Most everybody knows that I write for that slightly off-the-wall, not-quite-politically-correct, liberal-as-they-get, alternative school newspaper the martini. (We don't capitalize the 'm'. Just...we don't.) I inherit layout this year, but before I get to that, I have something else that I inherited.
I'm going abroad.
Which shouldn't be news to anybody.
The point of this is that before I can get to play with Microsoft Publisher, I'm going to be writing more than a few articles until the title of The Abroadest. The column is officially unofficially titled A Word from Not-America (read the disclaimer/warning in the first sentence of this post) and tells about life across the ocean. A pretty cool concept when you think about it, getting that global perspective of things.
Only, there's some issues at the moment.
The first is that Ashley, the wonderful whip-wielding editor-in-chief has decided that we're going to be completely batshit and awesome this year and put out an edition in the first week of school, in time for the Club Fair held on the quad. Probably so that people know what they're getting themselves into and yeah, welcome to college. Due to this fact, my first article as The Abroadest is going to come while I'm still on American soil, and probably have something to do with pre-abroad jitters. That's fine - I've got plenty of those.
My issue is that I am having the damndest time actually writing this thing.
I've started twice. That should tell you something.
I have no problem writing fiction pieces and letting the world look at them, read them, and possibly rip them apart. That's not an issue. I'm a little more selective about the stuff I use for publication in what's really a journalistic fashion. And, really, unless you write for The Herald or can't stand martini in any way, everybody on campus reads it. Even the professors. Hell, everybody from the newest of the first-years all the way to the president reads it.
Should give you an idea of the audience.
And, because we're such a small campus, people will and can, recognize you when you go places - like the library, or the dining hall. Hang out with fellow staffers or have conversation with them, it's noticed. You're associated vicariously, and if you write something that's probably not quite up to snuff, they'll talk about that, too.
I'd like to be talked about in a good way - either that I've fostered conversation about something, or wrote something witty, fun, and that makes you think. Not because every English major on campus has the opinion that I shouldn't even write my own name.
If I didn't know what my editor would say, I'd ask her. She'll say, Write whatever. You're the Abroadest.
Not. Helpful.
Oh, and my second issue? Articles are due Sundays before we publish (we usually come out in the middle of the week) by noon. I have two days.
And I have the horoscopes to do, but those are fun to mangle. If we're not using the ones that some alum sent in, which, because horoscopes is also my job...not cool.
Then again, this column is now my job, and I think I'm so far failing miserably. Any hints that anybody has about writing for a journalistic deadline would be helpful.
Or, Louise could do what she's always done - write what comes to mind, edit it slightly, and let it fly. Fuh.
Showing posts with label summer '10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer '10. Show all posts
Friday, August 27, 2010
"Bury Me in Satin...."
Remember one of the last few Things to Know posts I did, where I told you about one of my new favorite songs, If I Die Young, by The Band Perry? Well, I was watching CMT this morning, and they did a video for it.
You can probably guess that I decided to share.
You can probably guess that I decided to share.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Move It!
This song, when I first heard it while watching VH1 in the morning, was catchy, stayed with me, and later, when I was really looking forward to hearing it, made me dance.
And, after buying it on Amazon today, had me dancing in the living room before getting ready for work. That should tell you something.
And, after buying it on Amazon today, had me dancing in the living room before getting ready for work. That should tell you something.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Things to Know XVII
- There are now more Things to Know posts than Murphy and Me posts.
- I have 18 days until I leave.
- Meaning 18 more days to fill with smiles, laughter, and hugs from a certain Mayhem Maker who's probably not going to readily understand why Ollie's car is parked in the driveway but Ollie isn't home.
- The cat knows something's up - she's been stuck to my side nearly every night when I'm on the computer.
- Mom watches Lifetime movies when I'm a work.
- In this current one - set in the west - some guy just asked the girl he loved to marry him.
- She said yes.
- Did you expect anything different from a Lifetime movie?
- I am going to hit nearly ten hours of overtime this week.
- Friday night includes two hours of male dancers - known affectionately as Booty Cruise - and more banana hammocks than anyone really cares to see.
- This will be my third year working Booty Cruise and, honestly, unlike wine, it does not get better with age.
- You're not supposed to throw away trial contacts - I didn't know this.
- I pretty much got yelled at this morning because of this (the left one didn't want to stay on my eye) and I was actually quite offended when the new lady in the glasses/fitting section insinuated that I didn't know which way was the right way for a contact lens.
- I have been wearing contacts since seventh grade.
- She was very unhappy that she had to put in an order for new trials.
- She could have been significantly less unhappy at 10:30 in the morning.
- And I was slightly late to work because of this debacle.
- She insinuates again that I don't know which way my contacts go, I just might not be able to hold my tongue and that infamous temper I'll deny I have in spades.
- And really, I didn't know I couldn't chuck them.
- Today was a bread pudding kind of day.
- My nose is stuffy.
- Carla called me She-Man the other night because I carried a tray with double-stacked dirty dishes down from upstairs at work.
- They're not letting me live it down that I fell down the stairs.
- But at least they're being mildly nice about it.
- I have somewhere to be tomorrow morning at 9, and I have yet to eat some dinner.
- I have 18 days until I leave.
- Meaning 18 more days to fill with smiles, laughter, and hugs from a certain Mayhem Maker who's probably not going to readily understand why Ollie's car is parked in the driveway but Ollie isn't home.
- The cat knows something's up - she's been stuck to my side nearly every night when I'm on the computer.
- Mom watches Lifetime movies when I'm a work.
- In this current one - set in the west - some guy just asked the girl he loved to marry him.
- She said yes.
- Did you expect anything different from a Lifetime movie?
- I am going to hit nearly ten hours of overtime this week.
- Friday night includes two hours of male dancers - known affectionately as Booty Cruise - and more banana hammocks than anyone really cares to see.
- This will be my third year working Booty Cruise and, honestly, unlike wine, it does not get better with age.
- You're not supposed to throw away trial contacts - I didn't know this.
- I pretty much got yelled at this morning because of this (the left one didn't want to stay on my eye) and I was actually quite offended when the new lady in the glasses/fitting section insinuated that I didn't know which way was the right way for a contact lens.
- I have been wearing contacts since seventh grade.
- She was very unhappy that she had to put in an order for new trials.
- She could have been significantly less unhappy at 10:30 in the morning.
- And I was slightly late to work because of this debacle.
- She insinuates again that I don't know which way my contacts go, I just might not be able to hold my tongue and that infamous temper I'll deny I have in spades.
- And really, I didn't know I couldn't chuck them.
- Today was a bread pudding kind of day.
- My nose is stuffy.
- Carla called me She-Man the other night because I carried a tray with double-stacked dirty dishes down from upstairs at work.
- They're not letting me live it down that I fell down the stairs.
- But at least they're being mildly nice about it.
- I have somewhere to be tomorrow morning at 9, and I have yet to eat some dinner.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Murphy and Me XXV
[No comments from the peanut gallery. Seriously, I know how long this took to get out (the last post was in June, I had to check for my numbers) and it really shouldn't be that long again because, well, usually when everything else demands my attention, my writing kicks back on. Go figure. Anyway. Enjoy it.]
"Yes," I stammered, doing an absolutely fantastic impression of a fish for longer than necessary, "Murphy's my boyfriend."
Which, well, no idea what would happen next.
"Ollie. Come sit." Tanya moved over and I walked woodenly to sit on the arm of the couch. "These are the girls - Katy, Amy, and Becca."
I smiled as best I could. Still reeling. It was like the secret wives club. Or something.
"Are you all dating football players?" Which, stupid question on my part. They went down the line.
"Johnny V."
"Andy."
"Kenny."
"Noah."
And Murph. Okay. This...This was just weird. Not to mention awkward.
The next time I had my boyfriend alone I was going to praise him for his impeccable timing. Seriously. He opened the door and was followed in by four more guys - two I recognized (Johnny V. and Noah) and gave me a wave.
The boys scrounged up more chairs, there was some rearranging, and I was sitting sideways across Murph's legs, back against the arm of the couch. He had a beer in one hand, the other tracing nonsense patterns on my spine. And we all talked. About everything - classes, professors, athletics, coaches, movies, beer, and anything in between.
Murph's fingers were tangled around my belt loops and for as much as he'd drank - at least four - he was incredibly coherent, a slur every now and then, barely evident. Some of the others...not so much.
Katy, in particular (if she was the one I figured was her) got sloppy the more she had.
And that was before the bottle of vodka made an appearance.
It was getting late. And quite tiring. I propped my elbow on Murph's shoulder and rested my cheek on his temple. There was no way to check what time it was without pulling out a phone. That would mean moving. And that wasn't going to happen.
"Well," Murph said as Johnny V. disappeared into one of the rooms off the common room, "I think we're going to head out." A hand at the small of my back helped me up.
"We'll walk with you," Tanya said, smacking Noah's arm to get him moving.
This - I had no idea how to read this. Tanya hooked her arm through mine, waved goodbye to the girls, and steered me out the door.
"You got less nervous as the night went on."
It was that obvious? "Really?"
"Ollie. Please. The other girls might have been halfway gone but I hold my liquor better." She waved jauntily to some of the boys on the porch, heels clacking comfortably on the cracked path back to the sidewalk.
I nearly tripped over my Converse. Murph and Noah were following dutifully behind, arms slung over each others' shoulders for balance, laughing and joking. Every once in a while Murph would slip into Gaelic.
"There's no reason to be nervous." Tanya patted my arm, ignoring the appreciative looks of the semi-drunken boys passing on their way to other parties.
There probably wasn't. I still was.
My inner Spock was telling me it was highly illogical.
In true McCoy fashion, I ignored him.
"You guys do this a lot?"
Tanya shrugged. "We get together as girls sometimes and we hang out as couples. Katy and Becca are roommates and Amy and I are Soc majors."
Which didn't answer the original question, but okay.
We came to the corner the president's house sat on and she hugged me. Completely unexpected and a little bit welcome.
"You have nothing to be nervous about, Ollie," she said. "Now, where's my man?"
There was a thud, some cursing, and two large men in a heap on the grass. And that did not look comfortable by any stretch of the imagination.
Turns out that trying to touch knee to forehead while walking is not feasible. Murph heaved himself up, assisted Noah to his feet, and shook hands with the other man before he and Tanya continued down the street while Murph and I turned right. It was fairly early by collegiate standards by the time we made it to the door and up four floors of stairs. Murph's fingers were tangled with mine as we passed the first room on my floor - the perpetual party room - and there was high-pitched cackling in the bathroom I didn't want to bear witness to.
Murph was looking appropriately bleary-eyed by the time the door was open and the slightly illegal medusa lamp on. A pair of shorts and a t-shirt were laying on the bed while I grabbed my own pj's from the floor.
"I'll change in the bathroom." Which would save him some embarrassment. Exchanging Converse for bare feet and slippers, I left Murph wrestling with his layers on the indoor/outdoor carpet square.
There were girls I didn't know in the bathroom and I had to wait for a stall. The guy who finally came out and I stared each other down before going about our business.
Gotta love Saturday nights on a college campus.
Murph had the door propped open a bit when I got back - a sign he was done - and both our shoes by the door. I let it slip shut and he spit what looked like an entire pack of Winterfresh into the trashcan.
"Didn't think you'd want to share a pillow with beer breath."
Which was true, for the most part.
He locked the door and I went for the light, pausing for a second to look at his neat pile of clothes in my moon chair. A quick glance at the desk showed his wallet by the computer, underneath the hook where my Vera and his keys hung. I clicked the light off. The streetlight in the parking lot made seeing the floor a bit easier than total darkness, and Murph was a shadow in the night. I plugged my phone into the charger and vaulted into bed. Murph crawled in after and it took us some jostling to get settled - I rammed my knee into the electrical box that lead to the power strip in the wall and Murph, from the sound of it, smashed his toes into the side of the dresser at the foot of the bed - and finally he was curled tight to my back, nose behind my ear.
"Johnny had gone to get the peace pipe," Murph said quietly.
I wrestled the hair tie from my ponytail and tried not to whack him in the eye.
"I figured that would make you uncomfortable."
And he thought he right. I knew people did it, but I didn't want to be around it while it was happening. Just not my thing.
"You're right." I shrugged deeper into his chest. "You have to be anywhere tomorrow?"
"Nope."
He pulled the comforter around us and snuggled back in.
"Great," he breathed, kissing the back of my neck.
Damn straight, Murph. Damn straight.
"Yes," I stammered, doing an absolutely fantastic impression of a fish for longer than necessary, "Murphy's my boyfriend."
Which, well, no idea what would happen next.
"Ollie. Come sit." Tanya moved over and I walked woodenly to sit on the arm of the couch. "These are the girls - Katy, Amy, and Becca."
I smiled as best I could. Still reeling. It was like the secret wives club. Or something.
"Are you all dating football players?" Which, stupid question on my part. They went down the line.
"Johnny V."
"Andy."
"Kenny."
"Noah."
And Murph. Okay. This...This was just weird. Not to mention awkward.
The next time I had my boyfriend alone I was going to praise him for his impeccable timing. Seriously. He opened the door and was followed in by four more guys - two I recognized (Johnny V. and Noah) and gave me a wave.
The boys scrounged up more chairs, there was some rearranging, and I was sitting sideways across Murph's legs, back against the arm of the couch. He had a beer in one hand, the other tracing nonsense patterns on my spine. And we all talked. About everything - classes, professors, athletics, coaches, movies, beer, and anything in between.
Murph's fingers were tangled around my belt loops and for as much as he'd drank - at least four - he was incredibly coherent, a slur every now and then, barely evident. Some of the others...not so much.
Katy, in particular (if she was the one I figured was her) got sloppy the more she had.
And that was before the bottle of vodka made an appearance.
It was getting late. And quite tiring. I propped my elbow on Murph's shoulder and rested my cheek on his temple. There was no way to check what time it was without pulling out a phone. That would mean moving. And that wasn't going to happen.
"Well," Murph said as Johnny V. disappeared into one of the rooms off the common room, "I think we're going to head out." A hand at the small of my back helped me up.
"We'll walk with you," Tanya said, smacking Noah's arm to get him moving.
This - I had no idea how to read this. Tanya hooked her arm through mine, waved goodbye to the girls, and steered me out the door.
"You got less nervous as the night went on."
It was that obvious? "Really?"
"Ollie. Please. The other girls might have been halfway gone but I hold my liquor better." She waved jauntily to some of the boys on the porch, heels clacking comfortably on the cracked path back to the sidewalk.
I nearly tripped over my Converse. Murph and Noah were following dutifully behind, arms slung over each others' shoulders for balance, laughing and joking. Every once in a while Murph would slip into Gaelic.
"There's no reason to be nervous." Tanya patted my arm, ignoring the appreciative looks of the semi-drunken boys passing on their way to other parties.
There probably wasn't. I still was.
My inner Spock was telling me it was highly illogical.
In true McCoy fashion, I ignored him.
"You guys do this a lot?"
Tanya shrugged. "We get together as girls sometimes and we hang out as couples. Katy and Becca are roommates and Amy and I are Soc majors."
Which didn't answer the original question, but okay.
We came to the corner the president's house sat on and she hugged me. Completely unexpected and a little bit welcome.
"You have nothing to be nervous about, Ollie," she said. "Now, where's my man?"
There was a thud, some cursing, and two large men in a heap on the grass. And that did not look comfortable by any stretch of the imagination.
Turns out that trying to touch knee to forehead while walking is not feasible. Murph heaved himself up, assisted Noah to his feet, and shook hands with the other man before he and Tanya continued down the street while Murph and I turned right. It was fairly early by collegiate standards by the time we made it to the door and up four floors of stairs. Murph's fingers were tangled with mine as we passed the first room on my floor - the perpetual party room - and there was high-pitched cackling in the bathroom I didn't want to bear witness to.
Murph was looking appropriately bleary-eyed by the time the door was open and the slightly illegal medusa lamp on. A pair of shorts and a t-shirt were laying on the bed while I grabbed my own pj's from the floor.
"I'll change in the bathroom." Which would save him some embarrassment. Exchanging Converse for bare feet and slippers, I left Murph wrestling with his layers on the indoor/outdoor carpet square.
There were girls I didn't know in the bathroom and I had to wait for a stall. The guy who finally came out and I stared each other down before going about our business.
Gotta love Saturday nights on a college campus.
Murph had the door propped open a bit when I got back - a sign he was done - and both our shoes by the door. I let it slip shut and he spit what looked like an entire pack of Winterfresh into the trashcan.
"Didn't think you'd want to share a pillow with beer breath."
Which was true, for the most part.
He locked the door and I went for the light, pausing for a second to look at his neat pile of clothes in my moon chair. A quick glance at the desk showed his wallet by the computer, underneath the hook where my Vera and his keys hung. I clicked the light off. The streetlight in the parking lot made seeing the floor a bit easier than total darkness, and Murph was a shadow in the night. I plugged my phone into the charger and vaulted into bed. Murph crawled in after and it took us some jostling to get settled - I rammed my knee into the electrical box that lead to the power strip in the wall and Murph, from the sound of it, smashed his toes into the side of the dresser at the foot of the bed - and finally he was curled tight to my back, nose behind my ear.
"Johnny had gone to get the peace pipe," Murph said quietly.
I wrestled the hair tie from my ponytail and tried not to whack him in the eye.
"I figured that would make you uncomfortable."
And he thought he right. I knew people did it, but I didn't want to be around it while it was happening. Just not my thing.
"You're right." I shrugged deeper into his chest. "You have to be anywhere tomorrow?"
"Nope."
He pulled the comforter around us and snuggled back in.
"Great," he breathed, kissing the back of my neck.
Damn straight, Murph. Damn straight.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Things to Know XVI
- There maybe - just maybe - might be more Things to Know posts than Murphy and Me posts.
- The former is quite frightening.
- Emily comes tomorrow or, rather, today. Since it's Wednesday.
- She arrives in thirteen hours and fifty-one minutes. But who's counting?
- I took pictures of all the people and the cars on the track to show her what NASCAR is like.
- And I have a shit-ton more things to go on this list, but it's currently 2:10 in the morning. And I need some sleep to function somewhat normally.
-The again...define normal.
- The former is quite frightening.
- Emily comes tomorrow or, rather, today. Since it's Wednesday.
- She arrives in thirteen hours and fifty-one minutes. But who's counting?
- I took pictures of all the people and the cars on the track to show her what NASCAR is like.
- And I have a shit-ton more things to go on this list, but it's currently 2:10 in the morning. And I need some sleep to function somewhat normally.
-The again...define normal.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Things to Know XV
- The stripes on my shoulders at work don't mean a damn thing. As I said to one of my tables earlier, we're all in the same boat.
- I cringed for nearly eight minutes after that last one.
- I was laying in bed this morning, listening to the traffic and wondering why it sounded like everybody was doing at least 65 by the house, and then realized it's NASCAR.
- Some people in this world, no matter how hot it gets, really need to keep their shirt on in public.
- There is such a drink as a "Vodka Relax". Whether it actually helps you reach your goal, I'm not sure.
- When a customer says to you, "When you get a minute..." they rarely ever mean for you to get them what you want in that minute. Because you rarely have that minute to yourself.
- Not a big fan of the phrase "When you get a minute..." since they usually want it right then and they wouldn't ask for it if they didn't want.
- Twenty-four people is a little much to have for a full four course meal.
- Then again, rock it.
- Greg laughed at me (after jokingly ragging on me) about my look of sheer horror as the spider dropped from one of the ceiling tiles to nearly land on some poor kid's shoulder on his way out.
- I am not a big fan of spiders. Seriously.
- Though Greg looks at me funny when I smash them into the wall, even though I tell him I'll clean it up (and always do).
- I've been reading a bunch of Age of Sail novels (Lord Ramage, anyone?) but I don't really know that much about actual sailing (schooners, sailboats, anything not run with a motor) so I've been asking Greg and Tony, who are a wealth of interesting if slightly useless (at times) knowledge.
- Greg drew me a little diagram on a piece of paper with an explanation about how a ship tacks.
- I'm still not sure I fully understand and the diagram got thrown away. I think.
- Some days I feel like Wonder Woman. Other days, more like I'm a bug and I've gone twelve rounds with a windshield.
- I really don't know anything about wines.
- Especially the differences between a riesling and a pinot grigio.
- Both of those, however, are white wines. That much I know.
- Other than that, you're on your own.
- I am completely craving bread pudding right now. The kind they make at the restaurant - homemade covered in some sort of icing, chocolate, and caramel.
- On that note, I think I might go get some sleep.
- I cringed for nearly eight minutes after that last one.
- I was laying in bed this morning, listening to the traffic and wondering why it sounded like everybody was doing at least 65 by the house, and then realized it's NASCAR.
- Some people in this world, no matter how hot it gets, really need to keep their shirt on in public.
- There is such a drink as a "Vodka Relax". Whether it actually helps you reach your goal, I'm not sure.
- When a customer says to you, "When you get a minute..." they rarely ever mean for you to get them what you want in that minute. Because you rarely have that minute to yourself.
- Not a big fan of the phrase "When you get a minute..." since they usually want it right then and they wouldn't ask for it if they didn't want.
- Twenty-four people is a little much to have for a full four course meal.
- Then again, rock it.
- Greg laughed at me (after jokingly ragging on me) about my look of sheer horror as the spider dropped from one of the ceiling tiles to nearly land on some poor kid's shoulder on his way out.
- I am not a big fan of spiders. Seriously.
- Though Greg looks at me funny when I smash them into the wall, even though I tell him I'll clean it up (and always do).
- I've been reading a bunch of Age of Sail novels (Lord Ramage, anyone?) but I don't really know that much about actual sailing (schooners, sailboats, anything not run with a motor) so I've been asking Greg and Tony, who are a wealth of interesting if slightly useless (at times) knowledge.
- Greg drew me a little diagram on a piece of paper with an explanation about how a ship tacks.
- I'm still not sure I fully understand and the diagram got thrown away. I think.
- Some days I feel like Wonder Woman. Other days, more like I'm a bug and I've gone twelve rounds with a windshield.
- I really don't know anything about wines.
- Especially the differences between a riesling and a pinot grigio.
- Both of those, however, are white wines. That much I know.
- Other than that, you're on your own.
- I am completely craving bread pudding right now. The kind they make at the restaurant - homemade covered in some sort of icing, chocolate, and caramel.
- On that note, I think I might go get some sleep.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Working Girl
There's this woman. Her name is Patricia - Patty - and thirty-six years ago she got married to this man named Michael. Thirty-two years ago they had their first child. Her name is Heather. Twenty years ago (almost twenty-one) they had another child. Her name is Molly.
Mike and Patty raised two only children (there's a twelve year age difference that was quite evident in Molly's younger years, believe me) and when they reached a certain age, they instilled in their children certain values. Values like doing what's right, even if it might suck (though said much more eloquently), that sometimes there's not that definitive line between good and bad (though there should be some days, because it would make life so much easier), and when you have a job, you do your job to the best of your ability because it's easier to do it right the first time rather than half-ass it and then have to go back and fix it.
They also tried to help their children deal with finances. Namely, this how much money you need to make if you want to have this amount to spend a week while you're in college.
Ultimately, this was the birth of the Working Girl.
Coincidence that both their girls were waitresses? Well, one was (and stopped when she was heavily pregnant because it was hell on her ankles and feet) and one still is. But they're very different waitresses - one flipped tables and made a small fortune in ones every night, working temp jobs during the day and then closing the restaurant at nights. The other gets the same group of sixteen to twenty-four (depends on how many we add before we leave and who else is on that night) people for three hours. In the first five minutes, you either make yourself or break yourself between the time that they sit down and you serve soup. You have three hours with these people. You piss them off in the first five minutes, you have to deal with them for two hours and fifty-five more.
I don't flip tables. I've never flipped tables in the three years that I've been a waitress. I've opened more bottles of wine than I can count, spilled more wine on myself than I really care to admit, and even fallen down the stairs.
And I can fully classify myself as a working girl.
My job's not a traditional 9-5. I don't live in a cubicle, and I don't have an internship for the summer. I bypassed even applying for summer research because I could make more than the stipend offered by the chem department. I've made more than the stipend, actually, not that it's a big deal. I work doubles when I'm scheduled to (or when I'm not, depending on where I've picked up a shift or two for someone) and mostly, I work nights. Not graveyard shift or anything, where I go in at midnight or something (like dad - our father goes in to work at midnight and gets down around two in the afternoon, and the man just turned 62) but my evenings are shot. Rarely do I get to eat dinner with my family because I'm usually shoving off from the dock at the time that everybody's gathering around the table. I missed Madaline opening her presents and blowing out her candles on her third birthday because I had to go in (though I opted to be cut from the shift because there wasn't enough people for the amount of workers we had on). My Monday nights are spent looking after 150-200 screaming tweens and teens with thumping pop/rap/new hits music (and then Krispy usually blows a speaker and things get interesting, or he overloads the amp and everything goes quiet, which is more entertaining). The rest of the nights I'm serving prime rib, scallops, Cornish game hen, and vegetarian pasta (which is actually Stouffers, but don't tell anybody, it still smells good) and trying not to slop on myself in the process of serving dinner.
Which is an epic fail on the nights when you spill au jus all down the side of your face and it winds up in your bra. Actually, that night I wound up smelling like a three course meal, vodka martini (straight up, a little dirty) included. I wear black pants, a button-up, short-sleeved white shirt with epaulets (which, yes, as you can imagine, gathers spots and stains to it like a moth to an open flame) and I have a love affair with my apron. I can tell you the difference between the reds and whites on the back page of our drink menu (cabernets and merlots, rieslings and chardonnays) but ask me anything about any listed on the inside of the menu, and you might be up shit creek without a paddle. Which is fairly funny because I've been doing this for three years, I live in wine country, and I'm not entirely sure on the subtle differences between one winery's riesling and another's, and there are some that I'm still not sure how to pronounce.
All of it, every little detail, is okay because I really do enjoy my job. I meet people (and those who return year after year usually remember me) and I try to make their special occasion - be it an anniversary, a birthday, or a middle of the week getaway - a little more special. Doesn't always happen, but we still try.
Summertime, to an extent, isn't my time. I don't get personal time because there are things that I'm saving for. One of them is books. My paychecks buy my books for the coming school year. They also provide my "fun" money - those movie nights with the girls, ice skating adventures, that ski trip that sounded like a good idea at the time, but as Heather pointed out, I'm no Shaun White, and anything else that might come up and need adventuring in - and give me a certain budget a week for the year.
In short, if I don't work, there's not really any money during the school year. Makes the budget a little tight.
I'll admit that there are days when I get up, and I really don't feel like going to work (usually a Wednesday lunch, when we know there's going to be a bus group and that's usually pouring coffee and taking salad bowls back with the croutons still there because their teeth might come out if they eat them) but I go anyway. And I slap a smile on my face and be cheery, chipper, and a good host while they're aboard because that's my job. My cell phone - not matter how badly I want to Tweet about anything - stays in my bag as soon as I punch in.
My boss is not paying me to be on my phone. He's paying me to do the job he hired me for.
If some of my coworkers could remember that little gem of advice....
This weekend will be interesting, much like IRL weekend. I'll be up at the track selling souvenirs during the day, and then, in the early afternoon, head home to kind of mellow out and get ready to spend the next six hours working as a waitress. We need workers to man the stand, and I'm a worker.
It really is as simple as that. It's always been that simple.
So, I'm a working girl. A working girl who likes the simple things in life - running barefoot in the grass, dancing in the rain, and playing monster and princess with a certain three-year-old - and knows that good things come from working hard and being honest.
Know what? I'm pretty proud of that.
Mike and Patty raised two only children (there's a twelve year age difference that was quite evident in Molly's younger years, believe me) and when they reached a certain age, they instilled in their children certain values. Values like doing what's right, even if it might suck (though said much more eloquently), that sometimes there's not that definitive line between good and bad (though there should be some days, because it would make life so much easier), and when you have a job, you do your job to the best of your ability because it's easier to do it right the first time rather than half-ass it and then have to go back and fix it.
They also tried to help their children deal with finances. Namely, this how much money you need to make if you want to have this amount to spend a week while you're in college.
Ultimately, this was the birth of the Working Girl.
Coincidence that both their girls were waitresses? Well, one was (and stopped when she was heavily pregnant because it was hell on her ankles and feet) and one still is. But they're very different waitresses - one flipped tables and made a small fortune in ones every night, working temp jobs during the day and then closing the restaurant at nights. The other gets the same group of sixteen to twenty-four (depends on how many we add before we leave and who else is on that night) people for three hours. In the first five minutes, you either make yourself or break yourself between the time that they sit down and you serve soup. You have three hours with these people. You piss them off in the first five minutes, you have to deal with them for two hours and fifty-five more.
I don't flip tables. I've never flipped tables in the three years that I've been a waitress. I've opened more bottles of wine than I can count, spilled more wine on myself than I really care to admit, and even fallen down the stairs.
And I can fully classify myself as a working girl.
My job's not a traditional 9-5. I don't live in a cubicle, and I don't have an internship for the summer. I bypassed even applying for summer research because I could make more than the stipend offered by the chem department. I've made more than the stipend, actually, not that it's a big deal. I work doubles when I'm scheduled to (or when I'm not, depending on where I've picked up a shift or two for someone) and mostly, I work nights. Not graveyard shift or anything, where I go in at midnight or something (like dad - our father goes in to work at midnight and gets down around two in the afternoon, and the man just turned 62) but my evenings are shot. Rarely do I get to eat dinner with my family because I'm usually shoving off from the dock at the time that everybody's gathering around the table. I missed Madaline opening her presents and blowing out her candles on her third birthday because I had to go in (though I opted to be cut from the shift because there wasn't enough people for the amount of workers we had on). My Monday nights are spent looking after 150-200 screaming tweens and teens with thumping pop/rap/new hits music (and then Krispy usually blows a speaker and things get interesting, or he overloads the amp and everything goes quiet, which is more entertaining). The rest of the nights I'm serving prime rib, scallops, Cornish game hen, and vegetarian pasta (which is actually Stouffers, but don't tell anybody, it still smells good) and trying not to slop on myself in the process of serving dinner.
Which is an epic fail on the nights when you spill au jus all down the side of your face and it winds up in your bra. Actually, that night I wound up smelling like a three course meal, vodka martini (straight up, a little dirty) included. I wear black pants, a button-up, short-sleeved white shirt with epaulets (which, yes, as you can imagine, gathers spots and stains to it like a moth to an open flame) and I have a love affair with my apron. I can tell you the difference between the reds and whites on the back page of our drink menu (cabernets and merlots, rieslings and chardonnays) but ask me anything about any listed on the inside of the menu, and you might be up shit creek without a paddle. Which is fairly funny because I've been doing this for three years, I live in wine country, and I'm not entirely sure on the subtle differences between one winery's riesling and another's, and there are some that I'm still not sure how to pronounce.
All of it, every little detail, is okay because I really do enjoy my job. I meet people (and those who return year after year usually remember me) and I try to make their special occasion - be it an anniversary, a birthday, or a middle of the week getaway - a little more special. Doesn't always happen, but we still try.
Summertime, to an extent, isn't my time. I don't get personal time because there are things that I'm saving for. One of them is books. My paychecks buy my books for the coming school year. They also provide my "fun" money - those movie nights with the girls, ice skating adventures, that ski trip that sounded like a good idea at the time, but as Heather pointed out, I'm no Shaun White, and anything else that might come up and need adventuring in - and give me a certain budget a week for the year.
In short, if I don't work, there's not really any money during the school year. Makes the budget a little tight.
I'll admit that there are days when I get up, and I really don't feel like going to work (usually a Wednesday lunch, when we know there's going to be a bus group and that's usually pouring coffee and taking salad bowls back with the croutons still there because their teeth might come out if they eat them) but I go anyway. And I slap a smile on my face and be cheery, chipper, and a good host while they're aboard because that's my job. My cell phone - not matter how badly I want to Tweet about anything - stays in my bag as soon as I punch in.
My boss is not paying me to be on my phone. He's paying me to do the job he hired me for.
If some of my coworkers could remember that little gem of advice....
This weekend will be interesting, much like IRL weekend. I'll be up at the track selling souvenirs during the day, and then, in the early afternoon, head home to kind of mellow out and get ready to spend the next six hours working as a waitress. We need workers to man the stand, and I'm a worker.
It really is as simple as that. It's always been that simple.
So, I'm a working girl. A working girl who likes the simple things in life - running barefoot in the grass, dancing in the rain, and playing monster and princess with a certain three-year-old - and knows that good things come from working hard and being honest.
Know what? I'm pretty proud of that.
Wordless Wednesday
For a little explanation, because some of you are probably wondering what exactly this is, this is the pier that I jumped off of, on the right. Of course, it didn't have all those people on it (this was taken back during the Waterfront Festival, and the place was packed, as you can see) and if it had....
Anyway, near the bottom right of the picture is where I actually went swimming in this post.
Also, this is what I see every day when I go to work (except the multitude of people).
Things to Know XIV
- I am the world's most graceless human - namely, I fell down the last four steps of the front staircase at work while carrying a tray with the coffee condiments and an almost empty pot.
- I didn't break anything doing the above. I'm just incredibly stiff, sore, and my right ankle is turning pretty colors.
- There is also some good floor burn on my left knee.
- Shins are very sensitive, did you know that?
- My cat as an affinity for tissue paper. Or any kind of paper, really.
- If you have not heard the song If I Die Young by The Band Perry, you must hear it.
- The above is non-negotiable.
- My visa photo makes me look like a drug dealer. I think I've mentioned this before.
- Em comes in 7 days!
- Seven days is the equivalent of a week.
- It must be almost NASCAR - the traffic by the house has picked up and they're treating this stretch of road like it's the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Only with more turns and slightly more complicated layout.
- I find it particularly funny that I work in the heart of wine country, am underage, don't drink, and am still expected to pass along advice on wine like I'm a natural. Or a hardcore wino.
- There is nothing wrong with being a hardcore wino - if that's your thing - I just prefer to wait until I'm of legal age before consuming.
- Excepting those very, very rare occasions (two, this past year) at college.
- Yes, only two. And trust me, I'm not an idiot.
- Sometimes this ingrained sense of responsibility isn't as handy as one would think.
- I don't think I'm going to be working Friday nights anymore - my boss has realized (probably, I think) that working Friday puts me into overtime by at least four hours.
- Tomorrow's payday.
- Direct deposit is awesome, by the way.
- There are 39 days left before the Wandering Sagittarius departs across the pond.
- Oh, snap.
- Be a puffin (or any sea-faring bird with glossy or semi-glossy feathers) - let it roll right off your back.
- I think my cat is confused as to why I haven't been getting everything ready to leave yet.
- I work too much to really realize that normally this is around the time when I used to get ready to leave for pre-season.
- A week in Brazil for a semester in Wales. Seems like a fair trade to me.
- Chuck hasn't had anything new on his blog since April. I checked two days ago.
- Eventually, there will be a new part of Murphy and Me. Eventually. This part is just difficult to write because, well....I'm flying a little by the seat of my pants in a bit of a transition state.
- Heather - bear with me, I'm working on the Murphy.
- If anyone has seen a small, violently orange Focus wandering around that answers to the name "Murfee" please send him my way. If he's got a playmate with him - something light-colored and fluffy-looking - whisper in his ear that Mama's making cookies and watch out.
- There aren't any actual cookies, but we need them both to come home.
- It's not a lie, it's just not the whole story.
- Henry the Houseplant not only has babies, but he's flowering. Pretty little white flowers.
- These are indications that he's rootbound.
- Henry the Houseplant is a spider plant, for those of you don't know him.
- Henry could probably do with some water. I'd best get on that.
- My literary BFF is Captain (he got promoted, he used to be a lieutenant) Nicholas Ramage of Dudley Pope's The Lord Ramage Novels (and he is heir to an earldom, so he's not quite royalty, but that's okay, he's still a badass).
- I haven't enjoyed a series this much since I first read the Dragonlance novels. And those are positively BAMF.
- Seriously. Listen to If I Die Young. Don't like country? Humor me.
- If I die young, bury me in satin/Lay me down on a bed of roses/Sink me in the river, at dawn/Send me away with the words of a love song.... The Band Perry
- Always walk with the words of a love song in your heart and on your tongue. Always.
- I don't think I've done a late night/early morning post in quite some time (since I was at college). Which is probably a good thing. Not so entertaining, but probably more socially acceptable.
- Socially acceptable? I think I'll let you make that decision.
- I didn't break anything doing the above. I'm just incredibly stiff, sore, and my right ankle is turning pretty colors.
- There is also some good floor burn on my left knee.
- Shins are very sensitive, did you know that?
- My cat as an affinity for tissue paper. Or any kind of paper, really.
- If you have not heard the song If I Die Young by The Band Perry, you must hear it.
- The above is non-negotiable.
- My visa photo makes me look like a drug dealer. I think I've mentioned this before.
- Em comes in 7 days!
- Seven days is the equivalent of a week.
- It must be almost NASCAR - the traffic by the house has picked up and they're treating this stretch of road like it's the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Only with more turns and slightly more complicated layout.
- I find it particularly funny that I work in the heart of wine country, am underage, don't drink, and am still expected to pass along advice on wine like I'm a natural. Or a hardcore wino.
- There is nothing wrong with being a hardcore wino - if that's your thing - I just prefer to wait until I'm of legal age before consuming.
- Excepting those very, very rare occasions (two, this past year) at college.
- Yes, only two. And trust me, I'm not an idiot.
- Sometimes this ingrained sense of responsibility isn't as handy as one would think.
- I don't think I'm going to be working Friday nights anymore - my boss has realized (probably, I think) that working Friday puts me into overtime by at least four hours.
- Tomorrow's payday.
- Direct deposit is awesome, by the way.
- There are 39 days left before the Wandering Sagittarius departs across the pond.
- Oh, snap.
- Be a puffin (or any sea-faring bird with glossy or semi-glossy feathers) - let it roll right off your back.
- I think my cat is confused as to why I haven't been getting everything ready to leave yet.
- I work too much to really realize that normally this is around the time when I used to get ready to leave for pre-season.
- A week in Brazil for a semester in Wales. Seems like a fair trade to me.
- Chuck hasn't had anything new on his blog since April. I checked two days ago.
- Eventually, there will be a new part of Murphy and Me. Eventually. This part is just difficult to write because, well....I'm flying a little by the seat of my pants in a bit of a transition state.
- Heather - bear with me, I'm working on the Murphy.
- If anyone has seen a small, violently orange Focus wandering around that answers to the name "Murfee" please send him my way. If he's got a playmate with him - something light-colored and fluffy-looking - whisper in his ear that Mama's making cookies and watch out.
- There aren't any actual cookies, but we need them both to come home.
- It's not a lie, it's just not the whole story.
- Henry the Houseplant not only has babies, but he's flowering. Pretty little white flowers.
- These are indications that he's rootbound.
- Henry the Houseplant is a spider plant, for those of you don't know him.
- Henry could probably do with some water. I'd best get on that.
- My literary BFF is Captain (he got promoted, he used to be a lieutenant) Nicholas Ramage of Dudley Pope's The Lord Ramage Novels (and he is heir to an earldom, so he's not quite royalty, but that's okay, he's still a badass).
- I haven't enjoyed a series this much since I first read the Dragonlance novels. And those are positively BAMF.
- Seriously. Listen to If I Die Young. Don't like country? Humor me.
- If I die young, bury me in satin/Lay me down on a bed of roses/Sink me in the river, at dawn/Send me away with the words of a love song.... The Band Perry
- Always walk with the words of a love song in your heart and on your tongue. Always.
- I don't think I've done a late night/early morning post in quite some time (since I was at college). Which is probably a good thing. Not so entertaining, but probably more socially acceptable.
- Socially acceptable? I think I'll let you make that decision.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Blindside
Sometimes it's better to be blindsided. It's a little easier to take that leap when you don't exactly see it coming, and maybe, sometimes taking little steps is okay, too.
Or maybe it's just better when you can't see the bottom of what you're leaping over.
I said last time that people have baggage. And there are people we have with us that help us carry it, and help us sort through it and not just pitch it off the pier. There are those people who stand by you even when things start flying, and you're not quite sure which way is up, and which is way is the right side, and which way gets you the hell out of everything. You find out who your friends are, and you find out, really, a little more what love is kind of like.
In a way.
There's something to be said for finding out that someone sticks around just for you. It's humbling. That they stay because not only are you able to deal with their shit as well as your own, they're always a listening ear. They don't let you get away with lying to yourself (or to them) and know just the right amount of push, back off, listen, and speak to be effective.
And no matter what dumbass thing you've done, they're still here.
If it's a boy, and you're a girl, there's this little chance. I'm not classifying it under those famous four letters. It's too early for that. But there's been so much between the two - baggage from both sides, failures and triumphs from both sides, and I have mentioned baggage? One's got a matching Gucci set and the other mismatched, threadbare lumpy stuff.
And then comes the moment of truth. Try it? One's more than a little gunshy, and the other, as always, has the promise that come hell or high water, I won't hurt you because I've seen you hurt enough. I've dealt with the fallout from the other hurts. Do you trust it? Do you trust yourself?
What happens is that you go slow. You start something that's a little new, a little foreign to the both of you, and see where it goes. And as long as your happy, and you're safe, nobody else should really give a damn. Don't give it a name - a label - just let it be. See where it goes. It'll take shape of its own.
Just that first step though - that's the hardest, and it's a damn doozy. Make sure you bring your flashlight and an open mind.
Or maybe it's just better when you can't see the bottom of what you're leaping over.
I said last time that people have baggage. And there are people we have with us that help us carry it, and help us sort through it and not just pitch it off the pier. There are those people who stand by you even when things start flying, and you're not quite sure which way is up, and which is way is the right side, and which way gets you the hell out of everything. You find out who your friends are, and you find out, really, a little more what love is kind of like.
In a way.
There's something to be said for finding out that someone sticks around just for you. It's humbling. That they stay because not only are you able to deal with their shit as well as your own, they're always a listening ear. They don't let you get away with lying to yourself (or to them) and know just the right amount of push, back off, listen, and speak to be effective.
And no matter what dumbass thing you've done, they're still here.
If it's a boy, and you're a girl, there's this little chance. I'm not classifying it under those famous four letters. It's too early for that. But there's been so much between the two - baggage from both sides, failures and triumphs from both sides, and I have mentioned baggage? One's got a matching Gucci set and the other mismatched, threadbare lumpy stuff.
And then comes the moment of truth. Try it? One's more than a little gunshy, and the other, as always, has the promise that come hell or high water, I won't hurt you because I've seen you hurt enough. I've dealt with the fallout from the other hurts. Do you trust it? Do you trust yourself?
What happens is that you go slow. You start something that's a little new, a little foreign to the both of you, and see where it goes. And as long as your happy, and you're safe, nobody else should really give a damn. Don't give it a name - a label - just let it be. See where it goes. It'll take shape of its own.
Just that first step though - that's the hardest, and it's a damn doozy. Make sure you bring your flashlight and an open mind.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Human
As much as we may not like to admit it - and I've touched on this before - we're human. Therefore, we're mortal.
We're not bulletproof.
We've not hearts made of stone (though, some may try to say otherwise) and when we feel, we feel deeply, madly, and without consent. When we hurt, we cry. If we don't, sometimes it's much worse that shaking a soda bottle and waiting for the top to explode off because it can't handle the pressure built inside. That's the way we are, the way we're built.
The past couple of weeks have been...interesting. There were some liquor bottles stolen from work - nobody's been arrested, though an accusation was made - and that accusation came down on a friend of mine who, while he's a little rough around the edges, has a good heart. Sees the world a little differently, but is a good person (I'd like to think I don't stay too long around the ones who aren't). This whole incident couldn't have come at a worse time for him - one of his good friends and classmates (one of my old high school classmates, too) committed suicide last week. At the age of twenty, the day after his birthday.
Now, everyone has baggage. I'd like to think that I've managed to get mine down to a carry-on sized bag covered in blue plaid, but there are some people I know that have an entire set - slightly mismatched in pattern - that they tote with them because they're not ready to let go, or they can't yet, because they're not done collecting. They're not ready to really start processing through it, or they haven't met someone to make them go through it. Force them to look at it, examine it, and sort out what should/could/might have been a better choice and what things weren't anybody's fault, and just those things that life likes to chuck out on a regular basis to see how you deal. Those little tests, those moments when I remember my sister's words to me: God will only give you what you can handle - no more, no less.
Not everybody handles it the same way.
And sometimes it's enough to bring a charismatic, flamboyount young man down a couple of pegs to where he feels he's not bulletproof anymore. Where's he's hittable, sinkable, and slogging through the undergrowth without something to hack at it. As a friend, watching him at the moment, and hoping that he keeps a job that he's had for four years and that he keeps everything together, I don't know what to do to help him find that thing to hack at the undergrowth. Or to find him a cart for his baggage.
What I do know is that I'm not the person he needs to sit down and go through it with him. I can't offer to do that with him, because it's not me that he needs in that capacity. I have a different purpose. I need to show him that yes, the light at the end of the tunnel might be the uncoming train - a la Murphy - but it also might be only what it looks like. A light at the end of a tunnel. A way out. And you just chug through and hope for the best. You do the best you can with what you have to work with. You ignore what you can until, well, you can't really ignore it anymore, and then you man up, sit down, open your baggage and sort through all the dirty laundry you've been neglecting since you can remember. It's painful, it stinks, and it's absolutely disgusting in some places, but it's utterly necessary. You file things away, you hold onto what you need to - even if you think you don't want to - and you remember that hey, you lived through it once, and you can do it again. You remember the people that have helped you along the way, whether they hefted a suitcase for you, or they pointed you in the direction you needed to go.
You smile, say thank you, and you plod through your own way because you grow. You find a little more of yourself you didn't know you had. You're a little wiser, a little more with it. Not quite as bulletproof as you once were, but we're all human.
And that just might be the most important thing to remember.
We're not bulletproof.
We've not hearts made of stone (though, some may try to say otherwise) and when we feel, we feel deeply, madly, and without consent. When we hurt, we cry. If we don't, sometimes it's much worse that shaking a soda bottle and waiting for the top to explode off because it can't handle the pressure built inside. That's the way we are, the way we're built.
The past couple of weeks have been...interesting. There were some liquor bottles stolen from work - nobody's been arrested, though an accusation was made - and that accusation came down on a friend of mine who, while he's a little rough around the edges, has a good heart. Sees the world a little differently, but is a good person (I'd like to think I don't stay too long around the ones who aren't). This whole incident couldn't have come at a worse time for him - one of his good friends and classmates (one of my old high school classmates, too) committed suicide last week. At the age of twenty, the day after his birthday.
Now, everyone has baggage. I'd like to think that I've managed to get mine down to a carry-on sized bag covered in blue plaid, but there are some people I know that have an entire set - slightly mismatched in pattern - that they tote with them because they're not ready to let go, or they can't yet, because they're not done collecting. They're not ready to really start processing through it, or they haven't met someone to make them go through it. Force them to look at it, examine it, and sort out what should/could/might have been a better choice and what things weren't anybody's fault, and just those things that life likes to chuck out on a regular basis to see how you deal. Those little tests, those moments when I remember my sister's words to me: God will only give you what you can handle - no more, no less.
Not everybody handles it the same way.
And sometimes it's enough to bring a charismatic, flamboyount young man down a couple of pegs to where he feels he's not bulletproof anymore. Where's he's hittable, sinkable, and slogging through the undergrowth without something to hack at it. As a friend, watching him at the moment, and hoping that he keeps a job that he's had for four years and that he keeps everything together, I don't know what to do to help him find that thing to hack at the undergrowth. Or to find him a cart for his baggage.
What I do know is that I'm not the person he needs to sit down and go through it with him. I can't offer to do that with him, because it's not me that he needs in that capacity. I have a different purpose. I need to show him that yes, the light at the end of the tunnel might be the uncoming train - a la Murphy - but it also might be only what it looks like. A light at the end of a tunnel. A way out. And you just chug through and hope for the best. You do the best you can with what you have to work with. You ignore what you can until, well, you can't really ignore it anymore, and then you man up, sit down, open your baggage and sort through all the dirty laundry you've been neglecting since you can remember. It's painful, it stinks, and it's absolutely disgusting in some places, but it's utterly necessary. You file things away, you hold onto what you need to - even if you think you don't want to - and you remember that hey, you lived through it once, and you can do it again. You remember the people that have helped you along the way, whether they hefted a suitcase for you, or they pointed you in the direction you needed to go.
You smile, say thank you, and you plod through your own way because you grow. You find a little more of yourself you didn't know you had. You're a little wiser, a little more with it. Not quite as bulletproof as you once were, but we're all human.
And that just might be the most important thing to remember.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Multi-Use
Well, at least somebody's getting some use out of the Vera normally put to use toting the laptop hither and yon.
Fish Belly White
Yesterday, after cleaning the boat for two and a half hours, a few of my coworkers and I had the brilliant idea to jump in the lake after we got done because it was hot. It was one of those things that, yeah, you mention it, and you think, okay, maybe, we'll see, and we were actually traipsing out along the pier toward the little shack thing that sits on the end before you get to the breakwater, and I was like, oh, shit, well, okay...
For the first time in my life I jumped off the Village Pier. In a sports bra, compression shorts, and my favorite baby blue Adidas shorts (a random here, have these from my sister a few years ago) in front of tourists and the four people that I work with - including two boys. While my shoulders and my upper body and lower legs might be tan, my tummy is an extremely attractive shade of fish belly white.
Which, incidentally, as I was sitting on the railing looking at the green-blue water and thinking, damn it, this is pretty high, not once did it really cross my mind that my hips might not look all that attractive or that somebody might think I was a little on pudgy side.
Okay, well, it did for a little bit - until Bones said, "I'll peel left and you peel right" from his position on the railing to my immediate left. And then he dove in and what else was I supposed to do but jump? And it felt awesome. Not just the jumping off the pier itself into the fairly deep water of the marina (which isn't like jumping off the boat house dock at school, because you'll hit bottom there - at the pier, toward the end of it, you'll jump from a good ten feet up and go down, and there's water above and below you).
Apart from the fact that it might have been more than slightly illegal (but everybody does it anyway, especially on the hot days), it was really oddly freeing. Like when Todd chucks the desk set off the wall during Dead Poets Society.
And I was sitting next to Bones and yeah, there was some initial butterflies, mostly dealing with oh, God, my hips, belly...dear Lord, can he see where my scar is from my surgery? and then it was like, whatever. And with Bre on my right, with hips like mine in jeans and a regular bra, both of us on the railing... it was a freedom.
Now that I think about it, I don't think I was really freaking out all that much about being half-naked in front of a bunch of tourists. Tattoo, hips, and fish-belly white belly. And it didn't matter, at that moment, what anybody else thought.
Which, come to think of it, is a crazy way to live, isn't it?
For the first time in my life I jumped off the Village Pier. In a sports bra, compression shorts, and my favorite baby blue Adidas shorts (a random here, have these from my sister a few years ago) in front of tourists and the four people that I work with - including two boys. While my shoulders and my upper body and lower legs might be tan, my tummy is an extremely attractive shade of fish belly white.
Which, incidentally, as I was sitting on the railing looking at the green-blue water and thinking, damn it, this is pretty high, not once did it really cross my mind that my hips might not look all that attractive or that somebody might think I was a little on pudgy side.
Okay, well, it did for a little bit - until Bones said, "I'll peel left and you peel right" from his position on the railing to my immediate left. And then he dove in and what else was I supposed to do but jump? And it felt awesome. Not just the jumping off the pier itself into the fairly deep water of the marina (which isn't like jumping off the boat house dock at school, because you'll hit bottom there - at the pier, toward the end of it, you'll jump from a good ten feet up and go down, and there's water above and below you).
Apart from the fact that it might have been more than slightly illegal (but everybody does it anyway, especially on the hot days), it was really oddly freeing. Like when Todd chucks the desk set off the wall during Dead Poets Society.
And I was sitting next to Bones and yeah, there was some initial butterflies, mostly dealing with oh, God, my hips, belly...dear Lord, can he see where my scar is from my surgery? and then it was like, whatever. And with Bre on my right, with hips like mine in jeans and a regular bra, both of us on the railing... it was a freedom.
Now that I think about it, I don't think I was really freaking out all that much about being half-naked in front of a bunch of tourists. Tattoo, hips, and fish-belly white belly. And it didn't matter, at that moment, what anybody else thought.
Which, come to think of it, is a crazy way to live, isn't it?
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Things to Know XIII
- I'm setting records at work that you probably shouldn't be proud of - such as how to get stiffed on a tip two Saturdays in a row when people drop $45 a plate.
- Em is coming to visit in August.
- I'm almost as excited about Em coming to visit as I am about leaving for Wales.
- Well...almost but not quite.
- My plane departs in 63 days.
- My sister has been carrying my Focus back and forth to work with her nearly every day. This may pose a problem later.
- I've been a bad - incredibly bad, actually - blogger lately. But not really sure how to fix it.
- I've got tan lines. Rather normal-looking tan lines, but still. Tan lines.
- I have yet to go swimming this summer.
- For the first time in my life, I hit overtime at my job (41.91 hours).
- Does the previous qualify me as a workaholic at the tender age of twenty?
- My Facebook status is a set of Matchbox Twenty lyrics because not much has happened recently.
- I look fairly fat in the dress I wore at my cousins wedding last month. Or, at least you can clearly see the chin fat. Which is rather unflattering.
- I had mac and cheese for the first time in months today, because it was made with special pasta since dad has this thing about eating "burnt pasta" and this stuff resembles regular pasta.
- Course selections for abroad are due not later than August 1.
- I am so excited!
- Tomorrow night is the Teen Cruise. Not so excited.
- Teen Cruise is hours. No tips. Just hours.
- Lately, it's been more like "fall down go boom" than "crawl into bed and sleep."
- Em is coming to visit in August.
- I'm almost as excited about Em coming to visit as I am about leaving for Wales.
- Well...almost but not quite.
- My plane departs in 63 days.
- My sister has been carrying my Focus back and forth to work with her nearly every day. This may pose a problem later.
- I've been a bad - incredibly bad, actually - blogger lately. But not really sure how to fix it.
- I've got tan lines. Rather normal-looking tan lines, but still. Tan lines.
- I have yet to go swimming this summer.
- For the first time in my life, I hit overtime at my job (41.91 hours).
- Does the previous qualify me as a workaholic at the tender age of twenty?
- My Facebook status is a set of Matchbox Twenty lyrics because not much has happened recently.
- I look fairly fat in the dress I wore at my cousins wedding last month. Or, at least you can clearly see the chin fat. Which is rather unflattering.
- I had mac and cheese for the first time in months today, because it was made with special pasta since dad has this thing about eating "burnt pasta" and this stuff resembles regular pasta.
- Course selections for abroad are due not later than August 1.
- I am so excited!
- Tomorrow night is the Teen Cruise. Not so excited.
- Teen Cruise is hours. No tips. Just hours.
- Lately, it's been more like "fall down go boom" than "crawl into bed and sleep."
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Still Kickin'
This appropriately says it all.
HaBryerton:@MollyLouise10 who are you again? My sister used to tweet under this twitter ID, but she's been strangely absent lately from here and her blog
Said sister has been, well, a workaholic for the past week and a half.
Not quite a regular 9-5, but still enough to put 37 hours for a week. Makes for one hell of a paycheck. I don't mind working - I like my job. Sure, the heat is a little more than bearable when you're doing nothing at home besides reading borrowed library books, and running up and down the stairs of a moving boat doesn't look all that appealing to anyone with more than a little bit of logical reasoning capabilities, but it's the job that I have, and the job that I will do.
I just drink 64-96 ounces of water a day as a result. More than half of that while I'm at work.
Another thing that hasn't helped both the blog and new installments of Murphy, has been this:
HaBryerton:@MollyLouise10 does that mean I should stop strapping him into the car seat & taking him to work with me? It likes the office AC [Regards to my missing Focus.]
[Side note: I'm watching Robin Hood (the BBC version) and Djaq is basically telling Will Scarlet that she loves him and I cannot handle this, and it reminds me how much I love this show. Though my favorite is and probably always will be (other than Will and Robin) Allan a Dale.]
I am so sweaty and disgusting that it's gross, even for me.
Keeping with the Robin Hood theme, the new movie? You must see it. Absolutely have to, because it's very reminiscent of one of the best series of books that I've read in quite a while. Stephen R. Lawhead took the legendary tale of Robin Hood out of Sherwood Forest in England, and dropped him into Wales. Gave the story a unique twist, and made it one hell of an interesting read that I chewed through in little under a week last year while in Martha's Vineyard. There's three books in the series - Hood, Scarlet, and Tuck. I strongly recommend you read them. All of them.
In an update about things happening across the pond - or trying to get there - the visa application processing center received my application. And I'll get it back (or have to send more information) sometime between the next two to twelve weeks. Hopefully it'll be along the lines of two.
And we're down to 66 days before I depart on a plane for three months across the Atlantic in a tiny town in Wales.
I'm doing that odd combination of crying and laughing because I can't believe that it's almost here. Less than, what? Three months? Two months? Sixty-six days. Sixty-six days before I pack up, get in the car with mom and dad, take a drive to the city, and go through airport security and stand there before that final barrier until I can give them one last hug and go through that last checkpoint. Sit there by the gate and wait with no phone for the plane, hope to find people that I'm going abroad with, and start to build something incredible.
When you think about it that way, it stirs something powerful and unidentifiable within you. Something that you're excited about, and scared of at the same time.
[Side note: Those Jillian Michaels commercials - nobody looks that freakin' good when they get done with a serious workout. Their hair is not down in perfect curls and they are definitely not smiling to that degree. It's more like a grimace because your muscles don't want to work properly. Or that could just be me and everybody else after Ralph gets through with us...]
Probably not the type of post that you were hoping or thinking you'd see from me, so I'll end with something a little out of the ordinary. The stuff that I'm currently reading for fun, most of it borrowed from the library.
Rising Phoenix, by Kyle Mills
The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
Ramage, by Dudley Pope
Byzantium, by Stephen R. Lawhead
HaBryerton:@MollyLouise10 who are you again? My sister used to tweet under this twitter ID, but she's been strangely absent lately from here and her blog
Said sister has been, well, a workaholic for the past week and a half.
Not quite a regular 9-5, but still enough to put 37 hours for a week. Makes for one hell of a paycheck. I don't mind working - I like my job. Sure, the heat is a little more than bearable when you're doing nothing at home besides reading borrowed library books, and running up and down the stairs of a moving boat doesn't look all that appealing to anyone with more than a little bit of logical reasoning capabilities, but it's the job that I have, and the job that I will do.
I just drink 64-96 ounces of water a day as a result. More than half of that while I'm at work.
Another thing that hasn't helped both the blog and new installments of Murphy, has been this:
HaBryerton:@MollyLouise10 does that mean I should stop strapping him into the car seat & taking him to work with me? It likes the office AC [Regards to my missing Focus.]
[Side note: I'm watching Robin Hood (the BBC version) and Djaq is basically telling Will Scarlet that she loves him and I cannot handle this, and it reminds me how much I love this show. Though my favorite is and probably always will be (other than Will and Robin) Allan a Dale.]
I am so sweaty and disgusting that it's gross, even for me.
Keeping with the Robin Hood theme, the new movie? You must see it. Absolutely have to, because it's very reminiscent of one of the best series of books that I've read in quite a while. Stephen R. Lawhead took the legendary tale of Robin Hood out of Sherwood Forest in England, and dropped him into Wales. Gave the story a unique twist, and made it one hell of an interesting read that I chewed through in little under a week last year while in Martha's Vineyard. There's three books in the series - Hood, Scarlet, and Tuck. I strongly recommend you read them. All of them.
In an update about things happening across the pond - or trying to get there - the visa application processing center received my application. And I'll get it back (or have to send more information) sometime between the next two to twelve weeks. Hopefully it'll be along the lines of two.
And we're down to 66 days before I depart on a plane for three months across the Atlantic in a tiny town in Wales.
I'm doing that odd combination of crying and laughing because I can't believe that it's almost here. Less than, what? Three months? Two months? Sixty-six days. Sixty-six days before I pack up, get in the car with mom and dad, take a drive to the city, and go through airport security and stand there before that final barrier until I can give them one last hug and go through that last checkpoint. Sit there by the gate and wait with no phone for the plane, hope to find people that I'm going abroad with, and start to build something incredible.
When you think about it that way, it stirs something powerful and unidentifiable within you. Something that you're excited about, and scared of at the same time.
[Side note: Those Jillian Michaels commercials - nobody looks that freakin' good when they get done with a serious workout. Their hair is not down in perfect curls and they are definitely not smiling to that degree. It's more like a grimace because your muscles don't want to work properly. Or that could just be me and everybody else after Ralph gets through with us...]
Probably not the type of post that you were hoping or thinking you'd see from me, so I'll end with something a little out of the ordinary. The stuff that I'm currently reading for fun, most of it borrowed from the library.
Rising Phoenix, by Kyle Mills
The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
Ramage, by Dudley Pope
Byzantium, by Stephen R. Lawhead
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Ranting, Raving, and Playing Catch Up
I'm not going to lie - I've been bad with blogging lately. I've had some things to blog about (for one thing, my best friend keeps finding old, first year of college photos that she never got around to posting and tagging, and this latest one has me busting a move in my swimsuit during a midnight swim, not that it's a big deal) and the latest round of passport photos that I had taken at CVS for my visa application makes me look like I'm a sketchy, skeevy person of ill repute. I'm currently watching the USA take on Algeria (yes, I know they've won, and yes, I know they're through, but I had to work a double yesterday, and didn't get to watch it and have it on the DVR) and doing some thinking.
Thinking about a lot of things in general - and how the hell have we not scored yet!? We'd have chances out the wazoo here, and we can't find the back of the net!?
Sorry. Sidetracked. It happens (you guys know this by now).
First thing (or things) I want to remark on is the neighborhood shenanigans that have been going on. I'm going to be honest - I've been sick. First semester first year of college, the mystery pain that nobody had an answer to, that nobody could figure out why I was having pain the way I was having pain, ultimately ending in surgery to remove a cyst and some other benign tissues from my internal girly parts. But between September and January (when I had surgery), and nobody knew what was going on with me internally, it was really, freaking scary. My body was doing something to itself that I couldn't control, and simply had to cope with. We tried some things - I kept a food and exercise diary (and a pain one, too) and went, at one point, two weeks without any dairy products of any sort. I was in New York City for a college publishing thing (we toured some of the publications and publishing houses) with my sister, and attending these sessions with major publishing powerhouses, and opposite my bracelets on my left wrist was my pre-surgery hospital band on my right.
You can see it in this photo. It's on the hand closest to you.
Being sick, in general, sucks. It does. Having cancer sucks even worse. But the biggest, and most frightening thing, at least to me, is not knowing what's going on with your own body. Not knowing what it's doing to itself on the inside. If you know what's going on - you have a diagnosis - you can fight it. When you don't have a clue what's happening, you can't. You just have to ride it out. And that's just all kinds of scary, truthfully. Scarier than having a diagnosis.
I understand being sick. I get that. What I don't get is the specific set of rules that I've been asked to play by, concerning someone and their illness. I understand that there are things you don't want to hear - but you're going to hear them anyway, because people can't remember specifics, and yes, in all reality, as much as you'd like to think to the contrary, you're still sick - but to slam someone whom who've progressively gotten closer to because of the way they have - in your opinion mistakenly - acted (with good intentions, mind you) that's, in layman's terms, not right. Flat out. And you've done more than simply hurt feelings and make a good person who wanted nothing better than to help, hurt instead. That's not right, either.
Simple human kindness dictates that when someone does something for you, out of graciousness and the want to assist, you thank them, not nitpick and complain that it wasn't done to the correct specification, simply shut your mouth, and accept it for what it was - assistance, helpfulness, and a good deed so that life might be a little easier.
For example: We have a very team-oriented atmosphere at my workplace. I'm a waitress. So, when I get swamped, and maybe behind a little in taking out my dinners, someone assists me. They also - sometimes - assist in handing out my dinners (or desserts, because we're sometimes a little rushed handing out cheesecake at the end) and can't necessarily readily read the map that I've drawn myself (because it looks pretty cool when you put a dinner in front of someone and know who ordered what, and how they wanted their beef cooked) so they simply look at the table, find the plates, and hand them out. I don't light into them later on because they've done it differently than I would have. I thank them for helping me, and we move on. Later on in the night, when we're doing coffee, if I take a pot of coffee upstairs, I simply move throughout the floor and offer coffee to everyone - including the tables that aren't mine. I might not have the same personality, or know the tables as well as my own, but I still get a thank you, and I've still helped my coworker and the customer. And that is what's most important. We don't get petty, and we don't get upset with each other. We help each other. One of us has a rough night on the floor (someone that can't be pleased) then we try to make life easier for him/her by doing what we can to help. The same goes for our F.O. when we set up or clean, or are getting food out. We do what we can, and while sometimes it might be a little unorthodox, it's still appreciated.
Bottom line: Someone does something nice for you, does you a favor and tries to make things a little easier so you can focus on what's really going on, what's bugging you (fighting an illness or simply having a tough time) you smile, and you say thank you. Because that's what you're supposed to do as a decent human being.
Then again, lately, there seems to be less and less decency in the world. Nearly a week ago (last Friday, really) while my father, the dog, and I were outside (and the cat, too) doing lawn work and trying to get the old push mower started, my dad heard a thu-thump, the dog started going nuts, and he looked at the road in time to see our beloved black cat take off the for old back porch.
She'd been hit by a car.
Said car did not stop. Said car did not even slow down.
You hit my cat, the least - the freaking least - you can do is slow down or stop, especially if you see someone outside. However, whoever it was kept on going.
Before I cause any unnecessary stress - I have one very, very lucky kitty. No broken bones; a gash on her back leg (took a nice chunk out of her) and she's got some road burn on her face. She's a very lucky black cat.
She'd gone and hid under the porch at the old house. Neither mom nor I could get her to come out - I actually crawled under there (which, considering my fear of spiders was interesting) but couldn't get close enough to get a hand around her somewhere and pull her out. Later on, Heather rattled the cat food in the house and she came out, laying on the step and wanting to come in, mewling.
I was not able to walk her home. Heather had to wrap a towel around her, pick her up, and take her back across the road. We put her in the bathroom, brought up her catbox, and peeked in on her every now and then. She was not a happy camper. She was actually quite miserable. I took her to the vet the next morning - the doc was very good with her (and she didn't claw anyone, which is a miracle, 'cause Pepper'll rip your hand off on occasion) and said she was very lucky. Usually, when a cat meets a motor vehicle, the cat doesn't walk away.
Also last Saturday was the Waterfront Festival. Our Waterfront Festival is the broader term for the Cardboard Boat Regatta. Yes, boats made of cardboard and duct tape. And they sail in the marina. The pier was packed, and my college friend, Josie, whom I was meeting down there, wound up with a busted muffler (that the AAA guy took off completely) and we watched some of the boats before it started to rain and I had to go to work. The she spent some time with my mom, sister, and the little one while I was at work.
And things like that are only as awkward as you make them. Everything turned out okay. And I would say that the family agrees that I've found really good friends at college. For that, I'm really lucky. Lucky and grateful.
Tuesday (two days ago) I made a new blog. Again, before I cause any unnecessary stress as to whether or not the Wandering Sagittarius will be going anywhere - I won't be. I've toyed with the idea of making a blog about my time abroad, or whether to give it a specific heading and specific tags, and keep everything under one roof. And after spending the amount of time I did on a layout and trying to do colors, and really thinking about, I'm now looking for a way to delete that new one. The other one. That I don't want to use. It would be too much of a hassle, and probably too confusing to keep those posts separate (for both you and me) and too much to mess with. So what you'll get is a series of posts (titled similar to Murphy and Me and Things to Know) with Roman numerals and the same snarky, introspective Molly Louise that you've grown accustomed to. Just on the other side of the pond.
My cousin and I go to Fitness at six in the morning four days a week. That works for us. It's a combination of lifting weights, working muscles you don't normally work, and doing more push ups than people can really count. We quite possibly do about a thousand a week, just in four days worth of work. That, though, doesn't work for everyone.
What my sister's been doing at night is walking. She'll walk anywhere between three and five miles (depending on whether she's pushing the thirty pound child in the heavy stroller) each day, and she keeps track (meticulously, I might add) of the miles that she logs. She puts her mp3 player on, her headphones in, and pounds the pavement to the RENT soundtrack.
I couldn't be more proud of her.
And trust me, when she walks, she's movin'.
Fridays are the days when I don't have Fitness. Tomorrow morning, at five, we'll get up, put in the headphones, and pound it out. Then she'll go to work, and I might get back into bed for a couple more hours. Or I might not. I'll figure that out when I get there.
Side note - I can't imagine watching this World Cup game in real time yesterday. I know there's a goal coming, and I'm on my last set of adrenaline nerves watching it because they haven't scored yet, and they need to win to advance. I think I would have been on the edge of my seat and screaming at my TV. Like I don't do that already, as it is.
And have I mentioned that I absolutely adore Landon Donovan and Carlos Bocanegra? If not, I'm mentioning it now.
Soccer for me is still a big part of life. I don't play anymore - competitively - but if I could find a pick-up game or so I'd be out there in a heartbeat. What's been a little difficult, especially this past season, being a referee -
How the hell did they not suffocate Landon in that tremendous pile?
- it's made me remember my days with my club team. And the WAZA girls, and everything that happened in those four years. Trying out for ODP (multiple times, and not getting in - which, when indoor happened shortly after that, my coach looked at me said, "You come back from ODP tryouts and you're playin' like you got robbed - it's great, girl") and then really settling in, both in goal and in the midfield (actually as a back) and I played a lot of soccer. At times a lot of good soccer. Then there was my senior season with my varsity team. It was -
Not entirely sure I can watch my favorite player - and who's number I wore for so long - cry in this interview after putting them through the to the next round.
- one of those times that you think you're going to go on to bigger fields, and bigger competition.
It's complicated, and difficult to explain. My weekends used to be games, and travel, and doing homework in the car, and sleeping in the car, and changing uniforms on the road to another game, and to not have that anymore - in any capacity - is incredibly difficult. It feels, at times, like something is missing.
I understand, and I believe that things happen for whatever reason (still, a reason is a reason) and that when one door closes, another opens (or a window, whatever, I'm not picky) and I know that if I had been in season last fall, then I wouldn't have found community theater, and met and worked with the people that I met. And I wouldn't have really found that I enjoy theater and decided to minor in it. I wouldn't have found that, and I'm very happy that it was something I did find.
Still. Sometimes it feels like there's something missing. And I think that that specific feeling is going to be there for a long time.
Which is why I want to see if I can help out the Varsity girls coach (who was also the travel U19 coach who I was going to be another body at practice with) during their preseason in August and maybe up until I leave, depending on my work schedule). I can't coach - I don't have a license, though there is a need for a girls Modified coach. Also, I leave toward the beginning of September, so that wouldn't work. That might be one of those ways I get soccer back.
It's not what I had, but that's something that you probably can't get back. Not just in soccer, but in general.
Up next for the rest of this week - I start the visa application tonight (which reminds me that I need to read those papers [the instructions] multiple times) and go back in to work for another double on Saturday. Hopefully, when I get out at 12:30 in the morning, I won't hit a large, four-legged furry thing on my way home. If I time it just right, I'll be coming in the house as my father is leaving for work, which is always a little bit fun.
On that note, I've got live World Cup soccer, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, and about two more hours before I get to pick up the little one from daycare. Hell, I might finish my latest section of Murphy and Me.
Maybe. If I can find my Focus. Which is another story entirely.
Thinking about a lot of things in general - and how the hell have we not scored yet!? We'd have chances out the wazoo here, and we can't find the back of the net!?
Sorry. Sidetracked. It happens (you guys know this by now).
First thing (or things) I want to remark on is the neighborhood shenanigans that have been going on. I'm going to be honest - I've been sick. First semester first year of college, the mystery pain that nobody had an answer to, that nobody could figure out why I was having pain the way I was having pain, ultimately ending in surgery to remove a cyst and some other benign tissues from my internal girly parts. But between September and January (when I had surgery), and nobody knew what was going on with me internally, it was really, freaking scary. My body was doing something to itself that I couldn't control, and simply had to cope with. We tried some things - I kept a food and exercise diary (and a pain one, too) and went, at one point, two weeks without any dairy products of any sort. I was in New York City for a college publishing thing (we toured some of the publications and publishing houses) with my sister, and attending these sessions with major publishing powerhouses, and opposite my bracelets on my left wrist was my pre-surgery hospital band on my right.
You can see it in this photo. It's on the hand closest to you.
Being sick, in general, sucks. It does. Having cancer sucks even worse. But the biggest, and most frightening thing, at least to me, is not knowing what's going on with your own body. Not knowing what it's doing to itself on the inside. If you know what's going on - you have a diagnosis - you can fight it. When you don't have a clue what's happening, you can't. You just have to ride it out. And that's just all kinds of scary, truthfully. Scarier than having a diagnosis.
I understand being sick. I get that. What I don't get is the specific set of rules that I've been asked to play by, concerning someone and their illness. I understand that there are things you don't want to hear - but you're going to hear them anyway, because people can't remember specifics, and yes, in all reality, as much as you'd like to think to the contrary, you're still sick - but to slam someone whom who've progressively gotten closer to because of the way they have - in your opinion mistakenly - acted (with good intentions, mind you) that's, in layman's terms, not right. Flat out. And you've done more than simply hurt feelings and make a good person who wanted nothing better than to help, hurt instead. That's not right, either.
Simple human kindness dictates that when someone does something for you, out of graciousness and the want to assist, you thank them, not nitpick and complain that it wasn't done to the correct specification, simply shut your mouth, and accept it for what it was - assistance, helpfulness, and a good deed so that life might be a little easier.
For example: We have a very team-oriented atmosphere at my workplace. I'm a waitress. So, when I get swamped, and maybe behind a little in taking out my dinners, someone assists me. They also - sometimes - assist in handing out my dinners (or desserts, because we're sometimes a little rushed handing out cheesecake at the end) and can't necessarily readily read the map that I've drawn myself (because it looks pretty cool when you put a dinner in front of someone and know who ordered what, and how they wanted their beef cooked) so they simply look at the table, find the plates, and hand them out. I don't light into them later on because they've done it differently than I would have. I thank them for helping me, and we move on. Later on in the night, when we're doing coffee, if I take a pot of coffee upstairs, I simply move throughout the floor and offer coffee to everyone - including the tables that aren't mine. I might not have the same personality, or know the tables as well as my own, but I still get a thank you, and I've still helped my coworker and the customer. And that is what's most important. We don't get petty, and we don't get upset with each other. We help each other. One of us has a rough night on the floor (someone that can't be pleased) then we try to make life easier for him/her by doing what we can to help. The same goes for our F.O. when we set up or clean, or are getting food out. We do what we can, and while sometimes it might be a little unorthodox, it's still appreciated.
Bottom line: Someone does something nice for you, does you a favor and tries to make things a little easier so you can focus on what's really going on, what's bugging you (fighting an illness or simply having a tough time) you smile, and you say thank you. Because that's what you're supposed to do as a decent human being.
Then again, lately, there seems to be less and less decency in the world. Nearly a week ago (last Friday, really) while my father, the dog, and I were outside (and the cat, too) doing lawn work and trying to get the old push mower started, my dad heard a thu-thump, the dog started going nuts, and he looked at the road in time to see our beloved black cat take off the for old back porch.
She'd been hit by a car.
Said car did not stop. Said car did not even slow down.
You hit my cat, the least - the freaking least - you can do is slow down or stop, especially if you see someone outside. However, whoever it was kept on going.
Before I cause any unnecessary stress - I have one very, very lucky kitty. No broken bones; a gash on her back leg (took a nice chunk out of her) and she's got some road burn on her face. She's a very lucky black cat.
She'd gone and hid under the porch at the old house. Neither mom nor I could get her to come out - I actually crawled under there (which, considering my fear of spiders was interesting) but couldn't get close enough to get a hand around her somewhere and pull her out. Later on, Heather rattled the cat food in the house and she came out, laying on the step and wanting to come in, mewling.
I was not able to walk her home. Heather had to wrap a towel around her, pick her up, and take her back across the road. We put her in the bathroom, brought up her catbox, and peeked in on her every now and then. She was not a happy camper. She was actually quite miserable. I took her to the vet the next morning - the doc was very good with her (and she didn't claw anyone, which is a miracle, 'cause Pepper'll rip your hand off on occasion) and said she was very lucky. Usually, when a cat meets a motor vehicle, the cat doesn't walk away.
Also last Saturday was the Waterfront Festival. Our Waterfront Festival is the broader term for the Cardboard Boat Regatta. Yes, boats made of cardboard and duct tape. And they sail in the marina. The pier was packed, and my college friend, Josie, whom I was meeting down there, wound up with a busted muffler (that the AAA guy took off completely) and we watched some of the boats before it started to rain and I had to go to work. The she spent some time with my mom, sister, and the little one while I was at work.
And things like that are only as awkward as you make them. Everything turned out okay. And I would say that the family agrees that I've found really good friends at college. For that, I'm really lucky. Lucky and grateful.
Tuesday (two days ago) I made a new blog. Again, before I cause any unnecessary stress as to whether or not the Wandering Sagittarius will be going anywhere - I won't be. I've toyed with the idea of making a blog about my time abroad, or whether to give it a specific heading and specific tags, and keep everything under one roof. And after spending the amount of time I did on a layout and trying to do colors, and really thinking about, I'm now looking for a way to delete that new one. The other one. That I don't want to use. It would be too much of a hassle, and probably too confusing to keep those posts separate (for both you and me) and too much to mess with. So what you'll get is a series of posts (titled similar to Murphy and Me and Things to Know) with Roman numerals and the same snarky, introspective Molly Louise that you've grown accustomed to. Just on the other side of the pond.
My cousin and I go to Fitness at six in the morning four days a week. That works for us. It's a combination of lifting weights, working muscles you don't normally work, and doing more push ups than people can really count. We quite possibly do about a thousand a week, just in four days worth of work. That, though, doesn't work for everyone.
What my sister's been doing at night is walking. She'll walk anywhere between three and five miles (depending on whether she's pushing the thirty pound child in the heavy stroller) each day, and she keeps track (meticulously, I might add) of the miles that she logs. She puts her mp3 player on, her headphones in, and pounds the pavement to the RENT soundtrack.
I couldn't be more proud of her.
And trust me, when she walks, she's movin'.
Fridays are the days when I don't have Fitness. Tomorrow morning, at five, we'll get up, put in the headphones, and pound it out. Then she'll go to work, and I might get back into bed for a couple more hours. Or I might not. I'll figure that out when I get there.
Side note - I can't imagine watching this World Cup game in real time yesterday. I know there's a goal coming, and I'm on my last set of adrenaline nerves watching it because they haven't scored yet, and they need to win to advance. I think I would have been on the edge of my seat and screaming at my TV. Like I don't do that already, as it is.
And have I mentioned that I absolutely adore Landon Donovan and Carlos Bocanegra? If not, I'm mentioning it now.
Soccer for me is still a big part of life. I don't play anymore - competitively - but if I could find a pick-up game or so I'd be out there in a heartbeat. What's been a little difficult, especially this past season, being a referee -
How the hell did they not suffocate Landon in that tremendous pile?
- it's made me remember my days with my club team. And the WAZA girls, and everything that happened in those four years. Trying out for ODP (multiple times, and not getting in - which, when indoor happened shortly after that, my coach looked at me said, "You come back from ODP tryouts and you're playin' like you got robbed - it's great, girl") and then really settling in, both in goal and in the midfield (actually as a back) and I played a lot of soccer. At times a lot of good soccer. Then there was my senior season with my varsity team. It was -
Not entirely sure I can watch my favorite player - and who's number I wore for so long - cry in this interview after putting them through the to the next round.
- one of those times that you think you're going to go on to bigger fields, and bigger competition.
It's complicated, and difficult to explain. My weekends used to be games, and travel, and doing homework in the car, and sleeping in the car, and changing uniforms on the road to another game, and to not have that anymore - in any capacity - is incredibly difficult. It feels, at times, like something is missing.
I understand, and I believe that things happen for whatever reason (still, a reason is a reason) and that when one door closes, another opens (or a window, whatever, I'm not picky) and I know that if I had been in season last fall, then I wouldn't have found community theater, and met and worked with the people that I met. And I wouldn't have really found that I enjoy theater and decided to minor in it. I wouldn't have found that, and I'm very happy that it was something I did find.
Still. Sometimes it feels like there's something missing. And I think that that specific feeling is going to be there for a long time.
Which is why I want to see if I can help out the Varsity girls coach (who was also the travel U19 coach who I was going to be another body at practice with) during their preseason in August and maybe up until I leave, depending on my work schedule). I can't coach - I don't have a license, though there is a need for a girls Modified coach. Also, I leave toward the beginning of September, so that wouldn't work. That might be one of those ways I get soccer back.
It's not what I had, but that's something that you probably can't get back. Not just in soccer, but in general.
Up next for the rest of this week - I start the visa application tonight (which reminds me that I need to read those papers [the instructions] multiple times) and go back in to work for another double on Saturday. Hopefully, when I get out at 12:30 in the morning, I won't hit a large, four-legged furry thing on my way home. If I time it just right, I'll be coming in the house as my father is leaving for work, which is always a little bit fun.
On that note, I've got live World Cup soccer, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, and about two more hours before I get to pick up the little one from daycare. Hell, I might finish my latest section of Murphy and Me.
Maybe. If I can find my Focus. Which is another story entirely.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Murphy and Me XXIV
Armed with my red striped polo and favorite jeans, I was outside the fishbowl. Murph came out a minute or two later.
Without Dev.
"Dev's not comin'?"
Murph shoved his hands in his pockets. "Dev's spending his night being a good student and doing his Soc paper due Monday." He shuffled his feet, a flush creeping up his neck.
I held out my Vera. "Might wanna put some pj's upstairs, since I probably don't have anything that'll fit you."
He disappeared into his room, and took my keys on his way out again. He was a good roommate - if we got back late (which we probably would), he wouldn't wake Devan if we stayed in my room tonight. And as I reminded Murph, I don't have much - if anything - that would fit him to sleep in.
And I am not prepared to sleep next to a boy in his boxers. Just...no.
Murph thumped back down the stairs and to the lounge, handing off my keys. He took my hand in his.
"So, where we goin'?"
He didn't answer me until we got to the parking lot. It was a little chilly. Murph, my moving furnace, snaked an arm around my waist. Toasty warm in seconds.
"There's a party at Kappa."
"Kappa Alpha or Kappa Sigma?" Not that it mattered. It was still a frat.
"Kappa Alpha." His fingers lingered on my opposite hip. "A lot of the football boys are brothers."
More football boys' names. Can I get a cheat sheet? Please?
I nodded.
"And a lot of the guys hang out there, too."
Now, for some reason, I was starting to get nervous. Not what Murph had intended, probably, but I'm female. That's where my brain goes.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Fine."
We walked along South Main; the moon reflected off the lake, a sight that would never get old. The music at KA was audible when we were about three houses down and nearly deafening as we stood in line at the door. Murph moved his arm and I was floating for a moment until he anchored me, our fingers twisted together. There was much back-slapping and rowdy hellos (consisting mostly of "Yo! Elf!") and then we were inside.
The amount of bodies was ridiculous. Almost claustrophobic.
There were people everywhere, including the downstairs where the bar was. There was more dancing down there, too. And that's where we were - on the dance floor.
And when incredibly self-conscious on a regular day, on a dance floor with a boy in front of other boys and girls in scanty clothes, this was now firmly classified under 'nightmare.'
Murph took my hand and started to move, the geekiest expression on his face. Couldn't help it - I cracked up and creakily rocked, trying to match his movements. He was breakin' out moves most don't do unless - and until - they're drunk as a skunk. And he was doing it to loosen me up.
And it was workin' like a charm.
I looped my arms around his neck; his hands settled on my waist. He leaned in, close to my ear. "You good?"
"I'm a little nervous." Had to yell to be heard.
"Why?"
It was dim in the basement, the strobe light more annoying than helpful. Those hazel eyes, though, they were clear.
"I dunno. I just am." Really. I'm illogical like that.
He smiled, then leaned in to kiss me soft and sweet in front of a frightening amount of people. Then was back to leaning by my ear. "Don't think about it. Just go with it."
And really, that piece of advice was quite valid. Quite helpful, too. Not to mention it worked.
I'm not sure how long we danced, though I was ready for a break when he went to find something to drink. There was an empty sofa in the corner and I plopped down, content to people watch.
"Ollie?"
I heaved myself to my feet, wiping sweaty palms on my thighs. A tall, African-American guy with a skinny - leggy, too - dark-skinned woman hanging on his arm had seemingly popped up from the floor. They my age (in college) and he had the best dreads that I'd ever seen. They looked at me, and I had the sinking feeling that I should know them and didn't.
"I don't think we've actually met, yet," he said. The other girl and I were sizing each other up. "I'm Murphy's lifting partner."
Click. "Noah." I smiled. "Nice to meet you."
"This is my girlfriend, Tanya."
Tanya and I shook hands, still measuring each other. Someone called Noah's name, and with a quick, "Be right back" he left the two of us alone. Tanya sat gracefully while my knees more or less refused to continue supporting my weight.
"I'm Murphy's girlfriend," I blurted after less than ten seconds of awkward silence. Cue flaming face. "I mean, Murphy's my boyfriend." She blinked. Great.
"I know," she said, smiling gently. "Noah says that's what he talks about."
"Wow." Really, what else do you say to that?
Sirens cut through the music as the lights came on. Tanya took me by the hand before I could start floundering hopelessly, pulling me off the couch and toward the stairs. We didn't stop at the first floor, fighting the throng of people to get to the other staircase and up onto the second floor, into the common room of someone's suite. There were other girls there, chatting and holding long-necked bottles. I lingered awkwardly by the door, Tanya having the sense to let go shortly after we crossed the threshold.
"Girls," she said, finding an empty seat, "This is Ollie."
They turned as one to look. I was the only one wearing jeans and had never felt so awkward in my life. Might as well have been naked.
"Oh," one of them - a strawberry blond in a mini-skirt and heels - said excitedly, "are you Elf's girlfriend?"
Holy. Shit. I'd found the girlfriends club. Somebody - anybody - needed to rescue me before I disgraced myself in a horrifically public manner. Or, better yet, before I embarrassed Murphy.
Without Dev.
"Dev's not comin'?"
Murph shoved his hands in his pockets. "Dev's spending his night being a good student and doing his Soc paper due Monday." He shuffled his feet, a flush creeping up his neck.
I held out my Vera. "Might wanna put some pj's upstairs, since I probably don't have anything that'll fit you."
He disappeared into his room, and took my keys on his way out again. He was a good roommate - if we got back late (which we probably would), he wouldn't wake Devan if we stayed in my room tonight. And as I reminded Murph, I don't have much - if anything - that would fit him to sleep in.
And I am not prepared to sleep next to a boy in his boxers. Just...no.
Murph thumped back down the stairs and to the lounge, handing off my keys. He took my hand in his.
"So, where we goin'?"
He didn't answer me until we got to the parking lot. It was a little chilly. Murph, my moving furnace, snaked an arm around my waist. Toasty warm in seconds.
"There's a party at Kappa."
"Kappa Alpha or Kappa Sigma?" Not that it mattered. It was still a frat.
"Kappa Alpha." His fingers lingered on my opposite hip. "A lot of the football boys are brothers."
More football boys' names. Can I get a cheat sheet? Please?
I nodded.
"And a lot of the guys hang out there, too."
Now, for some reason, I was starting to get nervous. Not what Murph had intended, probably, but I'm female. That's where my brain goes.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Fine."
We walked along South Main; the moon reflected off the lake, a sight that would never get old. The music at KA was audible when we were about three houses down and nearly deafening as we stood in line at the door. Murph moved his arm and I was floating for a moment until he anchored me, our fingers twisted together. There was much back-slapping and rowdy hellos (consisting mostly of "Yo! Elf!") and then we were inside.
The amount of bodies was ridiculous. Almost claustrophobic.
There were people everywhere, including the downstairs where the bar was. There was more dancing down there, too. And that's where we were - on the dance floor.
And when incredibly self-conscious on a regular day, on a dance floor with a boy in front of other boys and girls in scanty clothes, this was now firmly classified under 'nightmare.'
Murph took my hand and started to move, the geekiest expression on his face. Couldn't help it - I cracked up and creakily rocked, trying to match his movements. He was breakin' out moves most don't do unless - and until - they're drunk as a skunk. And he was doing it to loosen me up.
And it was workin' like a charm.
I looped my arms around his neck; his hands settled on my waist. He leaned in, close to my ear. "You good?"
"I'm a little nervous." Had to yell to be heard.
"Why?"
It was dim in the basement, the strobe light more annoying than helpful. Those hazel eyes, though, they were clear.
"I dunno. I just am." Really. I'm illogical like that.
He smiled, then leaned in to kiss me soft and sweet in front of a frightening amount of people. Then was back to leaning by my ear. "Don't think about it. Just go with it."
And really, that piece of advice was quite valid. Quite helpful, too. Not to mention it worked.
I'm not sure how long we danced, though I was ready for a break when he went to find something to drink. There was an empty sofa in the corner and I plopped down, content to people watch.
"Ollie?"
I heaved myself to my feet, wiping sweaty palms on my thighs. A tall, African-American guy with a skinny - leggy, too - dark-skinned woman hanging on his arm had seemingly popped up from the floor. They my age (in college) and he had the best dreads that I'd ever seen. They looked at me, and I had the sinking feeling that I should know them and didn't.
"I don't think we've actually met, yet," he said. The other girl and I were sizing each other up. "I'm Murphy's lifting partner."
Click. "Noah." I smiled. "Nice to meet you."
"This is my girlfriend, Tanya."
Tanya and I shook hands, still measuring each other. Someone called Noah's name, and with a quick, "Be right back" he left the two of us alone. Tanya sat gracefully while my knees more or less refused to continue supporting my weight.
"I'm Murphy's girlfriend," I blurted after less than ten seconds of awkward silence. Cue flaming face. "I mean, Murphy's my boyfriend." She blinked. Great.
"I know," she said, smiling gently. "Noah says that's what he talks about."
"Wow." Really, what else do you say to that?
Sirens cut through the music as the lights came on. Tanya took me by the hand before I could start floundering hopelessly, pulling me off the couch and toward the stairs. We didn't stop at the first floor, fighting the throng of people to get to the other staircase and up onto the second floor, into the common room of someone's suite. There were other girls there, chatting and holding long-necked bottles. I lingered awkwardly by the door, Tanya having the sense to let go shortly after we crossed the threshold.
"Girls," she said, finding an empty seat, "This is Ollie."
They turned as one to look. I was the only one wearing jeans and had never felt so awkward in my life. Might as well have been naked.
"Oh," one of them - a strawberry blond in a mini-skirt and heels - said excitedly, "are you Elf's girlfriend?"
Holy. Shit. I'd found the girlfriends club. Somebody - anybody - needed to rescue me before I disgraced myself in a horrifically public manner. Or, better yet, before I embarrassed Murphy.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Murphy and Me XXIII
Whatever the hell that damned beeping was, someone needed to shut it off. As of yesterday, preferably.
The mattress rolled a little - and it was breathing, too. Smelled a lot like Murph, come to think of it.
The blaring ceased; a big hand traced up and down my spine. Murph shifted again, cheek pressed to the top of my head.
"Was that the alarm?" I asked what felt like his collarbone, eyes resolutely shut.
"Yup." He shifted again, rolling up on his side to curl around me. Something poked me in the chest. Further blind inspection produced Smokey and I finally cracked my eyelids apart.
Gray. Dark gray, more specifically. Stretched across a broad shoulder and wide chest. I'd never really taken the opportunity to look at Murph while suckered to his side; never really seen the way the clean line of his throat meets that of his jaw, and then further up, his nose. Straight and with the tiniest of knobs on the bridge. He's broken it before, probably.
"Morning."
I buried my nose in the dip of his collarbone with a grunt that sounded suspiciously like shuddup.
"Breakfast?"
Well...now that you mention food.
"M'up." Not really, but I was workin' on it. I rubbed my forehead on his t-shirt and sat up, stretching. Scrubbed my eyes and looked down at Murph, half-asleep on his back, comforter rucked around his waist. I was trying to figure out the best way to get off the bed without moving him.
"You need help?" He looked at me through his bangs.
"Nah. Don't move." I freed my legs from the comforter and crawled over his waist. The drop off was a little bigger than I was used to - the dismount a little sloppy - but I wound up on two feet all the same. Steadiness was a different story.
Murphy rolled out right behind me, pressing a kiss to the back of my neck.
Devan snored blissfully on from the other side of the room.
I gathered my keys. "I need twenty minutes and I'll be back down."
Murph rubbed at what morning stubble (wasn't much) that he had and nodded. I don't think all his neurons were firing yet.
Then again, neither were mine since I nearly whacked myself in the face with the door on my way out.
"He's not a morning person," I said to Sasha around a spoonful of Half-Baked. "Makes breakfast conversation real interesting."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Neither of us talk."
I though she was going to choke on a fish-shaped piece of chocolate she was laughing so (unnecessarily) hard. I stabbed at a piece of brownie, cheeks flaming. I glanced at the TV - Tristan was dragging Yvaine by a magical chain, prattling about Victoria. "How's Cara?"
Sasha looked at her melting pint of ice cream. "She slept at Danielle's last night." She swallowed, blinking furiously. "She slept somewhere else."
Not with me, in our room, was the unspoken lament. Which was understandable. Sasha had put a lot of hard thought into even asking Cara to be roommates - which had involved copious amounts of Ben and Jerry's - and had taken a bit of convincing on my part to get her to that point. And she'd been so happy when Cara had said yes. Hell, I'd been happy for her, and the entire situation had threatened to give me cavities. Still, Sasha was my best friend. It wasn't in me to not be happy for her with something like this.
And it wasn't in my to watch her suffer over this, either.
"When was the last time you talked to her?"
Sasha shrugged. "A few days."
So, face-to-face was not....good. "Texts?"
"Longer."
This was not good on any level.
"I think you need to talk to her. In person. In your room." In case it goes bad, was unspoken between us. I fished in the semi-melted pint by my hip for a piece of cookie dough. "That's what I think you should do."
She looked at me, wide-eyes and wobbly mouth. "Can we watch RENT?" she whispered.
"Yeah. We can watch RENT." It would turn us into a total sobbing, soggy disaster. But I think we needed that.
It was a very good thing I'm not lactose intolerant otherwise I'm prety sure I'd have been dead the next morning. My stomach was a little off - too much, too late - but nothing overly ridiculous. Nothing that prevented me from rolling (literally) out of bed to go to the breakfast with Jo. Followed by a few moments on our way out to ogle Murph as he went into the dining hall, dressed in his suit jacket. Well, paused long enough to know they had a game today and get three nearly identical looks. One was slightly different in that it said it was alright to miss the game.
I knew that. Still.
Like I said before, neither of us carry grudges when it comes to games, and I knew that we were doing something tonight.
So it wasn't a big deal to spend my afternoon in the lounge doing homework. Not at all. I did send Murph a message telling him I was coming down at nine. And fielded messages from my sister - Izzy - about said boy.
He your boyfriend?
Yes. Snapped the phone shut and stuffed it in my back pocket. Looked through my closet. Couldn't make a decision to save my life.
When you gonna change your Crackbook status?
She would. She really would. When i talk to murph. I picked out a shirt and tossed it on the bed. Phone buzzed again.
Did you tell him your niece has a kitten named Murphy?
I blinked. Forgot about that completely. Eh. Well. Murph should get a kick out of it.
I think.
The mattress rolled a little - and it was breathing, too. Smelled a lot like Murph, come to think of it.
The blaring ceased; a big hand traced up and down my spine. Murph shifted again, cheek pressed to the top of my head.
"Was that the alarm?" I asked what felt like his collarbone, eyes resolutely shut.
"Yup." He shifted again, rolling up on his side to curl around me. Something poked me in the chest. Further blind inspection produced Smokey and I finally cracked my eyelids apart.
Gray. Dark gray, more specifically. Stretched across a broad shoulder and wide chest. I'd never really taken the opportunity to look at Murph while suckered to his side; never really seen the way the clean line of his throat meets that of his jaw, and then further up, his nose. Straight and with the tiniest of knobs on the bridge. He's broken it before, probably.
"Morning."
I buried my nose in the dip of his collarbone with a grunt that sounded suspiciously like shuddup.
"Breakfast?"
Well...now that you mention food.
"M'up." Not really, but I was workin' on it. I rubbed my forehead on his t-shirt and sat up, stretching. Scrubbed my eyes and looked down at Murph, half-asleep on his back, comforter rucked around his waist. I was trying to figure out the best way to get off the bed without moving him.
"You need help?" He looked at me through his bangs.
"Nah. Don't move." I freed my legs from the comforter and crawled over his waist. The drop off was a little bigger than I was used to - the dismount a little sloppy - but I wound up on two feet all the same. Steadiness was a different story.
Murphy rolled out right behind me, pressing a kiss to the back of my neck.
Devan snored blissfully on from the other side of the room.
I gathered my keys. "I need twenty minutes and I'll be back down."
Murph rubbed at what morning stubble (wasn't much) that he had and nodded. I don't think all his neurons were firing yet.
Then again, neither were mine since I nearly whacked myself in the face with the door on my way out.
"He's not a morning person," I said to Sasha around a spoonful of Half-Baked. "Makes breakfast conversation real interesting."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Neither of us talk."
I though she was going to choke on a fish-shaped piece of chocolate she was laughing so (unnecessarily) hard. I stabbed at a piece of brownie, cheeks flaming. I glanced at the TV - Tristan was dragging Yvaine by a magical chain, prattling about Victoria. "How's Cara?"
Sasha looked at her melting pint of ice cream. "She slept at Danielle's last night." She swallowed, blinking furiously. "She slept somewhere else."
Not with me, in our room, was the unspoken lament. Which was understandable. Sasha had put a lot of hard thought into even asking Cara to be roommates - which had involved copious amounts of Ben and Jerry's - and had taken a bit of convincing on my part to get her to that point. And she'd been so happy when Cara had said yes. Hell, I'd been happy for her, and the entire situation had threatened to give me cavities. Still, Sasha was my best friend. It wasn't in me to not be happy for her with something like this.
And it wasn't in my to watch her suffer over this, either.
"When was the last time you talked to her?"
Sasha shrugged. "A few days."
So, face-to-face was not....good. "Texts?"
"Longer."
This was not good on any level.
"I think you need to talk to her. In person. In your room." In case it goes bad, was unspoken between us. I fished in the semi-melted pint by my hip for a piece of cookie dough. "That's what I think you should do."
She looked at me, wide-eyes and wobbly mouth. "Can we watch RENT?" she whispered.
"Yeah. We can watch RENT." It would turn us into a total sobbing, soggy disaster. But I think we needed that.
It was a very good thing I'm not lactose intolerant otherwise I'm prety sure I'd have been dead the next morning. My stomach was a little off - too much, too late - but nothing overly ridiculous. Nothing that prevented me from rolling (literally) out of bed to go to the breakfast with Jo. Followed by a few moments on our way out to ogle Murph as he went into the dining hall, dressed in his suit jacket. Well, paused long enough to know they had a game today and get three nearly identical looks. One was slightly different in that it said it was alright to miss the game.
I knew that. Still.
Like I said before, neither of us carry grudges when it comes to games, and I knew that we were doing something tonight.
So it wasn't a big deal to spend my afternoon in the lounge doing homework. Not at all. I did send Murph a message telling him I was coming down at nine. And fielded messages from my sister - Izzy - about said boy.
He your boyfriend?
Yes. Snapped the phone shut and stuffed it in my back pocket. Looked through my closet. Couldn't make a decision to save my life.
When you gonna change your Crackbook status?
She would. She really would. When i talk to murph. I picked out a shirt and tossed it on the bed. Phone buzzed again.
Did you tell him your niece has a kitten named Murphy?
I blinked. Forgot about that completely. Eh. Well. Murph should get a kick out of it.
I think.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Whacked
Louise's year of firsts continues.
Earlier in the year (the actual year 2010, not the school year, though that's how I tend to think of years anyway, since I'm still in school) my turn signal had bit the dust. Not so much the entire thing, just the clicker, the thing that made it automatically blink. So you had to toggle it when you drove to have any semblance of normal. Which is all well and good, mostly during the day, but there was that fairly memorable occasion when Em and I were coming back from a concert in Rochester (the director the Campus Community Chorus was directing a chorus and orchestra in Rochester as part of her graduate degree, and Em sings in that chorus, so therefore we went - it was really good, too) and were by the Lady of the Lake statue, going to go the back way to Dunkin' Donuts to get some coffee and a doughnut before heading to Relay for Life. There was a fairly liberal amount of swearing as I pulled over, a few Oh, shit's from the passenger seat, and the distinct chance that I was going to throw up over the local cop that had pulled me over. In the end, he told me to get it fixed (Being at school is no reason not to get something like this fixed) and sent me on my merry way. Well, my merry way that also including freaking out a bit more, and then a medium dark roast from Dunkin' and a doughnut.
In the end, everything turned out just fine. And I got the turn signal fixed during the six days that I was in NYC and wouldn't need my car.
Yesterday I wrote a post between the first teen cruise (my own school district's eighth graders on for their semi-formal) and then went back to work for the second of the night. After that fiasco (ninety-seven high school kids that have graduated earlier in the day from the middle of nowhere at 12:30 in the morning....) I figured that I would drive down and see my dad for a couple minutes at work, before heading home. Hadn't seen him in like a day and a half because of the way his schedule is (he goes in to work at 2, I work dinner shifts, so there are times when we don't see each other for roughly a day and a half, or two days, which is really interesting in itself since we live in the same house), so I was going to go see him.
I didn't see the deer until it was off of my left front fender.
Hit the brakes and then hit the deer. Which promptly slid off the hood, rolled on the pavement, and then got up and ran back into the swamp. And left me sitting there in a sort of shock, staring out the windshield and realizing that I've just gotten in my first MVA.
This was the first thing that I've hit that's bigger than a squirrel.
Naturally I was a little freaked.
Dad was calm about it, telling me that it was okay, wanting to know what had happened to the deer, and then called the village PD to send someone to do an accident report.
I didn't actually break anything on my car. My headlight is still intact, though slanted inward, toward the right one more, and the grill in the middle has a corner that's got a crack in it and came away from the housing. The headlight still works - high beams, too - and the hood is still functional (you can open it). So it's not like I smashed the entire front end of my car in one go. If anything, this proves that my car (my sister calls it a death trap) is more tank-like that I had thought.
Does that mean that I think it's invincible and that I'm invincible? Hell. No. I'm human. I'm mortal. It was a deer, but it was still an accident and something that undeniably stresses you out to a certain degree. Probably why I'm still pretty tired, middle of the night work shift aside.
It's the first, probably not the last, but it still unsettles you a little bit. Nothing life-threatening in this case, just something very different and more than a little scary.
And while it didn't scare the shit out of me on a literal level, I can't say the same for the deer - I've got two little piles sitting on my hood.
On a better note: I sent paperwork across the pond to Wales today, including a photo for them to make my student ID card with. It should take about five to ten days for it to get there, and while I need to double check that it actually makes it, they're forms that could probably be filled out there as well; Fitness to Practise and Needs Assessment. Basically they want to know if I require anything extra due to learning disabilities or disabilities in general. Next on my agenda is, when the time is right, to start my Visa application process. Which is fairly long and more than slightly complicated.
Once that's done, it's a matter of counting down the days until the flight leaves. There's a bit more to it than that, obviously, but it's something to look forward to and be very excited about.
Earlier in the year (the actual year 2010, not the school year, though that's how I tend to think of years anyway, since I'm still in school) my turn signal had bit the dust. Not so much the entire thing, just the clicker, the thing that made it automatically blink. So you had to toggle it when you drove to have any semblance of normal. Which is all well and good, mostly during the day, but there was that fairly memorable occasion when Em and I were coming back from a concert in Rochester (the director the Campus Community Chorus was directing a chorus and orchestra in Rochester as part of her graduate degree, and Em sings in that chorus, so therefore we went - it was really good, too) and were by the Lady of the Lake statue, going to go the back way to Dunkin' Donuts to get some coffee and a doughnut before heading to Relay for Life. There was a fairly liberal amount of swearing as I pulled over, a few Oh, shit's from the passenger seat, and the distinct chance that I was going to throw up over the local cop that had pulled me over. In the end, he told me to get it fixed (Being at school is no reason not to get something like this fixed) and sent me on my merry way. Well, my merry way that also including freaking out a bit more, and then a medium dark roast from Dunkin' and a doughnut.
In the end, everything turned out just fine. And I got the turn signal fixed during the six days that I was in NYC and wouldn't need my car.
Yesterday I wrote a post between the first teen cruise (my own school district's eighth graders on for their semi-formal) and then went back to work for the second of the night. After that fiasco (ninety-seven high school kids that have graduated earlier in the day from the middle of nowhere at 12:30 in the morning....) I figured that I would drive down and see my dad for a couple minutes at work, before heading home. Hadn't seen him in like a day and a half because of the way his schedule is (he goes in to work at 2, I work dinner shifts, so there are times when we don't see each other for roughly a day and a half, or two days, which is really interesting in itself since we live in the same house), so I was going to go see him.
I didn't see the deer until it was off of my left front fender.
Hit the brakes and then hit the deer. Which promptly slid off the hood, rolled on the pavement, and then got up and ran back into the swamp. And left me sitting there in a sort of shock, staring out the windshield and realizing that I've just gotten in my first MVA.
This was the first thing that I've hit that's bigger than a squirrel.
Naturally I was a little freaked.
Dad was calm about it, telling me that it was okay, wanting to know what had happened to the deer, and then called the village PD to send someone to do an accident report.
I didn't actually break anything on my car. My headlight is still intact, though slanted inward, toward the right one more, and the grill in the middle has a corner that's got a crack in it and came away from the housing. The headlight still works - high beams, too - and the hood is still functional (you can open it). So it's not like I smashed the entire front end of my car in one go. If anything, this proves that my car (my sister calls it a death trap) is more tank-like that I had thought.
Does that mean that I think it's invincible and that I'm invincible? Hell. No. I'm human. I'm mortal. It was a deer, but it was still an accident and something that undeniably stresses you out to a certain degree. Probably why I'm still pretty tired, middle of the night work shift aside.
It's the first, probably not the last, but it still unsettles you a little bit. Nothing life-threatening in this case, just something very different and more than a little scary.
And while it didn't scare the shit out of me on a literal level, I can't say the same for the deer - I've got two little piles sitting on my hood.
On a better note: I sent paperwork across the pond to Wales today, including a photo for them to make my student ID card with. It should take about five to ten days for it to get there, and while I need to double check that it actually makes it, they're forms that could probably be filled out there as well; Fitness to Practise and Needs Assessment. Basically they want to know if I require anything extra due to learning disabilities or disabilities in general. Next on my agenda is, when the time is right, to start my Visa application process. Which is fairly long and more than slightly complicated.
Once that's done, it's a matter of counting down the days until the flight leaves. There's a bit more to it than that, obviously, but it's something to look forward to and be very excited about.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)