So a few days ago, Matt and I were up real late when we had this gem of a conversation:

Grass lawns suck. I mean, you have to mow them and stuff every week, and you have to make sure there are no weeds, etc.

That's why some people have rock gardens, only most of it is sand, and you won't ever have to mow your lawn again.

Yes, but rocks are hard and scratchy.  I want a soft and fluffy lawn... like a bunny! I want my lawn to be a bunny lawn!

But bunnies hop around and stuff.

So I'll fill my lawn with so many bunnies they can't move.

But then they would DIE. And you would have a lawn full of DEAD bunnies.

No I wouldn't, I would just equip them with little food and water packs on their backs.

But then the bunnies would be wallowing in their own POOP. And besides, they wouldn't feel fluffy anymore if they carried packs on their backs.

So I'd have a double tiered lawn, so when the bunnies poop, it'll drop into the bottom compartment.  And as for the lack of fluffiness... well... BLAH! I'll have a stuffed plush bunny lawn! And they'll all be stuck to toothpicks like those butterflies stuck on pins in museums.

But what if it rains? Then your stuffed bunnies would get all moldy and gross.

That's why there's Thompson's waterproof water seal... and I'd paint a coat of that over my stuffed plush bunnies.

But then your bunnies wouldn't be soft and fluffy anymore.

So I'll *yawn* have a lawn of bunny chia pets.

But that defeats the entire purpose of not having grass for your lawn.

ZzzZzz......

Who governs where a butterfly goes?
What determines its path and its purpose?

I like to think they flitter on whims, flower to flower, without any fret in their choices.

That's how I want to live my life, fluttering about, on a tiny breeze that is whim.

After getting in my car, I didn't make it out of the parking lot before I started watering up like a little baby.  I tried my hardest not to cry when you were there, because I wanted to be strong for you. That didn't work out so well. You were always sensitive to my feelings.

I'm listening to your songs now.  It makes me feel closer to you.  Overly sentimental? I don't think so either.

It was hard getting my stuff together to go home.  I went out the back door out of familiarity, and walked around the dorm to get to my car.  And then I realized I'll never walk down that way to let you in again.  My spirit dropped a little.

You have made this semester simply wonderful.  Even when I was mean and said hurtful things that required 35 stitches to heal.  Your little quips and quirks.  It's part of your charm and makes you all the more lovable.  I hope you never lose it.  I mean, I even came to like the mom jokes (and the face jokes).

On the way home, I noticed the last sugar cookie left in the baggie.  It was the one you decorated with the atrociously green coloring.  I figured it would go bad by the time you came by again, so I bit into it.  The food coloring had soaked into about half the cookie in the center.  Bunny thinks it was good too.

I think it was the fact that everything we did together was absolutely perfect,  starting from that first movie-like un-date to Fernbank, that made things carry an almost fairy-taleish quality.  You're the bestest boyfriend I've ever had.

And you'll be a hard one to get over. (good thing there's always WoW for me ;) )

I'm waiting for the cookie dough to set (thanks to Jeff for letting me borrow a stick of butter!) which takes about 2-3 hours, so I'm waiting around killing time.  While I'm killing time, I might as well tell you folks about the Texas trip.
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So after Matt's graduation and packing up and lunch, we headed out on I-10 (i think?) and headed west.  We had a box of everlasting gobstopper candy canes to last us the day and a half drive.  We drove to a town called Meridian in Mississippi (not sure if it was Mississippi) and had dinner at Applebee's, and we stayed the night there. We got up fairly early the next day (Sunday) and drove some more.  We passed some interesting names of places that I'd like to name my pets after one day, but I can't seem to recall any of them at the moment.  Oh well.

We stopped at this one place, again I forget what it's called, but it was the SLOWEST exit EVER.  Seriously, there was traffic everywhere! It took like 10 minutes just to get to the next traffic light! We had lunch, and Matt wanted to stop and check the nearby GameStop/Walmart/Best Buy for the DS version of Animal Crossing.  And me, being the awesome person I am, let him browse the aisles as I perused the MMORG sections on the shelves.

Then we drove some more.

There was a point where we hit a *RIDICULOUS* amount of traffic when we were about 12 miles from the Texas border.  That wasn't very fun.  We took turns driving, and whoever drove got to play their songs off the ipod.

Because Lynn missed 3 flights out of Atlanta, (she was supposed to be in Brenham like, Saturday) we *almost* beat her to Houston, (if it weren't for the blasted traffic, we totally would have gotten to Houston before her).  We met up with her and her mom at this great mexican restaurant called Pappasito's, and then we drove to Brenham, following their ginormous Ford F-350.

Monday, we got up, Lynn's mom (whose name is also Cindy), made us breakfast, and then we drove to town and bought some groceries.  In the afternoon, since Lynn's mom is a horse trainer,  we did some ground work with the horses, I had this lovely brown and white horse named Dancer, who was kind of nervous, but she was supposed to be the more experienced horse. We made them step up on to these tires, we made them trot, and it was just overall bonding with the horses.  It got really dark by then, so we called it a day and would ride them some other day.

Tuesday, we went out, bought some cans of paint, because Lynn's mom wanted us to paint the horse stalls.  We decided on a mural of a sunset with silhouettes of trees and horses (think of the opening scene of that sunrise in the Lion King only with horses). That took up the most of our day, and when it got dark, we set up a bonfire and toasted hot dogs and marshmallows by the fire.  Then we hurled flaming marshmallows into the distance.  Then we started throwing marshmallows into each other's mouths.  Then we started pelting one another with marshmallows.  Then we still had so many marshmallows leftover, we started tossing them into the fire to watch them get charred on the outside and explode like a mushroom on the inside.  Then we started stuffing marshmallows into our glass bottles, and put them in the fire, so the marshmallows would pop out with a satisfying little 'fwoomp' sound.  Then it got late and we went back inside.

Wednesday, I got up early again (I'd been waking up at 8~8:30ish every morning in Texas) and went out for a walk with Matt and the younger dog, Gypsy, (they have two dogs, an older but smaller one named Wiggles, and a bigger but younger one). This was a much shorter walk than the one that I took the previous day (3.5 miles, and made the dog so tired she slept all day).  Then we dallied around a bit, and went to town to meet Lynn's evil mean friend, Mary.  I'm not sure if Lynn will get upset with me if I told you all how awful and terrible a person Mary is, so I'll just say she's a 5 letter word ending in "itch" :)  When we got to the little cafe, Mary had arrived, but she wouldn't have lunch with us because "her mother had already made her eat before she left the house" even though we were about to have lunch.  I could've been really mean to this girl just to give her a dose of her own medicine, but I toned it down and decided to still be civilized and courteous.  Then we went to the BlueBell factory (Brenham is home to the BlueBell ice cream company like Atlanta is home to Coke) and we got *free* *freshly made* ice cream :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Then we were going to go fishing, but we got back to the house and became surprisingly sleepy so Lynn went out to meet her mom, grandma, and dad in town, while Matt and I watched Dr. Zhivago.  Except the dvd was kind of messed up on side 1 of the disc, so we skipped the first like, hour of the movie and started watching from there cause I'd already watched it in Coach Casey's 10th grade world history class way back in the day but I'd forgotten the ending of the movie (come to think of it, I still dont remember what happened at the end of the movie).
Then we had dinner when the Deaton's came home, made sugar cookies, and went to bed. Oh wait, before we went to bed, we decorated the sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles. And had a HUGE icing fight.  And got multi colored icing (pink, purple, green, yellow) all over the floor, the walls, the fridge, our hair, our clothes, our faces, etc.

It was super fun.

The end! 

Wow. 2005 is almost over.  What a year.  I have gained so much knowledge and so many experiences... it doesn't seem like it all happened in one year.  It feels like two - even three years.  What have I learned?

-Despite everything, I really do love architecture.
-Barcelona was unforgettable.
-No matter what, people stay the same.
-Some people change.
-The smartest guys shave in the shower, as detailed in lancearthur.com, in the 'Lance's Guide to Man-Grooming'.
-I don't know what love is.
-I finally understand and know what kind of a person my father is.
-I'm happiest when I'm busy.
-I'm morbidly fascinated by roadkill.
-I can take care of myself pretty well.
-I'm still shamelessly attracted to sparkly things.
-I can control my World of Warcraft addiction!
-I've grown up (both literally and metaphorically!)

-I'm ready to take 2006 head on! :)

Did you ever stop and think what jobs would be fun to do if you could just do them for a week? No? Well I have.  And here's what I would love doing:

Cake Decorator - because the idea of sitting around making cakes pretty never fails to entertain me.

Sea World Dolphin Trainer - a whole week of swimming with dolphins!! For your job!!

Flower Shop Girl - making bouquets... selling flowers... who wouldn't want that?

Homeless Bum - that's right! I think it would be fun and interesting to barely scrape together a living!

Street Performer - America's not quite condusive to this type of a job, I'd most likely do this one in Europe or Asia.

Spray Paint Artist - Can't you see it? Making colorful spray painted t-shirts for the beachy crowd.

Veterinarian - Because when people get sick/diseased, most of the time it's their own fault.

Prom Dress Designer - think Alfred Angelo, Jessica Mcclintock, Loralie, etc!

Goat Herder in the Alps - goats! Alps! Who wouldn't love living like Heidi for a week?

Lobster Catcher - I'm not a big fan of lobster, but it would be awesome to be in Maine, catching  lobster by the bunches on a boat, or hand-make lobster traps in the Caribbean.

Chocolate Sculptor - Ever see those national and world chocolate sculpting challenges on the Food Network? A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

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That's all I've considered for now.  If I think of some more later, I'll add on to this list.  You all are welcome to make suggestions of your own :)