Sick

I feel like my lungs might explode and that my throat is slowly being eaten away. In other words. I'm sick. Bleh.

I hate being sick, mainly because I'm not very good at it. I don't get sick that often (well really really sick), but when I do it lasts for eons or something close to it. I've been sick for 5 days and counting. I was taking antibiotics, but to no avail. And here I am, at work.

I want to go home :(

Bah Humbug

So, I went to a friend's house a few days ago and she had a friend in town from Paris there. At first I was so excited because I love Paris and thought it would be an incredible experience to get to know her and all the cool things she must do, but on closer inspection I realized. She was an asshole.

I was so disappointed and disillusioned. She was the classic case of I hate America, I'm moving to Paris on to bigger and better things! blah blah blah. She was pretentious and rude. The exact description of what all Americans think Paris is all about. That made me sad, but the one thing that really got me thinking that she had said was, "Why do you care what people think about you? It shouldn't matter."

This is a sentiment that has been uttered time and time again. When I was younger I really thought it was the way to go, but now I realize, those people who don't care what others think are jerks.

I don't think we should live our lives for other people by any means, but I think that caring what other people think is not a bad thing. It makes you more polite and more conscientious which is something the world is lacking these days. I wish more people would care what other people thought a little more because when it comes down to it...people are all we have, no?

Au revoir!

Christmas, anyone?

Good day to you all!

In order to catch you up, I shall say...

I moved, I unpacked, got moved to a new project at work, had a friend pass away and made some cookies.

So, now that you're all caught up, I thought I would talk to you all about Christmas. I enjoy Christmas. It's fun and junk and I like getting presents. The only thing I like more than getting presents is giving presents. I love finding the exact right thing for someone and wrapping it up to give to someone important to me.

Honestly, I don't care if I never get a present again. The giving is what I get excited about. Now, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not entirely selfless or anything, I still love presents, but there's something about getting someone the perfect gift that is oh so wonderful!!

I've recently discovered a talent for painting. Now, I can't paint something that I came up with all by myself or anything, but I can recreate things. Such as this...

My friend Freckles found it and loved it, so I duplicated it for her birthday. It was easy enough, so I've kept the tradition alive and painted her this for Christmas...

So, if there's anything you want that is weird and obscure and slightly cartoon like, send it on over and I'll be happy to duplicate!

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas!

Moving on...South

Good Morning!

I am moving to a new apartment this weekend and all I can say is, Eep!

There is so much to do and so little time left. I always start packing really early because I get so excited about it, then I get less excited when I realize I've packed a bunch of things I thought I wouldn't need, but totally did need.

So I stop packing for a couple of weeks and then all of a sudden it's time to move. Oops! I spent all of last weekend gathering up odds and ends and throwing them in boxes. I also forgot to label a lot of the boxes. Some say that crazy! I say it's like a game! What all is in this unlabeled box?! Who knows?! Certainly not me.

I've moved every year for the past 5 years and would really like this place to stick for awhile. Especially since it's on the 3rd floor and moving all of this stuff down three flights of stairs again in one year seems like a monumental undertaking. I would really like to be settled for awhile.

Also, I'll have a fireplace and no one living above me!

How I hate upstairs neighbors with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Previous neighbors have enjoyed furniture moving once or twice a week, vacuuming at 3:00 am, playing the trumpet (not even kidding) and something that can only be described as sounding like bowling while using their 2 year old daughter as the ball.

Ah, the freedom of being on the top floor.

So, 4 days in counting until the big move! Wish me luck!

Seriously?

I hate it when people do not know how to spell the (non)word y'all.

It is a contraction of YOU and ALL. Not a contraction of YA and ALL.

Also, why can people not spell definitely? Basically you're describing something that is definite. Definitely. NOT definately. Definate is not even a word. It would be cool if it were a word, but it is DEFINITELY not a word.

Something else that is sort of off the subject, but also warrants ranting about.

At work we have a group of people that are "assistants." They really just touch everything and mess it up before it gets to the more important people, i.e. me. They have recently learned the phrase "Please advise." Oh geez. At this point it has become so overused that I totally ignore it and don't give anyone any advice about anything and just do it myself.

Example,

We got this from this place, but they say they have a different address. Please advise.

ADVISE YOU ON WHAT?! What advice do you need? Stop being dumb? That's some pretty solid advice.

In lieu of yelling at little 18 year old girls, I just do it myself.

I'm definitely out of here y'all.

Friendship is a 10 letter word

Being a girl is hard.

Boy that's quite a thesis huh? It could encompass and include millions of things. Well here's where I'm going with it.

Boys have it easy in the friend department. You like sports, you find another guy who likes sports, you're automatically friends. You like video games, you find another guy who likes video games and you have a common interest to bond over and spend hours doing while hanging out.

If you're a guy and your guy friend pisses you off, you get in a fight, it might lead to blows, then you're cool. (This is all speculation, but this is how it appears from the other side.) That's it. You're cool. I mean, what is that?

Girls, however, have predominantly girl friends. Girls are bitches. We befriend each other sometimes in genuine friendship, sometimes because we have to, and sometimes we just want something that girl has. Everything is a game.

Girls have little to bond over. It seems like everything we like, we want. You can't bond over something you're fighting over. Perhaps I'm exaggerating and generalizing, but that's what it seems to boil down to.

If your girl friend does something to piss you off, you don't talk about it, you just try to get back at your "friend" through passive aggressive means. Be that talking behind her back, or using her toothbrush to clean the sink (not something I've done, but something my friend has done, not to me, I hope). It seems impossible to find a genuine friend past the age of 10. Even at 10, though, you might only be friends with someone because she has a pool, or cool toys.

Hence, being a girl is hard. Are my friends mine? Do they even like me? What horrible things have they said behind my back?

I'm not saying I'm not guilty of all of these things. I'm a girl through and through. I've trash talked and passive aggressived and all of the above. When will it be done? Who knows?

And, in addition to all of this, we have all sorts of things to live up to. We have to be pretty, skinny, successful, not crazy, not bitches, not slutty, not mean, not shy, not scared, independent, dependent and if we haven't been in a relationship for a certain amount of time there's something wrong with us.

I don't know that I necessarily would rather be a man, but it sure seems like it would easier.

But you know what? They may be thinking all the same things about themselves.

Why can't we just be?

Anyway, 2 more days till my birthday!

Breakin' up is hard to do

My mom has a large family, three sisters and one brother to be exact. Multiply that by spouses and children and it equals out to about 16 people. Family gatherings were always loud and fun.

My dad has a small family, one half sister, a mother he disowned about 10 years ago and a father who died when my dad was in his 20s.

When my parents were married it made the decision of where to go for the holidays easy. There was really no one to visit on my dad's side, so we would make our way to a small town in North Louisiana and hunker down in my grandparent's house. I loved it there.

After my parents got divorced it was still easy. I was 13 and they told me where to be. Thanksgiving with my Dad, Christmas with my Mom.

Also I got two birthdays and two Christmases. AWESOME!

Until I turned 18. Then I had to make my own decisions. Crap.

Being a divorced kid is difficult. I hate leaving one parent alone for any holiday. I always end up feeling really guilty about it.

People always say divorce is hard on the kids because they have a broken house hold blah blah, but really I think it's hard because you have to choose. Mother vs. Father. It's a hard decision to make.

Sometimes I wish I were 13 again and could just let the winds take me where they may. I find decision making extremely hard. I guess that's the Libra in me. I want everyone to be happy, and can rarely just do what I want. Because essentially what I want is for everyone to be happy.

Maybe I just just move to a shack in the woods and become a crazy hermit. Maybe not. The woods creep me out.

Oh well. At least I still get two birthdays and two Christmases.

October is bustin' out all over

Happy first day of October!

You all might not be as excited about October as I am, but that's ok. I can be excited enough for ALL of us!

You see, my birthday is next Friday the 9th and I way love my birthday and junk. I love everyone telling me "Happy Birthday," I love the presents, I love the attention, I love it alllllll.

Also, Halloween is my favorite holiday so that put October at the top of my list of my 12 Favorite Months.

SEGUE!

There is a girl at my office (she shall be known as...BreadToast. Yes, BreadToast.) BreadToast who is super cool and funny and really nice, BUT (big but) she is forever know-it-alling me into the ground.

Example;

I found an adorable picture online of a baby wiener-dog in a hot-dog bun. It was delightful! So of course I passed it around. "Ha-ha!" and "Aw!" everyone said. Except for BreadToast.

BreadToast asked me, "Do you know what that dog is called?"

"Why yes," I said, "It's a Daschund." (Note: I pronounced this the "American" way, like Dock-sunned.)

"No," she replied, "It's pronounced (insert crazy way the German's say it)."

I just proceeded to repeat Dock-sunned over and over and over and over and over until she relented.

I won.

http://feverishthoughts.com/oddplanet/tag/daschund/

OUTBREAK!

There has been a flu outbreak as of late in my office.

My roommate, Freckles, was the first victim and she slowly spread the love around. One of my best work-friends, Galapagos, just caught it. She actually went to the hospital and the doctor she saw put her in quarantine. She's not allowed back at work until Monday.

Two more coworkers have been housing the bug as well, and today I started feeling like crap.

My plan, if I choose to accept it, is to power through and ignore it. That's how I've solved most of my problems up till now. I figured it was worth a shot!

I'm hoping that when I wake up tomorrow everything will be cool and I can finish out the week and have the weekend to spend in my ever loving bed.

Wish me luck and wash your hands constantly!

Ghosts Ahoy!

I have an unnatural fear of ghosts.

If I'm alone in my house and I hear a crack or a pop I automatically assume it's a ghost. Why is this unnatural? My house is old and was poorly built, it's just the house settling, but oh no! I think it's a ghost.

I've never had an experience with a ghost or really even known someone who has passed on the fear to me, but I can't shake the feeling that they like follow me or something.

That being said, I love Ghost Hunters and A Haunting. I'm so masochistic. I can't help myself. It intrigues me.

When I was a kid my best friend Taylor was all about ghosts. We used to read these books called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

They scared the crap out of me, but I wanted to know. What's even worse about these books is they're written for children. CHILDREN! And they still terrified me. Somehow I always felt safer and braver when I was with Taylor. We did stupid things just to scare ourselves silly.

There was a house next door to hers that was vacant for what seemed like years, in hindsight it was probably only a few months, but when you're 8 time goes by more slowly.

She used to tell me stories about how she had seen people going in but not coming out, and how some days the house was filled with furniture and the next day everything would be gone, but no one would have moved in and how the pool was filled with green slime. (The last one was actually true because no one had been there for awhile to chlorinate the pool.)

We used to "sneak" up to the house and peer in the windows, make believe we had seen someone floating down the stairs and run like hell back to her house.

I would be scared to death, but exhilarated at the same time. I wish I still had that devil-may-care philosophy on life, but alas, time and life have hardened and logicified me.

Sometimes I think about Taylor and our scary stories and smile to myself, then I hear the laminate floor upstairs pop and whip around to ensure that I am not being haunted.

I can stand the rain

I love rain. There's something so cozy about a rainstorm. The more thunder and lightning the better!

My friend, I shall call her Freckles from here on out, recently moved to my town from up north from a town where they rarely have the crazy rainstorms we have here in Houston. Having grown up here I guess I either got so used to it that I just ended up loving it, or I've loved it from the beginning.

Freckles hates the rain. If there's a small chance of rain her whole day is shot. If there's a small chance of rain I check the forecast at least 10 times a day to see if it's getting closer.

And every storm is different!

There are the summer sun showers.

The summer downpours that leave that asphalty wonderfully rainy smell lingering for hours

There are the Hurricane Season rains.

Then there are the knock down drag out lightning and thunder storms. Those are my favorite.


I stand at the windows (very unsafe, I know) and watch while it seems the world is about to end. The crashes and bangs and flashes of light look and sound like an enormous battle raging.

The world is a magically weird place.

The English Language is a Confusing Thing

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

I am feeling quite cozy, thank you for asking. I'm hanging out with my dad, he fed me steak and potatoes, we laughed together at the original "War of the Worlds," and now I am safely up in "my" room (the guest bedroom) about to turn in for the night. Yes, I always go to bed this early.

I just wanted to share an anecdote with all of yous guys.

Ahem. When I was a small child I didn't understand what Labor Day was. I knew we didn't have to go to school and that my parents didn't have to go to work, but I was unsure what Labor Day was all about.

In my head I had reasoned that it was like Veteran's Day or Memorial Day, just one of those days they had picked at random to honor our nation's heroes.







Then I remember hearing the word "labor" on a sitcom of some kind, probably Friends, or maybe even Murphy Brown (she had a child out of wedlock, you know!) and realized that it meant "having a baby." (I'm sorry I'm so fond of quotation marks today)

Oh! I thought, it must be like Mother's Day. But wait, why do Mothers get two holidays and Fathers only get the one?

I felt oh so bad for my poor Father for oh so many years. The true meaning of Labor Day actually eluded me until I was 16 and held my first job and subsequently, received the first Monday in September off.

Oh. Labor. Work. Got it.

There's a lot of blonde under this brunette sometimes.



Happy Labor Day to all you Mother's out there! Also everyone else with a job! Have a great weekend!

Blog-o-clock

Good tidings!

I have been a fan of other people's blogs for years now and decided, finally, "Hey! I can do that. Maybe." So here I go. Welcome to my first foray into the (adorably named) Blog-o-sphere.

I suppose I should divulge a little about myself. Well, I wish I had a wacky crazy awesome life story, but I do not.

In a nutshell:

• I grew up normally
• My parents divorced when I was 13
• I acted out a teeny bit
• I went to college
• I dropped out of college
• I started working 9 to 5 (Just like Dolly Parton!)
• I started a blog

There! You're all caught up.

I'll try to think of some awesome things to post soon. I think first I'll have to have some sort of life, but perhaps not!

If you read this, bless you. If not, then why the hell am I talking to you?