The First Heartbreak Isn't Soon Forgotten

I have always been a dorky little person.  When I was a kid this was manifest in my fascination with rocks and minerals.  I had a field guide and would pore over its pages in fascination and wonder.  My dad gave me a piece of pumice he'd found in the pocket of a new pair of jeans.  I spent a lot of time thinking about how cool rocks were.

I would beg to go to the Discovery Channel Store, and once there my dad would give in to my sad eyes and let me pick a polished stone to add to my collection.  Obsidian, amethyst, quartz, tigers eye, I had it all.
I would come in from playing outside with a handful of rocks for the collection.  In hindsight they were probably chunks of concrete or macadam, but they were exciting nonetheless.  I remember one in particular that was triangular and had three layers :white, brown, white.  It was my peanut butter sandwich rock.

During these early childhood years I spent all of my playtime with the twins across the street.  We would play in The Jungle (a cluster of trees in their yard), which was down by The Crick (often ran neon orange from runoff from the University).

I remember vividly the actions leading up to my first betrayal.

I found a stick in their yard that was Y-shaped and perfect for a slingshot. They weren't happy that I took it, but I did.  "Finder's keepers!", I said.
The next day when I went outside to take inventory of my rock collection, my clear plastic bin of rocks was missing.  They were GONE.

Later they told me, smugly, that they had stolen them in the night and dumped the entire collection in the crick.  A revenge dump of all of my dreams because I took a stick.  I was devastated and was never able to rebuild my collection to its former glory.  Still bitter, and not a geologist.

It's A Sad, Rainy, Horrible Day

Loss isn't fair.  It hurts too much.

It hurts so much today because I lost my best friend.  She was with me through everything.  For 15 years she was the love of my life.  Sophie was my soulmate.  And I feel so guilty for being so sad because Sophie is a dog.

But she wasn't just a dog.  She was my everything.

She was born July 21, 1999 and she died November 6, 2014.  She was old.  She was precious.  She was perfect.

She survived eating 2 packages of Oreos, some mishchief'd Hershey bars, a pair of glasses, earrings, my mom's Bible, countless pairs of underwear, and more than one mouse the cat had already beheaded.

When I was younger, she would pick through my Barbies and find a hot pink dress or a shoe to take with her on her morning walk.  Her favorite toy was Spitty Monkey.  She learned to beg at dinner from Jake the Yorkie.  She snored in her sleep like a small, but just as pudgy pig.  She was so happy when I came home that she'd wiggle and howl until her throat went hoarse.

She only knew two commands: SIT. and DOWN. She knew CAR meant going to the vet.  She knew OUT meant an opportunity to run free.  And any word said in an excited tone was her name.  "Mustard!!", "Kite!!", and "Sophie!!" were responded to with equal enthusiasm.

I will love her for the rest of my life.  I miss her.  My heart is completely broken.  I don't know what else to say.

goodbye, my sweet, smelly, blind, deaf, senile old girl.

She's ok now.  

I Thought I Had Ebola

I'm only a little kidding; I thought I had ebola.

This is what I know about the virus.  It is not deadly, but what it does to your body is lethal.  I guess that's the same as guns or just about anything at all.  Guns aren't deadly, but when a bullet pierces the heart it's lethal.  Water isn't deadly, but breathing it in sure is.
In any case, this is what I understand of how ebola works.

It comes into the body and it sneaks in the backdoor of the immune system.  It shuts down the immune system's alarms, so the body goes on thinking all is well and that there's no monkey virus coursing through its veins.
Then suddenly the immune system wakes up and reacts how I did the morning of every college final ever, "oh shit oh shit oh shit".  It overreacts and sends out too many virus-killing soldiers and this causes the high fevers and the organs shutting down and the bleeding from every opening.  It's your own immune system that kills you.

And so I thought that Friday was the end.  I was in Pittsburgh- geographically practically living with the woman who got ebola in Dallas and flew home to Cleveland and exposed her wretched disease to countless others.

I woke up feeling like I always do- tired, annoyed, but fully alive.
Then somewhere around 1pm my health took a turn for the worse.  I swallowed my spit as any person does every few minutes and OUCH my throat was sore.
Then my joints started to get restless and achey.
I took a shower a little while later, which helped me to realize that my skin hurt.

I spent the rest of the day in a dizzy daze, throat sore, achey bones, and skin that hurt.

I tried to get out of the confines of my room to experience a little of world for the last time before I died and 20 minutes into the journey my fever spiked.

I thought I'd never make it back to bed alive.

And once I was in bed I didn't think I'd ever wake up again.

But I did wake up.  I woke up at 3:38am and I threw up once into the bathtub.  My fever and all aches and pains vanished immediately.

My throat still hurts, though, so maybe I'm not totally in the clear yet.
do you think if i recovered from ebola my bosses would let me do whatever i wanted for a little while? like, maybe i could stop coming to work but they'd keep paying me? maybe i could go on an adventure or sleep a whole lot.

I'm A Muggle.

I grew up during the Decade of Harry.  I was on vacation in Denver when the last book was released- I went to the closest Walmart and sat in line until Midnight when it was released.

I have a necklace of an owl carrying a bit of mail in its talons, undoubtedly Hedwig.  Perhaps it's Pigwidgeon carrying Ron's Howler.

I went to Potted Potter to see the entire series acted out in 90 minutes.

It's my greatest desire to go to Harry Potter World.

I have a crush on Cedric Diggory.  duh.

I'm 27 years old.  And I'm a Muggle.

I'm a Muggle in the wizarding sense, in that I have no wizarding powers and I went to a normal high school sans robes, wands, and spying kitties.  I'm also a Muggle in the Muggle sense, in that I have no skills to speak of.

I'm at an impasse in my life.  It's time to move on from my current job.  The issue I'm encountering is that, though I desire a new career, I have no skills to aid in this transition.  I can hardly be defined as qualified to do the job I have now.  I've been in this field since I graduated college and now I fear I'm stuck.

I don't take kindly to feeling stuck.

What would I like to do instead?  I DONT KNOW.  I haven't the slightest clue what it is that I'm supposed to do instead.  I love to cook, but I can't cook well enough to be a chef.  I love to paint, but my skills are at a hobbyist level and not worth any amount of money.  I love to travel, but travel costs money and doesn't supply it.  And so I feel stuck.

What jobs are there for people like me?  At what job can a Muggle thrive?

If anyone knows of an open position, and the employer is looking for any/all of the following attributes, please send them my way.
- I am cripplingly shy when I first meet people.
- I tell really bad jokes.
- I ignore people who are rude to me, CEOs included.
- I'm not motivated by money.
- I am actually very friendly.  Maybe even flirty.
- I love to learn new things.
- I love helping people.
- I have an exceptional attention span for things that interest me.
- I'm not tidy, nor organized.
- I'm logical, mostly.
- I'm sometimes emotional, but I keep sadness contained to the ladies room and anger contained to muttering under my breath.
- I'm very good at remembering things.
- I know a lot more about computers than a lot of people, but I hate computers.  Don't make me keep doing computers.
- I don't know anything about running an art gallery, but I want to anyway.

So.
Employers, get in line.

Things To Complain About, Part 2

I got a wine uncorker!  I used it once to open a bottle of Noble Vines red blend- the black label with the giant red 1 on it.  It was delicious!  I drank it while I ate chinese food and played Donkey Kong.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a bottle of Noble Vines merlot- the black label with the giant red 181 on it.  I twisted the uncorker into the cork and pulled and yanked and jibber-jabbered, until I managed to bend the uncorker to a 45 degree angle.  

It is now useless.

And I, again, don't have an uncorker to open the bottle of Noble Vines red blend that I love so much.  THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD A SWORD TO CHOP IT WITH.

Remember That Time We Went To Hot Springs, Arkansas?

Fun fact! Hot Springs, AR is the only city that is also a National Park.  It is also the home town of one Mr. President Bill Clinton (a wooden sign in the town square depicts the former President as a high school-er playing saxophone).

At some point in history, bath houses were the business.  Everyone was nuts about bath houses.  I could go into the facts about hydrotherapy, but it's boring and I don't know anything about it (because when I tried to learn I got bored and stopped paying attention to what I was reading).  All I know is what happens in bath houses in our modern times.

First, you pay a lot of money.  If your travel companion is of the opposite sex, this is the last time you will see that person for a while.

Now that you're broke and alone, they hand you a white bath sheet and tell you to get naked and wrap yourself in it.

And so now you're broke, alone, and naked.

They then take you to a big claw foot tub and you take the white sheet off in front of a stranger called Miss Patty.  She makes you stand there in the thickest, most uncomfortable silence of your life while the tub fills with water.  Once full, you climb in the tub, and Miss Patty scrubs your body, never once speaking or making eye contact.

She turns on a bubble-maker and you get jostled around the tub for about 20 minutes.  Miss Patty comes back and drains the tub.  You are then instructed to put the white sheet back on and follow her to another room.

This room looks like the bedroom in the story books about Madeline.  A dozen beds lined up on either side of the room, only instead of beautiful cast iron beds like in Madeline, they're vinyl massage tables. Miss Patty will ask if any area of your body is particularly sore.  You might say "my back", or "my feet".  If you say your back hurts, she will place a wet towel underneath you.  This wet towel is hot.  It is so hot you might cry a little bit.

After Miss Patty is satisfied with how "relaxed" your sore muscles are, she will take you to a metal booth.  I'm fairly certain this booth's original purpose was for beheadings.  You sit on a little ledge in the booth, a door which only covers from your shoulders down is closed, then a trap door is lowered over your head.  It has a hole cut out so your head will pop through.  It will look, to the casual observer, as though a head is resting on a shelf.

Miss Patty will turn on hot steam and make you sit there in your own sweat for an eternity.  Maybe 5 minutes.  But 5 minutes is far too long, anyhow.  From your seat in the metal box, you can watch all the other, equally uncomfortable women shuffle around in their white sheets from station to station.

The last step is to take an ice cold shower.  Miss Patty will sit you in a tub of frigid water and turn on the shower.  This is the most enjoyable part of the experience.

Once your lips turn blue you are dismissed back to the dressing room and are permitted to leave.

From there we walked around town, had lunch before heading off to the next stop on the list, and...I may have forced Jason to dress up like a cowboy/gangster and take Olde Timey pictures with me...

Things To Complain About, part one

There is a beautiful bottle of red wine sitting on the counter in my kitchen.  I can see it from here.  I want very much to drink the wine inside of the bottle.

But.

I have no bottle un-cork-er.

The bottle has been taunting me for three weeks.  I move it around to different locations in the kitchen on occasion.  This makes me feel like I'm closer to it; a friendly bond between woman and wine.

Every day it's becoming more and more difficult to not smash the bottle on the edge of the counter and lap up the wine from the floor.  I've also considered going the the thrift store down the road and buying a sword, to chop the top off (but at that rate I might as well just buy an uncorking apparatus and be done with it).

Sundance Film Festival

After arriving at Devil's Tower around 1am, we were weary and poached the camping fee.  No one at the booth?  Not my fault.

(we did pay the next morning)

Jason was jealous of the climbers who were scaling the massive rock, and went as far up as he could go without climbing gear.  I sat at the base and was the photographer for the Family Vacation Photo Op Enthusiasts.  After a while I became bored and to keep myself company, I decided to take the photography very seriously and would place the families in aesthetically pleasing arrangements, and photograph them from the ground and from other extreme angles.  But I have no experience in photography, so I was mostly ruining their vacation photos.

An hour later Jason came back down the mountain and said "Sundance is down the road! Let's stop there for breakfast! Ready to meet some famous people??"

Oh, how excited I was!

Breakfast with Sean Penn, perhaps?? YES PLEASE!

Sundance, Wyoming has a population of about 1,000 people.  There is a gas station, a lot of empty cinder block buildings, rickety houses, and a lot of open space.

Not only are there no famous people there, but there is also no where to have breakfast.

Sundance, WY, though it shares a name with the film festival, is not the location of the Sundance Film Festival.

We continued down the road for a while (I believe I drove this stretch, which was probably a mistake as it was nearing noon and I'd not yet eaten), until we reached Deadwood, SD.  We ate waffle sandwiches with no one famous.