beep beep

I got my new laptop! I kind of love it alot, but I am having some technical issues with and around it. I originally wanted to get a notebook with an internal mic and webcam so that I could start making videos...my friend Saire over at Full of Words inspired me, as it were! However, for some reason when I record videos with the preinstalled software, the audio is always really low. LIKE REALLY LOW. Like, Zeb and I made a video of him singing the intro to "Miss New Booty" at the top if his lungs while I repeated the word "beep" over and over again and you can barely hear us low. It works fine with Skype...the people I've been speaking to on there have had no problem hearing me, which indicates to me that it is the software I am using, but I am not entirely sure how to fix it or what other software there is out there for makin' vidz on the ole compy. So yeah, that is proving to be problematic.

Another issue I am having is not so much with the notebook as it is with my router. For some reason, my desktop cannot even be powered ON when I try to access the internet with my notebook, and vice versa. They are both capable of accessing the internet, obviously, but just not at the same time. I am sure it is fixable, I just don't possess the computer know-how to do it myself, so tomorrow I am gonna call linksys and see what I need to do to FIX IT.

Oh oh, before I go, I bought some stuff off etsy from a user called a Passion For Fashion. I made myself a necklace today:

Pretty stinkin' cute, right? It's a tree just in case the image is too grainy for you to discern what the pendant is of....or if you are too distracted by my chipped polish or blinding mug.

Okay, I need to get to bed. I start training at my new job tomorrow and I need to get up early enough to do some laundry and call Linksys and bless my family with my presence.

Roseanne Rosannadanna ain't got nothing on me.

Craigslist is like magic! I found a job on the SGF craigslist Sunday night for a hotel front desk clerk and when I saw the listing I nearly PEED myself because there are NEVER any jobs listed this far east of SGF, but sure enough, there one was. I immediately emailed the listing, provided my resume, and tried my best to be engaging. It must've worked, because he called me the next morning to arrange for me to come down to the location to fill out an application. It's about twenty minutes south of the town I live in, so it's not too bad, and after I ran a plethora of other errands, I managed to get down there. His wife interviewed me on the spot (after I filled out the application) and gave me a basic idea of what the job would entail, what the shift would be, and how things would work. She told me she'd call me this morning to arrange for me to come meet with her husband at the hotel they have IN my town (too bad that one's night hiring, AMIRITE?!) so that he could interview me, too.

I thought I blew it because they ended up calling three times this morning and couldn't get through...this was after I assured her that someone was always around the answer the phone. When I got down to the hotel I apologized profusely and explained that it really is incredibly uncommon for nobody to answer the phone. Even in my sleep I usually hear the phone ringing from across the house. They must not have had any other replies because after about 15 minutes of talking and discussion and all that good stuff, they asked me to start training on Saturday.

So...while I'm not on the payroll YET, I am certainly on my way. And even though it's a night shift from 10pm to 6am and it's only gonna be 3 MAYBE 4 nights a week, it is a START. And since it's SO late, I could in theory get any other job in town (assuming any pop up) and it would not interfere with that schedule since it's SO late and nothing around here closes that late or opens that early. It is quite a relief to finally get back into the employment saddle. I am incredibly nervous about what this could mean for camp (since I assured them repeatedly that I was in it for the long haul), but I can't worry about that right now. I need to be thinking about what I need right now.

Oh, and of course, not 4 hours after I confirm that I am going to start training, the mountaineer started overheating. We think a hose is dead, or something, but at this point it's completely un-drivable because it keeps overheating, and we're already short two cars (Samantha's is out of commission and Liz doesn't have one). We've got four days to get it sorted.

It's always something....if it's not one thing, it's something else, ain't it?

How to bite the hand that feeds you.

I like to think of myself as a good person, and I know my family has it's problems, but at the end of the day I think we are good people. We try to help others, if we can, and we do our best to be understanding and not let our prejudices cloud our judgement.

When my grandpa died in 2004, he had over 300 acres of land, plus a trailer, a house, and a couple of sheds. My dad and my uncle split everything evenly, and my dad bought what they didn't sell from my uncle. I guess it is worth mentioning that my grandparents got divorced in the late 60's and, while my dad lived with my grandma for a while, he ultimately grew up with my grandpa in TN.

Once the land selling and buying out of property had occurred, my dad was left with something like 80 acres, the trailer, the house, and the sheds (and I mention the sheds, because they are serious. They are huge and have furniture, papers, dishes, pictures, albums...everything you can imagine and some things you can't). The trailer is where my grandpa had been living after his divorce from my step-grandmother, and the house that had once belonged to his parents was a property that he had been renting out off and on.

My parents keep the trailer for when they go to TN to visit the family and friends we have in the area, when they go to check on the land, or when they need to go handle paperwork...my parents are still legally residents of TN even though we are in MO and all of our vehicles etc are registered there. The house hadn't been lived in for quite some time and was largely uninhabitable.

Here comes the "we try to be good people" part. My dad has a friend that he grew up with who had fallen on some hard times. To help the guy out, my dad offered to let him stay in the house RENT FREE as long as he took care of it and looked into seeing what was needed to get the house back in shape. He's been living there for years, as far as I know.

Today my dad's ex-step-mother called. The last time I distinctly remember seeing/talking to her was in October of 2004. She called to tell my dad that a friend of hers saw the following picture on the front page of The Tennessean:

That's my great-grandparents' house. He turned it into a meth lab.

He.turned.it.into.a.meth.lab.

HE TURNED THAT HOUSE INTO A FUCKING METH LAB!!!!!!!!!

She assumed my dad didn't know yet, and set out to get a hold of him immediately. I was sitting across from my dad at the table while he was talking to her and I, no bullshit, thought he was going to cry. My dad has been gone for years...over 20 years. He has memories of those places and the people who are long gone, and it eats at him that he is not there. And it breaks his heart to know that he tried to do a good thing and was taken advantage of like this.

To be honest, I am surprised that TBI hasn't gotten in touch with him yet. They are, no doubt, doing background checks on everyone in my family as we speak to see if any of us are in any way culpable for this. Hell, they might even find this.

I just cannot believe someone would do this to my dad. It's like a slap to the face.

And, that is the exact picture that ran in the paper, by the way. I looked it up on The Tennessean's website.

What times are these.

The Mole.

Zeb and I were hanging out the other day, smarting off to one another, when we had one of the most epic exchanges of dialogue I have ever had in my real life. I am not sure what he said to me, but I sarcastically told him, "yeah? Tell me something I DON'T know," to which he replied WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT, "you have a mole on the back of your neck." That little, lying, sack of shit. I love him.

Camp, the New Year, and Bodily Functions.

It was brought to my attention by Meghann that I promised an entry about camp and bodily functions and the future and stuff. So, here it is.

CAMP WAS UNBELIEVABLE! I was really nervous going...not as nervous as I was during the summer, but there was definitely some trepidation. The good news is that I was not even remotely concerned about flying. I ended up taking three different flights over the summer, and combined with the four I took to get to and from winter camp, I can comfortably say that flying is a breeze. I mean, yeah, it's a hassle and annoying, but I don't really panic about it anymore. AND I DO IT ALONE LIKE A GROWN UP!!!!! I said "the good news" as if there would be some bad news to follow. I have no idea what I intended to add. My bad.

Anyhow, being a counselor was out of control! I got INCREDIBLY lucky and got into a really good cabin and group (they are not necessarily mutually exclusive) so I got to spend time bonding with great campers, and great staff. There was some NOT SO GREAT STAFF, but why dwell on the negative when I can talk about the awesome that is Jenny&Jennie. Jenny should've been my roommate at summer camp, but then life happened and Ami ended up as my roommate. I wouldn't change that for the world, b/c Ami was an AMAZING cabinmate, and we bonded and handled business and all that good stuff that you'd expect, but, secretly, deep down, I was a little sad once Jenny got to camp and I saw how awesome she was. It was like having two great choices and not actually being able to pick either...once is just given to you. So, yeah, winter camp was a great chance for me and Jenny to bond. And then Jennie...holy crap....you know how you meet people who just GET it? That is Jennie. Jennie just GETS IT! And I love that about her.

As far as the campers themselves went, my group was amazing. We only had one camper who had anything that approached the "behaviors" that are rued by all counselors, and even then it was pretty easy to figure out what the camper wanted. There was an incident on new year's day with one of my campers involving a seizure, a trip to the ER in an ambulance, and a pregnancy scare, but I can't really go into the deets on it b/c I am sure it violates the privacy policy and all that. I will say that shit was INTENSE!!!!* It's a good thing I learned to drive the liftvans over the summer...IT'S A LIFE SKILL, MAN!

After camp, I went and staying with my PA bestie Daniella for a few days. It was kind of awesome minus my racking cough and seemingly random rectal bleeding that I did not REALLY notice until that Sunday and that did not STOP until the Thursday after I cam home (that's the really gross bodily function part). After some deliberation, soul searching, and medical consultation (my friend Sadie is a nurse) we decided that I probably had a hemorrhoid that exploded early in the week and I was too dumb to notice b/c I was also on my period. Apparently, hemorrhoids do not always hurt. WHO KNEW?! So yeah, it was a total relief when I stopped BLEEDING FROM MY BUTT. And I had fun at Danielle's.

I am trying to be optimistic about the new year. I made some AMAZING friends last year, got closer to some  old friends I hadn't talked to in years, strengthened relationships with friends I already had, and learned so much about myself. I hope I can apply it to my future...I hope I can use the past to take me somewhere.

*Anytime I say ANYTHING is "intense" I think of this ridiculous camp joke about League Pioneers. League Pioneers is a camping program offered for higher functioning campers and they sleep in tents and cook over a fire and do lots of hikes and cool stuff. The joke goes "Did you hear about League Pioneers? It's INTENTS!" You know..."intense"="in tents." And yeah, I really do think it's a funny joke.

Christmas, three weeks later.

It's not that I really needed to talk about Christmas. It's not like it was super amazing or anything. I just wanted to bring it up because I don't get it anymore. People make SUCH a big deal about Christmas...about the holidays in general, and I find it so confusing...and obnoxious, now that I really think about it. My mom was in a panic about what presents they were going to get for Zeb (as usual, my parents were strapped for money), about how they were going to afford presents for him and for the girls. I explained to her, repeatedly, that it is not that big a deal to young kids. They just like presents. And it's not like Zeb was particularly deserving of any expensive gifts ($3K 46 in LCD television, anyone?). I mean, what is the point of making a big deal out of bribing kids to behave so that Santa won't leave them a lump of coal (or a bundle of switches and a rotten potato, so the saying goes in my family), if you are just going to go all out and blow a fuck ton of money on presents for them? What Zeb NEEDED from my parents for Christmas was clothes, and thank god Samantha, Liz, and I went with her Christmas shopping to make sure she got him some. But she still wanted to get him presents. The boy is NINE. It's not like he needed a car, or a computer. He likes toys...he is just a kid! It's not like my mom needed to go all out for him. He's got PARENTS for god's sake.

I guess the point I want to make comes down to this: one year for Christmas, all Samantha and I got were matching Tinkerbell caboodle boxes with lipgloss and nailpolish. One present each from Santa, plus whatever our Grandma sent us (I think that was the year she sent arts&crafts stuff, but my memory is pretty foggy), and we were totally okay with that. There was fruit and candy all around the tree, and it looked magical, and we were happy. And it's not like we were BAD, we were just POOR. It didn't ruin Christmas for us, we still believed in Santa, and life went on.

You can't BUY love. So, pay for what you can afford, get the kids what they actually deserve, and chill the FUCK OUT!!!!!

Where I suck at keeping up with things....

Oh man. I am still here, don't worry! I've just had a busy few weeks! I will post a real update soon about Christmas, camp, New Years, bodily functions, and my future plans. I promise!