Filed under: random
Today has been wildly productive and has gone by superduper quick, thank goodness. I got the oil changed in my car, called Commercial, packed some more, cleaned inside and outside of vehicle and subsequently almost died due to sweating so much (it was 95 degrees today). My mom got home and then we went to the grocery store to get food for the party on Saturday.
Laura! Did you hear that? Saturday. As in, this Saturday. At noon.
As of right this second I am doing nothing but waiting until 5 in the morning to arrive. Perhaps I will shave my legs; that always takes up some time. Or nap for a few hours. Or return some things to Pizza Hut that I inadvertantly heisted before I left.
Sounds like a good plan, I think.
The next few days will be busy, leaving little time to update.
Check back on Sunday evening for a nifty blogging surprise.
“It’s a bad idea to move across the country for love.”
“I’m not. I’m moving for sex.”
“I’m serious! You shouldn’t chase it. It’s not a good idea.”
“I’m hardly ‘chasing’ anything. And I’m disinclined to take relationship advice from someone who hates his wife.”
Yesterday was my last day at Pizza Hut, and along with that wonderful conversation I got flowers, a card signed by everyone, and a cake. An ice cream cake. That means I was superimportant. Upon my exit, I left them a note that said this:
“As I sit here ON the clock eating a breakstick I did NOT pay for (shameful, I know), I would like to thank everyone for making my first ever waitressing experience a good thing. Remember to not stress about things too hard; it’s just pizza.”
After a screaming cry-fest on Saturday night and then some philosophical conversations with myself afterwards, I realized a few things and I promise that after I blabber for a minute or so I’ll be done with this subject for a Very Long While. It’s not really the people I’ll miss. Or the rinky-dink town. It’s my childhood. Which sounds weird because I haven’t been a child for more than ten years now, but it’s the idea of having to grow up and face the fact that it’s time to get on with the rest of my life.
Nothing amazing ever happend from staying the same.
You know what stays the same?
Nothing.
Except mountains. And even they grow, like, a foot every ten years or something ridiculous.
My point is that change happens. And as scared as I was, as sad as I thought I was about leaving certain people or places, I’m not really. I’m scared of the change itself. Where there was fear, there is now faith that I’m making the right decision. I’m not scared of leaving; I’ve come to terms with it, accepted it as true, and I’m ready, so freaking ready, to leave things behind, dust myself off, and move on with my life. I’m happy to have someone with me who knows what it’s like, who will be understanding to the fact that sometimes I will not want to talk about it, and can offer me some sort of advice or support on the subject.
I’m ready to drive across the country with that same somebody, laughing and talking and outrunning tornadoes. It’ll be an adventure, and I’m pretty overdue for one of those.
Dear Everyone:
I cannot wait to move. I’m very excited about it and looking forward to meeting new people and being closer to my boyfriend and the whole nine yards, I promise. But there will probably be a general lack of posts this coming week due to the fact that, even though I really do want to do this, I can’t talk about it.
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and I would rather not face the slew of emotions that I’m trying to deal with all at once. Answering questions about how I’m doing and how the packing is going and the place that we’re going to live forces me to face things that I don’t want to face. Eventually I’ll do it on my own. But I simply can’t right now.
If we are on the phone and I act strange, please don’t take it personally. If I make a comment that seems completely out of character, it’s not necessary to point it out. There is a good possibility I will act defensive and sarcastic for no obvious reason; these behaviors aren’t like me, so it’s likely that there is a deeper issue. It’s called a defense mechanism for a reason, one that generally hurts the situation more than helps so I’m sorry in advance. Please try not to fire back with sarcasm or how you’re going to go because I’m just being mean. I’m fragile within this armor.
I’m not looking for you to understand what I’m going through; it’s likely that you have also moved at one point in your life, and most moves are the same. But I’ve only ever moved an hour and a half away from the only home I’ve ever known, and given my inability to deal with change in an appropriate manner, this situation is completely foreign to me. I can only do the best that I can and it’s killing me something fierce. Please do not (I repeat, do NOT) regale me with your tales about how one time you moved, too and everything was fine. If I have learned something in the past however many years about giving advice, the three instances where you don’t, under any circumstances, reveal that you too have once gone through a similar situation and this is how you solved it are the following: death, breakups, and moving.
The truth of the matter is I’m not fine (although I really do promise that I’m superexcited and have been counting down the days since day 73); I’ll probably be crappy for a little while. And we can talk and laugh and joke, just like we used to. But we cannot (canNOT) talk about moving. It’s too hard right now. The wall that I’ve been building up in preparation for this exact event can only withstand so much before it crumbles, and I’d rather no one be around when it finally does.
Thanks,
Denise
Filed under: moving
I recently booked a hotel for the first night of the Great Migration. It isn’t customary for me to be so organized; I tend to worry about smaller things, like having to answer nature’s call on the side of the road. In the rain. And what happens if I have to go Number Two? How do I avoid that? Not eating is one option, but then I won’t have strength or stamina, which are two important things to have while traveling across the country. I leave the bigger things, like lodging and gas, to those with a more logical thought process and instead concentrate on the teeny issues, the ones that no one thinks of until they’re clenching their ass cheeks together in the passenger’s seat wishing they had Just Said No to that cheeseburger.
All other venues will be booked as we go; we’re play-it-by-ear sort of people, we are. But I’m betting that Sunday will be a stressful day, a day when I will just want to sleep after driving 12 hours to Tennessee, away from everything that I love so much. That’s just a theory; for all I know I could be celebrating, drinking my weight in tequila while Jason does his best to concentrate on the road and ignore me licking salt off the dashboard. But my innate sense of self chides me, telling me that this will not be what happens, that I will be sad and a little morose for a while. It’s best to settle the issue of where to sleep ahead of time when I’m not suffering the high-strung emotional crap that moving to a strange land is bound to ignite in me.
Filed under: note to self
Learn how to play poker and learn all things poker related, such as keeping a straight face and not shouting obscenities when you get a bad hand.
That’s a huge tell, you dumbass.
Filed under: audience participation
When I was younger I wanted to be a garbage man (to ride on the back of the truck, of course), a ballerina, a teacher, and a mommy. I decided shortly therafter that I didn’t want to smell garbage all day, and heredity made being a ballerina impossible (child-bearing hips, larger-than-pancake chest). Going to college shook the wanting to mold young minds thing out of me, and as for being a mommy is concerned I’ve got a few years before that becomes a reality.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What made you change your mind?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Lately I’m finding myself patently uninteresting. The majority of topics that come out of my mouth pertain to the move, or Jason, or moving with Jason. I’ve become That Girl, the girl who can’t shut up about how she’s so excited to be moving to Oregon because her boyfriend is so amazing and blah blah blah. I’ve also become Another Girl, the one who gets wet in the eyes after mentioning how she’s so excited to be moving to Oregon because she will miss Florida.
So the reason for my absence isn’t really that my dad had shoulder surgery; he did, I didn’t lie about that. But I can clearly use the computer and all of its wonderful features (like Spider Solitaire and Calculator). I just find myself too boring.
And P.S.
I didn’t sell my books.
I will lug them everywhere, hither and yon, to and fro, before I sell them from fifty cents each.
Filed under: moving
Today I sold my DVDs to a video store. I need the money and I need the trunk space. Despite the realization that the movies are just things, and that I don’t really need things, I’m still sad. Sad in a way that shocks me. Because now I’m starting to sell my stuff in order to move, and though I knew it would probably happen it was startling.
Tomorrow I’m going to sell my books. That’s when things will get a little messy. Crying, snotty messy. Because do you know how much I love books? I love my books. They are comforting. And familiar. And wonderful. And I would say “Oh, no problem because I can just go to the library.” But thanks to the government who doesn’t know how to budget and the voters in Jackson County, I have no library to go to.
Son of a bitch.
Filed under: public service announcement
My dad had shoulder surgery and has taken up residence in the room where the computer is (because there’s also a TV, and we moved the recliner in her yesterday) so I won’t be blogging as often. Or doing much of anything as it relates to the internet.
Filed under: Uncategorized
testing, one two, this is only a test.
it’s okay if you are confused. it’s to be expected.
-posted by: amberlynne-
Filed under: christianity
I don’t write about politics often; in fact, this is the first time I’ve written about politics ever. I don’t write because I don’t care much, and I don’t care much because in the long run it really doesn’t matter. I’m not oblivious to my political surroundings, but I don’t like to talk about my beliefs because it’s a futile conversation: you either agree, or you don’t. And that’s fine with me.
What isn’t fine with me is the special I saw a few days ago on CNN. The three major Democratic hopefuls took the stage to answer questions about their faith. Faith. Because somewhere along the line CNN got it in its head that America was a Christian nation. We want the Pledge of Allegience changed, “In God We Trust” scraped off of our money, and the 10 Commandments ripped from the courthouse walls, but we’ll all sleep a little better at night if the President says “God bless you all” at the end of his State of the Union address. Like we all just participated in a unanimous sneeze.
Christians are no longer allowed to preach God’s word without the risk of being jailed for a hate crime. We ask where God is when hurricanes hit, when schools are taken hostage by their own students, when parents kill their children. Where is God when a tornado detroys a town? Where is God when a flash flood washes away the housing for an entire community?
It’s very obvious that America is anything but a Christian nation. The way we idolize the rich and the famous is absurd: we know the name of every woman Brad Pitt has dated, but nothing about the Bible. We all crave physical beauty to the point where we get the fat sucked out of our asses and injected into our lips while families live in poverty and can’t afford simple antibiotics. Our hearts are hardened to the struggle of others, especially the others who we perceive as weak and wasted. We don’t give homeless people money on the street because they’ll buy booze with it, but we also don’t donate food or time to legitimate soup kitchens or churches who are trying to pick up the slack of the majority of apathetic America. We spend far too much money on ourselves instead of tithing, and then sit around in our air conditioned homes, watching the flat screen TV, complaining that God doesn’t provide for us. Instead of talking to our children about abstinence, we dish out the birth control. We don’t believe in the death penalty–Thou shalt not kill, remember?–but we have no problem escorting our teenage daughters into abortion clinics to get babies sliced and sucked out of wombs.
We didn’t want God in our country. We said, “God, we want you around. But not in our government. Not in our schools and not in our streets. We want you around in case something catastrophic happens, and then we’ll demand that you do something to fix it. But in the meantime, we’ll fix things by ourselves.”
So he took his message, his word of hope and of a better life, and he bowed out. Just like we asked him to do.
Had I been conciously aware that I would have to face my biggest fear, I would’ve never agreed to drive across the country. I’m being dramatic, of course, but only marginally.
I’ve narrowed the routes we’ll take down to two:
This one has us going up through Georgia to Tennessee, and then west through Kansas, Denver, Salt Lake, etc. It is reportedly the quickest way to get there if you don’t mind being sucked up into the atmosphere and then thrown 200 yards.
This is my second choice, only because my two least favorite states will be covered: Texas and California. It takes more time, we’re too near the border, and rumor has it that the speed limit through the northern central states reaches 80 miles an hour. Not so in the Great South. We wanted to see the Grand Canyon, but more important than viewing a hole in the ground is being back for Devin’s birthday.
Even if I hadn’t chosen those two routes, it’s unavoidable. Any way it’s sliced, we’re going there. And by “there” I mean the place I swore to myself long ago that I would never go, especially during the summer where the things I am most scared of in the entire world come out to play and kill people.
Filed under: lists
1) macabre (muh-kah’-bruh): gruesome and horrifying; ghastly; horrible.
2) surreptitious (sir’-up-tish’-us): marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to avoid being observed.
3) superfluous (soo-per’-flew-us): being more than is sufficient or required; excessive.
4) elucidate (ill-oo’-sid-ate): to make lucid or clear; throw light upon; explain
