I’ve had this screen open for ten minutes.
The events I have to write about would take too long, and I hate to give just short little blurbs about the things going on in my life but it’s what I’m resigned to do at the moment.
List form, because everyone enjoys the occasional list:
1) I went to Lakeland yesterday and spent time with Liz, Dan, Connie, Ryan, Joe, and Chuck. I watched them play MarioKart and made commentary and had a great time being there.
I got there at around seven and went to see Blades of Glory with Ryan & Connie, Liz & Dan. It was sold out, so we went to Ryan’s instead. Then Joe came over, and then Chuck, and as I was leaving Davey showed up.
“You know drinking too much water is bad for you? I mean, water is good. But too much can do damage. If you drink it and drink it and drink it…”
“…it’s called drowning.”
2) Work is work. A necessary evil. It’s better than sitting at home and doing nothing – I had too much downtime before all of this. Now it seems like I don’t have enough. I’m tired a lot, a fall-down dead tired and I need more sleep than I’m getting. It’s making me crabby at times, mostly at night after I’m done with the day. Not the best time to get easily aggitated, especially being that night time is when I talk to Jason. It’s been quite hard, if I may be completely honest. Actually, if I’m going to be completely honest this is the hardest emotional thing I’ve ever dealt with. I’m impatient and bitchy, doubting things and then hating myself for second-guessing. Right now, and for the next two weeks, our priorities are not the same and it’s straining. I want to talk about one thing, he wants to talk about another. I’ll deal with though; it won’t last forever. Two and a half months, tops. And I can either deal with it now and know that it’s worth it, or I can say “Screw this junk” and stop everything.
And that is something I won’t do, I can’t do, and have never seriously considered when I’m in a sober, not-exhausted-and-shoot-me-now state.
So there’s that.
3) I can’t believe that March has gone by as quickly as it has. What happend? I don’t even remember. My mom constantly tells me that the older you get, the faster time goes. I’m beginning to see that she didn’t just make it up.
The computers in this library are named after Disney characters, a fact that I find simultaneously funny and sad. There are certainly enough Disney characters to go around, but I expected something a little more scholarly from a college. The names of former presidents, maybe. Or states. Or types of beer.
On Monday morning I went to a meeting at Job One.
It started at six.
Yeah. Six in the morning.
What the hell, right?
While it wasn’t informative or information I hadn’t been previously exposed to, there was orange juice. And donuts. And it was a little funny at times, so it wasn’t completely retarded. After the two-hour meeting I worked until four. Then went to class. Then came home and passed out until ten.
On Sunday early morning I had a two and a half-hour conversation with Amber,and there was very little we didn’t touch upon. I really like talking about God with her; it’s different than when I talk about God with, say, my brother. Sometimes we get on major tangents but there’s such a free exchange of ideas that I wish I could do it all the time. I wish I could be that open with everyone about things. Thanks, Amber. It was exactly what I needed.
New House tonight.
Thank goodness.
It’s been a while since a new episode has aired and I’m pretty excited about watching it. Nothing sexier than a verbally abusive gimp.
Sign me right up.
If I had got to choose what I got paid to do (not including smoking, getting drunk really quickly, kissing, or watching TV) I would choose to edit other people’s blog posts.
While my grammar isn’t the best (I have a small comma problem), it’s certainly better than others’. I know the difference between “it’s” and “its” and “you’re” and “your,” for starters. And how to avoid runon sentences.
I find it difficult to read posts with bad grammar because I’m constantly trying figure out the real meaning behind the sentence. I don’t think it’s specific to me, either. Example:
Incorrect: Today me and my Mom went to the Store I got a shirt a pair of pants and then we came home. Then we had dinner, and i called my Girlfriend, and we talked on the phone for won hour.then i took the garbage can back in it’s lid was all the way out in the road!!!!
Correct: Today my mom and I went to the store. I got a shirt, a pair of pants, and then we came home. Then we had dinner. Afterwards, I called my girlfriend and we talked on the phone for an hour. Then I brought the garbage can back in; its lid was all the way out in the road!
Good grammar is like a sound guy: if it’s done correctly, no one should notice.
Filed under: rants
I went to Orlando today to pick up my bridesmaid’s dress, and I came to a very startling but predictable solution: many brides are crazy.
Do you want to know why brides are crazy? Because they think that their wedding day is their day alone.
More than five times during my half hour in Satan’s House of White Taffeta I heard some variation of the phrase “It’s your day.”
Somewhere along the line some genius decided that this day was the most important day of a woman’s life. Forget about the day she delivers a child or gets a promotion because she’s just that great at her job. Forget about saving the money for a great vacation that actually lasts more than 5 hours; instead, spend $30,000 on a day that, in the long run, doesn’t mean all that much.
A wedding is not a marriage.
Let’s remember that, please, all of us unmarried women, and when the thought enters our head that we might actually prefer crystal champagne glasses made out of Filipino penguin hair and ground moonrocks to run-of-the-mill glass, remember that someone is paying for it. Often that someone is not you. It’s easier to be selfish with someone else’s money. No sense in bankrupting the parents so you can have trained swans that dance around to some archaic symphony played by The Really Great And Outrageously Expensive 800 Piece Orchestra. In the long run, no one cares that Vera Wang didn’t make your dress.
What they’ll remember is the fun that they had watching Uncle Arnie dance so hard his toupee flew off, the hilarious “he didn’t smash cake in her face so he didn’t ruin her makeup but she smashed it in his and then he picked up another piece and rubbed it in her hair,” and if you were grateful that they were there at all.
Contrary to popular belief, the wedding isn’t all about the bride.
It’s about the people that give you all of that neat stuff.
Remember that.
Let’s be frank here. Break-ups blow.
There are many books written about the topic: “It’s Called A Break-Up Because It’s Broken” or “He’s Just Not That Into You.”
Most of the books are directed towards women, not because guys are incapable of feeling (seriously. They’re not) but because women have a need to figure things out, to delve into their psyche and truly understand why this is happening and why they’re “not good enough.”
Lemme tell you something, chickadee, as lovingly and as blunt as possible.
The reason people break up is because one person (or both people) aren’t satisfied and don’t want to waste time moving forward in a relationship which holds no foreseeable future. It’s not because you aren’t skinny enough, aren’t pretty enough, don’t cook well enough, or because you would rather watch “Friends” than yet one more minute of Jack Bauer biting the neck out of some testosterone-laced superfreak. The bottom line is that nothing will stop a guy from doing what he wants, good or bad. If he wants to break up, he’ll do it. If he wants to stay together, then he’ll fight like hell for that to happen.
Dating is, at the heart of it, a way to figure out what kind of person you want to be with for the long haul. The M word. I’ll just go ahead and say it: marriage. My outlook on the whole dating issue is a little more old-fashioned than most. Some people like to date, and I’m not knocking that. It’s good to get to know the sort of person you’d like to be around until
death do you part. I don’t agree with those people who say they don’t want to date ever because dating is from Satan. It’s impossible to get married if you haven’t dated; it’s like going into the kitchen and deciding “Today I’d like to be a chef!” when you don’t even know how to make peanut butter and jelly.
Dating is neccessary.
Breakups are unavoidable.
The trouble females get into is when they start to define themselves by who they’re dating. Again, darling, your identity is not wrapped up in your boyfriend.
“But he completes me!” you wail into your tub of Ben & Jerry’s.
Chill with that melodramatic crap for a second and think about this realisitically.
You were complete before you met him.
You’ll be complete again.
You are complete now (a complete mess still counts, no?) and what you need is not a man in your life, but a good time hanging out with the people who’s pants you don’t want to get into. At all. Friends. Remember your friends? The people you called when Mr. Goodenough wanted to watch the game? Those same people are still around, and while they may be a little resentful because you haven’t called them, like, at ALL in the past howeverlong, go get a few drinks. The first round is on you.
“But we were meant to be!”
Sorry.
Apparently not.
And if you were “meant to be,” then it will be. Crying won’t make the situation adjust itself any sooner.
Neither will leaving long ranting messages about what an asshole he is on his myspace/voicemail/blog. Neither will calling his mother/sister/friends-who-only-sort-of-thought-you-were-okay.
Remember those friends I talked about earlier? The ones you inadvertantly forgot about but are now fine with after you realized what a wee bit of a slag you were being? Those are the ones that you cry to. Those are the shoulders you wet with your tears, and those are the people that will get you so rip-roarin’ drunk that you won’t remember how awesome it was to forget about What’s His Name.
But it was awesome.
Trust me.
“I’ll never find love again!”
Um, yeah.
You most likely will.
When I was talking to my mom about the Wonders of Childbirth, she told me that she forgot the pain. She didn’t remember how badly it hurt to have the first one or else she would never have had the second one, and I would be brotherless (which is as appealing as it is depressing). Maybe love is like that.
If you’ve been in love more than once you’ve most likely uttered the words “It’s never felt like this before.” In the way that joy is shades of happiness, this love is shades of the previous. They both have different characteristics: joy is endurance through hard times because of the knowledge of something more; this love is different because you know which mistakes to avoid, etc. My point is, it’s likely that you have felt this way before but, like childbirth, the intensity of the feelings from the previous relationship doesn’t solidify in our memories and becomes jaded.
If you’ve felt it before, you’ll feel it again. And you’ll swear it’s different.
And one day it will be.
You are more than just another girl. Out there is someone who will be honored to meet you, who will respect you and love you in the way that you need to be loved, and it will be nothing short of a privledge to love him back.
If there was one word to describe me, it would be tired.
Not tired to the point of exhaustion, but tired in an “O dear sweet Jesus please come back right now so I can find rest and will never have to do this again. Ever. Capice?”
It’s not that bad, really.
I just need a more normal sleeping schedule.
The fair is in town this week and both works have been slow. It gives me time to get acclimated to Job Two before it starts to get Very Extrememly Busy.
Nothing dramatic or funny or sad has happend to me in the past couple of days (aside from that weirdo dark-skinned screaming whimp of a boy [I always want to call him Sangria but that's totally not his name] not getting voted off of American Idol. Hell yes I watch it. I’m a Jordin fan all the way), which really leaves only the mundaness of my life to serve as blogging fodder, and you’ve heard just about all you need to in order to understand how things are going.
I just spilled a half-full (look at me – always the optimist) glass of Diet Coke all over my dresser. That is the latest news. And my hands are dry from the constant washing of them. “Just three more months” I tell myself. That thought is all it takes for my mood to take a dramatic upswing.
On Saturday morning I went to Jacksonville to hang out with Randi [Jason's sister] and Scott and Ellie and others. I met the aunt & uncle (who were nice by the way, but I didn’t expect them to be jerks the first time they met me. I’ll give it a few years and then report back to you), some friends, and ate some cabbage and corned beef and Irish soda bread with the raisins meticulously picked out.
After the food, it was decided that we (there were 8 of us: me, Randi, Scott, Maura, Erin, Chad, Aunt Liz & Uncle Alan) would go downtown and have our fill of Irish liquor. Unfortunetly for us all of the pubs were full. Being resourceful and also a little drunk, we headed into a Mexican restaurant and stayed there until the wee hours of the morning.
I had a really good time with everyone.
Like, a really good one.
I wish I could’ve stayed longer, a few more hours maybe.
There were so many funny moments that they can’t be individually written about, and I think that’s what made the weekend so fun. The laughter was pretty much constant (except when being involved in a minor car accident. No one really laughed except Ellie, but she’s three and doesn’t know what’s going on and was too wrapped up in her Frosty the Snowman video to even realize that we had stopped and Mommy was frantic. Ah, the joys of ignorance), the company was amazing, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again soon.
Whenever that is.
I started Pizza Hut yesterday and it was exactly the way I expected it to be. It got a wee bit busy and much to my dismay I had my own tables (I couldn’t keep the tips since I was being trained, but Jackie gave me a third of what she made, which I thought was nice).
I awesomely spilled pizza and soda at once (not on a paying customer, thank goodness), and managed to stumble over my words more than once. This morning I ached in the stranged places and despite my shower last night, I still smelled a little like a pizza.
The differences between Job One and the Job Two are interesting. I don’t mean the obvious differences, like one of them has a red roof and smells like a pizza. The way the customers are treated is a lot different and it’ll take a little adjustment.
Or maybe I shouldn’t adjust at all.
That’s a better idea. I don’t think I will.
Mmmm. I could go for some pizza right about now.
I get a discount.
Who’s with me?
It has been decided that the Great Migration will occur the first week of July.
That’s fourteen weeks away.
Ninety-eight days.
I’m pretty much a mathematical genius.
Filed under: random
I’m not dead.
Not that anyone was truly worried about that.
Just thought I’d throw it out there.
I’ve been working a lot, and then there’s the church and the sleeping and the computer doing weirdo tricks that are simultaneously impressive and highly annoying.
Whenever the Little Richard Geico commerical comes on I get a little freaked out.
The older he gets the more feminine he becomes.
I’ve recently discovered the wonder that is “Scrubs.”
So hilarious.
And funny.
And did I mention it makes me laugh?
March 16.
Already. ALREADY!
Where is the time going?
That question has always made me dizzy.
What happens to the past?
Where does it go?
Time is an invention, I guess.
I wish it were June 16.
Or maybe July 16.
I’m ready for this to be ready to begin.
Filed under: books
I read a lot.
A lot meaning few books a month, many devoured over a span of three days for hours on end. There’s not much to do here, and even if there were I would still probably read. I’ll read everything, anything. Cereal boxes, random papers lying around at work, and if I get really desparate I put the Closed Caption on while I’m watching T.V.
I have three vivid memories from my childhood, and the most prominent one is when I learned how to read. I was with my mom and we were reading a book about seeing a bee and there was this rat thing with a telescope looking for the bee. I wish I remembered what it was called or who wrote it or something, but to a four year old those matters are not as important as what happens after the bee is seen.
In my memory, which is reliable for the most part, one day my patient mother was reading it and the next day she stopped and I took over. I was ecstatic because it meant that not only could I read, but that I could tell when anyone skipped parts of a book that they were reading to me. They became my most certain enemies, denying me the pleasure of being read to.
Until they gave me a cookie, of course.
Because cookies solve just about any problem imaginable except childhood obsesity.
Some people cannot tolerate bad music. I’m not one of those people. As long as it’s fun and dance-y, I’m there. I cannot, however, abide a bad book. I realize that the term bad is a relative one, but generally speaking if it doesn’t hold interest, have a decent set of characters, or is too long-winded in the phrasing of simple sentences (Faulkner comes to mind, and I realize that he’s a Great Author and all of that crap but seriously. It takes about 5 years to finish a page), I stop reading. No point in wasting my time.
I often read books more than once, more than twice even. I listen to CDs more than once, why not read a book more than once? I think people don’t read because they’re lazy, or they don’t make the time. You can listen to a CD in your car, or when you’re walking, or whenever. But to read is to stop multitasking, and there are a few people who would simply implode if they couldn’t do more than 3 things at once.
There are few things more comforting than reading a really good book. The characters become familiar, their lives so linear and flat on those pages but come to life in my head. For instance, “She Got Up Off the Couch.” It’s about a girl in rural Indiana, a memior. The characters are refreshing, and not too confusing, and it’s written with such a unique voice that I cannot, no matter what is going on, put it down.
(more…)
“You’re really moving?”
“Yeah.”
“You must be really good in bed if he wants you to move all the way to Oregon.”
“Cody!”
“What?”
“You have no idea.”
“How many times have you met this guy?”
“You only ever meet someone once, Cody.”
“Okay. So how much time have you spent with him?”
“I spent a week with him in December.”
“That must’ve been one hell of a week.”
“Seriously. You have no idea.”
I’m watching The Goonies.
My gosh I’ve missed this movie.
Based in Oregon, you know.
I work today from 2-10.
I’m sick of it already only because I know what lies ahead of me.
But this weekend!
Do you know what this weekend holds?
The luck of the Irish.
Even though I’m not fully Irish.
Just a smidge.
That’s enough, I think.
It’s not like anyone’s going to do a
thorough background check before
letting me go anywhere.
So there’s this guy.
He’s a little confused about the ways of women and has taken to asking me to interpret a certain girl’s meaning, running things by me that he wants to say to her, and asking for my opinion about all manner of things pertaining to this certain female.
It cracks me up, first because I am so blunt with him, to the point of almost being mean, that one would think he would quit asking by now (unless, of course, I’m actually doing a competant job at deciphering the things she says into what she really means and he’s actually getting places with her) and secondly because while I am of the female persuasion I am quite unlike the standard “please buy me flowers and all things sparkly and spend all your time with just me and no one else” type.
I’ve never cared about expensive things, like big diamonds or $800 dollar purses. I think that the money could better be spent on other endeavors.
Like cigarettes. And gummi bears.
There are as many different ways to girls’ hearts as there are girls, but there is usually one no-fail panty-dropper, especially if you get them for absolutely no reason at all: flowers.
Now.
The type of flower depends on the girl as well. For instance, I don’t like roses. Or … what are they called? The type that looks like old lady hair? Crysanthemums. But there are some of us that love roses, that would prefer them to the much more distinguised orchid.
And then you have to decide the color.
Red? Very romantic. Yellow? Maybe too “let’s be friends.” You could always try those yellow and red ones, the ones that look a little orange?
Or you could just ask her, in some sort of roundabout way, what her favorite flower is. If you listen closely, she’ll drop a hint.
Because she’s a girl.
We may not know how to change a flat tire or what offsides really means but we’re good at dropping hints.
Maybe you’re thinking, “But flowers die! It’s the only thing you can buy that you won’t return when it starts to go brown after three days!” I know they die. This is why I can’t see spending so much money on something that will eventually be thrown away (where as cigarettes? The benefit of them will last a lifetime! You’ll have the early mouth wrinkles and the hacking up little brown pieces of your own insides forever!) I can’t explain why we like them. Because they’re pretty? Some of them smell nice? I don’t know. But nothing makes a girl happier than you walking through the door with a fist full of flowers “just because.”
I don’t know much about a lot of things.
I don’t know why we say we’re fine when we’re not fine.
I don’t know why we get that weird tinge of jealousy when we see you talking to another girl, despite how she looks.
I don’t know why we spend half an hour in the shower, why we can’t close our mouths when applying mascara, or why we spend $100 on a pair of shoes that we bitch about until we throw them away.
But trust me on the flowers.
Filed under: work
I got a second job today.
I had actually planned on calling on my application tomorrow, but since Jackie and I went into Pizza Hut tonight after the Pastor’s Class and the manager was there I asked if the application had been reviewed.
She pulled it and we had an impromptu interview.
Then she asked me when I could start.
I needed a second job because the store wasn’t giving me enough hours, and I went in tonight to look at my schedule for next week and how many hours do I have?
Thirty-six.
How’s that for irony?
Not that I’m complaining (yet).
The money will do me good, because I am in all ways trying to get my ass up to Oregon as soon as humanly possible while still saving a fair chunk of change until that blessed time comes.
I’m happy with my hours, but I’m also anxious to start the new job.
I’m guessing that I’ll begin next Sunday.
I have plans on the 17th and I’ll be damned if I’m going to cancel them.
I’ve been tentative about talking about blogging and why I do it simply because it’s a subject that has been touched on so many times by a slew of different people that their answers are as good as mine: I blog because I like doing it. I like having a little soapbox that I can stand on when I need to, or just type about my day. I like knowing that people are reading it, even if they dismiss what I say.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would volutarily share their life with strangers because they didn’t like it. No one who blogs hates blogging.
It’s hard to remember sometimes that the words you read were written by a person. A human being. One who walked into a room, booted up the computer, and decided to share a part of their life with anyone who happend to stumble across it.
There are many different types of blogs, and finding one that suits you may or may not be difficult. There are popular blogs, like Heather’s or Erin’s, and some rather unknown authors who prove quite hilarious and real. There are blogs about music, sports, and once I found a blog written quite graphically about a gay man and his sexual exploits, which I didn’t bookmark or I would absolutely share.
When people blog, they do so in hopes that someone will read it. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone who tells absolutely no one that they write. It’s easier to express yourself when you know you’re going to be heard.
I quite like my audience. At least six dozen people a day read this thing, and I try to provide at least something for them to read while they have their morning tea. Sometimes I deliver. Sometimes I do not. And while I don’t write exclusively for other people, it pushes me to more eloquently portray an idea or write a story a little more clear and a little more funny.
Most people who write do so for an audience. If they didn’t want one, they wouldn’t publish their thoughts. They’d get a journal and hide it under a matress like a normal person.
There are lines to be drawn when reavealing information about yourself and your private life. How much privacy you give your children and your romantic relationships should be weighed against your sister-in-law knowing absolutely every detail of a fight that went down. Just because she’s never said she reads it doesn’t mean she doesn’t. The same holds true for parents and siblings. Even though all of your friends read it and think you are oh-so-funny doesn’t mean you have to divulge every little thing to the wide world of internet. Bloggers have secrets, too.
Filed under: school
Most of the time I really love my biology lab.
We get to use microscopes and look at blood and bone, and we get to draw, and soon we’ll get to dissect a baby pig and I’m surprisingly excited about it.
Today we were presented with a 5 week long genetics project involving fruit flies.
The biggest challenge I see in this case? Keeping those little fuckers alive long enough to gain some useable observations.
When I walked into the room today there were eight large vials of two different kinds of fruit flies. Four of them contained wild fruit flies that had the dominant trait, and the other were wingless, which is the recessive trait.
The theory was that we would separate each vial into male and female groups, and then put four of each kind into a separate vial that we had prepared with food.
But how do we stop the little shits from climbing/flying out of the vial and see to it that they remain still while they are getting separated?
Fly Nap. It’s essentially a poison, but exposing the flies to it for a minute or so doesn’t kill them, it just knocks them out for a few hours. Then, using a microscope, we separated them into their groups (females have a more pointed abdomen with stripes) and then scooted them into our vial.
In my personal vial right now I have four female wingless, and four male wild.
Two of the winged bugs have died already.
We got more than we needed (just one of each, so they can hurry up and bang and have some babies) so dear baby Jesus, please let at least one of each make it through the night so I can do this freaking project.
