Thursday, October 28, 2010

Fictional lives seem much more interesting.

I just finished reading Good Grief by Lolly Winston and I find myself simultaneously lusting after the main character's life while noticing the similarities with my own.

I love the idea of her starting life over (after the death of her husband) in Ashland, Oregon... in ways she never imagined her life would be. It's a fantastically written novel of re-discovering life. I seem to have an odd fondness for books with that sort of storyline. One of my absolute favorites is How To Talk To A Widower by Jonathan Tropper. EXCELLENT book. I cannot stress that enough. Fabulous writing that sucks you in to be sympathetic with the main character's struggle.

And now, with a similar book, Lolly Winston has forever won her way into my heart. Her other book that I've read is Happiness Sold Separately... which is about a woman dealing with the troubles of divorce. I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as this one.

God, I love good books.

I always wonder if Josh and I will end up with some sort of patched-together life like the characters I come to love. Will we pseudo-adpot a random teenager who can use the support? Are we going to end up somewhere new, exciting and maybe a bit odd?

Funny thing is... I already have the teenager in my life. I feel like Tabby's aunt or Big Sister some days. It's nice to be around someone who has their whole life still in front of them, knowing that I might be able to make even a small contribution to her not wasting it.

For now, I will embrace the life I have. Me, the husband, the girls and the kitties.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Wednesday morning moments of happiness.

Today, since my alarm went off, has already been a good day. I am taking a moment to appreciate all the small things that went right.

Like my husband taking out the trash before I asked. Or my Hot Pocket not being freezer burned. How about putting on my makeup in record time? I even decided to spruce up my work outfit a bit today. I am carrying a purse. Maybe this is a start to a glorious work week.

Today was supposed to be my last day working the Philosophy counter. Just in case it is, I am going to do a major overhaul cleaning so it's ready for whomever comes in to take my place. Maybe my paperwork from Estee Lauder will be in and I'll do the switch this week.

Yay for more money!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Truly pathetic. A comedy.

The saddest thing you will ever learn about me is that I wish I could look more like my character on Rock Band 2. Insert laughter here.

Seriously, though. It's not just a weight thing, it's a complete lack of concern for any sort of societal guidelines to fashion or propiety. I can have a green fauxhawk while sporting a top that looks like a couple of demon's hands grabbing my tits. All right... so I actually hate that top and there isn't a fauxhawk in the options so far, but you get the drift.

I want to be able to dye my hair fun colors and be expressive with my clothing. Working in retail really puts barriers around all the crazy things you can try with different styles. So I will continue to use my face as a blank canvas and learn all I can about makeup.

In the meantime, I will be happy to let Lovely Rita wear all the insane outfits I don't have the option to.

It's too quiet.

The wind is lightly blowing outside, making the day comfortably cool and our front door is open to let some of the fresh air in.

There is a mixed emotion in moments like these. It's nice to have the time to enjoy doing nothing, even if only for five minutes. Relaxation, as an adult, is hard to come by without some sort of artificial help. Since I've always been a square, I have to drink in these moments and appreciate them when I can.

However...

I am a city girl. I love noise. I miss everything about the city that we lack here. The traffic, the shopping, the hole-in-the-wall markets or shops, the CHOICE of where you would like to get coffee on a lazy Sunday and the people. There aren't very many people around here that I can relate to. Because of that, I have one local friend. One. Mary was an Army brat in her early life, but was raised here after that and is most definitely a local. But Tosha, Stacey and Alicia are not. Even Tabby (my surrogate daughter, if you will) is an Army brat. And all my military friends are going to be gone in less than a year.

Let me see if I can help my West Coast friends understand the people in Missouri. Or, at least, small towns in Missouri. Springfield and St. Louis definitely have their share of diversity. But people here in the Waynesville/St. Robert area are generally... emotionless. They don't get overly excited or upset about anything. It's like there are small amounts of thorazine in the water supply. And they seem to be foreign to the ways of sarcasm. Okay, there is a big thing for me. Sarcasm is basically my first language. So I am really awkward when trying to joke around these people.

Not to mention that this place is in the Northern tip of the Bible Belt. I have no issues with people celebrating their religion, but there are a lot of restrictions on how everyone else enjoys their entertainment. Don't get me wrong... there is a really skeezy strip club on the outskirts of St. Robert, but that's not really my thing. They control what movies play here. Sadly, that has meant lately than anything supposedly intelligent or independent has been cast aside for things like Jackass 3-D.

Jackass, ladies and gentlemen, is our nation's first step towards "Ow, My Balls". See Idiocracy if you were lost on that reference.

All this just adds up into a feeling of being caged. We go to the city as often as we can, but money is always a big issue in life, so it's not as often as either of us would like. Maybe one or both of us will get lucky in our chosen professions and have the available funding to move. I think Josh would really like Seattle.

And I really miss Seattle.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

An alarm clock named Nyx.

I went to a birthday/Passion Party last night and had such a great time that I was straight into bed upon returning home. God, but I wanted sleep. After the Paranormal Activity 2 fiasco, my brain was ready to shut down for at least a couple days. Sadly, I couldn't take my Ambien because I had a 7a.m. wake-up time and it was near midnight. No eight hours possible.

Seven came and my cell phone obnoxiously attempted to rouse me out of bed. I laid there for about ten seconds before thinking "The HELL with this. I'm sleeping until eight and I can still make it on time". So I reset the alarm for eight and snuggled happily back into my pillows.

For about two minutes.

Nyx is only five months old and weighs just over four pounds, so she's easy to miss when she walks up the length of the bed. But when she gets very close to your face and lets out a resounding "MEOW", you have no choice but to wake up and give her attention.

I can't believe the amount of character this little cat has. So now I've been awake since just after seven and still dreading the day ahead. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. It's fun to be able to play in makeup and skincare so I can get the public excited about it enough to buy some for themselves. And Too Faced cosmetics just joined the beauty bar on Thursday, so it's even more exciting. New things to try! It's just that my body just doesn't want to keep up after two nights of poor sleep.

Oh, well. Here's to a new day and my Friday!

Friday, October 22, 2010

6 a.m. Gross.

A friend of mine who worked with me at Movie Gallery has a fourteen-year-old daughter that comes over to my house sometimes to escape life or whatever and hang out. Last night, we were supposed to wait up to see the midnight showing of Paranormal Activity 2.

She came over in the afternoon and we had dinner, watched Grumpy Old Men, chatted a bit and waited for the time to leave for the theater.

One of us was supposed to be getting in with a free pass and she had told me that the website said nothing about passes not being accepted. I double-checked the site before leaving and discovered that she was wrong. Passes generally aren't accepted for brand-new releases, so we shrugged and headed to the theater.

The sign outside says that Paranormal Activity 2 was playing at 9:50. We were a little confused and thought maybe the sign was wrong... but it was completely accurate and there was NO midnight showing of the movie. So there we were at the theater, decked out in our PJs cause I was usually in bed and deeply into an Ambien coma by then, being told by a group of teenagers that the movie was almost over. And wasn't very good, anyway.

I pretty much guessed the last part. I remember when the Blair Witch Project was a big deal and the second one was absolute crap that had NOTHING to do with the first, so I wasn't really all that upset.

Instead, we headed to the store to grab a couple needed groceries to make a birthday cake for a friend of mine and arrived home over an hour earlier than planned. I certainly don't mind, considering the early time I had to be up this morning.

Ugh. Six. I'm sure it wouldn't feel this way if I had eight hours of sleep last night, but those are the sacrifices you make sometimes. Yesterday simply wasn't my day, but I laughed all the little things away. Murphy was definitely getting some entertainment at my expense.

Here's to hoping today is a little better.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Convenient love.

Okay, I might piss off a few people with this post, so bear with me.

Sunday night, a spunky little black and white kitten appeared on our porch. She has a collar (one that looks much too worse for wear if she was an inside cat) and is obviously socialized from the loving nature she has, but she was very skinny and ate the food we gave her like it was her first meal in weeks. There are plenty of squirrels and chipmunks outside, so I am sure she's eaten lately, but she is almost pure skin and bones.

Our two cats watched us pet her and feed her with a mix of curiosity and downright irritation. Cats. Gotta love 'em, right? They sniffed at her through the screen of the front door and were not hissing (which, in our cats, is a very good sign), so it seemed that curiosity won.

Here's my thing. This little six-month-old kitten (whom I have named Nyx after the Greek Goddess of night, which is when we found her... plus our cats are Achilles and Persephone, so it fits the trend if she gets to live here) has lots of character and is not skittish at all. She comes right up to whomever is outside and more or less demands pets in a very adorable fashion. She has been owned. Even if she didn't have a collar, that would be abundantly clear in the way she acts around people. Which leads me to believe one of two scenarios...

The first is that someone in our neighborhood keeps her as an outside cat. Let me explain why that irks me as much as it does. Our next door neighbor has a rottweiler named Charlie who absolutely LOVES to chase and maim cats. Don't get me wrong, Charlie is the sweetest of dogs... it's just part of the instinct she's born with and that neighbor refuses to fence her yard, so Charlie is free to torment whatever smaller animal she wants without issue. Not to mention the fact that she isn't the only one that we've seen in our yard that would have malevolent intentions towards Nyx. A coyote was wandering just along the other side of our fence not a month ago. I highly doubt anyone is going to keep the coyote from simply eating her. And she's so SKINNY. If someone IS keeping her as an outside pet, they are obviously forgetting to leave food out for her. But that must be the most convenient way for them to have a pet. Which is okay, then, right? Wrong.

The second is that she HAD owners that moved. We live in a fairly predominent military community. Being just off the west gate of Fort Leonard Wood pretty much guarantees that the houses in our neighborhood that go up for rent will be rented out by a military family. I once worked for a veterinarian who would sometimes refuse to adopt a pet to someone who is in the service. I thought that was a jackass move on her part until I saw the effects on the animals they would adopt as pets. There are a LOT of people who simply don't want to deal with the inconvenience of moving with a pet. So they will adopt one at each duty station so they can have a family pet without all the hassle.

Are you kidding me?!

So there are dogs and cats being thrown to the wayside because people don't think they're important enough to travel with. I understand that it's difficult to move every couple years in the military. I've been nomadic for almost my entire adult existence. However... if it's going to be an issue to have a pet, then DON'T HAVE ONE. Get a fish. Make friends. Do whatever you have to do to avoid abandoning your animal at every post so you don't have to deal with it. Just the thought makes me sick.

The funny thing about it is that I am not a fur person. I don't spray paint people for wearing fur coats or get disgusted over leather jackets. I eat meat. But I do believe that, once you domesticate an animal, pets are part of your family for better or worse.

So... I intend to set up an appointment to get this kitty checked out at the vet so we can make sure she's in good health and then bring her inside to join our family.

Oh. If you ARE keeping her as an outside pet, you're failing completely. Don't worry, we will assume the responsibility for her now and make sure she's kept safe and fed properly.

Early morning determination.

Have any of you heard of NaNoWriMo? No? It stands for National Novel Writing Month and happens every November. It's awesome to see how many people submit exerpts of new stories that they are trying to get up to the 50,000 word limit. In a world where I feel like the written word is dying, I can have one month to forget all that and join in with the mass rush to squeeze out a partial novel in 30 days.

The object is to hit that 50,000 word mark. What do you win? Nothing. Bragging rights, I suppose. Who cares? It's fun, it keeps your mind in creative mode and you get to share with friends. It's just a great experience.

Gordon Davidescu was the one who introduced me to it in 2006, when I worked dilligently and fell under the 5,000 mark. Or was it 13,000? I can't remember now. I know I haven't gotten to the prestigous 50k, but there is always this year. And the next. And so on.

I set up my page for this year and am excited to start "Girdle" on the first of November.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Kandee is seeping into my psyche...

I have recently been following makeup artist Kandee Johnson's blog. If you have never heard of her, you simply HAVE to look her up. There is nothing like an incredibly perky, talented woman to inspire you. I will admit that, prior to finding that source of positivity, I was swimming in a sea of negatives. I have always been a bit of a cynical person. I am now determined to change that.

Lets consider for a moment the amount of pressure on your average person. They are hassled about what job they have, how much money they make, what car they drive and how great they look. I recently attended my ten-year reunion and discovered how much of it is actually just to exhange stories on how awesome you have become since high school. I think it's hilarious how so many people consider your teenage self something that you have to overcome. But this overwhelming pressure from society bears down on you and you are left with very little self-esteem or self-worth.

Face it, a good portion of the people you know could not care if you have either of those things.

But it's not a reason to start looking at yourself like you should be ashamed. Find ONE thing out of every day to be proud of. Just one. After a while, you'll notice that it's getting harder to see the negatives.

I work at a cosmetics counter. So what? I enjoy my job. Yes, it's retail so there are going to be numerous days where I come home with mass murder on my mind. The holiday season is coming up, so be prepared to hear about that. But I get paid to play in makeup all day. How badass is that? I don't have to do mounds of paperwork, lift heavy equipment, listen to other people whine about their childhood or wipe an old person's wrinkly backside. Instead, I have the rare opportunity to do a makeover on someone and see their face light up when they catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror.

Making someone else feel beautiful, even if it may seem superficial to other people, is a joy beyond my ability of expression.

Where was I going with this? Who knows... it's a first post to a hopefully long-lived blog. I can make sense some other time. It's a Monday, after all.

Be proud of yourself. Take a moment to acknowledge something that you have to offer. And, when other people tell you that you aren't good enough or get condescending... shrug it off. At the end of the day, you are the only one whose opinion matters.