SO.. I’m hungry.  Like, my stomach hurts hungry.  I think I’m going to give in and visit the vending machine, which I’ve been successfully avoiding for the last two months.  TWO.  Not a Cheeto, not a Snickers, not even M&Ms.  Nada.  But my head hurts and I’m HUNGRY, and I just can’t make it till dinner.

Bryan called this morning and said, "Hey, I’ve got plans for us.  We’ve been invited by Viv to dinner."

I said, "Remember that Jungle Book thing I told you about last week?"

He said, "Oh, yeah.  Apparently, that’s when Viv told me about dinner, too."

So he’s officially fired.  I’ll be joining them long enough to grab some sustenance, and then I will jot over to the ole Playhouse.  Good times.  He will probably join me later.  He’s sad.  But DUR.

Show is at 7, right?

Anyway, he did good and got me some recorded accompanyment from "Wicked" for Saturday.  I’m excited about that.

I’ve been doing expense reports all day.  Which, as you can imagine, is LOADS of fun.  Life is grand in the office.

Laughed at one manager today who wanted "Staff Historian" added to his title.  Dude, our program is only three years old.  Give me a break.

I’m glad it’s Thursday.  That makes tomorrow Friday.  And then the weekend.  Next week is Fall Break, and I’m taking that Friday off for a day of fun with Bryan and the Boy.  Bryan wanted to visit the Botanical Gardens and I loved the Scarecrows the last time we were there.. so we will probably do that.  Good times.

Well, I shall see some of you tonight.  Everyone else, you’ll just have to miss me.

So, the other day, the subject of Jim Henson came up.

Jim Henson was my HERO growing up.  OHMYGAH, I respected that man as if he walked on water and changed water into wine.  The Muppets were my constant companion growing up, I knew all the verses to "It’s Not Easy (Bein’ Green)" AND "Rainbow Connection", and somehow, those felt covered people could make me cry big ole crocodile tears.. while I had little to no compassion for flesh-and-blood heroes.  I still consider "Follow That Bird" to be one of the most heart-wrenching tales ever put on film.

So we were talking about the loss of Jim Henson, and how the Muppets were never quite the same.

Which brought up Mel Blanc, another great that we lost in our childhoods.  I still remember the print "Speechless", done for in memorium, which featured all of the characters that he voiced, staring — nay, mourning — around an empty spotlight containing a microphone.  He brought us so much.

We then talked about Charles Schultz, another great that recently passed.  When I was in Minneapolis, I had the joy of seeing the many large Peanuts statues around town, and visiting Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America.  Snoopy was another tear-jerker in our household.  "Snoopy Come Home" was the only time we ever saw emotion from a stoic young Jenni.  And I mean, we thought she had hobbled her own legs, her sobs were so deep and moving.. nope, Snoopy just wouldn’t go home.

Then I asked, "So what great do we have now?  Who has been so innovative during our lifetime?"

He said, "The guy who draws ‘Garfield’.. he’s still around."

He sent me this, this morning.

But aside from all this.. who will our nation mourn for all they’ve brought to us?

Whew.  Last night.  W-H-E-W.

I don’t do well when backed into a corner.  I have to say that.  And goodLORD, please don’t look for a fight.

And if you instigate a fight in a dark room, while I’m in bed, and then you’re "not speaking" to me for half an hour, PUH-LEEZE do not get upset that I’ve fallen asleep.

So it was a rough night.  I really have the urge to talk about it, but I know that I have to learn what’s okay and not okay to share.  And everything’s fine now, it just was a wake-up call last night.  There are so many growing pains to this whole relationship thing.

Peanut butter cups.  That’s what started this whole week’s issues.  Friggin peanut butter cups.

THAT fight, I’ll talk about.

See, my momma and I went grocery shopping early last week, and one of the things that made it into my cart were those break-apart Tollhouse cookies.  I usually get the Turtle variety, but the nuts cook weird, and I wanted to try something different.  So I got chocolate chip cookies with minature peanut-butter cups on them.  They sound yummy, right?  RIGHT.

So, Sunday night, after I cooked dinner, Bryan decided he would pitch in by doing dessert.  This was lovely.  "I’ll bake cookies!" he said.  This was great.  So he went in, preheated the oven, and slapped those babies in there.  The smell soon brought me out, and when I walked into the kitchen, there sat the wrapper for the cookies,
covered in minature peanut-butter cups.

"Um, what’s that?" I asked.

"Those were the ones that fell off," he said. 

"Well, here, I’ll put them on the cookies."  This seemed like simple logic to me.  He would’ve done this if they had been chocolate chips.

"NO," he said.  "I don’t want them on there."

And I lost my shit.  Food is always an issue between us.  He is one of the pickiest eaters I’ve ever met, and I’ll eat anything put in front of me.  But I miss a lot of the foods that I used to eat and he won’t touch.  I feel like I’ve compromised a TON when it comes to food.. and I love food.  But I wasn’t gonna budge on these stupid peanut-butter cups.  This was my Alamo.

Remember the Alamo?

I took the cookies out and started placing the offending candies on top of them.  "NO," he said again, as if maybe I just hadn’t heard, "I DON’T LIKE PEANUT BUTTER CUPS ON MY COOKIES."

"JUST TRY THEM," I said through clenched teeth.

"NO." He growled.  I continued placing the horrid candies on the cookies.

"Here," I said, in a tone that I KNEW would get under his skin.. sickeningly sweet and condescending, as if he was a retarded child, "I’ll leave you two without them on there."

(Yes, I realize how stupid this sounds.  NOW.)

And I cooked them.

Did I win that one?  Or was I really stupid for starting it?

So that’s what started last night’s fury.  And he knew EXACTLY what my issue was/is.. I’m terrified of losing "me".  I feel like, over these past six months or so, I’ve been defined by things other than myself.. I’ve been "Bryan’s girlfriend" or "that bitch who ruined that girl’s life" or some other equally flattering names, but I feel like I haven’t been SarahBrown in a long time.  CC was GOING to fix that.  And now it’s not.

Which is fine.  I need to work harder to find something that will.

And, let’s face it.. maybe the peanut butter cups were a start.