Then go be my flickr friend. I posted a video of me talking and I am pretty embarrassed.

I tried posting it here, but it kept saying my video was “private” which it is - it’s only viewable to people I label as my flickr friends.

Come on, you know you want to see it!

My uncle was killed last night in a head-on collision with his motorcycle and a sedan. After work, I witnessed a terrible, terrible car accident involving six cars. I thought about not posting the following, but because life is short, I will.

I will be here on Sunday, supporting my family at the Springfield Bike Path in honor of the cousin I never had the opportunity to know. Come on down! Say hi. I’ll feed you.

I am a day late. I love you mamma. The following is a random slide of photos.

Mamma lets me take photos like this one, after I’ve thoroughly embarrassed her enough:

Also this one, after she hit the moose:

(No, not a diaper on her head. Just an ice pack from the hospital. But we called her diaper head for months. We’re mature like that.)

But here is an embarrassing photo of me, to even things up, with my mom and my cousin Crystal:

My mom was nineteen when she and my father honeymooned together, as seen in this photo:

A couple months later….

My mom was younger than myself when she posed for this photo, with me:

And still younger than I when she posed for this photo:

My mom still loved me when I looked like this:

Puts new meaning on the whole, “a face only a mother could love” doesn’t it?

My mom took my senior photos for me (and did a REALLY good job at making me NOT look like that previous photo, right?!):

My mom gave me these for my 21st birthday:

But most importantly? Y’all? My mamma is HOTTTT:

Ti amo, mamma.

I’m back from my three-day conference in Bretton Woods! Mt. Washington was simply wonderful. The resort we were at was completely breathtaking. If you ever make it up that way, I HIGHLY (like, Mt. Washington high) recommend you stay there. You know, if you can stomach the $600/night charge. (That is EXACTLY what I meant about not being cool enough for the hotel, btw.) I would go back in a heartbeat. If someone else picked up the tab, that is.

I’ve never made it up to Mt. Washington, so the trip was a visually stimulating experience for me. Being from Colorado, I am quite familiar with the Rocky Mountains. But the White Mountains are a totally different experience. Next summer, I plan on climbing Mt. Washington - and I have never had such a strong desire to climb any other mountain - that alone should tell you how truly inspired I was.

Here are some photos from the main level, the lobby area (apologies for the yellow tinge, my flash was a nuisance):

As soon as I arrived, I realized I had NO signal on my cell. OF COURSE. I was a little desperate running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to find signal under tables, in the bathroom sink, on a roof to find signal. The ONE place I was able to receive signal? HANGING OVER MY BALCONY. Peeps? I was on the third floor, meaning four stories off of the ground. Meaning, due to the 15ft ceilings, I was WAY THE FRICK HIGH OFF OF THE GROUND. The ground that nearly met my face after a slip up on the railing. Never again in my life will I risk myself for The Internet. Unless It tempts me with chocolate, which would be very, very unfair, but OH so worth it.

Wow, what a waste of internet space. Moving on…

Here was the bedroom I shared with three other women on the first night:

Those beds look comfy, no? Well, I wouldn’t know because I took the cot. But the cot wasn’t so shabby, either.

The second evening, on a stroke of luck, I had my own room!

That bed was comfy. And so was the chair, seeing as I fell asleep in it.

One thing I want to say here and now was Tamara Hall was one of the speakers at the conference and she taught two seminars one of which I snuck into, skipping my other boring scheduled seminar. She is completely inspiring. Some of the things she said touched a deep cord in me, so deep that I spent all of Thursday evening, after devoring her (autographed!)novel, in the bathtub, self-reflecting. A lot. I’m talking five perfectly blissful hours in that tub. I’m going to bring up more in a future blog post, but I just wanted to mention how wonderful she is. I’ve never been into “motivational speakers,” but this woman was BRILLIANT.

View from the hotel room:

Mt. Washington! And construction! How much better can it get?!

Here was the porch I wanted to make-out with:

And here’s why it was deserving of my affections:

But who cares about Mt. Washington when you can look at Whitney? Not the mountain, but…

Whitney the person. In the bathroom. Clearly confused. (Should I note that this is after medication and before cocktail hour?)

The following is a photo from the fancy shmancy dinner I attended the second evening. It was several courses and I used all the right utensils in the correct order, thank you Titanic and the unsinkable Molly Brown (Kathy Bates) for: “Just start from the outside and work your way in.”

You’ll notice how exotic my companions look next to my bloated-looking self:

And lastly, because I adored my fancy dinner outfit so much, here is me and The Fancy Outfit and a dirty mirror:

Basically, I fell a tiny bit in love with the hotel and its surroundings. While I was reveling in the awesome sense of strength I felt just being there, I realized a few things:

1. I want more. In life, in love. (Again with the future post that I should start writing now, knowing me and my ADHD and tendencies towards procrastination.)

2. I wanted so very badly to share the experience with someone I loved. I caught my breath one morning sitting in the chair by my window, sipping tea, overwhelmed by everything. I would love, love, love to visit Mt. Washington and the resort with someone I love someday. Truly, the Mt. Washington Resort is a romantic place.

3. When I arrived home and Shane picked me up, every feeling I’d held for him sort of melted. I don’t want to say they “slipped away” because they didn’t. But a lot of things were wrong in our relationship. After a while, the emotions just weren’t as strong or present. Without revealing too much, Shane and I had been living as friends only for the better part of our three years together. On Sunday, I twittered this and my thoughts when I wrote that have only amplified since then. I’m not saying I’m ready to start pursuing someone new, but I’m going to keep my mind and heart open.

In closing to the whole Shane ordeal, I’m going to leave it off of the blog for a while. It may or may not come up again, but I’m just not emotionally invested in blogging anymore about it. You can all breathe a sigh of relief, now.

And that’s it, folks! If you want to view the complete set of photos, go here. Note: Some photos I make viewable to flickr friends only, so if you are on flickr, add me so you can see them all! You know you want to.

P.S. You all were so right! I had an unbelievable time!

I think I look superimposed.

That photo has nothing to do with this post, I just wanted a photo and this worked for me.

In twelve hours I am heading out on a three-day conference, to a resort I am not cool enough for up in the White Mountains. I will likely be without internet access (HOLYHANNAHHOLYHANNAH) for the entire time. And of course, I am backlogged by 804 emails that need replies (you all are too cool for me, too). Plus, I have 165.7 posts bookmarked to read. But the really, really freaky part?

I haven’t even started packing. Or ironing. I have to dress “formal” for the dining room. People, I am not formal. I thought I could just make due with all my wrinkly capris - but OH NO. OH. NO. I have to wear gowns and “bling,” as specified on my itinerary. IFJGFIOGJF!

Also, today I had an incident with the autistic boy swimming, sans clothing, in the freaking Connecticut River. DOWN RIVER, you know, WITH THE CURRENT. Yeah. My point EXACTLY. (But, he totally made up for it. He gave me a kiss today, the first outward sign of affection towards me in the two years I’ve worked with him. I might have cried. Maybe. Just a little. Maybe.)

OKAY ENOUGH YELLING WITH THE CAPS AND REPETITION. I’m out!

For four through six go here. One through three is here.

Seven: One night I fall asleep to them screaming, in their bedroom, directly across the ugly, brown-carpeted hallway. I hear doors slam and the awful, gasping sobs of my mother before louder sounds of suitcases being dragged through our split level.

The next morning is Sunday. I peek out my bedroom hesitantly, half anxious to jump-start our Sunday morning ritual of cartoons and half afraid of seeing my family unit broken at the bottom of the staircase. I creep down the hallway, past my four-year old brother’s bedroom and peek in to see if he is asleep. He is. I move further down the hallway to the top of the stairs.

My father is sitting in the corner of our sectional in the family room, the family room he had lovingly painted pink, for me, when I had asked two years prior. He has his arms propped on his knees, a hand supporting one side of his head as he stares off, blankly, into space. The second step descending the stairs creaks and he looks up at me, trying to mask his weariness. There are no smells of breakfast cooking from the adjourning galley kitchen, no pretty mama in her silky pajamas and mussed-up hair drinking coffee in front of the fireplace. My dad does not have the morning paper spread out next to him, there is no cartoon section left aside for me to pour though. There is no faint, familiar hum from the television being on ESPN, on mute. Instead the house is eerily quiet. My father has dark circles shadowing his eyes, hinting at the emotional exhaustion he is suffering from. The dog is not curled up on the floor at my father’s feet and the house does not have the same warm and welcome feeling I always remember it having. Nothing is right and from this point forward, I know that nothing will be.

My dad motions for me to cuddle up with him on the couch. Putting his arm around me, in the pink, cold family room at 7 AM Sunday morning, he says with deep regret, “Whitney, baby. Mommy and I are divorcing.”

Last night I was invited out to a dinner party with nine other women. These are women I work with, most of them I knew only in passing. But I needed a night out, so I went.

Halfway through the first bottle of wine, the power went out. We had planned to use a Raclette Grill to cook all the food on (potatoes, veggies, pancetta, etc), so we grabbed our glasses and bottles and moved into the dimly, candlelit sitting room and just talked, anxiously waiting the power to come back on. We ate way too much delicious basil and tomato hummus and laughed hysterically when one woman brushed her sleeve against a candle and the first person to notice the burning shirt said, in a discombobulated, calming way, “Oh, bummer. You are on fire.” (Maybe this is one of those “you had to be there!” type of moments, but really? I can’t stop laughing about it.)

Three bottles of wine later, we resigned ourselves to the fact that the power would NOT cooperate, so raw veggies and cold wine would be our meal. As the candles slowly melted into their pillar holders and we’d toasted our last round of ridiculously funny toasts, I looked around the table and smiled. I had come to the dinner, fully prepared to wallow in my singleness (all these women were married) and be the party pooper I have been lately. But these women, who slid with me across the kitchen floor in our socks, clutching my hands to keep from falling; whose heads fell on my shoulders during a gut-busting laugh; who told me that yes, I most certainly deserved another piece or five of bread; who offered their homes, their cars or their sons to help me get over him; who told me my hair looked great, even when it didn’t - these women made me forget that I arrived to the party not knowing them very well.

Six bottles of wine later, as the candles were being snuffed out by their own wax and as tears streamed down our faces, arms clutching our bellies in loud, enchanting laughter, I had this intense, mother-bear-esque love for each and every woman. I will admit that though it does not seem like it, I hold a lot of my emotions and my feelings inward. It’s hard for me to trust anyone, which makes blogging about my feelings so easy. The internet is still a stranger to me. I don’t know if it will email me porn spam or Borders coupons. I don’t know if it takes cigarette breaks whenever I receive the infamous “404 Error.” I can’t trust it to deliver new, delicious blogs to add to my Bloglines every day and I can’t always trust it to bring me good news about my credit card accounts. All of this makes it so much easier to reveal my self on this blog. Maybe that makes me a coward.

But after last night, I realized that I want to know the internet. Or, at least, I want to know my lurkers and my commenters. I want to know the person who googles “bible and warts” at three AM and lands here. I want to know the people who subscribe to my feed, the people who comment on my most boring blog posts and the people who email me instead of commenting.

This isn’t about de-lurking at all. It’s about me, wanting to know you. I want your blog address, so I can read what you write. I’d like your email address, so I can keep up regular correspondence with you (that reminded me of a stool softener commercial I just saw), but as many bloggers can attest to my extremely inconsistent email replies, please don’t hate me if it’s been four months with no reply. (WOAH. Can I just say: embarrassing? But also obnoxiously awful - and sadly, to me, funny?)

So email me or leave a comment. I want to know your story. I am continually fascinated by life stories and would be honored if you told me yours.

Plus, this is a perfect time to do so, as I am revamping my blog and finally adding that ubiquitous blogroll. I’d also like to add a “Blog Post of the Day/Week” Sidebar, so link me to posts of yours you especially love.

I’m sorry for my lack of postage. But if you’re having a bad day (or even a good one), I dare you to not laugh watching this video.

I am not someone who likes to air out my dirty laundry on my web log. The initial post about mine and Shane’s break up is completely out of character for me and if there is anything at all I regret, it is That Post. I’ve always promised myself to not do things in anger, to not argue with a raised voice, to not spank a child while angry. As a female in a large Italian/Irish family, I know where yelling gets you. I didn’t want to go there, but I did.

Because That Post is published online and because so many strangers have read it, I first decided to post a follow-up with invitation/password only. But I do not want to leave any future blog followers (if there are any) with the bitterness of That Post lying on their tongue. Therefore, here is the post I intended to make password-protected.

When Shane broke up with me, it came out of nowhere. That’s the best way to describe it. Without going into tedious detail, I want to say that I posted That Post after so much anger and too many glasses of vino at my mother’s home. I posted That Post before I’d spoken with Shane, before I had a full chance to collect my scattered thoughts.

When I went home a couple days later, I laid myself out on the line, asking Shane for another chance to work things out. Shane said he couldn’t. And in a lot of ways, Shane is justified in his reasoning. I let him down, plain and simple. The contributing factors include me working twelve hours a day and consequently not having the emotional sustenance to be there for him when he’s needed me. Another factor? A big factor? My love affair with the internet. I maintain entirely too many friend/networking accounts. My Palm Treo keeps me connected, all the time, to every single one of these obsessions. I check my email probably fifty times a day. I twitter the little nuances of my life every few hours and I am excessively refreshing my Bloglines feeds. I’ve lost a lot of interest in my former favorite hobbies because, Look! Overheard in New York has posted another funny convo snippet and I must read it NOW. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, in regards to my many work commitments and internet accounts, but I need to slow down.

The fact of the matter is that we own a home together. Both of our names are on the colossal mortgage statements we receive each month. So colossal is this payment that neither of us can afford to make it on our own. And because of past mishaps, we can’t trust a stranger to move in with one of us to help support the costs. It’s also no secret that it’s a home buyer’s market right now. This leaves us to continue living together, at least for the time being. Thankfully, this home is much too large for us. But unthankfully? This makes the whole process of getting over him much more difficult than it should be.

Today we went to Shane’s softball game together, then to Borders, Target, Circuit City and Taco Smell. What is remarkable, at least to me, is how easy it is to fall into a friendship-only relationship with Shane. We looked at televisions today, making plans to purchase a new one soon. We laughed at how eager Circuit City’s employees are. We lamented at Taco Smell’s inadequacy in correctly stuffing chalupas. We also finalized the weekend we plan to canoe down the Connecticut River. Today is the first day I haven’t cried.

I’m still holding onto the narrow string of hope that Shane will grow to love me again, that I can listen to any song in my iTunes library without getting misty-eyed. But I know, deep down, that I can’t rely on that and expect him to feel what he felt when we first whispered those three words to one another at five o’clock one morning years ago. I’d be lying if I said that I wouldn’t take Shane back if he proclaimed his renewed love for me. We had three years together. It would be awful, for me, if I could throw that away so casually and unaffectedly and move on with my life right and proper. I can’t. I can’t help but remain completely in love with him. I can’t help that every time we laugh over an inside joke or a shared interest, my heart trembles slightly. I can’t help that the last three years with Shane have been the best of my life or that I live to see Shane happy. More than anything, I want to see him happy in whatever outcome God has planned for us.

My progress is slow, yes, but the most important person in the world to me is currently sitting behind me, typing up his college final. And he turns to me for advice on how to word a sentence correctly while I type this. In a few minutes, he will ask me what we should do for dinner this evening. In a few hours he will help me haul my dirty laundry into the local Laundromat and even later than that we will share a glass of our favorite wine, watching whatever appeals to us on television, sharing a comfortable and fun conversation. In a few days he will still be here, as will I, and we’ll continue this friendship that we first based our romantic relationship on. Maybe a month from now he’ll tell me he loves me, maybe he won’t. But he will still be the most important person in my life and he will still be my best friend. I cannot give any of that up, not for anything, not even to get over my heartache.

What it all boils down to is that I’m not completely “okay” today. I’m trying my best to just be okay, but I know I’m not okay today and I won’t be okay tomorrow. I probably won’t even be okay next week or next month. But, eventually, I will be okay. I will move on with or without him. I will continue to wish for the best for him, even if the best for him is not me.

***To every single person who commented and emailed me in the last few days: For the all the ways in which you have moved me, I cannot sufficiently or eloquently express my gratitude. As William Shakespeare put so effectively, “I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.”

The title explains it all. If you want the password, please email me (email is luckyduckys AT gmail DOT com).