Morning, everyone. I believe it’s the coldest it has been all season. My house’s thermostat says its 61 degrees inside this morning, and I’m not even running the furnace yet. Yikes. I did, however, get out my electric blanket. That seems to make all the difference when it’s just 34 degrees outside.

Had a busy weekend. My dad was in town from Denver, so we went to dinner and did some grocery shopping while he was in Omaha for the weekend. My part-time job on the weekend at Nu-Trend Homes was rather busy, which makes the time just fly by.

It’s nearing 7 a.m. already. Time to start another day. Time to put together yet another issue of the Bellevue Leader. I can’t believe how quickly the week seems to pass. It’s as if I put the finishing touches on a story, and it’s time to do it all over again.

Brrr. It’s cold.

Call it girly, but I love flowers. Daisies are my favorites, so much so that I got a tattoo of one about four years ago. Devin was his name, and this is his handiwork. He was a tattoo artist at Villain’s Tattoos here in Omaha.

if you took this face and said you’d love it forever
i think i would feel better soon
last night i dreamt you were standing naked before me
and i said i do, i do

you don’t know how much more happy you’ve made me
i’m not scared anymore when you say you need me

i’ve been fighting for some time to keep myself together
in the past i’ve quit rather than try
since you’ve come, i’ve felt a million things have grown around me
this time, i won’t let it pass me by

now i sing this to you asking, “will you please forgive me?
will we once again shine like the moon?”
if you take this face and say you’ll love it forever
i think i will feel better soon

Ever wonder where I’m generating all of this prose/drivel? My orange office at home, of course! Here are some photos. My office walls are about a shade or two darker than what these photos show.

(1) My desk and computer, a 12″ G4 PowerBook by Apple. (Yum.)

(2) The bookshelf I wrote about a few weeks ago, filled with my books. I love having them upstairs now.

(3) The cool-ass orange rug I bought at an IKEA near Los Angeles. It makes the room so cozy in the winter when the wood floors feel like ice.

(4) Another bookshelf, just like the other one. Here, I keep a few books, some flowers and photographs, plus the box from my iPod. (Again, yum.)

“I love you.”

That phrase knocks me on my ass and makes me feel like I’m flying, both at the same time.

Thank you.

I’m waiting for a prescription to be filled today at the grocery store when a young woman catches my eye. She’s in her early 20s, the diamond wedding band glittering on her left hand. She’s with a friend or co-worker (or both). She slides her purchase across the counter and whips out her debit card. It’s a pregnancy test she’s buying, a little smile dancing across her lips. She mumbles something to the woman next to her; they both smile. She signs the receipt and off the two women go, soon to answer the question she’s pondered in her head for perhaps days.

“She’s pretty lucky,” I think to myself. Not because she might be pregnant, but because, within the near future, she’ll know, with a good amount of certainty, her future. She’ll know whether or not to spread the good news (if there’s any good news to be spread) to family and friends. If the test is positive, she and her husband can start planning the next nine months, the next 18 years. There’s great comfort in that. Comfort in predictability. Comfort in the illusion you have total control.

Which got me to thinking. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all could take such tests to determine that unfamiliar and uncertain territories of our lives? I know I would. I’d love to take a test — be it piss on a stick or hand over my arm for a blood test — to determine some question eating away at my brain. A positive response on a pregnancy test by no means maps out the next 18 years of that child’s life (or even the duration of the pregnancy), but at least these women have something to go on. Something to plan around. Something to plan for. They can take what great uncertainty surrounds this somewhat certain event and go from there. It’s a map, at the very least. It’s what I want most.

I often catch myself looking in my rear view mirror at red lights for the wedding ring that has found a home on the left hands of married women. What lead up to that ring? How did you do it? How did you know for sure? My observations quickly become egocentric. I wonder what my future looks like, primarily when it comes to a partner/lover/husband/spouse. How will it all end? Will there even be a beginning?

If some test could tell me, with 99 percent certainty, that I will love someone with all the love I have, be given that love back unconditionally and able to see the two to their fullest extents, it would eliminate at least some of the guesswork that clutters my mind and heart for days at a time. My ongoing search, albeit emotionally and mentally tiring, would, at the very least, have a focus. I find it difficult to simply send my desires out to the world with the hopes of having them sent back fulfilled.

How do I even do this? How do I put myself out there? I have no idea what’s going to happen. No one does, I suppose. If not a certain answer, at the very least I wish for confidence. Confidence in that I have something to offer in a relationship, confidence in that there’s someone out there who wants what I have…and can fully take of its riches, of its rewards. It’s so hard. I have so much love, so much affection, so many hugs, so many more kisses, touches, hugs, loving words. I just want to give. I just want to make someone happy. Because I find that I receive so much joy, so much bliss, so much contentment when a smile expands the mouth of someone I love and I know I helped put it there. I love making the people I love laugh.

But I’m a taker, too. As much as I want to give love, I want to take love as well. I long to be held the whole night through with no words necessary. I miss holding someone’s hand, holding on for the pure feeling of it, sharing a kiss, wrapping my arms around their waist, knowing I don’t have to let go. Am I sad about this? To an extent, but it feels more like a mourning. I’m grieving, really. Grieving for how close I came to that bliss, but how far I fell from it without even knowing I let go.

I don’t want to let go.

I did two very girly things this weekend: painted my fingernails pink and bought myself a bouquet of white sweetheart roses. Few things make me feel as girly as pink fingernails. That and some of the pretty dresses I love to wear. Lately, I’ve been drawn to dresses inspired by the 1950s and early 1960s: full skirts that hit at or just below my calf, skinny belts, dresses that feature single strips of skinny ribbon wrapped around my upper torso, meeting in a simple bow in the front, Mary Jane shoes, cardigan sweaters. Other items I love: my pearl earrings and the sterling silver “W” necklace I own.

I’ve been at work for nearly six hours now. My brain feels like oatmeal. We’ve been slower than honey poured through a straw. I can’t seem to focus on a consistent train of thought for more than few minutes before I change topics. Sure, I could drink a can of pop to wake me up, but I try to avoid caffeine.

Now, Ketel One vodka with OJ…that’s the good stuff. Perhaps I’ll make myself a cocktail later tonight. Which brings on the question: What’s for dinner? I have to hit the grocery store tonight; my cabinets are nearly empty. Cheese pizza was on last night’s menu. Maybe spaghetti? Or chicken? I’m no cook, so my meal will need to be something fast and easy.

The school fight song for my college, the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

We will fite fite fite for our Mavericks
We will fite fite fite for our team,
Everyone knows when that ole’ whistle blows
We will shout, we will yell, and we’ll scream
GO MAVS!
We will fite fite fite for our Mavericks
We will cheer so all fans will know,
Be it win, lose, or draw
Everyone for Omaha
We will fite for UNO!

Remember me writing about a Friday night spent watching my editor get drunk? The column appears in this week’s Bellevue Leader. Enjoy.

Friday night of free cocktails ends in a sobering lesson
Column by Wendy Townley

Anyone who has heard the term “angry drunk” clearly never met my editor.

Ron Petak is a jovial drunk, making jokes and laughing, punching you in the arm and grinning like a fool.

After nine Busch Lights and one shot of Kessler whiskey in just over two hours, Ron appeared relaxed and happy. He was about 50 percent sure he could drive a car at that point.

And that’s what scares people like Chuck Matson the most.

Matson, an officer with the traffic unit of the Omaha Police Department, knows the dangers of drinking and driving. That’s why, for the past 10 years, Matson has worked with police officers from around Nebraska, teaching them to spot drunk drivers the minute they’re pulled over.

Officers from Bellevue, Omaha, Papillion, Sarpy County and David City participated in a field sobriety training Friday night at the Westside Community Center, near 108th and Grover streets in Omaha.

While the 18 officers spent the first three hours learning about drunk drivers and how to spot them, seven volunteers, including Ron, got drunk under the supervision of two Omaha police officers.

Their mission was simple, Matson said: Get as drunk as you wish – without getting sick – during the next two hours.

The volunteers were required to sign a waiver of liability form, which indicated that “Disorderly and/or disruptive volunteers will be removed from the exercise.”

Thankfully, Ron isn’t a mean drunk.

The department provided the booze, confiscated from traffic stops during the past few months. There was Bud Light, Busch Light and Coors Light, plus a variety of alcohol, from vodka to whiskey and every liquor in between.

The evening started off kind of slow, the volunteers sipping primarily beer. I looked on and took notes, nursing a lukewarm 7-Up and munching on salty snacks.

Ron’s first beer, a barely chilled can of Busch Light, went down at 7:05 p.m. To get the beer colder, Ron poured the beer in a Styrofoam cup overflowing with ice.

The officers provided a few decks of playing cards. A TV and VCR sat in the corner of the windowless room, playing old episodes of “The Simpsons.”

Busch Light No. 2, this time from the freezer, was opened at 7:22 p.m.

Ron was already chatting up a storm with two police officers, talking about shared acquaintances and life growing up in South Omaha.

At 7:38 p.m., Ron drank beer No. 3.

“As long as I keep moving around, I’ll be fine,” Ron said.

We would soon find out.

Around 8 p.m., two of the volunteers (both of whom were in their early 20s), began playing a drinking game. They tossed a die back and forth, trying to land the black-and-white cube in a cup of alcohol. If they succeeded the other person had to take a shot.

Ron was convinced he could land the die in the Styrofoam cup. He tried three times, missing each time.

His punishment: Ron had to take a shot of whiskey.

One of the officers poured Ron his shot, a generous portion of Kessler whiskey. Not one for anything besides Busch Light, Ron said the whiskey went down hot, reddening the rims of his green eyes in a matter of minutes.

Ron appeared even more relaxed, but I wouldn’t say he was drunk.

At least not yet.

Ron’s next two beers were spaced a little further apart, one at 8:06 p.m., the other at 8:40 p.m.

Despite consuming five beers and a shot of whiskey in two hours, Ron still looked OK. He was laughing and joking, but not enough to convince me Ron couldn’t drive.

At 8:50 p.m. Ron projected his blood alcohol content to be under .08, what Nebraska considers legally drunk.

He downed his sixth beer five minutes later, claiming it would be “my last one.”

Ron drank a Coors Light at 9:12 p.m., just as the sobriety testing began. Earlier in the evening, the volunteers were instructed to do their best to fool the officers into thinking they’re sober.

Groups of three officers tested the volunteers, having them walk a straight line, recite the alphabet, follow a pen without their heads, count backwards, stand on one foot, estimate the passing of 30 seconds with their eyes closed and touch their fingers to their noses.

Ron’s first attempts at these tests weren’t that great. He had trouble balancing his body as he walked the straight line and underestimated a 30-second’s wait. Ron was giggly, too, making jokes with the cops.

The difference with these tests, however, was that Ron and the other volunteers could continue to drink.

At 9:20 p.m., officers took Ron’s BAC. One puff of his alcohol-laced breath registered a reading of .09.

As the officers rotated and Ron continued to take the same series of tests, he consumed more beer and performed much worse.

That’s what happens when alcohol circulates through the system, Matson said. The longer it moves and flows through the body, the drunker the drinker gets.

The officers said they knew Ron was legally drunk within the first few minutes of observing him. He had trouble keeping his balance, although Ron noted that he couldn’t accomplish these tasks “even if I was sober.”

An indicator of inebriation if there ever was one, the officers said.

Still feeling pretty good, loose and relaxed, Ron downed another beer, a cold can of Busch Light at 9:50 p.m.

About 15 minutes later, Ron’s BAC jumped to .101.

Just before 11 p.m. the volunteers and officers met in a classroom. They learned how much alcohol the volunteers consumed and what their final BAC readings were.

When the officers were asked if Ron was beyond the .08 limit, every hand in the room went up.

As the night wound down, Ron stood outside the door and did the right thing – smoking a cigarette and waiting for his ride home from Sgt. Steve Hatfield of the Bellevue Police Department.