January 2, 2008 Pantoum

The pantoum is an incredible form of poetry that I find very well suited to issues that I have not fully dealt with yet. I find them even more therapetic than artistic but I like them for both reasons. I found a this link to help me explain what a pantoum is if anyone would like to know, and to prove I am not making this up. 

January 2, 2008

If things had happened like we thought,

we would have packed and ran.

Fueled with idealism and naivety;

living  only for love and justice.

We would have packed and run.

We had nothing figured out .

Living only for love and justice;

it seemed so simple in our heads

We had nothing figured out.

Fantasying about a mundane life.

It seemed so simple in our heads.

Living by conviction is never simple or mundane.

Fantasying about a mundane life,

we made bold and rash decisions.

Living by conviction is never simple or mundane,

still I like sleeping with a clear conscience

We made bold and rash decisions.

Nothing turned out as we hoped,

still I like sleeping with a clear conscience.

Never could have known how right we were.

Nothing turned out as we hoped,

but it turned out as it should.

Never would’ve known how right we were,

if things had happened as we planned.

Like Mirrors

My parents had all their children very close in age. I am the oldest, 22 months later they had my sister and 26 months after that they had my brother. There is a lot to be said about having siblings so close in age. Now that we are in our 20's (or very close to it) the gap is starting to close and we are beginning to realize how close in age we really are. An odd added benefit of this is it keeps me in touch with where I was two and four years ago. This serves a double purpose of keeping me humble and reminding myself that I wasn't always the mature responsible individual I am now, and it helps me see how far I've come in two short years.

This is really affecting me right now. I live with my sister so the comparisons happen in my mind constantly. She will say something that I think to myself sounds a little immature and I immediately think about whether I would have said the same thing two years ago; the answer is almost always yes. The more this happens the more I think "have I really grown up so much in two years?" I  have but  my next question is "should have I grown up so much in two years?" That is a question I will continue to puzzle over.

I'm a Book Snob!

I have a friend who posted this as a Facebook note the other day. I don't really like this list because it seems to focus more on "national literary" than on the individual worthiness of each book. When I was an English major we defined national literacy as the literature people need to be familiar with because it is often referenced in their society. The best example is probably the Bible. Even if you're not religious chances are you are familiar with the most common Biblical motifs because they are everywhere. 


But enough of my rambling. Basically here is a list of books that someone deemed worthy of this list. I have highlighted the one's I've read. I don't agree with a lot of this list but I always find it interesting to see what books are considered important.

Have you read more than 6 of these books?  The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen    This is a good example of a book author that I do not find worthy of any list. Mark Twain said that a library without any work by Jane Austen would be a good library even if it had no other books in it. He really hated her work. If you're ever in need of a laugh I recommend Googling "Mark Twain Jane Austen" 

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - Surprisingly good!

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible- I haven't read the whole Bible, but I'm pretty sure most people haven't. I have read at least 12 books of the Bible from beginning to end though.

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 1984 - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 

15 Rebecca

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife-- This is one that I don't understand why it made the list

20 Middlemarch -- George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited -- Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment -- Fyodor Dostoevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 

37 The Kite Runner

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown Another one I don't find deserving of any list 

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd -Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (unfortunately)

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (some of his short stories)

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams I'm reading this right now

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


Many of these have been on my "to read" list for a while. Now I have to get busy!!

20 Things

So I never did finish my goal of writing about something I was thankful for between Nov 1 and Thanksgiving, but here is a list of 20 things that I am thankful for.

 1- Thankful for blogging because it keeps me sane

 2- Thankful for my comfy bed

3- Thankful for living in a free country

3- Thankful for Family

 5- Thankful to be back in New England!

 6- Thankful for good money habits

 7- Thankful for my health

 8-  Thankful for my friends

 9- Thankful that my dad was able to help me work for a few weeks

 10- Thankful for a job

 11- Thankful for an interview for a job that fits my personal taste better

 12- Thankful for my amazing husband who is so patient with me

 13- Thankful for my dogs because they make my days so happy

 14-  Thankful for my education

15- Thankful for a warm dry place to live

16- Thankful for food on the table

17- Thankful for the internet because it allows me to stay in touch with everyone

18- A quiet house after a busy day

19- Thankful for books and my phone because they keep me busy when I'm really bored on public transportation.

20- Thankful for warm clothes to bundle up in when it's cold outside.



And now it's time to start making some home made Christmas Gifts. I am very excited.

Back to Being Thankful

I do plan to make a final list sometime between now and next Thursday, but last week I'm thankful that I was too busy to post much because I actually had some work and was making some money, and today I am thankful to have been given a job and to have another interview tomorrow, finally a light at the end of this tunnel.

Thankful for My Best Friend

The Past five or so years have been crazy for me and my best friend. We actually went a year without speaking, not because we were made at each other we were just at really different places in our lives doing very different things. To be honest that's still where we are in our lives. Still, no matter how different our lives are at the moment we still do things that make me swear she's like my platonic soul mate.

We both have the most ridiculous thought processes but they are very much the same. I used to think this was the result of how much time we spent together. But over the past few years we're been seeing each other 2-3 times a year and talking on the phone at most once a month and still our logic is impeccably similar.

We wanted to make cookies. I unfortunately left all my dinosaur cookie cutters in Oklahoma so we had to go out to buy new cookie cutters. the place we went had two packages to choose from and each package had two different shapes in it. We could choose between hearts and flowers, or stars and butterflies. Our analysis of this situation was hilarious because our thoughts are so alike. Talking over each other and finishing each other's sentences we came to the following conclusions.

1) Stars are the best shape offered.

2) Butterflies are the worst shape offered

3) Hearts and flowers are both boring and mediocre.

Therefore we both felt it was better to buy the stars and butterflies and at least get one awesome shape rather than two boring ones.

This might not sound awesome in writing but the way we were racing to finish each others thoughts was awesome. It's just so comforting to know that I am not alone in this world no matter how weird and eccentric I may be.

This shape is relatively awesome.

This shape is boring and awful.

This shape is utterly average.

We didn't want to use these shapes because the cookies were for her Jewish boyfriend. (I know it's hard to tell but the yellow one came in an Easter Bunny set.)

This shape is amazing but I thought it was in Oklahoma (I found it later.)

Stuffed Animal Surgery

nine month old me with Mother Goose

When I was little there was nothing more amazing in this world than my stuffed animals. They all had their own personalities which were tiny little extensions of my own personality. The were confidants, playmates, comforters, and anything else I needed them to be. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that stuffed animals are the most amazing gift any little girl could ask for. They only have one draw back, but it's a significant one. The more a child loves a stuffed animal, they more the stuffed animal will get ruined.

When something would happen to my stuffed animals (or other toys but most frequently stuffed animals) I would bring them to Dr. Meme to get fixed up. Dr. Meme is my grandmother and a pioneer in the field of stuffed animal surgery. She invented the neck transplant to fix up my poor poor Mother Goose more times than I can remember. She was always ready with a needle, thread, pliers, paint, bleach, whatever my toy required.

It's not that I didn't trust my mom. It's just that Meme had YEARS of experience and I only trusted my loved ones with the most expereinced inanimate object surgeon I could find. I would sit anxiously at the other end of the counter watching as she sewed animals back together, replaced gears in music boxes and performed other operations.

Like I said Mother Goose proved to be the biggest challenge. I got this Mother Goose when I was nine months old. Apparently at one point you could put cassettes in her and her mouth and eyes would move as if she was reading the stores, but I have no memory of this. I she was almost as tall as I was so I often carried her around by her neck. Eventually I pulled her head off her neck and messed the wiring all up. Her head didn't actually fall off but it hung awkwardly as if her neck was broken.

Dr. Meme never was able to make Mother Goose's mouth move again, but she did amazingly reattach her head to her neck. She cut into the seam in the fabric and used a wire coat hanger to support Mother Goose's neck and hold her head where it was supposed to go. It took about three different attempts at this "surgery" before it was a success.

This story may seem completely ridiculous now, but at the time I really felt as though Meme was a super hero when she fixed my toys. Despite all it's ups and downs I'm thankful that my childhood  allowed me to have such a close relationship with my grandparents.

Be Careful Who You Tell Things To...

Today I am thankful that my husband is very loving and has a great sense of humor when it comes to my mischief.

When we first met we worked together and were friends who bonded over each-others' "impishness." We both consider ourselves very clever and enjoyed trying to outsmart each-other. We worked at a grocery store together as cashiers. The bane of every cashiers existence is being in the express lane and J discovered a way around it. We had a rule that said if a cashier had over $600.00 in his or her drawer they had to get someone to come take the money away. This was to keep the money safe. Well J let his drawer get over $2,000.00 in it when he was on the express lane. When he was yelled at it he said "I didn't have time to have someone pick up the money I was too busy with all the customers." When I asked him about this he told me with a smirk, "If you do something wrong once, you'll never be asked to do it again."

Oh J, if only you'd known then that I was the woman you;d marry. Then maybe you would have thought twice about letting me in on your big secret. Flash forward to yesterday.

I was backing my car up. I was aware that my side view mirror was hitting a bush, but I wasn't concerned. Then suddenly.. CRASH!! It turns out that bush was hiding a big metal pole, and that pole took my mirror to the ground. J told me "You broke it your in charge of fixing it." So I did for $3.00.

I would like to thank the inventory of purple duct tape, and my husbands' patients for this moment of incredible awesomeness. I am still debating buying some leopard print duct tape and making a pretty design. I have a feeling I won't be in charge of fixing the car again anytime soon. Mission Accomplished,

More Thankfulness

November 4- I am thankful for my family. I know this is coming late but I knew that I was going to write about it  at some point so I figured I would write some less cliche things first. I wrote the other day about how much my dad works. I have always been every thankful for that. I am also thankful for how incredibly close knit my family is. What this essentially means is that we all annoy the heck out of each other on a very regular basis, but we also will stand by each other no matter what. I think it's a decent trade off.

November 5- To be very honest I am having a lot of trouble being thankful today. I'm not grumpy exactly, I'm just not exactly feeling grateful. That being said I am incredibly thankful that I live in New England again. I missed my family around the holidays and I am generally happier here.

View of Lake Winnipesaukee in NH from Mnt. Major

Really, is there anything not to love about this view?

November 6- I'm thankful for every life lesson about money that has contributed to me actually surviving this broken collar bone and resulting unemployment.

November 7- Today I am thankful for my health. This is another one that I knew I would write about eventually. It seems a little silly to me to write this with a broken collar bone, but that's very different than poor health. Before I broke my collar bone I was working as an in home aid for a child with cerbal palsy. He was a very sweet very happy child. He made me realize how little I have to complain about. (See I'm getting more thankful as the days go on.)

Thankfulness

A blogger who I follow is participating in a Giving Thanks Challenge I am not interested in the challenge part, but I am interested in the part where I would be writing everyday about one thing I am thankful for. Instead of making a month worth of short post I will probably just update this one a lot. I have decided to do this because I am very grumpy and all "woe-is-me" lately so I figured this will help. If you are interested in the challenge I learned about it through this blog. 

November 1- Today I am thankful for my blog because it encourages to me to write which keeps me sane.  


November 2- I am thankful for my incredibly comfy bed and my sweet dogs and amazing husband who make me feel safe so I can sleep well at night. (It is very obvious I am tired.)


November 3- The election made me think about how thankful I am to live in a country where we get to vote and have our voices heard.

EDIT: I wrote this original post really late at night so I apologize for getting the name of the challenge wrong a bunch of times. I have it figured out now.

Marrying Too Young

J and I got married when he was 22 and I was 21. Within a month we became prime examples of why 21 and 22 are too early to get married. Even with all the planning ahead we did ahead of time we were able to find our selves in shockingly unexpected circumstances and struggling to figure out how to manage our own personal problems while learning how to be married at the same time.

J and I spent the summer apart. His experiences that summer showed him that he would never be able to be part of the army and have a clean contentious at the same time. My summer showed me that my college major was not my passion. These lessons would have been hard enough to deal with in their own right but we were dealing with them and trying to figure out what they meant for our marriage. Both of us spent far too much time trying to "suck it up" because we knew the other was depending on us. It made us both miserable. We were each at points in our lives in which we really needed to be selfish, but we had also essentially given up that right. We made it work because we truly do love each other, but it was far from easy and, to be honest, it was probably not healthy for us either.

I am thinking about this now because I am finding my emotional self at odds with my married self. I have a broken collar bone and I have been pushing my body to do things it's not ready to do because WE need the money. I'm angry because I wonder if I would have been better off graduating on time and utilizing the resources the college had available to help me find an internship. I'm frustrated because career wise an internship would be better than a job, by money wise a job would be better than an internship. Newly graduated me needs an internship and married me needs a job. I would love to find something that could work as both but that's not an easy thing to find.

I want to be clear, I do not blame J, to be honest I do not blame myself either. Neither of us could have known better. I don't regret marrying J, although I wish I had waited longer and taken some time to worry about myself and no one else. I have made a promise to myself to allow myself to make decisions based on my best interest. J does that anyway.

 He always talks to me about decisions but I think we default to what is best for him. Again, I'm not assigning blame. I think he has been conditioned to look out for his own needs and I have been conditioned to look out for the needs of the people I love so we both tend to choose what's best for J. This is an example of how a few years of singlehood (completely made up word) would have done me a lot of good. Learning how to decide what is in my own best interest is going to be hard skill to hone within a marriage.

 I am thankful because I know J loves me and I know that he will support decisions that are in my best interest even when they are not ideal for him. However, it is not good for him to be chasing my dreams instead of his. My point in this is that I am not "suffering" alone. We both are going to struggle to grow individually within our marriage. the good news is we made it through a ridiculous struggle during the first two years, and if that's any indicator we will continue to grow together.

I'm Selling Out (or making an attempt at least)

So I have enabled ads on my blog. It's annoying to me, and I'm sure to anyone who looks at it, but it's life. Right now I have very little money and I've decided not to exhaust and possibility to make a little more. Right now this is simply an experiment. I have applied for a few freelance writing jobs, getting them would be completely amazing, to be honest applying to them is a long shot but I won't know if I don't try. I am trying to be bold and trying to give myself credit for my strengths. That's all for now.

Unusual Laundry Detergent

The city I live in is heavily populated with college students and recent college grads. There are many colleges in this area ranging from the very prestigious to a large variety of tech schools and it spans the spectrum in between. This means that I live around a very odd and unpredictable cross section of people. I enjoy this ever changing environment if for no other reason, because I will never run out of stories to tell. 

Last week I was at the laundry mat. My clothes has just finished their cycle in the washer so I was moving them over to the dryer. As I was a 20 something year old guy started loading his clothes into the washer right next to me. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he was pouring something from a glass jar into the washing machine. I try very hard to be a good little hippie (although I fail miserable) and I make my own all purpose cleaners so I really gave very little thought this at first. I assumed he could make his own detergent, or maybe he's like me and buys huge amounts of detergent at one time from BJ's (told you I'm a bad hippie) and that large bottle is way to big to carry so he moves it to something smaller. 

I loaded my first load of clothes into a dryer and turned to get the second load out of the washer. At this point I realized that the liquid he was using was a green/ yellow color and pretty watery. I was super curious to I stole another glance and that's when I saw it. The green label with pickles on it. As I stared I couldn't help but notice how much the liquid resembled pickle juice. Then I thought to myself. If I made home made detergent that looked THAT much like pickle juice I would defiantly store it in something other than a pickle jar. 

So now I am somewhat convinced that this guy washes his clothes with pickle juice. The longer I live here the harder it is to shock me.

Working with Dad

My dad has a maintenance business that he owns. He is busy and I am still in need of more work so I have been helping him this week.


One thing I've realized is how much of a security blanket I am used to sleeping with. I usually sleep near the wall with J closer ro the door. Our faithful pup likes to sleep next to his side of the bed and our big dog takes his place across the doorway. I never realized how protected that made me feel until I tried to sleep without it. I mean, I lived in this house four 15 years, you would think I could sleep in it comfortably.

I have been sleeping about 5 hours a night and doing a full day of physical work. I feel completely dead. Then I am woken from my sleep by the sound of my dad coming home. You see he has never been able to get hid business big enough to afford health insurance on his own, so in addition to working days he works nights full time got the insurance benefit. He works like every waking moment of his life to get by. It's inspiring, depressing, and very very meaningful to me.

I hope to update this later, but it's been a long time sense I updated and I really depend on writing to keep my head level.

I Look Like a Five Year Old. Booo!

I had an interview yesterday. It went reasonably well but I’m not going to say too much lest I jinx myself. At this point in my life I am a very skilled interviewee. I make a decent amount of money as a babysitter. Many parents like to interview sitters once or twice before actually leaving them alone with their children.  So I am interviewed almost weekly. It’s pretty cool because I used to have a paralyzing fear of interviews and now I really am not even slightly bothered by them.

Still there is a problem. While the interview itself is easy for me, getting dressed for the interview is a nightmare. There are two main problems. The first is that I look like a ten year old. I’m not kidding. Actually I am kidding, but only a little. In realty I look like I’m about 17 years old. I have been carded, recently trying to watch an R rated movie in theaters. I have been asked by the people at the gas station if I am old enough to be driving. When  handing in job applications I am regularly asked if I am aware that you have to be 18 to apply to that particular job. It takes a bit of a toll on my self esteem.

The second problem is really just a part of the same problem. That is that I dress like a 5 year old. There are many reasons for this. Growing up I never had a lot of money so I never was able to buy fashionable clothes. After 20+ years of not being able to buy fashionable clothes I wouldn’t know how to. I have a system. Jeans and plan colored T Shirts. I’m talking about shirts you could easily buy in 3 packs, at Wal-Mart.  If it’s winter I wear long sleeves, if it’s summer I wear short sleeves. Usually this works out fine for me because I am either running to class, running home to change before work, or just chilling with people who are used to me looking like a 5 year old. Usually I wear some ridiculous uniform for work, and mom’s of kids I babysit assume that I am only wearing what I am wearing so that I can paint, glue, make sand castles, be spit up on, and whatever else without worrying about my clothes.

So getting dressed for an interview is very difficult. It usually involves me going to a store, second guessing my chooses a lot and feeling guilty for spending money on a job I may or may not get. I spend so much time trying to figure out if glasses or contacts make me look older, and why my sister insist that running my hair through two hot plates will in anyway be a good thing. I have no clue how to wear make- up and I am still using up the make-up I bought for my wedding. As you can imagine though, wedding make-up is not really interview make-up.

The whole process makes me frustrated because I know I am competent, but I feel like if my employer thinks I look like I’m 7 they are going to write me off no matter what my competence level is. Anyways, my sister came to my rescue and I’m pretty sure I looked my age yesterday. Yeah!!!

A Pretty Revealing Post

I hate that I am doing this right now. What I want more than anything is plop myself down in a therapist's chair and have them tell me how to make it all better. To be honest that's what I know I need to do, but that involves insurance and that's still processing so this will have to do for now.

I had a ridiculous week last. I quit, well really I "stepped down" from a job for the first time ever. The circumstance was unusual and no ones fault but it made me feel like a failure. I was supposed to be babysitting for a family. The mom works at home, but needs and extra set of hands in order to actually get work done. The problem was that my personality did not fit in with the household at all. It was awkward and horribly strained. I could tell they were unsure of me and that made it even harder for me to relax resulting in more awkwardness. The thing that actually made me leave was the fact that the son simply could not adjust to me. I was so drastically different from anyone he knew (or at least that was the impression that I was getting) that he simply could not get comfortable around me.

I always tell parents when I meet them that it is important for me to be a pillar of constituency in their house hold that keeps the house running as close to how they would as possible. I also claim to understand the importance of finding the "right fit for your family." In keeping with all those things I called and said that I realized the personality differences were just too much for us to overcome and that it was creating an unpleasant household environment and felt they should find someone else. I should probably mention that they had 2 sitters so I wasn't leaving them empty handed.

It's been a very strange experience for me. I have never left a job like that before. I feel like it's my fault because I generally assign blame to myself, but really there is no way that "blame" can be assigned to either party. I have been babysitting almost constantly since I moved and this is the first family that I have completely not meshed with. I feel like the chances that the two of us found each other are slim. It's also a good experience to know when to call it quits. Generally I would not advocate quiting a job without having another lined up, especially considering my finances, but I could just tell that it wasn't working.

So today I woke up in a fury to get myself a job. I applied to temp agencies, I applied to jobs online, and I walked up and down a two mile strip near my house applying to every store that displayed a "Help Wanted" sign. I was feeling pretty darn good about my productivity when I noticed I had missed a call, actually several calls, from the parents of the girl I was supposed to pick up at school 2 hours prior. I feel completely stupid. I do not even understand how I could have been so incredibly focused on getting a job that I forgot to go to work. The worst part is the very personal job, the parents are annoyed and the girl is disappointed and I feel generally stupid.

I have 2 interviews tomorrow. Depending on how things go there I should be fine. Unfortunately it will be a few weeks until everything settles down to a reasonable pace and I feel comfortable. Since I moved her in July I have been waiting to get into a routine and I never do. It makes my schedule hard to keep track of because it's never the same two weeks in a row. The constant change is frustrating and confusing. My brain can't settle down. It gets so busy thinking about things that it forgets the things it's not thinking about. Like today. I wasn't putting much effort into the "normal" part of my day so much so that I forgot about it.

I want and need to believe that the worst is over. I want and need to believe that this was one mistake. My past tells me that this is the beginning of an ugly spiral, but I have taken charge since then and learned how to take care of myself. The trouble is that until I get through this unscathed I won't believe that I can. There is so much more to write about but I really need to go to bed. I'm just hoping that all the work I've done to learn how to control my anxiety will pay off. This is the test.

Run-in with a Fictional Creature

Last night at about 7 pm I was walking home from visiting a friend. As I turned the corner onto my street I saw a guy pull over in his car, park it, hop out, and stand next to another car. I didn't give it two seconds of thought at first, because living in a busy area has made people practically invisible to me. I don't really notice them and they don't really notice me. Still, as I walked closer I noticed that he was standing very straight with both his hands down near his belt buckle. At this point I was pretty sure he was "relieving" himself. This road is fairly busy, and the car he was standing next to is very close to some much more secluded areas so I was considering the possibility that he was actually a flasher and started to move toward the other side of the street. As I was moving I saw him get back in his car and curiosity got the best of me.

I passed the car and determined that, yes, he was actually peeing on the car. I also noticed that he had not actually left, he was still sitting in his parked vehicle. After I passed I noticed him get out and continue to pee on the car. This leads me to the real point of this post: what was he thinking? I have made a list of possible thought processes and reasons why they don't make sense.

Possible Reasons to Urinate on a Car and Reasons Why Those Reasons aren't Reasonable.

1) He really, REALLY had to pee. -- There is a parking lot directly across the street from where he was. At this time of night it is quiet and abandoned. Adjacent to that parking lot are many alleys between buildings. many of these have a dumpster in them which would provide shelter on three sides and make it less likely he get brought up on flashing charges. Also if he wanted to kick it 2oth century style, there is a 24 hour Dunkin' Donuts about a two minute drive away with a public bathroom.

2) He is getting revenge on the car's owner. -- The car in question is almost always parked on the street. It is my guess that the owner only uses it for weekend travel. By the time he sees the car next he will have no idea that anyone peed on it. Also there is significant body damage to the car so if he was attempting to damage the car no one will really notice that either.

3) He was drunk.-- at 7 pm, on a Wednesday, while driving when public transportation in easily accessible.

4) He was high. -- same reasons as before.

5) He was attempting to purchase the vehicle in the same manner that my dog "purchases" every inch of our morning walk. -- There are two main problems here. One is that the owner can simply buy the car back in the same way. The second is that he is not actually a dog.

6) He is a werewolf and was in the middle of transitioning at the moment. -- I've got nothing. I give him a pass and find this behavior 100% acceptable is he was a werewolf in a transitional moment between human and wolf.

So there you have it. I saw a werewolf last night. I will file this under Run-ins with Fictional Creatures right next to the time S and I hit a yeti. I hope my next run in is with a jackalope. Also I promise that this will be my last post about peeing on things for a while.

Oklahoma

This is not a poem about how I feel about Oklahoma, it's a poem about how I felt about a very specific place at a very specific time. It is another one I wrote out of a writing prompt. I wanted to write about something else but this was therapeutic.

Oklahoma 2009

I have no roots here.

I know if the right wind blows

(and it threatens to every day,)

I will simply blow away.

The winds are relentless;

the clay is indifferent.

The insects have taken over.

Survival is based on luck;

this place is not designed for life.

The sky is too close, threatening to fall.

We have no Mount Olympus and the

invaders mock the gods.

The sun is too hot;

the rain is too scarce.

No one treats this land as holy.

The colors are matte

And what else would they be?

If everything is threatened here

what will protect me?

I took these pictures in 2009 in Oklahoma.

The Time I Peed on a Church

I was bored after work today so I Googled writing prompts. I found one that suggested writing about the most boring day you can remember and trying to make it interesting. That's what started this story and then I remembered that something kind of funny happened and thus this post was born.

J and I were in the car, headed from the majestic beauty of rural Idaho to the unprecedented flatness that is south west Oklahoma. To make this incredible voyage of scenic wonder all that more enjoyable, I planned it at the end of a very grueling summer college program that had left me somewhere beyond sleep deprived. For added thrill we were departing from A Place I never Wanted to Go in order to get to A Place I Never Want to Be. J and I decided that packing this much fun into 24 hours would be the absolute most exciting way to start our married life together.

The journey started somewhere around 11:00 pm when my plane touched down in One Horse Town, Idaho. My goal for this tour de bore was to help James drive 1,500 miles in 24 hours from one army base hell hole to another. (I should mention that he wasn’t stationed in Idaho but there was plane trouble and that is where I ended up, I have no idea if there are even any military bases in Idaho.) Oh yes. We’d both been sleep between 2-5 hours a night for the past two months so we figured we’d add a little DANGER to the mix and see if it was possible to remain awake while horrendously sleep deprived and driving through the most boring stretch of the USA I have ever seen. (I have driven through 25 states so I have some frame of reference.)

The scenery for much of the way was nonexistent. I had driven through Colorado earlier that summer (it was a really long summer) and I was very excited to see Rockies again. This is when I learned Colorado’s dirty little secret; there are parts of Colorado that are very flat and have no trees. I was so disappointed. This is what I thought I was going to see.

But this is what I saw. I just dare you to try and stay awake during 24 straight hours of driving through that.

Another thing that is important to note in this picture is the complete and total lack of trees, or buildings or any kind of shelter really at all. This ended up causing me quite a bit of trouble.

For whatever reason when I was growing up people would grumble about humidity and what an awful thing it was and how much better the heat feels if there is no humidity. Well that’s a big giant lie that someone in a very flat, hot, stupid part of the country made up to make those of us who live in gorgeous, green, four season havens, jealous. In reality “dry heat,” also known as Stupid Awful Yankee Killing Heat, makes the air incredible dry. (Gasp?!) It reminds me of the air in my house when the heat was turned on in the winter. Of course we counteracted that with (shocker) a humidifier! Go figure.

Anyways, my throat was dry and horribly raspy, my lips were chapped, my skin was itchy, and my nose was sore. So J and I were drinking water by the gallon in order to stay ever so slightly hydrated. I probably drank a gallon by myself when I realized that I would soon need to relieve myself. I told J to pull over at the next stop.

Unable to find one on our own we decided to consult our GPS and see where the next town was. As it turns out the next town was hours away. I tried to be a big girl and deal with it, but we are talking about a lot of water being consumed. To make matters worse I was still incredibly thirsty and basically as miserable as I could possibly be. I told J that I didn’t care anymore and that I would go behind a tree.

Unfortunately as J pointed out, there were no trees. I started looking around. I could see for a very far distance and there were no cars coming in either direction. But then I realized that they could see me from just as far away so if a car appeared the people in it would most definitely see what I was doing. I had decided to take my chances but then we hit construction. There was still nowhere to pull over, but now I had an audience.

When we finally drove past the construction the situation has become desperate. That’s when divine intervention stepped in to keep me from peeing in public. In the middle of nowhere was a church. We decided to see if it was open and if there was a bathroom there. It wasn’t open but at this point there was no turning back. I decided to pee behind the church.

I am not very skilled at the whole relieving myself in nature thing. So I ended up peeing on the church. I’m a fairly religious person and I felt pretty guilty for doing it. Thankfully I believe God understands that the circumstances were extreme. Normally I would never pee on a building, except T Hall. I would totally pee on T Hall, even though I’m pretty sure my diploma would immediately be revoked and all my records would be deleted. It would still be so therapeutic.

I so wish this was the worst part of the trip but it got worse. More planes were involved and flights were canceled and I ended up camping out at an airport 1000 miles away from home seriously considering if a greyhound bus would be faster than waiting for a plane. To be honest the entire summer was kind of a bust except for the getting married and going on a honeymoon part. I think there are probably some more stories to harvest out of that summer so I’ll probably write more about it eventually.

P.S.

I eventually met a person who lived in the part of Colorado I am talking about and she told me that her family kept an umbrella in the car for emergencies such as the one I described.