Reality Bites

U.S.S. Shipwreck 1200-1600

It's after 2. I just got out of bed, although I have been up since 10:30. I am drinking my morning pot of coffee and although I should be on the phone with my phone company about my $600 phone bill, or with the mortgage company about my $5000 past due balance, or bathing and brushing my mangey-looking, shedding dogs, I am blogging. I hate dealing with real life things. Nathan moved in. He is being his messy, selfish self. He is not thrilled about living with me either. He was just informing me that he wants to hang himself from the ceiling fan every time he walks into the house. I'm not completely sure, but it may be the fact that I just finished off the rest of the laundry detergent washing Natalie and my clothes for the week and now he may have to go by his own. Natalie graduates from Kindergarten tomorrow. I will probably cry. I am working at Saia again. I wish that I could, like so many people, feel content with life knowing that my bills are paid, my credit is good, and my errands are done. I would rather write short stories or take up painting. My parents are still pushing me to go back into the Navy. I would like to give it a year and see if I can't get a teaching job by then. It's hard not to worry about having a retirement plan or making enough money. I just don't think I could go without seeing Natalie for that long though. I cringe to think about how she would turn out if she were raised by her father. I need to go make my bed and all of those other things that should satisfy my existence so I'll end here.

Misery

Quitting smoking sucks. Period.

Today's Car Conversation on the Way Back from the Grocery

U.S.S. Shipwreck

1600-2000

Me: Oh, Look! Someone won the lottery!

Nat: Darn it?!

Me: What if it was us?

Nat: Then I will take back my darn; otherwise, I'm putting it back up.

Me: Okay.

Nat: Look. There sure are a lot of people at Walmart. 

Me: Poor bastards.

Nat: Well, let's pretend you are an adult.

Me: Okay, hypothetically, let's say I am an adult...

Nat: Well what if you needed something? And you could only get it at Walmart. Then what?

Me: Then they would have it somewhere else or else I wouldn't need it.

Nat: Well what if you really did?

Me: Like what? Like, if I needed a snow shovel and they were the only place in town that had them?

Nat: Yes, like that.

Me: Then I would borrow a snow shovel from someone: a neighbor, a friend, someone.

Nat: What if they didn't have one?

Me: Then I would drive to my parents' house and haul their snow shovel home and haul it back to them.

Nat: What if they didn't have one?

Me: Of course they have one.

Nat: Well, what if they didn't? 

Me. Natalie, if nobody in town had a snow shovel, and the only ones available were at Walmart, then everyone would have snow on their walkways and I wouldn't care. 

Nat: Oh.

Glad You Stopped By - Here's a Rant and a Whine.

U.S.S. Shipwreck

0000-0400

Today I was reminded of why I am glad I do not have a television. I spent the evening at my sister's house, helping her with her new hobby, puzzles (shh you), drinking cocktails, laughing, catching up, having a great time, all while her television was fiercely competing in the background, parading around its crappy American Idols, its horrible fake actors, and its mega rich superstars reminding the commoners that they are in fact superior because so many people allow them to be. I think I need a shower to wash away whatever filth may still be lingering from that piece of trash.

Tonight I spent my weight loss competition dues on pizza. I bummed out cigarettes to my newly quit sister and gave her the same lousy b.s. excuses I have been giving everyone else as to why I started again after three years. I am sucking. I need someone to come over and yank my behind out of bed in the morning and make me go for a run and stop wrecking my health. I feel panicked like I know myself less than ever before. I'm leaving my job in two months, I'm about to finish school and either fight it out in a crappy job market or go right back into school and hide out until someone needs an awesome English teacher. Heh. I have never been without solid goals in my life. Ever. It's freaking me out. I don't know what I want in life anymore but I don't think smoking cigarettes and drinking all the time is really it. I want to do too much and absolutely nothing all at the same time. Perhaps I'll write a sob story letter to one of those bullshit famous people and ask them to send my sorry ass some money to support my new life in some European country. 

Oh, Walgreens

U.S.S. Shipwreck

0000-0400

Those of you that know me well, know that I LOVE Walgreens ;). I am so curious about the workings of their coupon generator's rationalization or lack thereof on which coupons to dish out to which customers. (You know, the coupons you get with your receipt). What about a pack of Orbit Bubblemint and a Cherry Coke says, $1.00 off any size Playtex tampons? What about a pack of Orbit Bubblemint and a box of Tampax Pearls says, "I'm in the market for some super-masculine Axe face wash?"  

My School Rules! Your School Drools!

U.S.S. Shipwreck

2000-2400

My sea-monster bathroom is almost finished. The inversion has cleared and so gone are mornings of running while listening to the Dropkick Murphys, pretending it's a gloomy day in Dublin rather than a toxic day in Boise. I just finished a week of school and I think this semester is going to be a good one. I am doing my internship at Capital High and it is really fun so far. I am visiting about two or three different classrooms per day. In about two weeks I get to choose which one I want to finish out the semester in.

Yesterday, was a game day. Basketball. Capital vs. Borah. I went to Borah. I was in a classroom yesterday with a teacher who is also a passionate football coach. I explained that I graduated from Borah and so it was kind of weird to be in a place filled with black t-shirts adorned with bold letters reading, "BEAT BORAH." He said I could not return to his classroom ever again. I told him about my first day in boot camp when some senior chief guy pulled me aside soon after I arrived and confirmed that I was from Boise. He asked me what high school I went to. When I told him, he said, "I went to Boise. I hate Borah." I find it odd that I should be under attack so often due to my alma mater. In high school, I never went to pep rallies. I went to one football game but only as a photographer requested by one of the coaches. It was miserable. I don't know how I am supposed to respond to these people. I could care less about which team wins or loses. I don't think it is healthy to create such competative strife. Kids take it too seriously. The hatered stays with them through adulthood. That kind of thinking lends itself to intolerance to anyone outside of people just like you. I'll bet George W. still roots for his high school or at least advantageously understands that many people still hold beliefs that their high school teams are somehow more superior than their rivals.

Because the Boy with the Cold Hard Cash is Always Mister Right

U.S.S. Shipwreck

0000-0400

I'm trying to build up my running skills so that I don't up dead on the side of a hot Nevada road this August. No worries; I'm on a plan. It's called the "from couch potato to awesome athlete plan" or something. At this stage, I am to run three days a week. Today was a running day. Because of the nasty air outside due to the inversion, I did not want to go outside and run. I turned, instead, to my trusty old treadmill. My treadmill is piece of trash manual thing that makes running so much more difficult as I have to actually move the belt along with my own strength; running gracefully or hands free is not an option.
The interesting thing is that my little corgie, Roxie, will under no circumstance, come upstairs - ever. She used to use my room as a place to relieve herself and due to repeated punishment coupled with her own massive guilt, she is scared to venture to the upward part of the house. Today was different. As I was making my sad attempt at a workout, Madonna's "Material Girl" blasting out my headphones, I happened to glance over to my left to see the Roxie, looking up at me with an expression of concern in her eyes. I have heard of animals being able to sense when their owners are injured or ill. I think she thought I was going to die up there, pumping away on my little manual treadmill. When I showered afterward, she layed outside the bathroom door, probably anticipating her owner's heart failure, wondering how she would get her next meal.