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.

The Downside of Being Unemployed

I am always a little bit disturbed when I open my computer to do something completely unrelated to the internet and find myself looking at Google within five seconds of it being open. I feel a little pathetic. To be honest I feel pathetic a lot lately. I know I broke my collar bone and that put me out of work, it’s not as if I am in this predicament by my own doing, but it’s their just the same. On top of not bringing home any income and feeling stupid that way, S is always working and I don’t have enough money to go visit any of my other friends because they live too far away so instead I sit home all day on the internet because we don’t have enough money for cable. This means that I get to feel useless even after J gets home. He gets home from super boring temp jobs and when he gets home I have nothing to say to him. I want to tell him all about my day but then when I think about how that would sound and change my mind.

“Hi J how was your day?”

“Boring; how was yours”

“Well I woke up, ate cereal, watched some shows on hulu.com that were so bad I’d be embarrassed to admit that I watched them, then there was a cat on the internet that said “I eated you solez” then there were some crazy text from people I have never met, and for the most part would never dream of being friends with, then What’s her faces status was “eating a muffin,” so then I watched a show about people who try to lose weight…..”

I should at least read/ watch the news so that I can contribute SOMETHING to a conversation. It also doesn’t help that J’s job is “sitting around to answer a phone that never rings.” Thank goodness we do stuff on the weekends so that we at least have something to talk about. The sad thing is our conversations are what drew me to him. I think that’s part of why this is driving me so crazy. To be realistic though, when I worked 45 hours a week as a babysitter I told him about Nickelodeon and Disney TV shows all evening so I guess this about the same. (Interesting side note: Microsoft autocorrected Nickelodeon for me.)

Feeling Safe

"I never realize how much I like home until I've been somewhere really different for a while." ~ Juno

Yesterday I went to the Deerfield Fair for the first time in 7 years. I am very surprised at how fun it was considering that I couldn't go on any rides. (stupid collar bone :- / ) All I did was watch the herding dog demonstration, which I of course found fascinating, and a little bit of the horse pull which I love, looked at the animals, and eat some fried dough.

I really don't think it would have mattered what I did as long as I was there. It was the most at home and relaxed I've felt in years. The weather was crisp and autumnal and it felt amazing. Fall has always been my least favorite season, I still really loved it but it was no where near as for me as the three that I missed. Suddenly I was experiencing fall like I never had. It's picturesque and perfect I'm still amazed at how being away for a while can change my views.

What was the most striking for me was how incredible comfortable James and I were in public. I never felt comfortable in public in Oklahoma because of our circumstances. Anywhere we went in OK most the people around us was part of the culture we were rebelling against. The represented constant reminders of the impossible fight that we were fighting. Even though we were the only ones who knew, it still made our environment seem hostile.

Now we are back in the environment that helped shaped our beliefs and the relief is huge. I even occasionally tell people the truth, the whole truth and they are not phased by it. It makes changes how I view everything. There was a big army recruiting station (not sure was it was supposed to be, but that's what it actually was) right next to the dog demonstration we watched. I can't explain how, but knowing that we were probably not alone in thinking it was obnoxious changed it in my mind from a "threat" (I hate using that word but ultimately that's what it was in my brain) to a trivial nuisance. I especially loved listening to James mock it without anger, fear, or hatred in his voice. At some point our ridiculously high stress levels became normal to us and I truly believed we'd live like that forever. I can't believe what a relief it is to let it all go.

Apple Picking

On Friday (9/24/10) J and I went apple picking. I have trouble with eating apples because of all the wax and such that they put on them. Other fruits and veggies bother me sometimes but apples drive me crazy, so we headed up to an organic apple orchard. We went to Raven Hill Orchard in East Waterboro ME. I have to tell you I really liked it. It was small but the owner was really down to earth and friendly and the food was very reasonably priced. The apple selection was small, partially due to a last frost this year, and partially due to the organic methods. Still his prices were very fair. J got a homemade dough nut for $.50 and I got a homemade muffin for $2.00. Both were delicious.

One thing I noticed about the farm was how difficult it was to grow apples using organic methods. It made me really appreciative for how much easier it is to grow food with modern day technology. It took maybe three times as long as it usually did to pick apples, because so many had been eaten by bugs. It really made me appreciate how spoiled I am. When I want food I can usually just go to the store and get it, or really I can simply go to my cabinet and get it. As I was pouring over the apple trees and lowering my standards of what apples would be considered acceptable to eat I thought about how much more work it used to be to grow food and how much more appreciative people probably were for food. I feel like it is so easy to take food for granted and not give any thought to where it comes from or the people who go without it.