sicilian lift off

sometimes a girl just needs a boost.

sweetness.

update post-hiatus

life moves on. sometimes i have a tendency to overthink things. other times my evil twin just jumps in headfirst without thinking --- is that underthinking? it seems to be a pattern that the items i should have thought about are the ones that start impulsively and end badly... while the ones i fret and stew over should have been instantaneously embraced and fully enjoyed.

 

yes, i got married.

 

despite all my worry. i finally had an ultimatum thrown at my feet and the idea of living without him offered sudden, complete and irrefutable clarity. i love him. had since the day i met him. and simply took us both seperate paths to arrive at the same conclusion. we make sense.

 

we sealed the deal on september 19th in the florida keys. [yes, smack in the middle of hurricane season --- more about that later] and have been inseperable ever since. i have never been happier in my entire existence.

 

sincerely,

the current and future mrs. bradley a. hunt

flying

people stomping up and down the aisle. sweating and attempting to shove bags, laptops, jackets, duty-free into the overhead. looking at zone 5 people with pompous disregard. i-got-here-first-and-have-the-right-to-ignore-personal-item-limit-rule. i love to travel. if it weren't for other travelers.

but then thats not entirely true either.

i went on my first airplane trip when i was 6. to visit my grandparents in northern louisiana. it was more of a cropduster with room for my raggedy-ann and overnight. i was big stuff. eyes like saucers waving good bye to mom. i loved the take-off even then. loved the clouds. loved even more where i was headed. grandma made play-doh from scratch.

next time i flew i was ten. headed to hawaii with the family in a gigantic tank of a plane. three rows across. my lil brother with mom across the aisle and me with dad in the middle aisle. champagne. sounds terrible for a father to be feeding his 10-year old champagne, but then you don't know my father and the fact that was the first, last and only time we ever had an alcoholic beverage together. he didn't even drink at my wedding. or dance. with me or anyone. you would have to know my dad to understand why that is comforting. and why that single glass of bubbly with him somewhere over the pacific is still one my favorite moments with him. i didnt like that flight so much as i wasnt near the window and you cannot really feel the take-off in a 747. kinda like getting a bus to catch air --- and as great as it was when keanu and sandra did it... well, that was hollywood. but i liked the flight for the moment with dad. stolen. my personal travelmate and co-conspirator.

my uncle had a plane for a while. flew grandma and some cousins around in it once. he was an ass and i hated sitting there and having him take me anywhere. hated the take off because he was there polluting it. hypocritical abusive exhibitionist. sit around in nothing but his stained whitey-tighteys and yell at my cousins and i to switch our pjs for skirts and buns before having breakfast. claimed we were whores. we were 8, 11, and 12 respectively. i didn't know what a whore was. i thought he was mispronouncing oar and couldn't figure out why that was an insult or bad or something to not be on a saturday morning. hated that man. don't care that some murmured that it was agent-orange induced. his brother was just like him and the chances that both of them had identical experiences leading to identical outcomes is as likely as an 8 year old being a whore simply bc she wore her care bears pjs to the breakfast table. hated that flight bc he spoiled it. all of it.

andre chartered a jet to fly us all to nyc. champagne caviar and white leather seats. they were all excited. he was putting the pressure on for a commitment. THE commitment. swearing that he would get help for his flaccid dick and that he was sorry for lying to me. big time spender. loved large parties. large presents. overstatements of semi-truths. was his irish heritage he claimed. another overstatement. he was a polish kid that went to notre dame. claimed he broke his nose walking onto the fighting irish. it looked just like his fathers, and was broken during intramural flag football. we have this trip we are taking. i know big gestures are his thing. i am sick that i am going to ruin the trip for everyone if he proposes. bc i will not marry him. he saves me the question. disappears the night before. literally. supposed to be at the house after a working dinner and by 2 o'clock is still mia. so i call his best friend. who is going on the trip. and who also does not know where he is. and we comb the town until andre answers the phone at 3:30ish. drunk. stupid. laughing at my once again not understanding that working dinner means shit faced and ugly into the wee hours. so i get on he flight and paste a grin and miss the take-off. but ignore him and that and focus on the conversations floating around me. learn more about those people in 3 hours than i had in the 8 months i had known them. facetime without distractions will do that. flying perk.

there was ttrip to cjoes wedding. when usairways robbed me of everything. but wont go into that again. it made for a good story. still pissed about those dresses though.

flew to st louis to meet bradley's family. and to jax to witness char and drew take the big leap. excellent trips. first one for the destination and the trust. bradley and his family ahead, he had not brought anyone home since 'her' and this felt like a big deal bc he wouldnt acknowledge it as such. second one for the optimism. a wedding between someone who i love dearly, who lost someone we both love dearly, to someone that --- as she inscribed in his ring "you save me" --- saved her from the drowning all-consuming abyss that is heartbreak. both flights were shared with pleasant and entertaining co-fliers. i gained a friend on the way to st. louis, starr dickson. seriously. thats her name.

i just got engaged.

to someone that wants me to leave this life that i have begun to build here in the mile-high and join him on his journey. our journey. but it doesn't feel like our journey. it feels like i am on my own charter, with people i really like, who have packed well and aren't snarling at me for disrupting their shitty 1.5-sf of comfort... and someone is asking me to leave all that for a flight in a 2-seater helicopter that i am not the pilot of nor have any choice in the destination. there is not a take-off with helicopters. thats why they are used to get people in and out of areas that they shouldnt or otherwise couldnt be. we lost jacques bc of a helicopter. lucky shot from some pissant on the ground and he was gone. sorry, i am rambling.

i dont want to be rescued. i dont want to be snatched out of this life. i like the journey that i am on. the direction i am heading and the people that i have on board. how do i tell that to someone that i love? that i love them but THIS is where i need to love him from. this window seat. heading THIS way with THESE people. baggage carefully stored for take-off. champagne for those that want it. raggedy anns and peanuts for those that don't.

because after 32 years of flying, countless conversations with strangers, some of whom became friends, take-offs, touch-downs and in-flight beverage service --- i finally know why it is that i like airplanes so much. there is always a reason to enjoy the flight. either the take-off, the travelmates, the conversation, the destination ---- but seldom can you have all of them. and i finally do. and i don't want to give up a single one.

do you feel lucky punk? well do ya?!

linked. in.

had a great conversation with a chica at the office today. about dogs. started by a third-party that noticed an obscure photo on my desk and suggested that i talk to aforementioned chica about pooches... bc, well, she has a dog that resembles mine. same breed -- same age and --omg --- same NAME! i smiled politely and nodded bc well, i didn't really have anything in common with the person in question other than we now share a type of dog.

third party went and muddied the waters by repeating the same information to the other like-canine-minded person and >bam< next thing you know we are chatting like magpies about the sweet quirks our dogs share. and then in another half second we are planning play dates. for our dogs.

then... conversation turns, her pooch is an adopted one, high-jacked actually --- her sister had this pooch and my coworker did not like the treatment it was being subjected to. not abuse per se. but definitely not love.

see, as it turns out, she AND i like myour pooches for their poochiness. yes, their barking on occasion will drive a monk to forsake his vows and the pope to drink --- but, they are loyal, affectionate, super happy ALL the time andtime and for-petes-sake just really entertaining.

i do NOT have dogs that will fetch. they dont grab a ball and beg me to toss it for hours [petting their bellies forEVER is a seperate topic] but for the most part they are simply happy to be near me and to feel that i and their 'peeps' are all accounted for. they are poochy. and also have the best parts of human too. they are sad and snuggly when i am down. twirl in circles and bounce when i am excited about something. and try their damnedest to ask me about my day first thing when i get home.

all the things that make a good friend a good friend.

OTHeR people enjoy un-pooching their canines. making them into extensions of themselves. scratch that. molding them into beings subservient to another will. which i understand. docile and obedient canines are a sight to behold. animals with incisors clearly meant for tearing flesh and bone domesticated into meek veggie-dieted trotting pets. i get it. some thrill there. not one i seek. but i get it.

my sister is one of those types. and has definitely expressed her disapproval of my pooch-rearing style on several occasions. most recently? and i quote " it is hard to not give [my dog] everything he wants, but instead what he needs to become a good man {uhhhh. what??} that can be trusted to make safe decisions, but the payoff is that he actually has more freedomto enjoy and be enjoyed by more people and children and experience more places in the world. and, he listens, communicates and trusts our fairness...no psychological delirium."

yes, perhaps i am drawing lines based on earlier conversations --- but it didnt take much to understand that, once again, the girls [my pooches] are somehow subpar and now subjected to psychological delirium. [i checked with them on this and they insist they are fine... keep the milkbones coming]

so back to the conversation with my co-worker. she has a eskie that she shang-hied from her sister bc said sister was subjecting HER chloe to will-bending and both parties were noticeably miserable. now the pooch is allowed to bark as nature made her. loves her humans and tries to please them bc reasonable, and ones that take her NATURAL tendencies into account, boundaries are set. my girls will never, ever be a slobbery, fetchy, waggy laborador. ever. ever. thank god. i truly believe that pooches resemble their humans. and i like what mine say about me. but i have completely gotten off track.

so the doggy conversation turns to sisters. and the intricacies that are involved in navigating familial relationships. and how attacking a single situation/problem/idea can lead to so many different possibilities and ideas-of-right. even in the case of pooches.

my sister has a different kinda pooch going on right now. the kind that is 5 days shy of a 9-month gestational stint.

and i am struggling, grappling, twisting, and barely maintaining a grip on the mentality that loves pooches being pooches. i want her to be the ultimate her. i have agonized with her through life experiences that had others attempting to bend her to their will. to make her into something that was less her. or just "other" than her. and in her truest form she is the single most amazing person i know. and she finally met a someone that does not do that. that loves her as is. and in some ways i feel a monster has been unleashed. no reasonable boundaries exist any longer.

its a conundrum.

but --- that coworker i mentioned? ---- the other common denominator we found? sisters that we love dearly and admire but that somehow, confusingly and confoundingly, managed to derail and head sideways on a path that is surprisingly self-centered and noncharacteristic. and from which we both are at a loss to address because, well, we prefer to love pooches and sisters as they just are. even when "just as they are" currently pisses the ever loving jesus out of us.