Yep, New Moon

I went and saw New Moon this weekend. I'm not even going to pretend to be all embarrassed about it. It was awesome.

Seriously, I realize that it is angsty and about vampires and that 13-year-old girls go crazy for it, but I love it.

I, unfortunately, couldn't go to the midnight premier because I have a big girl job now and we had a crazy busy day on Friday that I needed to be ready for. (Otherwise, I totally would have. I love midnight premiers. Although hysterical middle schoolers scare me, so this one might've been too much for me.)

Instead, we went to a Sunday matinee. We bought our tickets 2 hours early and there were people lining up to get into our show already. We weren't that concerned with our seat position, so we came like 15 minutes early and ended up in the 2nd row which is nowhere near as cool as it used to be. In fact, it makes me a little motion sick.

The best thing about going to the Sunday matinee is that all the middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college kids had already seen it. Who does that leave? 20-something to middle-aged women. That was the entire sold out theater.

This audience definitely made things more enjoyable. There was no squealing and glee when Jacob took off his shirt, but instead hearty laughs at how cheesy it was. The entire series tends towards the cheesy and I was glad I saw it with people who could appreciate the humor but yet still gasp out loud when Edward leaves.

It was awesome, I'm firmly on board with the hype, and I'm immediately rereading my books (again) as soon as they get here this week. I don't care what you think.

And you're welcome for returning to Twilight posting. I know you've missed it.

Song of the Day: Roslyn by Bon Iver and St. Vincent

Sleep Sounds Nice

We just turned over all of camp in one day. There was a group in that left at noon and another group coming this evening.

This means that I spent the entire day organizing a lot of people, problem solving, walking at a quick and determined pace, and answering radio calls. (Seriously, I heard a lot of "Kate, copy, Kate" today.)

If you know me at all, you know that this is a little bit of work heaven for me.

But it also means I am exhausted. So I have no witty blogging in me. But I do have something that I think is just as good.

Classic YouTube Video Revisited: The Katana Slip (I'm not kidding when I say I used to watch this 15 times in a row, laughing so hard I was crying. So good. "A piece of the tip just got me there, O'Dell." Hee.)

Childhood Terror

I have a question for you, blog friends.

Do you have something that happened to you in childhood that should not have been a big deal but ended up putting an irrational life-long fear into your heart?

Or is that just me?

When I was about 5 years old, I saw 2 minutes of an episode of Picket Fences and it legitimately scarred me for life.

Yes, that's right, Picket Fences. I didn't even know what Picket Fences was about until I just looked it up on IMDB. Because I've only ever seen those traumatic 2 minutes.

Let me take you back.

It's approximately 1990. I'm sitting in my dad's room in my pink nightgown with the bear in a tutu on it while my dad mills about, doing some busy adult thing. He left the TV on and the show we were watching ended. I sat sucking my thumb as I wondered what would come on next.

Cut to the TV. A little girl is at Show and Tell in her elementary school classroom. She begins to tell the class all about this incredible object she found in her back yard. The background music begins to swell. She pulls out the object and it is a human hand floating in a jar.

At this point, I am paralyzed with fear. The theme song comes on, the credits roll, and it cuts back to a sheriff discussing the little girl's hand with his deputy. They explain that there is some kind of criminal on the loose who is cutting off people's hands as souvenirs of his criminal activity.

At this point, my dad turns off the TV and tells me to go to bed.

It was a while before I got to sleep.

Now, to preface this, I was under a few wrong assumptions at this point. One, I thought that being put under amnesia and simply falling asleep were the same thing. So, I thought someone could perform surgery on you while you were asleep as long as they didn't jostle you around enough that you would wake up. Two, I thought that it was possible that someone would want to just cut off people's hands and keep them. I now realize that the criminal in the show was most likely killing the people and then taking their hands, but that is not what I assumed at 5. I thought that there was someone out there in TV land, breaking into people's homes, cutting off their hands and leaving them to wake up handless.

I went to bed that night with a plan. I decided to sleep with my entire body covered by my blankets, except my head. If they had to move the blankets to get to my hands, I would obviously wake up. And since this fictional criminal only wanted my hands, not to kill me, he would run away when I woke up. (I kept my feet covered as well, just in case.) My plan was full-proof.

I never woke up to a hand-stealing mad man, but I carried the fear with me. I continued to sleep completely covered. Years later, when I rationally knew this was all idiotic, I still couldn't sleep if my hands or feet were not under the covers.

Nearly 20 years has passed since this incident, and I would like to say I've moved on. I understand that nobody is going to cut off my hand. But I still sleep completely covered by the blankets. Because it's comfortable, and a little piece of that anxiety hangs on.

Thanks a lot, Picket Fences.

Puppy Love

This is my roommate Jen's dog, Roxy.

Roxy is an energetic, sweet black lab. We have a lot of fun together.

This is one of Roxy's sick nasty, slimy, drool-covered tennis balls.

This is Roxy staring at the ball that she has loving dropped at my feet (better than on my lap), in hopes that I will preferably pick it up and throw it for her, but she would settle for me kicking it across the room.

She will stay in this pose for at least 10 minutes. This dog does not know when to give up. And she needs to. Because I do like her a lot, but I am not touching that ball.

Song of the Day: Whatever It Is by Zac Brown Band (Sometimes I love a good country song.)

It Finally Happened

I'm 24. I'm a college graduate. I have a full time job, health benefits, and a 401(k).

Yet, until today, I was still a child. Today, I hit a new plateau, a new stratum, if you will.

That's right, I am officially a grown-up.

"What happened to cement this new status?," you may ask. Well, let me tell you.

My Blazer broke down.

That's not really that surprising, and actually my ghetto car may set me back in the grown-up race, but my story does not stop with my Blazer breaking. The remarkable part is that it is now fixed.

It is fixed, and it is fixed solely because of my actions (and a mechanic and tow-truck driver, but whatever). Yes, you read right, I not only got my car towed, dealt with a mechanic, and got it fixed on the cheap with not a single call to any of my parents, but I also, wait for it, PAID FOR IT MYSELF!

That's right, I have a job and enough money and life experience that I can do all of that. See you later, irresponsible youth!

This is really the best. I love my life, I love chatty tow-truck drivers, I love helpful middle-aged men in parking lots, I love mechanics that play Toy Story in their shops, and I love, love, LOVE my independence. (Blog post to follow on how "independence" is actually misplaced arrogance, but I'm not coming down from this high right now.)

*Full disclosure: My parents do pay for my AAA, so they technically paid for the tow, but I totally could've afforded that, so I don't think it counts. (But thanks, Mom!)

Song of the Day: Angel from Montgomery by Bonnie Raitt

I Don't Like to Rush

OK, so my new "blog at lunch" plan is flawed.

Why? Because after eating my lunch and checking my email, I have exactly 6 minutes in order to blog about all the awesome things that have happened to me in the past few days.

Like the fact that I filled up my Blazer with gas for the first time since I got here. My commute is pretty sweet and is saving me some serious cash in gas.

I also don't have time to tell you that I've stayed up past 10 for 2 nights in a row now! The adrenaline is wearing off and I'm realizing that I can handle my job and life with out quite so much franticism (franticness?).

OK, my time is seriously up.

I'm panicing a little because I can't obsessively reread this post to make sure there's no grammatical errors or typos. Don't judge me too harshly, I guarantee you I will change them later if I come across them.

Much Love.

You're Welcome

Whelp, it's Sunday night which means that I am wide awake when I should be asleep. (And, consequently, that I'm going to be very grumpy and need lots of coffee tomorrow.)

Obviously, I am listening to the new John Mayer single on repeat while cuddling up under my down comforter and staring at the ceiling.

This clearly means that I am feeling inspired to journal, but I really don't want to get up to turn the light on. Thank goodness I have a blog, right?

I realize that I have not been blogging very often lately. You all probably don't really care, but I miss it. And while I'll probably never achieve the 32 blog posts in one month as seen last January, I do have a plan to up my blog game a little.

That plan may or may not involve blogging while I eat my lunch alone at my desk. But now that I've typed that, it makes me feel kind of pathetic. So maybe I'll go eat lunch with my co-workers and not blog. Or I'll just continue to do what I've been doing which is catch up on work emails and check facebook. I have so many options.

I'm going to go to sleep now, but I'll leave you with a question that I believe is plaguing all of humanity right now: How do I get Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA out of my head? Seriously, I need some help.

Song of the Night: Who Says by John Mayer

I'm Just a Small-Town Girl

I took me an hour and a half to get 10 things at the grocery store and an iced Americano at the coffee shop.

Both of those things are within a half of a mile of each other and 5 miles (max) from my house.

Why did it take so long?

Well, because I live in a tiny little town and strangers love to talk.

This makes me very, very happy.

My trip to Safeway was extended by a solid 15 minutes because a lady stopped me in the middle of an aisle to chat about Lost Canyon, people she knows that work there and the fact that she's really excited about the early Thanksgiving Dinner we invite the entire town to. (BTW, I wasn't even wearing Lost Canyon gear, I had a Wildhorse sweatshirt on and that was enough.)

Then I hit up the coffee shop where I chatted about trick-or-treating and cleaning toilets (seriously) for another 10 minutes.

When renting a movie last night at the Redbox, I talked to a 12-year-old named Michael about how excited we both are about Up coming out in a couple of weeks. He's got it in his Netflix queue and he is pumped.

Combine the town's propensity to chat with the awesomeness that was Williams trick-or-treating last night and the fact that if you hang up over 500 Christmas lights the city gives you a discount on your electric bill, and this town has officially embedded itself into my heart.

Song of the Day: Dream by Priscilla Ahn