saturday i hosted a photographic scavenger hunt potluck. we teamed up to photo things. the list had eleven things:
a monument
something illegal
something vintage
something in a residential yard that does not belong there
something ideal
something oversized
cracked glass
something beautiful
outdoor art
something made for a child
something ugly

you only had to find ten of them, but most everyone found them all. two of the teams went drinking during the hunt and while their photos were developing.
i was on a team with leslie who was late for bill's when we were done. so i dropped her off and went home. i prepared potato wedges for baking for the potluck. then i fed scott's cats. binion had shat on the floor so i had to clean that up. all of this made me feel lonely. although i was hosting this event that i had developed the idea for and that everyone enjoyed doing, i just found myself playing hostess the whole time. my husband just acted like another guest. there's something about this... it's starting to really bother me. at my birthday party, i felt shitty all night. i had made up special fliers and cleaned a house that wasn't mine and blown up balloons and hung streamers, but the party didn't feel like it was mine to have fun at. it was all about me and that sort of made the attention forced. the next day i cried all day and thought that everyone hated me. they didn't, but i didn't go out for a while. i also felt weird at my wedding. i had spent four months planning it and then the day came and everyone took over and started doing preparations and little things were left out and i forgot stuff and it didn't look like it had looked in my head. and it felt weird. i guess that's supposed to be the nature of weddings and in particular for the bride, but it seems as though you should have fun at the thing for you. maybe other people should plan our weddings. i think other people should throw me birthday parties and maybe i shouldn't host things at all. i've always worried that no one would throw me a birthday party, so i've been throwing them for myself for three years now. probably longer. shouldn't my husband be in charge of things like that?

at the end of the night, everyone went home. but jon and i stayed up 'til dawn:

i was up 'til dawn.
my husband and i sang weezer like christina aguliera then scaled the hill of the train tracks, trekking through the weedy wall to the top to see the cows in their stalls at the ohio state fair. i wore my anna may wong getup with flip-flops and waved and whistled through the fence at the cows. jon threw rocks at me while sitting on the tracks feeling for nearby trains. i picked up a round plain gray stone as we were leaving, trying to not step on the glass in the weeds and attempting to avoid the poison ivy. we walked back to the apartment in the middle of the street, the world already filled with light. i fell asleep as the cowhands were waking up and waitresses were getting off third shift.
i had not seen the sun rise in years.