Six senses feeling, Five around a sense of self.

I was recently invited by a co-worker, Sarah, to join her bowling with a group of her close friends. I normally don't entertain that kind of invitation because I have a specific group of my own friends at work and that has been quite enough for me. However, since my cubicle moved I have gotten to know another small group of people and have branched out a little bit. I like Sarah and I haven't been "out" in awhile, so I thought it would be good for me. I had fun, but there was some awkwardness and a few slights that have been bothering the heck out of me.

Initially, I was picked with two of her male friends in the front seat of an SUV with Sarah & I in the back. It was quite obvious from the get go that these two guys were in a bro-mance. They had that rare guy-on-guy relationship which is impossible to understand or infiltrate. God help the women who eventually end up with those two, that's all I can say.

But I digress. We went to T.G.I. Friday's for dinner, met by one of Sarah's female friends. She was nice, a little quirky, but all over the place. She reminded me of a friend I had in high school {Katie- who I have seen a couple times after graduation and since then has completely snubbed me}. When we all sat down, I was in the aisle between Sarah and one of the guy friends.

The guy who sat next to me, not by my personal choice but by a sort of musical chair scenario, was not happy with the situation. He immediately positioned his chair as close to the wall and as far away from me as humanly possible. The person sitting on the other side of him was his love-buddy, who he was literally on top of. The friend continually told him to move over, but he would utter things like "I can't face the wall!".

I'm an observer so it was pretty easy to see what was going on.

It would have been less obvious if he had 'NO FAT CHICKS' printed on his Red Sox jersey. I always find it comical when men my age think that I am automatically going to want a ride on their love train. 

It's just like when homophobes meet an openly gay man- they get it in their heads that the gay man is just going to drop on all fours for them just because they have a hankering for the Y chromosome. It's like they think that just because I am overweight, that I don't have my own preference. There's no way a fat girl could possibly want to have common interests and an actual physical attraction to a man. 

It definitely didn't help that this dude was a meathead. Total JOE SIX PACK. I could read him like a book. He desires a skinny girl that his friends will bust his balls about- a trophy girlfriend. Someone well above what his own standards should rationally be. He wants someone who will go to baseball and football and hockey games with him, who will scream expletives at the players and slop beer all over her ample bosoms. He absolutely does NOT want an overweight English major who spends most of her free time reading literature and dabbling in the arts. He does NOT want a female who is marginally smarter than him, who has been around the bend with a man even smarter than her, and who will not stand for any bullshit.

I could look at him and see what he will be in ten short years. Balding with a larger waistline than mine, due to his extreme love of fatty foods and starchy beers.

He had made some side comment about a fat guy who did not want to hang out with them, and about his laziness to lose the weight. As a direct result of that comment {which was quickly silenced by the realization that a tubby girl was on board} I will get immense pleasure when I see run into him someplace down the road. Even then, he will likely have his same meathead views but slightly modified to fit his own situation. But funnier still was the reality of my feelings towards his "type". He could not have made a sillier attempt to say "NO WAY LADY" without realizing it was completely unnecessary. The moment he opened his yaw, I felt I would rather die a slow and painful death than date someone like him.

I mean, a cartoon like Family Guy may give some meatheads the idea that they can ask for standards in a woman that they shouldn't fulfill for themselves.

But don't make me feel like a lesser person because I'm not the girl of your deluded dreams.

And that's the end of my rant.

I haven't written in my blog in like, forever. It's mostly because I feel like nobody really reads it any more (sad face). It is also because I spend at least eight hours a day umbilically attached to computer, so my tolerance for sitting in front of one to voice my thoughts has been very low. I thought I would throw out some updates, in case anybody cares!

One awesome thing about my job is that they are paying for college! I had to find a major that I could start with online and that my job would deem customer service related. I squeezed by with 'English Language & Literature'. This satisfies my second love, next to art. Since the dusk of high school, I have become an obsessive reader. I love writing creatively, but I definitely need guidance. I honestly don't know what kind of secondary job it could lead to. I'm leaving all of my options open. There is a hope that I could work in publication- something independent but exciting. Who knows, right?

It is kind of insane that I haven't written in my blog because I loathe computers, but wish to take online classes 2-3 days a week. It was a difficult decision, but with my strange schedule and the easier entry, it made more sense to me.

I almost went through the grueling process of attending UNH because of it's close proximity and awesome academics. The truth is, I may still consider it. The only problem is that my job limits the amount of degrees it will pay for, so I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck. I will go through a semester online with SNHU, if I'm unhappy with it, I'll look into transferring the credits to UNH and start with something else. Another complication with that idea is that I am trying to get the Bachelors under my belt for the possibility of needing it in the next four years. I'm a little unsure that I will last even that long at my company. It's actually a little back up plan, fleeting as it may be.

Backup plans are ALWAYS necessary in my life.

On the life front, I'm getting optimistic. I have a ton of vacation time this year (4 weeks!), so I'm planning a similar but better trip to last year's cheap Arizona getaway. We've been looking at flights to San Diego - we will hang there for a few days and then drive to Arizona. I really loved Arizona, but I felt a little ripped off by the limitations of the desert. I had planned on seeing the ocean because I was told Tuscon was in close enough proximity to California & Mexico. There was no specific plan to do so and it was reliant on the people lodging us, so it never happened. This year, we're planning California first, and we will share driving privileges as I will hopefully have my license by then (halfway there! passed the written!). Even if I don't, I can still help drive in Arizona- the lanes are ridiculously huge and a six year old could successfully navigate the highway.

I also have a three day vacation (wednesday through the weekend) scheduled for this coming week. I'm thinking about canceling it and pushing it back to the following week which has a payday and maybe squeezing in a very short getaway. The cheapest last minute deals are in Orlando, of which I would have to spend at least a day or two at Disney. So I would definitely need my paycheck. It depends on if the vacation schedule will allow me to do it, but I'm highly considering it. With this awful weather and my overworked buttocks, I really need some warm weather NOW. And some alone time.

Otherwise, my life consists of working and sleeping. Which is okay, for now.

When I visited New York City last weekend, I had some particular ideas of what I thought it would be like. With a place so huge, diverse and intense, it would be hard for any of my expectations to be completely correct.

First of all, I compared it too closely with Boston. I felt like it would be a larger scale, younger version of my beloved 'Beantown'. In some ways, it was all of those things, and so much more.

It would be an understatement to say that New York City smells interesting. It opened up my smelling sense in a way I never thought possible. I keep telling myself that it's akin to a non-smoker walking into a smoke filled room for the first time. The room has all types of smoke in it, too, like cigars, pot and maybe a clove cigarette or two. It would be very overwhelming.

New York, to me, smelled like poop. Everywhere, all the time. Poop, and other excrement-like smells. Maybe it's just my smog less New Hampshire nose. I can't describe it any other way. To me, there was so much to see, so much to experience, but it was all laden with... poo. All I repeated all day long was "Oh, ew, I'm downwind... of death! Sweet poopy death!" and "BOSTON does NOT smell like THIS."

It wasn't until I was mildly buzzed with alcohol and the night was thick, the day closing to an end, that my nose finally calmed down. I got home and I was exhausted, after doing bus-chair yoga half-sleep for 5 hours... stripped down and fell into bed... but couldn't sleep because I smelled the ickyness on my skin.

I am not saying that I didn't love that city. That would be a lie. It gave me a case of visual A.D.D. in the course of my day. There were so many people, so many attractions, that I never got bored for even a small moment. It felt like some crazy melting pot of ridiculously huge buildings, diverse population and a sort of 'I've got shit to do and I've got shit to do NOW' attitude. There was somebody trying to sell me something here, there and everywhere. A purse vendor LITERALLY chased me down the street. I was browsing, he began to barter with me, which I politely declined. As I was leaving, he followed me, so I ran - and he ran screaming after me. I cannot say that has ever happened to me in Boston... or anywhere on the planet, for that matter.

My favorite venture was into the futuristic technicolor Times Square, which felt like some neon dream I had years ago. Being so close to the election, we were inundated with political messages and memorabilia. I couldn't help but buy a cheap Obama T-shirt and pin. Almost bought a Mccain/Obama condom that said "EITHER WAY YOU'RE SCREWED!" In retrospect, I wish I had. But I'm trying to be optimistic.

There were bleachers in Times Square, and somebody had been filming, which I assume was some GMA thing that had ended shortly before our arrival. People were still sitting on the bleachers, as if waiting for some kind of urban pep rally, which was abstractly weird. The crowds threatened to separate me and my pals, which was always disconcerting. We had all day and were running out of stuff to actually do, since we were trying to conserve money.. but somehow we all felt like we had to move onto the NEXT THING. The crowd was pushing us to it, whatever it was. So from Times Square, we were pushed to Central Park.

I only saw about 1/100th of that behemoth of a park, but it was an autumn masterpiece. It felt like it wasn't actually a park, but an exhibit of all parks. It had moats, ponds, streams. Giant rocks to climb, fields to lay out on, random paths to follow, statues upon statues, etc, etc. There was some big race going on, which was followed by fireworks. We couldn't find an end to it, and when we eventually got out of it, I half expected Central Park to find a way to suck us back in, like some episode of the Twilight Zone [[YOU'LL NEVER ESCAPE!! YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST VI STING!!]]

Eventually we circled back to Rockefeller Center, where we were to end our journey. We had dinner at the awesomest restaurant/bar that I have EVER been to. It was a haunted house themed eatery where all of the waitstaff dressed in costume and heckled you. When we entered the restaurant, they closed the door behind us and in front of us, locking us in complete darkness. This guy started screaming and saying crazy indecipherable stuff. Then the door opened and we walked into the dark and gloomy atmosphere.

All the waiters had parts in this giant, three tiered play with animated statues which actually talked to you. Some of them were obviously prerecorded, like the Bugaboo Creek talking heads, and some had people talking into them. Heckling the diners. Trying to hook one girl up with some guy.

There were several people they employed to walk around and smile creepy unbreakable smiles. Others would listen to conversation and jump in. For instance, I was talking to Rob about someone biting something, and this waiter walked up to me and yelled "BITE??! DO YOU BITE??!".. so I played along.. and so did he. He bit me. Which I have a picture of. It was crazy, but fun crazy.

The Jeckyl & Hyde bar was, hands down, my favorite experience of New York City. It was sort of like dinner theater, and somewhat affordable for NY standards. I went home a bit overwhelmed, but at least had been laughing on the way back to the bus. I would definitely go back there and bring more of my friends/family.

I think I will have to go back to NYC again, at some point, and feel it out again. Maybe in the summer next year. I know I would LOVE to bar-hop there. It's a gorgeous city at night.

Even chipmunks are sick of this s**t!!

I took in a cat, who I renamed from the awful "Pepper" tag, to Kyra. I removed her from my cousin's house, since he decided that he was going to kick her out because she was getting out of the house. Which is rediculous. She is a really well tempered cat and has intergrated into my house really well. But, oh, yeah, she was pregnant. She is no longer.

Officially, I have six cats. Two adults: Lula and Kyra. Then there is Lilly, Cortez [the killer], Granny and Julio. Except I just took them to the vet, and it turns out that Lilly is a boy and Cortez is a girl.

I could switch the names, but they're temporary, so who cares, right? Of course, they are all named after Dave Matthews related titles. So this makes me limited in my re-assigning of names. There are over a hundred titles, but there are a lot of numbers and non-namable songs.

I have thought about keeping one baby. Maybe Granny, but only because I would be insane to keep three long haired gray cats in my house. I figure that I'll have three, but as long as they all stay in different rooms it'll seem like I only have one. Yes, this is my logic.

The only permanent home right now is for a girl at work who apparently has been searching high and wide for a kitten. She's a single mom and has been looking for a kitten for herself and her son, mostly a "mouse-hunting cat" and companion. She seems really nice and was nervous that I wouldn't give her one in the end. This is so not the case. I can deal with THREE but not SIX. I advised that she will be accruing her portion of the vet fees [so far it is $20 a cat].

The only other [probable] taker is this woman who works at the veteranarian's office. I took out Julio and she put her hands up to her mouth hesitantly as her eyes became as wide as saucers. She told me that she had this cat named "Bubba" and he died eight years ago, since then she has been looking for a red-orange tabby boy and no cat has come close. Except for Julio.

I mean, she looked at this kitten like I looked at Dave Matthews when he was about a foot away from me. She works at the vets office and is obviously an animal lover. How can you say no to that?

So now I get to take care of them for 8-10 weeks. My house is going to be in nightmare shape, but at least I get the fun part. I get the fat little babies running around my house, and then I will send them to good homes. This will be the only litter I will ever have, though if I ever move to a bigger apartment [at some point I hope to] like a duplex or something, I would definitely consider rescuing other cats with litters. Just to one up my crazy cat lady status.

For now, I gots six cats.

Clarity

The memory of my father slips away because I don’t want to remember him. If I remember him, if I remember everything about him, I will have to remember EVERYTHING. Not only will I recall his laugh, so similar to my own, but I must also see his last struggling breaths of air. The sound of his lungs working against him, against nature, betraying him.

The things that defined him, gave him importance, like the many games he played that required quiet and thought, hurt me. I think about the things that he clung to, the things that he obsessed over. I think about how useless they became in his final days. How they dropped away and became nothing, how you can’t fill a cemetery with the pieces on a chess board. How I can never know again that “One more minute!” during a golf tournament potentially means one more hour, or two, or three.

I don’t ever want to hear myself apologize to him for being a bad daughter, and I never ever want to hear him apologize for being a bad father. If I go back to this, I will have to be thirteen again, walking away from him in the last moments of his failure of a life.

My world went on. I cried enough, I grieved enough, and I went through the process. As the days passed, I left it behind me. Everything about him began to fade from my life to the point where discussing him became difficult. Naturally, I didn’t want to reflect on his life because I didn’t want to reflect on his death. Before the day Robert Theodore Katsikas disintegrated from the Earth, immortality was almost a certainty. Death was something that could happen to me, but it wasn’t something that would happen to me.

I am a master at pushing memories to the wayside. My childhood has become a scene in my life so alien that it is like I have become a different person. I am the interchangeable actor in a soap opera who takes the part of a main character. Only my name is important, not my heart. You can put any label on me that you would like, but I am not the little girl I once was. Perhaps I am not everything against what I hoped to be because what I wanted was simple. I’ve reached most of the goals that I set for myself early in life: freedom, change, independence.

But will I lie in my grave, wondering of things that might have been better than maybe?
Would I not like to be?

"I'd like to have put a flamethrower on it."

"They wouldnt let me do that. I'd like to have put a taser, but the police came and talked to me about that. I realized the best thing to do is go with water, it's alot less hassle.... in the courts."
[laughs meniacally]

Bum Hugger: "It's a reprehensible little machine and it's dehumizing."
Steven Colbert: "More importantly, it's Debumminizing."

Alas, meet the Bumbot. A robot built to scare away homeless people.

You cut me open and I keep bleeding.

The thing is, I don't want to get into the Tim thing again. It's hard not to when approaching the subject of love with me. In fact, it's nearly impossible. Every guy I've had in my life is compared to him, and they all seem to fall so short.

I recently went on a couple of dates with a guy I've known since Junior High. You may even remember him, G, since he was around our crowd back in the day. I had been talking to him online, he seemed to have grown out of whatever made him undatable in the past. I was totally wrong.

PART 1:

He was okay but I wasn't enthused with him. I wasn't completely put off, but in retrospect that may have been because of the booze. He was smart, not condescending. He wasn't my type at all, but in some lights I found him really cute. Seemed to enjoy my company and willing to take it slow with me. We had a few drinks and dinner; I felt insanely nervous and paid more attention making sure I didn't say/do anything crazy. He was a toned down version of the guy I would see on the next date.

The feeling I had was mostly a curious one. I didn't know if the annoying things about him were on party because of nerves. I hoped that I could get to know him better and he wouldn't be such a goofball. He gave me a little kiss at the end of it, and he pulled away as such to pique my interest. The way he ended the kiss was almost a stance of authority, and I liked it. Even pondered it for awhile.

PART 2:

He picked me up and my friend Karla was outside with me. She gave him the kind of look parents have for the mess their kid tells them she's going to marry instead of going to college. This was a little off putting for me, especially since his reaction seemed to be pretty negative. The date had already begun on a bad note.

Everything, and I mean everything he said was to be treated as a punch line to some unending joke. He was no comedian. Yet, what bothered me the most was that his hands were perpetually dirty. He had one of those jobs that does that, and I understood , but I still didn't want him touching me with those grubby mitts.

We ate at a cute little restaurant which I was enamored with, then he took me to his apartment.

It smelled of gas [apparently issues with the heating system] which was forgivable, but the smell never dissipated, making me feel uncomfortable. The apartment was dirty with the appearance of a frat-boy party house, all but the beer bong was missing.

Contrasting that was his roommate, who had a young daughter hanging on him like a cute little monkey. I was very attracted to him, and when my date got closer to me, I began fantasizing about the roommate. Even looking for hints of a mommy in the apartment, until I woke up and realized that I was grasping for boy straws.

We watched "Knocked Up", a movie about a girl who gets pregnant by someone hideously below her standards. He's dirty, he's chubby, and he's poor. All I could do was look at my date and feel her pain. Feel it touching my leg and batting eyes at me like I should be bracing for a kiss.

Of course, there will be no third date.

At one point he told me that I looked like I had a novicain shot to the face. I wanted to explain that my face is very expressive, and I was afraid that I would kill him with what was going on in my head.

Another bad attempt at love gone very wrong once again.

My thinking was this: I once fell for a guy who had initially turned me off. Fell harder than anything I ever thought possible. If he had been a date, I wouldn't have gone on a second one. I know I've thrown out a few guys with real possibility because I wasn't excited, and there's guilt because of that. I thought that if I start giving sub-par guys a chance, maybe they will surprise me. Maybe he would make it worthwhile. Why couldn't he?!

It seems like I'm now in a rut.

I won't allow myself to take the wall down because they're not HIM. I don't look at them and feel that. Therefor, I can't move forward because I'm stuck in that past, in that emotion. I know it's possible to have the "real thing", I can pinpoint exactly what it is.

I feel like I won't move on until I find it again.

Do it with a heart wide open.

My aunt has talked about her take on Arizona for years, and now that my sojourn has come to a close, I have my own opinions. While I have found a natural kind of love for my own home of New Hampshire, there is definitely something special about the vast, sun bleached desert. As with any place that has been viewed in photos but not experienced, I had certain expectations of Arizona. I left with a very different idea of the landscape and what it had to offer.

First of all, it was very diverse. My mind's eye saw typical sand dunes, cactus and bone-dry landscape of every movie set in the mid-west. While this was one aspect of Arizona, it was just the beginning.

The "main drags" in Tuscon certainly consisted of everything I had intuited; dirty brown rust on just about every plant, animal and building in view, with an over abundance of southern based fast food restaurants and Mexican eateries stacked on top of Walmarts, K Marts and such. But just outside of the cities and suburbs there was immense beauty, all different kinds of beauty.



On the very outskirts of Tuscon is an outdoor museum with several names; more widely known as the Arizona-Senora Museum or simply, the Desert Museum. The ride to it was amazing as we drove down a deep winding road into vast green hills that were actually reminiscent of some huge European valley. I felt like running through it singing "The hills are alive!", but not for fear of being spanked by the surprise tiny cacti that hide among the bushes.

I was forced to push my aunt around in a manual wheelchair, since all of their electric chairs were charging. I can't say I got the best possible experience of it because I was throwing her up and down the hills with the sun beating on my reddened skull. Also, it was a combination museum, botanical garden and zoo, and the first exhibit was a pair of cougars.

Mountain lions are grossly abundant in Arizona outside of the cage, something I had experienced when on a nature tour I was on shortly before the Desert Museum visit. We were riding around Safari-like and there were dozens of big red evil signs screaming [[HIGH MOUNTAIN LION ACTIVITY]] which I read as [[DON'T GET OUT OF THAT THING TO TAKE A PICTURE OR THEY WILL EAT YOU ALIVE]]. Really, that wasn't far from the truth based on the neon green papers they handed out that explained how there were cougars coming out in the day and actually stalking people. Stalking.

So, when I walked up to the mountain lion exhibit, I was a bit perturbed. The information given to me had been that it is best to look them directly in the eyes and not to lose that visual contact, lest they make you out as weak and yummy. Naturally, I stared those two up like we were about to break-dance it out. Although I was probably safe enough, I still felt like they could somehow get to me, with the knowledge that they were literally just off of the beaten path from where I slept at night.



Then there was the famed Tombstone, which seemed a little hokey to me, but had it's merits. On one hand it seemed a homogenized and touristy wild west where only maybe there were once real cowboys and showdowns. It was one long strip of shops filled with overpriced turquoise jewelery, Native American symbols and pictures; and all the cowboy hats, snake skin belts and commemorative key chains one could stomach.

Yet there did seem to be a bit of that Cowboys-and-Indians dirty dog west kind of feeling in the air. If you venture away from the glossed up version of something that was once untamed, you could almost find the feeling of it. Almost.

All in all, it was cute, and most of the time I felt like I could have had the same experience from the feau-west at Canobie Lake Park.



My diamond in the rough was a large town just past Tombstone. It has a silly name, so I automatically loved it.

Bisbee. Bis-bee.
Busy bee. Business. Bee. Bis. Bizz.
You can call me fruity if you like, but it had me at "hello".

I fell especially in love with the alley that was as if it had been cut out and shipped from some in-between place in Italy or Spain or something. Unfortunately, I had eaten about ten meals and drank a dozen or so different drinks, so I wasn't in the mood sit on the patio of the little restaurant that pulled on my heart strings.

The majority of Bisbee was littered with antique and novelty shops, specifically aimed for the out-of-state visiting type like myself. It didn't seem to be a place one could actually call home without wanting to hurl oneself off of the nearest mountain, which wouldn't be a far throw. It's literally built into one.

None the less, charming.


At the end of the day, Arizona was a great and different kind of retreat. It was in the low 80's every day, with that dry heat that the elderly seem to find irresistable. I found it a welcome change from the shit-colored snow and bizarre weather that has been changing with the days of the week. I didn't think much about work, and mostly just enjoyed the atmosphere. It was what I needed - I will never regret a moment of it.

Am I rightside up or upside down?

Alas, my week is about halfway over.

It's been nice so far, unfortunately not quite awesome. Monday brought clouds, chilly temperatures, and off-and-on rain showers. It seemed nearly as cold as a warm March day in New Hampshire.

We checked out the local Casino and played a long round of Bingo. The Casino was cute, but not impressive, the Bingo was expensive and the payout was bad. It was a bit of familiarity for me, which is something I needed with all of the foreign sights and feelings.

Everything here feels sort of half alive, dormant somehow. Most of the vegetation is dry, thorny and sick looking. Yet there are instances of life and color in between, some prehistoric looking trees and the occasional patch of wildflowers. There is always a visible backdrop of the jagged mountains, mostly because there is very little that could hide it. Sans Monday's dreariness, the sun has been intense and the warm breeze endless. It's incredibly foreign in comparison to the northeast - exactly what I've hoped for in a vacation.

We went to the Phoenix Zoo yesterday, an outdoor oasis of sorts. Of course, all of the animals that we wanted to see were given their daily sleeping pill or hiding in a far corner. I can't exactly blame them, I would keep my distance or attempt to nap through the thousands of eyes on me. Yet it was a lovely place with lots of tree cover and a very pretty pond [from afar, I definitely wouldn't want to rent one of their boats for severe fear of falling in it].

It had all of the negatives that go along with such attractions; four dollar bottles of water and six dollar hot dogs, neglectful parents who thought taking along extra children was a good idea when they can barely keep track of their own, the constant smell of wildlife poop.

We were able to check out some small shops on the ride there and back, so I was able to knock off some gift requests from my friends. We're running low on money now so we have to start becoming uber conservative with it.. at least the rental car is amazing with gas - so much so that my aunt wants to buy it immediately. The hope now is that we can go to Mexico with the people who are housing us, apparently we're a couple hours from a small fishing and touristy village with beautiful beaches and more beautiful liquor.

I say my hell is the closet I'm stuck inside.

I have officially arrived in Tuscon, Arizona with very few bumps and bruises. Emotionally, or otherwise. I do, however, feel like my bones have somehow shifted and gained weight through this process. I guess it's what people call "jetlag".

We left Boston on Sunday afternoon, around 3:45pm. I was comforted in the takeoff by the spectacular Harbor view we had. I recognized every building while we zoomed off into the clouds.

The first portion of the trip had us on a 4 or so hour flight with a stop in Dallas Fort Worth, where we hung out for about ten and a half seconds. It would have been nice to have spent some time there, from above Dallas seemed like an attractive city with a lot to work with. It had quite a bit more water than I would have expected. Maybe that's because I always think of this area of the world as dry, desolate and full of tumbleweeds.

I think that the biggest adjustment for me has been the time difference. It was only an hour change from Boston to Dallas, which was no big deal. For heck sake, we were only living an hour earlier a couple weeks ago, anyways. All I had to do was look at my clock and remove that amount of time. Simple enough.

But then we had a 2-or-so hour flight from there to Tuscon and that's when things went awry for me. How do you tell your body that's it isn't 11 o'clock at night, but actually 8pm? How do you pretend that you haven't spent 6 long hours feeling like the world's heaviest bag of bones west of the Mississipi? I know this isn't exactly an age old question, but it is to me. I've never done this before.

I mean, the clock is telling me that it's nearly 6am. I've been up for two hours, and I never-ever get up at 4am. I know that I'm still registering on Eastern Standard Time, which means that I may be going to bed really early and waking up earlier for half a week. Which is half of my vacation.

Hopefully it works itself out.

It was rainy when we got here, and actually chilly. Almost exactly like home, except the air smells different when it rains. It has a strangely sweet scent, to me a mix of mint and manuer, which was foreign enough to my brain to give it a red flag. I haven't actually seen the city, as it was so dark that the only thing that stood out to me was the bright neon sign for a strip club. Plus, I was so tired, and such a different kind of tired, that it wouldn't have mattered if it was sunny and beautiful.

I shall tell you about my days to come, dear Blog, since we have a few sources for camera and I forsee some mis-adventures ahead [did I mention I'm here with Auntie Chris? Ya].

She's gonna break free.

I'm about to leave for my very first plane on my way to Tuscon, Arizona for my weeklong sojourn in the sun. Of course, I'm pretty nervous about it.

I'm flying out of Boston on American Airlines. Everything seems to be set up the way it should.

Thought I should give you the heads up just in case I die. Cause you know. What goes up must come down & it's not always the pretty way.

This is my first real vacation. Wish me luck & fun!!

I'll be watching you.

Oh. My.

I know this may not be news to anyone in particular, but it's the sweetest internet invention I've discovered in my lifetime. It's what I call "Googlestalk" but what Google actually calls "Street view". It is awesome.

This is how it works: use Google to search for an address, as long as it is in a major city that the website has captured [mine is one of them] then you can click on the little photo, and voila! You can now virtually walk down that neighborhood and stare in people's windows like the Googlestalker you've now become. To be fair, most windows are pretty well blurred, as are license plates and other sensitive information.



Normally, I probably wouldn't think of this little tool as a stalking mechanism, but that was the first thing I ended up using it for. Let's just say I have a crush, and the crush's address is public record, so I kind of had to look. Why? I don't know. I blame it on Googlestalk. It made me do it.

What? I'm not actually going to go there. Except virtually...

I'll be in the air for 6 hours.

MySpace Countdown Clocks

On another note, my current boy obsession.

Yes, it is Shia Lebouff.





I've been watching some of his recent movies, and man that guy has grown up since his days on "Even Steven's". In fact, he's starting to pull a "Harry Potter" on me [a.k.a. o jeeze, how'd he get so sexy?! Is it legal to be thinking this?].

I can't say exactly why I've been falling so hard for Shia. Maybe it's his awkard boyishness, the puppy dog brown eyes, or the intensity he seems to put into his roles. Lately, I've become really jealous of Rihanna...

Just thought I would mention it. I'm bored, so I thought you should know.

RIP Heath

The oddest thing happened when I found out that Heath Ledger passed away; my immediate reaction was "Oh my god, not possible! This has got to be a joke!" and I began googling it to death
just to prove it. Somewhere in the back of my head were the words but he's so gorgeous... and the accent... and talented... nooooo.....

Unfortunately, I found that I was incorrect. Heath did, in fact, pass away.

I also found that I was not alone in this reaction. Everywhere I looked there were posts with the exact reaction. Shock, dismay and disbelief.

I have always been a fan of his work, especially the groundbreaking and amazing Brokeback Mountain. He was a decent actor and, obviously, one of the sexiest around. The loss of Heath is pretty big and unbelievable one. Rest in peace.

Rediculously Awsome.

Colbert could sex me up anyday.

Oh My George --> Silly Babies Galore

If your heart is no where in it I don't want you for a minute.

And I'm finally writing in my blog... 

I've attempted a few times but have just been so tired that I couldn't. I sorry.

I've been putting my full effort into my job now that I'm out of training. I moved on up and out and the craziness has mostly died down. I guess it's regular practice for most big office jobs to put you through the wringer for the first year, but I feel like I've gone through a lot. So much that I've bonded closely with a group of friends that I feel might be a lifetimes worth. Pat, Ana and Karla have become my girls, even though Pat's not with the company anymore. There's also the sweetest little gay guy on the planet, Rob, and my good-guy-but-pain-in-the-ass Dan. Tihiu's been giving me rides in the morning and she's the nicest little Mexican girl on the planet. All around good.

Now it's a matter of getting used to the daily ins and outs of the call center. It's difficult work, especially with the particular group of calls I handle. Somehow, though, I feel like I've been getting enough positive reinforcement to compensate. Plus, the monetary compensation helps, too. It's nothing extravagant, but it's money that I can live on and pay my bills on. It certainly beats where I stood a year ago, even 6 or 8 months ago, really. So I'm doing well.

Christmas is here and it's overwhelming, as usual.

My mother's side of the family has finally gone bonkers. They totally ignored my birthday, and now the big holiday is already looking a little scary. At first we were collecting at my aunt's house, but she backed out and also added the rule that we only buy presents for the "kids". Which is convenient because the only real "kids" left are her two.

For the past week, we've had no destination and the same aunt that backed out decided she doesn't want my uncle around for the day. She literally kicked him out of Christmas --> which would be fine if he was a newby to the family, but my uncle has been around since I was sucking my thumb. I feel that it's incredibly selfish and I have a hard time sitting back and acting like it's just okay when he's already shown that he's hurt by it. So.. craziness all around.

I'm looking forward to making more money and maybe having a decent job for life. All I need to do is stick to my diet [which I totally haven't in the past couple weeks], do Yoga or general exercise again, and start being the person I was happier with, the healthier Katie. Maybe I'll be in a place where I am comfortable enough with myself to meet a boy. Someday I want a family and all that stuff, and it's good to know that I may be able to help support it. But I don't plan on wearing a sign that says that.

Anyways, that's the low-down on me. I hope to keep you more updated.

I wish it were simple.

Sorry about the non-posting. The non-computer and the crazy job has kept me from doing so. I hope to be getting a PC at some point in the near future, but I'm catching up on some major bill boo-boos.

So, you're thinking that I'm held up in some basement below a crazy man about to be hooked me up to a murder machine? Well, that's true and it isn't.... at least not literally.

I've found myself in the world of See-No-Evil (etc). It's a place that feels suspiciously like some corporate version of 1984. You can't just act the way they want you to act, dress the way they want you to dress, speak the way they want you to speak, but you must also think how they want you to think. Except for the fact that our main example of professionalism is the least professional person I have ever met. If I delved into that, you're jaw would drop to the floor.

The Dystopian concept of Double Think is all around me. If you aren't familiar with the it, I Wikipedia-ed it for you:

Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.

There is a constant contradiction of words and actions. Sometimes it's difficult to say "Well... this is amazing money and stellar benefits, so I'll just eat this crazy medicine with a spoon full of sugar."

But, I try, none the less, and it seems like I'm actually doing okay, considering that the class is failing all around me. If I can get through this class, maybe the company will be different. Maybe they're putting us through all of this to try to break us, so that they're sure we can handle the job... Like mental boot camp. I'm just not sure that I like the process, or the processees, if you will.

Alas, I'm not doing terribly, and it's the main point that draws out my Optimism. The main thought is 'No News Is Good News' and it's what I've been ultimately working with. I haven't been given any spacific criticisms, had no grave meetings with outside bosses, and haven't seen any real discipline that wasn't dished out to the whole class. I'm trying not to lose myself too much in the process... wish me luck...