since I last posted, but the only thing I've been able to think about for the past day is that Bear is not coming home in time for Christmas.

Technically, that means this year he'll have been gone for all of my favorite holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.) Did I mention that Thanksgiving is our one year anniversary? Yeahhhh. And this is after my birthday in September basically got pre-empted for a show. I'm growing more than weary of this.

For The Madre and I, these days have always been mellow but shared with the ones we love that are closest and most important to us - usually each other and/or our oldest friends. I was really looking forward to sharing that with him this year, since last year at this time we had just started officially dating and kept the holidays quite "light." I knew it was possible he wouldn't be home, but now that he's said it out loud it is a lot more real.

Honestly, I'm crushed. Right now I feel like all my holiday spirit is gone.

P.S. Though I truly appreciate the fact that some of my friends might think that inviting me out will help, please don't - it's not going to.

NaBloPoMo FAIL

You would think that being ill all weekend would make it easy to keep up with my NaBloPoMO challenge, but then you clearly wouldn't understand the distraction powers of the PlayStation 3. Red Dead Redemption, more specifically.

Sunday I was too tired to even make the effort to play video games and resorted to watching as much Deadwood as possible and working on my Turkish homework.

I hate being sick.

Okay, okay - I feel safe(r).

Due to some questionable activity in my neighborhood and the regular failure of my neighbors to heed the "please do not prop the door open, this is a security(sic) building" sign posted on pretty much every door, I was feeling really unsafe being home alone even before Bear left.

While preparing for his departure, we purchased an alarm for my apartment. In the interest of my own personal safety I won't be describing the exact system we chose, but I will say that we tested it out and were quite pleased with the initial results. For my front door there is an option to chime or sound an alarm when the door is opened while the system is armed.

The other morning before work (a little before 8 AM) I apparently neglected to turn off the door alarm before I departed for my car. I had set it up to "chime" and honestly did not expect the ear-piercing screech that it emitted. Startled, but with enough good sense to quickly shut the door, I switched it off and tried again to leave my apartment.

Except, I didn't actually switch it OFF - I flipped it all the way to ALARM. Holy eff.

I'm pretty sure my neighbors probably hate me, but I'd also bet no one on my floor will ever consider trying to break into my apartment either. I definitely feel safer.

My new favorite show ever. EVAR. (Please bring back Breaking Bad already.)

I have a few associates that I trust implicitly to suggest shows, movies, etc. that I should spend my free time watching.

I haven't had real cable television for a very long while, so I don't typically spend a lot of time watching TV during the week and when I do I prefer that it's a decent quality, right? Don't get me wrong - sometimes I miss the HELL out of "reality programming," but most of it is...just not good for me (or probably you) to watch on a regular basis.

One of these friends recently turned me on to the amazing show that is/was Deadwood.

I am effing obsessed. I watch it all the time, I talk about it to others, it's been mentioned on my Facebook at least 3 times this week...It's my new favorite show ever.

And it was canceled 4 years ago.

I guess it shouldn't be a total surprise I love this show (SO NSFW):

A classic...

Aren't we more advanced than this?

In the age of god-knows-how-many IM platforms AND Skype, I find myself incredibly frustrated when I am forced to correspond with my absent boyfriend via email.

I feel like I may as well be sending a carrier pigeon. *okay, okay, this is a slight exaggeration of the situation

On a similar note, I realized this weekend that due to his travel and phone restrictions Bear would make a pretty dreadful "Emergency Contact." *this is unfortunately not an exaggeration

I love a successful weekend.

Oh yes, there was a pedicure. Lots of ice cream too.

And Deadwood (thanks to a non-The Wire TV series suggestion from my favorite other American+Foreigner couple.)

I went to Hump! and watched amateur porn in a room with hundreds of other people, including the lovely group of my favorite Hill-ites I attended with.

I tried rock climbing with a girlfriend who is apparently part monkey and clearly far less afraid of heights. (see picture for her superhuman feats!)

I Skyped with my boo, I cleaned as much as I could motivate myself to...Pretty much all I could ask for from a weekend on my own.

All I have to do now is make it through Monday.

The streak is over.

As of approximately 6 weeks ago, I broke my 30 year long "No Parking/Speeding Tickets" streak. Since then I've gotten a parking ticket about every 2 weeks. This is not a good sign.

One of them was clearly my fault, one of them was pretty much Bear's fault and the most recent one was a total shocker as I didn't seen any damn Zone Permit signs in the area and discovered it when I turned on my windshield wipers the next day in my own neighborhood. *shakes fist*

Still, I've lost almost $150 of my hard-earned money to parking tickets since late September and momma can't afford that shiz.

Two entirely different types of classes...

I really can't imagine my Turkish teacher even saying the words "ass" or "inner diva," but they roll effortlessly off the tongue of the chick who teaches my Art of Seduction & Exotic Dance classes.

One session strains my brain, the other works my body but both push the boundaries of my confidence.

After all the running around I did this week, I didn't get to talk to Bear much on Skype and by Friday I definitely needed a night in to treat myself to a nice bath, some shows, hot tea and take out pizza and ice cream from my local favorites Proletariat and Full Tilt. It's also possible there may be a pedicure in my very near future.

It's definitely going to be a more hectic pace than I am used to during the week, but it will clearly help keep me busy and distracted until my dude can come home. Also, it means I don't have a lot of time on the weekdays to clean, so "Helloooooo again" Domestic Goddess Sundays!

Turkish class first impressions.

Oh, the First-Day-of-School-Jitters, how I did not miss you. At 30 years of age you might have thought I was immune, but you would be wrong.

True, they were almost nothing compared to that once practically terrifying approach to the new elementary school(s), junior high(s) and high school(s), yet my nerves were buzzing all day.

Our Beginning Turkish teacher is doing her PhD at University of Washington, so we have the luxury of using one of the Smart Rooms on campus. Parking and the classroom were easy enough to find and there were only 2 other students in the room when I arrived: one woman probably about my age and another around The Madre's age (mid-50s.) Soon enough another college-age girl arrived, followed by a guy probably a few years older than myself. After we all introduced ourselves and shared our reasons for signing up for the class (the majority of us are in a relationship with a Turkish person,) we got to schoolin'.

The beginning of our session was a bit scattered and we experienced a few hiccups, but by the end of class I was confident that our teacher (albeit a bit kooky) was definitely going to be able help us understand the basics. Of course, one of the first steps is learning the alphabet. Pretty sure I'll be practicing that this upcoming week with anyone willing to listen and watching this video over and over again.:



Next week we should get our workbooks and be able to progress even further. I'm gonna learn to speak Turkish, y'all!

In honor of the Turkish government re-opening online access to Youtube:

This is for you Bear.



Now if only India's record company would actually let Youtube broadcast the official videos, the GBF and I would be a lot happier.

***Oops. that didn't last very long, did it? TURKEY: YouTube banned, again, over sex-scandal video

Can this even be called nesting?

I've noticed a trend: every time my boyfriend leaves for Turkey, I get the overwhelming urge to buy things like art and throw pillows.

Okay, not things like art and throw pillows, we're talking actual art and throw pillows.

I gather up stuff and take it to Goodwill, I clean like the dickens, etc. I think of it as nesting, but it definitely doesn't seem like the typical/standard pre-baby "nesting..." Probably because it's not, I suppose - there's no babies happenin' up in my goods anytime soon (PTL.)

On Friday I finally bought one of my friend Valentina Vitols photograph prints - one that I had my eye on for ages.

Saturday I bought...Wait for it...A throw pillow.

This time I even threw in a new throw for good measure. (Unfortunately, due it it's "bunnysoft" awesomeness my cat Gizmo seems to have adopted it as her long lost mother which means not only will she not leave me alone when I'm cuddling in it she apparently also feels compelled to drool all over the darn thing.)

Continuity counts!

I recently realized I am supremely bad at following up on the posts I write. I suppose that an entire month of blogging with a post every day will likely help remedy that, but I swear I will also be making more of a conscious effort.

For instance, I had about 3 blog entries scheduled to post when I realized that some of you might actually be interested in the following:

I did in fact end up staying in on Halloween (sort of.) Bear left me with an updated entertainment set-up, so on Saturday morning the Madre came over to help me take my old 27" tube TV down the 3 flights of stairs to my car and then to Goodwill. I'm pretty sure I heard one of her knees give way on the 2nd flight and I know that I ended up straining some muscles in my arm and back, but we got 'er done and went to lunch at my favorite salad bar. I ran a few more errands, did a bit of shopping, grabbed some sushi takeout and Sapporo, got in my pjs and settled in for the evening to watch Teen Witch and give my poor back a break.

Sunday was intended to be mellow, with a visit to a nearby friend's place to watch the Skeleton Theater. It was really rainy and quite cool that evening, so we warmed ourselves fire-side and chatted as the kiddos came for their treats. When we decided to head over to watch the show I grabbed my phone so I could take photos to send to Bear and realized I had multiple missed calls from various unknown numbers as well as new voicemails. Turns out the Madre had locked herself out of her house and had been frantically trying to get in touch with me so I could use my set of keys to let her in.

I ended up missing the show to go and rescue her, but had a lovely night with my friends nonetheless. I can't say I'll necessarily make staying in on Halloween a trend, but this year it was exactly what I needed.

Oh, I can do *that*!

How did I not know about NaBloPoMo?

"National Blog Posting Month is the epicenter of daily blogging! People who want to set the habit of blogging by doing it every day for a month, including weekends, can come here for moral support, inspiration, and the camaraderie that only marathon blogging can provide."

After failing my NaNoWriMo challenge last year I definitely had no plans to participate this year, especially considering how busy my November will already be with Turkish classes and Sensual Movement classes every week. That's a lotta words. Every day. I barely had time for it last year, this year it would be ridiculous to even try.

Buuuuut this morning I came across another blog mentioning NaBloPoMo - one blog post per day? I can do that.