The Ebb and Flow of Chaos Everyone's finally split up. Ian and Tristen are back in Kentucky, Los is camped out at the hospital with his grandmom, Tiffany's in White Bluff, and I'm here at Mom's. The afternoon was a quiet one in which I did much sleeping and little else. Tomorrow things pick up again, but for now my chaotic little house is at peace.
Yesterday's interview was terrifying, but in an exhilirating sort of way. I downplayed my abilities too much, I'm afraid. I don't like bragging on myself, which is exactly what interviews are made for. Mom's watching the Apprentice and I'm reminded that no matter how well I may function as a technical writer, I'll never be a shining part of thte corporate world. The hoops these people jump through and the game they make of it is just not me.
Academia, here I come.
I haven't written any in weeks. I had hoped to do that some this week when I thought I would have more privacy, but that was happily replaced by company. We've had fun, but I wonder sometimes if I spend so much time socializing that I'm leaving my talents in the dust. Friends are great, but skills make futures.
I'm turning this money-grubbing Trump show off now. Statements like that make me want to wash my brain out with soap.
I hadn't realized how much I miss church when I'm in Murray. Sure, we go to church, but it's not JA. Maybe I'm just a homebody, maybe I'm close minded. Tiff's got a couple of other opinions too, I'm sure. For whatever reason, though, the JA family is what brings me closer to God.
A fellow blogger and friend was talking about being at peace this spring break. I'm not sure I've found peace, but I've certainly found Nashville again. Trying to direct Tristen down our name-changing twists and turns across four interstates and all through town has been a blast.
I love this town.  ¶   0 comments

  Greetings from the Madhouse Tristen, Ian, and Los are piled on the couch in front of my sister's small TV. Matt, Anna, and a pile of Gamecube games are piled around the floor in front of them. The NCAA tourny's on the big screen and NBA live's playing on the TV. It's spring break and we're touring the homes of everyone I know. Right now we're at dad's mooching off his washer and dryer. It's been a exciting time. I'll tell you more later, it's my turn to play.  ¶   0 comments

  No More Hot Dogs. No More Burgers. No More Chicken. No More Brats. No More Food. Go Away. There are few things in this world more terrifying than High School Athletics. In high school, the jocks were always a point of animosity (as a whole, individuals were ok). The football games were fun only because we band geeks could huddle together and glare as a whole. The only thing more terrifying than a player, though, is a fan. These painted patrons were my company tonight as I dished out food for a high school basketball tournament. Twelve of us, thousands of them, and two hours later I'm ready to crawl into a corner for the night.
First, though, I must shower. I smell like rotton hotdogs.  ¶   0 comments

  Due to popular request... ...I'm adding a picture page. It should be up soon. I'll show you around the happy abode here in Murray, and the other recently fulfilled local requests. Our room now has wallpaper. Sort of. You'll see.
Thanks to Tiff, Myranda, Los, and Tristen for their awesome help today, and serious kudos to Andy for coming up with the program!
In other news, the deKlerk lecture is tomorrow night. Mom's coming up to hear this Nobel Prize Winner speak, and David's coming because Mom made him. Actually, I think he's pretty excited about the fishing. They'll have a nice weekend at Land Between the Lakes while I'm running around in circles over our library committee. That's got me working my tail off in a great way. I'm loving (most) of it.
Sorry, just going to be brief tonight, I've still got a lot to do and it's already inching close to midnight. Come back soon to see my pictures!  ¶   0 comments

  Killing time In a further effort to look busy I have updated the sidebar. I need to read more books. But What's not included there is the 50 pages per day of various short stories I'm reading for my various classes. if I get desperate enough, I may post those too. Odds are, I'll just play gamecube.  ¶   0 comments

  Heat Wave Tiffany's back from Florida and brought the weather back with her. Mom says it's supposed to snow on thursday, so it's the perfect time for things to heat up here in town. And when it's hot outside, it's hotter inside. The dorms run on old boilers. We get heat or air conditioning, not both. Right now, the heat's on. Everybody has theirs turned off, but it's not helping much. And in my room, the windows are taped and glued shut. The ground floor's not a good place for lockless windows, so that was some previous tenant's idea of security. I've considered breaking it.
It's probably hotter in here because of all the extra bodyheat. Thursday was nice, we had a pretty fun time. Friday night it was still ok. By the end of saturday night tempers were getting a little thin as we beat X-Men. Now, Sunday, I'm ready to tie people up and throw them out. Poor Tiff got back for my foul mood, and I think she's interpreting it as somehow on occasion of her. I'm trying to be nice to her, since I am really glad to see her back, but since she slept all through the only time the room was empty and woke up only once everyone piled back in, I've given off an irrepairably bad impression. So I'm in the corner, on my laptop, brooding. I told them I was working on my take-home midterm. It's sitting open beside me. I'll get started on it eventually. Right now I need to rant.
Los fled.
I would, if I had anywhere to flee to. Isn't one's room supposed to be a place of privacy? What happens when that's taken away? This, obviously.
I'd never survive on the open sea, crammed in some hold with 50 other people and 28X60 inches of space per person (British Navy required minimum during the Age of Sea).
So I'm writing for escape right now. Escaping into my laptop, the glowing white page waiting for my text to fill it. People are twiddling things in my room again, probably going to break something again, but at least they're not oogling my girlfriend. Yes, I'm playing the name game with you, but I really am feeling mostly annoyed with the species as a whole.
A nice set of mixes from OCRemix.com is helping block out the world. Poe's going to help in a minute, too, along with Melville and Hawthorne. A regular literary party on the page. Lucky me.
Spring Break's in 12 days and counting.  ¶   0 comments

  Visiting Dreams so I'm lying in my room, playing on the 'cube with Los, when the phone rings. It's my first girlfriend, asking if she and her significant other can crash at my place. They had car trouble and are stuck in Murray.
This was the start to last nights dream. Buckle up.
They get here and, being a dream, she looks just like she did in high school. Maybe even a little better. My waking brain knows she's gotten married to someone other than the guy in my dream and that she's heavier besides, but in the dream I hadn't found any of that out and she obviously wasn't married.
The guy looks like my least favorite of Tiffany's old guy friends.
She walks in, looks around my rapidly-cleaned room, and plops down on Los's bed (which we use as a couch). The guy's a total hip-attachment the entire time.
I try a few "so, can I ummm..." host-type things before finally resigning to the fact that a)she doesn't want me speaking to her and b)the guy's a prick.
Awkwardness is masked by the campus movie channel for a little while, then I go up to Tiff's room to check on something. Tiff's out of town and I have the keys. I come back down and hear them yelling in my room. Some of the things he says about her make me absolutely furious, and I have to use all my self control not to charge in there and deck him. I pause in the hall to try and figure out where to go, or just to stay out of the way. He comes rushing out of the room with his backpack and jacket, slams by me with that shoulder-brush thing guys do while posturing, and storms outside. I rush in and put my arms around my ex-girlfriend in an attempt to comfort her. She cries on my shoulder and I feel like a hero. Then she looks up at me and tells me "it's ok, everyone fights. I cried much more than this when I was dating you."
ouch.
I want to say it's not ok, and that I was an idiot and a jerk when I dated her, but I don't get the chance. Boyfriend comes back. He looks at her, glares at me, then looks back. In a blur of auburn hair in my face she's rocketing toward him again, latched on.
My god, I think, is this how my fights with Tiffany make her?
I sit there pondering the female psyche and all it's complexities while they make up and make out. Once I'm getting ill from it again I offer to show them where they'll be staying for the night. I've got a friend somewhere that has a futon.
She says thanks and they leave. I call up there a few minutes later to make sure everythings ok.
"Sure thing." she says. "everything's ok." I hear him mutter something and her let out a surprised "oooohh." I hang up.
The next morning comes and Los and I are spending time like we always do: on the gamecube. My ex- and her guy come downstairs to say thanks and he sees we're playing F-Zero. He loves it.
Two hours later we're all still playing. I'm sitting up on my bed with the wireless controller and as I look down I see the gold hair-clip that she wore to so many different things we went on.
We talk while we play. She mentions that she's known him her whole life, and my jealousy flares up once more. Is this the guy she always used to talk about while we were dating? It fades quickly, though. She seems happy, and he's not the villain I want him to be. No distress signals coming from her. I play without really playing and wish Tiffany would come home soon.  ¶   0 comments

  I've been thinking of bringing the mood icons and such back here. Yes, I know Livejournal and other sites include them right on the page, but if I can't write one little line of code by now than what business do I have doing any web publishing. Anyway, I don't know if I will yet or not. My mood's typically pretty apparent by the post.
This will be the earliest I've gone to sleep in 72 hours.
Tiff's outta town, so there's been more socializing in the evenings. That's about the only time I have free, since the Library Committee's overwhelming my school work. I'm letting it, honestly. I'm more interested in helping the library than going to class. I can't let that keep me from class though, because I'm also interested in scholarships and graduating.
You know, I tend to get irritated about people not posting often. I've been terrible this semester. Sorry about that. I'll try and do better. Maybe I'll post my assignments. "Comparative Study of Gender Roles in the Emancepated Slave Narrative" just doesn't sound like the kind of thing to post here, though. Not to mention, without my spell checker ya'll would probably be left in tears by the time I finished.
For a little braindead fun, X-men fans should check out Newground's X-Men Dark Phoenix Rising. It's great. Especially since I'm still playing through X-Men Legends and can relate.
My library committee site will be up monday, and I'll link you to it sometime next week. They own my soul till spring break, and I've got a lot of work to do between now and then, so I'm not sure how frequent I'll be posting. That story from last time fizzled out. I might try to revive it another time. Until then, it's in the Dead Letters pile.
Bartleby'll sort it out.  ¶   0 comments