Date: 2009-01-28 20:50 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

So I hate winter, I hate cold, and I hate snow. But sometimes? Snow comes in really handy.

Woke up this morning, showered, looked out the window, and went, "...Shit." We got 10 inches of snow last night. Fun times. I was ready to cut a bitch.

Until I tried to leave for work and couldn't get out the driveway. Then, at 6:35 a.m., my day got fantastic. Backed that little Saturn up, parked it, grabbed my shit, and pranced back into the house. (To understand the sheer hilarity of all this, imagine not only me, shivering and cursing in my wee red Saturn, but also my parents, with their hair sticking up all over the place and wrapped in their robes, standing at the window the entire time. First, they were amazed at my ability to smoke a cigarette while at the same time using both hands to clear mounds of snow from my car. Then, they watched me approach the driveway, stop, back up, try it again, stop, give up, and park. Last, they watched me prance, giggling, through snow drifts as high as my knees as I made my way back inside with my little chocolate soy milk carton.) I called my boss to let her know I wasn't coming into work, called my team lead to let her know I wasn't coming in, and then promptly stripped off my clothes and fell back into bed. I proceeded to sleep until about 12:30.

It was wonderful. Fucking wonderful.

The knowledge that I would have to help shovel the end of the drive out did cast a bit of a shadow, but when I woke up? It was done. Apparently my parents got motivated or some shit. Whatever. I didn't have to do it. Woo hoo!

And then I read. A lot. All day. Except for when I took my naps: two of them! Naps!

I was tired. I needed a day like today. Sometimes? Snow is good.

...Wait a couple days until it's slushy and gross and I'm bitching again. Then it will suck.

2 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link

Date: 2008-12-27 20:41 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I am over Christmas.

Honestly, I was over Christmas by Christmas Eve, but...yeah. I'm over it.

Mostly I'm just over family functions.

It's amazing to me that I've managed to reach a point where, as a general rule, I'm happy with myself and my life, and yet every time I leave a supposedly "happy, loving" family gathering, I feel like shit. Like a complete waste of life. Like an epic loser. All of which I know, rationally, not to be true, and yet, that's how I feel.

Individually, my relatives are wonderful people. Put them all in the same room, however, and they're horrid and overwhelming.

No mas. No mas.

But other than that, I am thoroughly enjoying four days off work. Haven't gone a damn bit of writing done, but...eh. Went to the pub last night for some post-Christmas boozing, got trashed with Blair, talked to the band (a wonderful group from Wisconsin, Rising Gael), came home, went to sleep, and woke up to a day with a temperature in the mid-60s. Woo hoo! Not that I actually went outside, mind you, but it's nice to know that I could have without freezing my tits off if I wanted to. :p

1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link

Date: 2008-06-30 09:21 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I have come to realize I am addicted to www.goodreads.com.

Books. Books. And more books. Cyber "shelves," reviews, forums...

I am not ashamed!

*toddles off to continue being a geek*

Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link

Date: 2008-06-24 10:56 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Mood: chipper

So my last entry, if I recall correctly, was infused with emo. I do apologize, but I had a really rough two months. But...

...things are better now! Let the rejoicing begin!

The last week of May turned out to be an absolutely fabulous week. I started work again, my dad started a new job...my mother must have been doing the happiest of all happy dances. It's now mid-June, past that even, and I'm still at the new job.

Orthopaedics of Indianapolis, doing basically what I was doing at Clarian back in the day, without all the bullshit and with a significant rise in the paycheck. It's also much closer to home than anything else I've ever had. (16.3 miles one way, as opposed to 30 (Clarian), 45 (DCM in Plainfield), and 35.6 (Reebok). I'm now part of that group that can make it to work and back all week on less than a full tank of gas.

Getting paid more and spending less on gas! Cha-ching!

There's also already been some talk of hiring me on full time here, and my supervisor is working on getting that together. The prospect of health insurance is a wonderful thing. Stability, enough that I can start planning my life more than a couple weeks at a time.

*collapses*

I'm not sure how to handle the lack of stress in my life right now. Meep!

(Yes I do. I've been making up for lost time at the bookstore. My God, you ought to see my goodreads.com account! Borders and Barnes & Noble love</> me.)

4 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link

Date: 2008-05-06 02:42 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

(An entry from my handwritten journal, "A Year-Long Study of Writing as it Applies to the Bat Shit Insane Girl Holding the Pen.")


Leaving aside all the other reasons why I so desperately want to get out of this town, there is one that I realized not too long ago that has stuck in my mind.

Artistically speaking, I am in the wrong place.

This town slowly but inevitably destroys you, kills your soul. I've watched it happen. So many people I went to high school with, who had dreams and plans and so much potential, are now mired in small town mediocrity, wasted and wasting away. They're stuck. And I am so scared that's going to be me in the not-too-distant future, lobotomized and failed, surviving but no longer alive.

I tried once to get out, but this town sucks you back in. So few truly escape.

This place isn't the place for artists, no matter their medium. Too small, too close-minded. There's no artistic community to nurture you or support you, no group of like-minded individuals to network with.

There is no Bohemia here.

Part of that, of course, is due to the sheer size of this sinkhole. Small town = small population. Artists--sketchers, painters, writers, dancers--are a minority anyway no matter where you go, and in a small, conservative, Midwestern town there are even fewer of us. But this town seems worse than most. In a subtle way, it discourages independent thought and individual expression, especially through art.

I can count the number of talented writers here on one hand, including myself, and still have a finger or two left over, depending on how generous I'm being.

Writers, by nature, tend to be isolated. We have to be in order to work. But when we cross the line from being alone to being lonely, we tend to venture forth and seek each other out for companionship. Yet if there's no one there, no one to find, no one to connect with, that can be a crippling blow.

My only haven in this town is the Denny's restaurant after about 10:00 P.M. (It's where I'm writing this, in fact. Booth #1, tucked away in the back corner with my diet coke, no ice.) I can gather up my journal, my story notebooks, and all my story notes and head up there. Buy a soda and I can sit for hours, smoking and writing. Paula, the third shift waitress, doesn't care, doesn't even charge me half the time. She doesn't necessarily understand, but she doesn't bother me, which is enough.

If not there, then I will actually leave town, drive the half an hour to a Barnes & Noble or Borders bookstore, just so I can borrow the atmosphere of someone else's Bohemia.

Because I need that, the sense of community and support, the connection with people who are on the same level and can meet me on the same level of intelligence and passion, who really understand.

But I don't have that, not in this town.

It's slowly but surely killing me.

On St. Patrick's Day, I posted a blog on MySpace (and later reposted it here on IJ) called "To Get Away From Where I Am," which was along the lines of this entry only without the focus on creativity and writing. My friend Beth's response, sent to me via a series of text messages that nearly exploded my phone:

"No kidding about this town killing you. No one's told you to run because of that ugly, malicious thing in people that can't bear the thought of seeing you succeed when they've already failed. So here's my sad, melodramatic entreaty: go. Get the hell out the moment you're able, because I don't want to be one of those 'misery loves company' type people. I already look at myself and think, 'townie.' I've been here too fucking long. Some days it feels like this stupid place has sucked out all my magic, my talent, my drive, my ability to create. Feels like it a lot, actually. Don't let it do that to you, because you're right, you don't belong here and you won't be working at AccounTemps all your life. You have what it takes to be great."

For my sanity, for my fucking life, I hope she's right. But at times, so often, I'm terrified that I'll be just like everyone else around here, that I'll just sink into the mud with the rest of this fucking town.

2 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link

Date: 2008-04-28 15:10 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I'm unemployed (again), so I'm laying about at home all day, wishing desperately that daytime TV didn't suck so damn bad. Nothing exciting ever happens during the day, simply because everyone else is at work and, really, in this town? Not much exciting happens ever. So it's sleeping, reading, stressing over money, and writing that gets me through the day, all of which is done in my pajamas.

But today? Something interesting happened.

Now, it's all in context of how utterly boring my life currently is. Please keep that in mind.

The Indiana primary is coming up on May 6th. I am well aware of this. Within fifteen minutes, I got phone calls from all three major presidential campaigns: McCain, Obama, and Clinton. (This is the most phone calls I've received in over a week...too bad one of them wasn't offering me a freakin' job, which is what I really need.) This was not a generalized "May I speak to any registered voter in the house, please?" kind of call. Asked for me, by name...gee, guys, going after the youth vote, much? Anyways, one thing I noticed:

All three of these poor campaign workers were desperately in need of one thing: a glass of water. And they all sounded exactly like a recording, they had made the same speech so many times, to the point where I was genuinely unsure if it wasn't actually a recording on the other end, even though rationally, I knew it wasn't. Creeeeeeeeeepy.

But moving past that. All three asked the same question: "Are you planning on supporting [insert name of chosen candidate here] in the presidential elections?" Now, there are two ways you can answer this question.


1. "Yes." Which gets you an incredibly grateful, "That's wonderful!" Which translates into, "Oh, thank fucking God, I don't have to give you the speech!" End of conversation, yay!

2. "No." And face the dissertation on why, in fact, you should support [insert name of chosen candidate]. Despite the fact that if you're not one of the brain dead who "isn't sure," then you're probably pretty set in your decision, thanks to a mixture of intelligent reasoning, research, and paying attention to the news. Conversation could drag on interminably.


So I answered "yes."

To all three.

Because I am not stupid. I may be unemployed, but damn it, I've still got shit to do.

Now obviously, I was only lying two of those times. One of those candidates I am actually going to be supporting in the primaries on May 6th. Two of them? Obviously not so much. Perhaps I would have answered truthfully had they not all called me in a fifteen minute span. Seriously, I think it was just the same chick, probably a lowly temp, who just swapped out the names of the candidates and hit redial. Tis very disturbing.

Of course, why the McCain campaign would even bother wasting their time calling a decidedly blue house in this very red state, I haven't the faintest idea. Silly Republican.

Although, on a serious note: I don't care who you vote for, as long as you get out and vote. For the name of all that you hold dear, just fucking vote!

If you don't vote, you don't get to bitch about the outcome. (Yes, I'm looking at all you Bush haters who, though you were able, did not bother to actually vote in '04 in order to bring about a change but somehow still feel entitled to bitch about the shit-job he's doing running the country. Especially those of you in Ohio. Bitches.)

Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link

Date: 2008-03-31 21:34 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

It's thunder storming. First real one of the year, complete with ridiculously heavy rain and thunder directly overhead that makes your heart palpitate.

My God, I love this kind of weather.

2 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link