"I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die." -Isaac Asimov

I feel

Wow. What a rough couple of days. I have really been getting roughed up at work. For example...

Yesterday, I worked my 8 hour shift. I spent some time on call. At ... I don't know... sometime around 9 or something, I got a call. Zak and I did the call. it took a long time. I came back to the on call house. I was just about immediately called back into the ER to help. That did not take long. I came back to the house. I finished up online, and tried to go to bed. (It was late by this time.) I was laying there, trying to sleep, and I got paged out for a transfer to Reno. Ugh. So... I was out doing a transfer until four in the morning.

I finally got back, and went straight to bed. All was well, until I started getting calls at 9 something in the morning. So yeah. Rough time is being had.

I've gotten a lot of overtime out of the deal. I did not get to talk to Rachel except a few text messages yesterday. That was pretty rough, but I made it through. The next few days of not talking to her will be much harder, as she will be at church camp. The end is in sight, folks. Better times are coming.

145427 | posted by arty at 20:32

5 comments

Sad and happy...

I had this big elaborate post planned for tonight, but things happened. It suddenly became 11:30 PM. And I suddenly did not want to post a massive post. So, here's a fairly short and interesting one.

This afternoon, circumstances led me down a path that I had not been down in quite a while. I read something, and it got me to thinking about Carly.

Now, if you have been following this from the beginning (which I know for a fact that only Kristin and Jeff have, and neither of them have followed it completely consistantly), you would know that since I started this blog, I have had four girlfriends. Which is an entirely different depressing subject. I started thinking about the second of those. Carly.

I do not feel a whole lot at all when I think about Jennifer, or even Christy. I feel regret for the terms on which things ended. I feel regret for having gotten involved with either of them, because I always felt in the back of my mind (and sometimes in the front of my mind) that it was not going to work out.

That is not the way it is with Carly, though. I feel sadness when I think about her.

Carly and I became very very close as friends before we ever considered a relationship. We were great friends, too. We did well as friends. We loved each other's company, and we loved just... talking to each other. Learning about each other. And eventually, this became the first actual love of my young life.

Now... I can not even pretend to understand where Carly and I were wrong for each other. But I lost a friend that I wish I still had over all of this, and it makes me damn sad.

We were good as friends. We were terrible as a couple. Sure, the first week... month... was great. But... everything changes when you get in a relationship. And it took me three or so months to realize that the change that our relationship went through was not at all a good one.

And in the end, everything turned to bitter feelings. Things were said that caused pain on both sides. Nothing could go back the way it was. And you know what? I still believe that we could have remained great friends.

So what is different with Rachel? Again, I do not pretend to know. We became friends quickly, but were not friends for an entirely long time before all of this started.

And, I suppose it boils down to this. She is just right for me. I do not know what makes her right for me. Sure, there are the obvious things. She is caring and compassionate and blah blah blah. She is just right for me. And I could not be more happy about that.

145392 | posted by arty at 0:32

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145316 | posted by arty at 18:22

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Today has been rather productive.

For example, I woke up.

I love making surprises. So exciting.

Today, I perched myself precariously on a four foot step ladder next to the ambulance, hung on for dear life, and changed a light in the lightbar on IV. (That is four, not I.V.) It was quite an experience for someone as tired as myself, but I had just enough fear to get some addenaline going, and I made it through the ordeal just fine. The lightbar is now fully functional once again. If only I could say the same for the ambulance...

Well, I'm a wreck. I really can't explain it, but I, I hear the music when i look at you. Orchestrating the song to accomidate the moment. Well, I'm so in love with you...

145305 | posted by arty at 11:22

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Work has been crazy busy lately. Or, at least, the ambulance has been crazy busy. My time card for the last three or so pay periods has had at least one call on every single day that I have worked. Yes, this is a lot. And they have been, for the most part, much more serious patients than we always get.

Yesterday, I worked a car accident. It was not a horrible one, but any rollover with a head injury is automatically considered unstable. He ended up being a very stable patient, but we do not know that until well after we have done all of our scene work.

I had considered not long ago looking into getting a motorocycle, because of the gas mileage. In our ambulance response area, there has already been five serious motorcycle accidents this summer, including three fatalities. I am not longer considering getting a motorcycle.

Summer is a much happier time than winter for me. I love the sunshine. I love the way people look. I love the lack of scraping ice off my windshield. There are a lot of things about summer that just make me smile.

145257 | posted by arty at 9:37

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Mom always said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

145207 | posted by arty at 19:54

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If things come out poorly structured and/or incomprehensible, please ignore. Family stuff is going on, and I'm fairly shaken up right now.

Anyhow, this post is in reply to Donnie's comment on the last post.

Yse, I am looking to the future with Rachel. I hope that this eventually comes to marriage. And yes, I will be moving closer to her.

This is the basic plan. She is going to go to school near Sacramento, which automatically cuts the distance between us in half. From here on, I am just working my butt off to save money. When the money is there and I find a job, I will move there.

Though I have already talked about marriage, and we have only been together about two months, I think that we are being rather smart about everything. Part of me wants to drive down there right now, give her a ring and take her to vegas, the rest of me is being much more mature about things.

I plan to give this some time. Some time being 10-12 months. By then, I am sure I will be very sure of my feelings, and she of her. If it is right, I will propose.

After this... she wants to wait some time before getting married, which is okay with me. I always thought I would be married by this age, but I certainly do not need to be. And as I always tell her, if I had to, I would wait forever.

145148 | posted by arty at 22:58

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With more passion than I have every had for anything related to anything other than God, I passionately hate two things. I hate not being with her, and I hate not knowing when I can be with her.

This entry took over an hour.

145126 | posted by arty at 2:19

2 comments

So... something good happened yesterday.

I helped deliver a baby. It was my first time. Actually, it was my first time even seeing or being in the room for a live birth.

It was incredible. Everybody was asking me if it was gross, but not a lot grosses me out. It was absolutely beautiful and wonderful. A healthy 6.07 pound baby.

I have to say... I was grinning from ear to ear for about half an hour. It was one of the best things to happen in my medical career.

145065 | posted by arty at 23:51

2 comments

I am tired, and suddenly in a very pissy mood. This is not necessarily good. But, I am going to bed shortly after writing this. That much is, in fact, good.

Gosh. I had so much to say when I opened this window. And there it all went. I've actually had to supress the urge to post here recently. Because... I don't want to say something stupid. I'm in the mood to say something stupid. Which is why it is stupid to be letting myself type right now.

Nothing is okay. Work has it's good moments, but the frustration is so great... Today, I nearly lost it in the first hour. First... Freaking... Hour.

Then, I helped to deliver a baby, and all things were okay again.

My relationship with Rachel... She is the only constant positive in my life, and she is hundreds of miles away.

I am so in love with her, it is amazing to me even. I want to be near her all the time. And... I look forward to a time when I can be.

By the way... vollunteered my services for Supermod on CGR recently. Was passed up again. I wish I could say I was done caring about that. Shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, even if they were completely gone by the time someone else was named. Still does not feel fantastic.

145014 | posted by arty at 1:43

1 comments

Bad day getting better.

Rachel introduced me recently (my birthday) to some fantastic not too well known music, MiGGs and Koo Chung. Each band has one song that I think would be freaking PERFECT for a soundtrack to a romantic comedy. If you have the opportunity, check both of them out. Fantastic music.

144881 | posted by arty at 0:30

4 comments

I play it on shuffle.

Vertical Horizon - You're a God
braveSaintSaturn - Enamel
braveSaintSaturn - Heart Still Beats
Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
Evanescence - My Immortal
Five For Fighting - 100 Years
Five For Fighting - If God Made You
Gavin DeGraw - Chariot
Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Jars of Clay - Flood
Jars of Clay - The Eleventh Hour
Jars of Clay - Unforgetful You
John Mayer - My Stupid Mouth
John Mayer - Why Georgia
Lifehouse - Hanging By A Moment
Lifehouse - Everything
Lifehouse - Sky Is Falling
Mae - Skyline Drive
Mae - Soundtrack for Our Movie
Mae - Suspension
Rachael Yamagata - Be Be Your Love
Rachel Pickerel - Deep
Rascal Flatts - Bless the Broken Road
Relient K - Which to Bury, Us of the Hatchet
Simon and Garfunkel - The Only Living Boy in New York
Steven Curtis Chapman - I Will be Here
Switchfoot - On Fire
Switchfoot - The Loser
Switchfoot - Twenty-Four
Vertical Horizon - Heart In Hand
Tim Foreman and Mandy Moore - Someday We'll Know

I know I said I would be working on the new blog. I've been a bit depressed lately thanks to things... some in my control, some not. It is rough.

144798 | posted by arty at 22:09

1 comments

Hooray for better days. Let us hope that there are many of those on the horizon.

Also, hooray for my playlist. It has been recommended by the American Dental Association for the promotion of healthy gums.

Now that was just silly.

I have been playing guitar a lot lately again. Soo happy for that. My brother for some reason left his guitar at my house. The guitar which used to be more or less mine, but not actually. So... I claimed it as my own, and I have been playing it daily. In the last 4 days, I have doubled my lifehouse collection of song knowledge. I can play four whole lifehouse songs. Yes.

Time to kill woodland creatures.

144729 | posted by arty at 23:33

2 comments

Today was just a terrible day. I am trying so hard to have a good attitude at work. And about work. Sometimes, it is actually happening. Not entirely often, though.

I badly need sleep once again. I've had two 12 hour days in a row... 3 more of at least 8 hours, and starting at 7 AM, I will be on call for 5 straight days. As in... 24 hours a day for 4 days, then 12 on the fifth.

And now... I become super sleepy.

144683 | posted by arty at 1:05

1 comments

I'm feeling lucky.

I have finally acheived a goal. At google.com, type in Art Bennett and click "I'm Feeling Lucky". That's right. artbennett.net. I am the #1 result for my own name. After all of this time. I have acheived #1 status on both Yahoo! and Google.

In other news...

Last night I typed up a big long update about the weekend and all. Danchan was, of course, down. What does this mean for you? My updates will officially be less frequent as I try to get a new blog going with WordPress. It should not be awefully long, as I will try to dedicate some fair amount of time to it. That does mean that this little space will be fairly neglected, though.

The weekend was... divine. I do not have nearly as much to say about it as I did before. Here is just a little snippet, though.

I want to marry her. And I told her so. No, I did not propose or anything. But I told her that I want to marry her. She is so right for me in every way I can think of someone possibly being right. She may not be perfect, but she is perfect for me.

I am not saying that I want to marry her right now. I totally do not. I am not ready for marriage. Not yet. But, my plan is to keep this going for 10-12 more months or so, and as long as things go the way I think they will, I will propose. I think this is a good plan.

So now, I am just planning my next visit. Sort of. Bleh.

144581 | posted by arty at 10:46

1 comments

Not a lot to say here. I feel like the most fortunate man ever to live.

Every time she leaves the room, I find myself thanking God for her.

It has been a good weekend.

144524 | posted by arty at 4:01

1 comments

I just realized that my iMood says that I am secretive. That is certainly not what I had meant for it to say. I need to change it anyhow.

Today at noon, I leave for the City by the Bay. Of course I am excited.

This means that I may not be online at all this weekend.

144471 | posted by arty at 10:44

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Four things of some importance.

My nearly top boss called me into her office today. I suppose I was somewhat concerned, but outside of using the Internet for non-work purposes (which someone would have had to turn me in for), I have done nothing wrong... and frankly, everything right.

I was still fairly surprised when the whole purpose of her calling me in was to encourage me to keep trying to get into paramedic school. She says that I will be a great paramedic, and I have her full support. That was nice.

The second thing of note is that she told me that she is very sad that I broke up with Christy. (This was nearly half a freaking year ago, people.) She says that she has never seen two people more right for each other.

Wow. I do not know what to say about that, but she was just wrong. I hope Christy does not read this, because I am sure it would sting... but I am much happier with my place in my relationship with Rachel than I ever was in my place with her. Rachel seems to be all I ever wanted, whereas Christy was only some of what I ever wanted. I loved her, but she was not right for me. And is not.

The third note of interest plays off of the second. Christy's last day at the hospital is tomorrow. I am happy for her, because she is going to school to do something great. I am happy for me, because I was constantly really uncomforable around her. I seem to really suck at dealing with ex-girlfriends. It would be nice if I did not have any more ex-girlfriends ever.

Not that I am ready to jump into marriage here. Give me 10-12 months, though, and I think I will know.

144449 | posted by arty at 18:52

4 comments

I have had a headache for a few days now. Drugs are not even helping. I usually do not even take the drugs unless I can not make it go away without them. So... this sucks. I just want for it to go away.

The twelve hours of sleep I got yesterday did me a lot of good. So much good, in fact, that I stayed up way too late last night, and got very little sleep this morning. I am less tired now, however, than I have been in weeks. I am loving it.

Maybe the headache is caffeine related? Hmm. Perhaps I should get myself some caffeine then.

Some people I work with have observed that I am showing signs of being burned out. I do not think I am burned out, necessarily. I am just ready to move on and cut back my hours. Unfortunately, it is not quite time to cut back or move on. I need to work a lot of hours to save the money to do so. So that is what I am working on now.

Speaking of which, I am on call for the next two nights. That should make for a nifty little boost to my paycheck. Whatever.

And... just two days and however many hours until I see my rachel again.

144376 | posted by arty at 10:10

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I will spare you all the comments about how few readers or comments I have and just give this:

*vague guilt trip*

Heh. Somethingorother.

Stuff happened yesterday, and my head hurts.

144339 | posted by arty at 18:43

4 comments

The final update.

Not ever. No. The final update about this trip.

Last night was simultaneously good and bad. The reception was actually pretty fun, as I ended up sitting with +Donny and Marina, who is Rachell's ex-roommate who I already knew. The three of us had a splendid time making fun of the music and dancing. They actually did the freaking Macarena and YMCA stupidity. Wow. Heh.

The reception was pretty nice, though. I never really thought that red and black could be good wedding colors, but it worked out just fine. And, as Marina pointed out, it gave the excuse to use as many red roses as they wanted. And they certainly did.

Brandon (Cadence of CGR) did the photography, and I can say that he did a pretty dang good job. How do I know this already? Because he used my laptop to get the pictures onto CDs, and he left them all behind. Heck yes! Now, I can pass them off as my own.

Speaking of which... I want to see my pictures. It looks as if I took 95 of them. I am so happy that I bought the bigger memory card. I did not even take any pictures at the reception.

So... when brandon hijacked my computer, I did not realize that my laptop case also had my wallet, cell phone, camara, car keys and just about everthing else. WOW. So, I was without any of that throughout the reception, which was a source of annoyment.

The other source of frustration? I got to talk to rachel a total of maybe 10 minutes all freaking weekend. I miss her so much... it really stinks.

But good times are just around the corner. I will be in San Francisco again on Friday.

144253 | posted by arty at 19:49

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I think it is good that I have actually been updating this during my trip. It is just sparing everybody a big long post that nobody including me would want to read.

Things are going okay today. We had a mini-bachelor party of sorts for Chris. We spent some time up in the girls' suite learning a dance and drinking Jack and Coke. Mmm. Chris, Samm (his best man) and I then just spent the rest of the night talking about all sorts of stuff. It was amazing.

I picked up +Donny at the airport this morning. nice kid.

And... the wedding starts in 45 minutes. I am all spiffed up. Maybe I will actually take a picture this time. Though... rachel does have a picture of me wearing my tie...

144221 | posted by arty at 17:57

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I am airborne again. And believe me, I am thrilled to be on a jet again. After that last experience with the twin prop of death, this 737 is feeling like a luxury jumbo jet. Heck yes.

It is always a bit harder to wake up early when it is your day off. Then again, I have just had trouble waking up in general lately. After so many days in a row with not enough sleep, I just need a good 12-14 hour sleep session. I miss those. You know, I used to sleep 10-12 hours a day. I think that this is making up for that.

one or two more of these incredible albums, and Mae might just do the impossible: Unseat Five Iron Frenzy as my favorite band ever. Yes, they are that freaking good.

How awesome is this: Not only am I not on a twin prop of death, but the only non-stop from Reno to LA all day is not even full. I have the window, and the middle seat is empty. Score. I feel like I have all of the space I could ever need. Of course, it is not true, but it is a thought.

Wow. I have three Mae songs on my playlist. The fifth song overall is playing. The playlist is on shuffle. This is the third Mae song to play. <3

Since Danchan has many issues, I am preparing to move to a better blogging program, running directly on artbennett.net. I am thinking WordPress, but I have not ruled out Moveable Type or whatever else might be out there.

As a result of this coming change, I am thinking of other things to do with this webspace to spice it up. I have been getting more and more into my photography lately, wanting to get everything beautiful on film. So, I am wanting to do something at least slightly innovative with that. The biggest problem there is that I am not a 1337 Hax0r, or even a good coder. I know my HTML and tables and whatnot, but my CSS skils leave much to be desired.

In the interest of brevity...

144186 | posted by arty at 15:26

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