Priorities

As you can see from my sidebar, I got twitter.  I held out for a long time, but let us be real with one another: twitter is right up my narcissistic alley.  

I love it, but it comes with one problem.  Anytime I add something to my internet time, something else suffers.  I have a lot of non-obligatory internet work to do and I need to learn to say no to some stuff.  But I can't because it's addicting.

All this to say, be reassured.  The blog is my favorite of internet pastimes and will never be overtaken by something as lowly as twitter.  If it's going to get overtaken by anything, it will be this.  

However, I do feel as though I've been blog-slacking a little but that is because my life is fairly routine these days.  I wish something would happen that deserves a witty and observant blog post, but I really just spend my days hanging out with Liz while I'm supposed to be working.  And watching her work on the website and give phone interviews doesn't really inspire my blog creativity.  (Sorry, Liz.)

So today I'll leave with a little story about my roommate Ashley and a video to show you a bit about what our life as friends looks like.  

Last week, Ashley and I had plans to go see Legally Blonde: the Musical (awesome!) at the Starlight with Elizabeth and Abby.  Before the show, Amy decided to cook us dinner (yummy!).

I was getting ready in my room, realized it was time to go, put on my shoes, grabbed my purse and then wandered out into the kitchen, assuming Ashley would be there because that's where we gather to leave.  I could hear her back in her room still, so I grabbed a glass of water and settled in to wait for her to finish getting ready.  I sent some texts, she still wasn't out there.  A good 10 minutes later, she comes out of her room, not really ready to go at all.

Turns out she had completely lost track of time because she had been watching Michael Jackson's Beat It on YouTube and attempting to teach herself the dance.  We were about half an hour late to dinner.

That was funny, and to make it funnier, John came over last night and after dinner and a couple of beers (although none for Ashley, which makes this even better), this is what we came up with.

Enjoy.

Confessions of a Hermit

I talk to myself.

I admit this.  I don't think it's that weird.

I don't talk to myself like I'm a separate person.  Most of the time, I end up talking to myself because I'm acting out some kind of interaction in my head and I get so into it that I end up doing it all out loud.  Or if I'm not actually talking out loud, I'm at least making facial expressions that go with what's going on in my head and not what's going on around me.

This is embarrassing, but it's never made me worry that I need to see someone.

Now that I'm unemployed and officially useless, I have picked up some habits that are beginning to concern me.

No, I'm still not talking to myself like I'm a separate person, but I have begun talking pretty regularly to inanimate objects and I feel as though it's a slippery slope.

First I started talking to the dog.  She kind of responds, so that's not that concerning.

I've been conversing with my GPS for some time, so of course I would continue that.

Next came the Wii Fit trainer.  He's always encouraging and instructing me, so it seemed natural I would answer him.

Today is when things turned for the worse.  I realized that I was talking to just about every inanimate object around.  The book I'm reading?  Not weird at all.  The TV?  Of course.  My heater?  Getting a little weird.  The washing machine?  Weirder.  My shoes?  I'm officially concerned.

I spend a lot of time alone people.  I naturally enjoy this but I'm always aware of the fact that it is only matter of time before I begin collecting cats and forgetting all social norms.  

I need a job.  

I'll Probably Delete This One

New Kelly Clarkson!  New Kelly Clarkson!  New Kelly Clarkson!

I have many, many guilty pleasures, but Kelly is one of the tops.  I love her.  I sing her songs very loudly while dancing around my house with great abandon.

It's much like this (except normally much louder, people were asleep):

(You'll notice Elvis in the background, also getting down.)

Also, I love Beyonce.  I used to find her personally annoying but then she married Jay-Z (the coolest rapper ever) and put out her fiercest album yet.  

In short, I love the ladies that can belt it.  (You bet Christina's on that list.)  I love pop when it's done by someone who can actually sing.  And these ladies can sing.

Lastly, since nobody ever answers my questions, I'll ask you another one:  What's geekier, this video itself or the fact that I made it?  You be the judge.

13, How I Miss Thee

I was listening to the soundtrack from 13 the Musical which is a surprisingly good show with actors all under the age of 15.  It got me thinking about myself at 13. 

This train of thought led to one realization only.  And that is that there were many, many things I thought were cool at 13 that I now realize are super lame.  Here's a few examples:

1) Val Kilmer... I thought he was so hot as I would've put it then.  Now he looks like he overuses spray tanner and is 50 years old (both of which are probably accurate).

2) Being a celebrity.... I thought I should definitely be famous.  It seemed like everyone should want to take pictures of me and I should spend my time getting Starbucks and hanging out with other celebrities.  However, it turns out I hate crowds and get mad when people invade my personal space.

3) Wearing Jncos and a flannel shirt unbuttoned over a 311 t-shirt... That's right.  This was my favorite outfit of all time.  I was street. (Oh, and a tool.)

4) Talking in chat rooms on AOL... This is single-handedly the most confusing way to attempt to communicate with someone.  I never had any idea who said what and would always get frustrated when what I was trying to respond to was long gone by the time my post got there.  Dial-up internet didn't help the process.

5) Writing angsty poetry on my word processor and saving it to floppy disks... Yeah, you can be jealous.  I got to keep our crappy old computer in my room. You could use microsoft paint and type in wordperfect.  That was the height of technology.

6) Trying to get people to think I was cool... I probably still do this, but at least I realize it's lame.

7) Sneaking drinks of Jack Daniels straight out of the bottle and then acting like I was wasted... I don't think I need to elaborate on this one.

8) Rolling my eyes at anything any authority figure said to me...  Don't even try to tell me to do my homework.  I will show you sass like you've never seen.

9) Using a big curling iron and an ozone-killing amount of hairspray to turn my bangs into one giant curl on my forehead... I'm actually going to bring this look back.  I think it was flattering.

10) Mini-backpacks... I had several of these.  My personal favorite was one that was black pleather.  Beat that.

It is really amazing what an idiot I was in middle school.  But at least I'm cool now, right?  Right?  Anyone?  (Who am I kidding, I'm going to make a list about what an idiot I was at 23 in another 10 years.)

Gotta remember your past to move forward.  That's my new motto.  You can use it if you want.

(Obsessive) Compulsive

I was laying in bed last night and actually ended up in a slight panic about my mental health.  Calmer heads have prevailed this morning, but it wasn't pretty there for a while.

This all started with something that I'm embarrassed to admit publicly, but I'm going to anyway.  And since only my brother and Liz read my blog, I'm not that worried.  So here it is... I'm hooked on the Twilight books.  I'm ashamed.  I had to go to the teen section at Barnes and Noble to buy them.  I fully blame the hype for the movie on all of this.  

Here's the story:

I was in the B&N a couple blocks from my apartment the other day looking for a book.  I had just finished a collection of short stories called Olive Kitteridge that was only so-so.  So it was time for a good, easy to read, modern work of fiction.  (Side note:  I actually have a pretty consistent cycle of book reading:  Classic, non-fiction, short stories, modern novel.  I don't really plan it but that's how it tends to work out.)

I had come in thinking I was going to get a book called A Year of Fog which I had almost bought when I picked up Olive Kitteridge instead.  I knew where it was at, towards the back of the store.  As I was headed back, I passed the display of Twilight books.  This is a smaller Barnes and Noble so they didn't have the entire series displayed there.  In my initial defense, I didn't even realize at this point that this was a book that would normally require placement in the teen section.  All I knew was that it was really popular and had just come out as a movie.  

Long story short, I passed on Year of Fog and walked with already a little bit of shame to purchase Twilight.  I go in this B&N frequently and I didn't want them getting the wrong idea about my reading habits, especially when I already have the classic I want to read next (Emma) so they won't see me buying that.  But I swallowed my pride and bought the book, knowing it would be an easy read.

I finished it 5 hours later.  (At 2:30 in the morning.  On a Monday morning.)

I packed the baby up as soon as I could the next morning and went to the bigger B&N in Union Square so I could get the second book of the series in paperback.

I finished that one the next day.

The next 2 books are hardback which I refuse to buy.  But I want to.  Badly.

Here's the problem:  The books aren't even that good.  I mean, they're angsty, teenage, vampire romances.  I should not want to read them.  I'm actually ashamed that I am reading them. Really, look at the cover:

It has many, many fansites with people who border on clinically insane discussing every minute detail of the book.

I am 23 years old, I should not want any part of this.

But I opened the flood gates.  I read the first book.  Now I have to finish the series.  

This brings us to my slight panic attack last night.  I was laying there in bed thinking about how badly I wanted to read the third book.  I kept reminding myself of my firm paperback-only rule due to my serious lack of funds.  (I can't cut out buying books altogether, so I think the no hardbacks rule is a good compromise.)  The thing is I was seriously considering getting out of bed, changing back out of my pajamas and going to B&N to buy the third book.  I almost had myself convinced this was a good idea.

Then I remembered something I learned in Psych 1000 freshman year of college.  We were studying OCD and talking about the fact that everyone has compulsions.  What makes compulsions bad is when they become obsessive, when they actually interfere with your day-to-day life, relationships, etc.  I was then flooded with memories of the many times that I have silenced my phone when I was in the middle of a book, even if I had plans with someone.  Also, the times that I forgot to eat dinner or stayed up all night even when I had to work the next day.  At various points, I have stayed home from school/pretended I was sick in order to finish books.  I would say it definitely falls into the "disrupting normal life" category. 

I sometimes literally can't put a book down.  And my true downfall is the series.  If I start one of the Harry Potters, I have to read through to the end of the series.  This could mean a week of refusing to see my friends, depending on what book I started with.  And I've read those several times.  It is not good.  And it's the same with movies.  I don't fall asleep during movies, I don't leave in the middle of them, I make people pause them if I have to take a phone call or something.  I have to know the end of the story.

After a lot of soul searching, I have some to a couple of conclusions:  1) I am willing to openly admit that I do have a compulsion and 2) I have always easily justified it because books make you smart.  And while I'm probably not going to stop compulsively reading any time soon, I am now resolved to start answering the phone even when in the middle of a book.  Or at least calling people back when I get to the end of the chapter and joining them in real life.  Because books aren't friends and I don't want to end up not being able to leave my house without pulling in and out of the garage 72 times.  It's a slippery slope people.

Life is weird.  Love you all.

I Fell Down Today

I'm still in Oregon and it is so fun! I know it has a good chance of getting really hard and sucky at some point, but it is so great so far. Although I have muscles that are sore that I didn't even know I had. Our housekeeping boss, Jen, is always telling us to switch hands vacuuming and stuff and I now see why. You get for real sore. But I digress.

So, since I last posted we had our first intern meeting where we got our Year Long Intern Program binders and found out about all the little stuff that we need to know like how to order pizza. That would be go to the kitchen anytime before noon on Wednesdays and place an order with Prancing Pony Pizza, pay $7 and be in your condo at 5:30ish to eat it. It really is like a whole little town out here which is funny and fun. We were also reminded that we can't drink or date each other. Bummer. Also, how to use our sick days, that we get a sweet discount in the camp store, what to do when we see trespassers (during hunting season that gets a little dicier because they probably have guns), if we brought a gun we have to lock it in the gun safe and we're not allowed to shoot it, that we have worship every Thursday (one week with just the interns and the next with the whole staff), that I'm supposed to get an OR driver's license but I will not, and how to join the fire department here at camp should you so desire.

We also got our keys which was sweet. I got 6! That was pretty good. I have one general camp key, one to the office to check mail, one to the Sassy, the housekeeping key, the Coke machine key, and the toilet paper despenser key. It's pretty sweet. Also, if anyone wanted to send me a Mizzou laniard, one of the ones that goes around your neck and you can put keys and your nametag one (preferably one of the skinny ones), I would love you a lot. I need to get one and I want to rep as much Missouri gear as possible.

We then pretty much went straight back to bed and crashed. It's been an intense few days. But I woke up this morning refreshed. All the ladies were in housekeeping this morning finishing up for the camp arriving tonight. We did the bathrooms and stuff in the club room and the dining hall first and then moved on to the Sports Center. The Sports Center is going to be the monster of all things we clean and it will always be on Friday mornings so that everyone can use it all week but it still be clean and sparkly for the campers.

Cleaning the sports center includes things like mopping 4 basketball courts and mopping down the skate park. Which we just got a new skate park that is ridiculous, at least twice the size of the old one and inludes a foam pit to do tricks into. Yeah. It's awesome and they only have 60% of it out because they couldn't fit it all. Crazy. Anyway, it took me like an hour to do one job which was vacuuming the rock wall islands and redoing the ties in the ropes so that they all hung down evenly. It was fun though because it wasn't a bathroom. I'm already sick of bathrooms and I've only been here a couple days.

After we finished the Sports Center, we went to lunch. After lunch, the four retail and kitchen interns went to our job sites to train while everyone else got a couple hour break. That is because everyone else has to do AE training which is the ropes, swing, etc. They went in at 3:00 and are still there and will be there for a while longer. Apparently it's pretty intense. But I got to go to the Sassy and got off at 5:00. So, sweet. But not being AE trained means I don't ever get to help on climbing wall or anything which is fine because pretty much everyone else is trained so I'm sure I can find someone to help. But it would have been fun.

But I went to the Sassy with Sara who is the other retail intern (she's in the store). The Sassy and the Store are in the same building and we both report to the retail manager, Angela. So we'll be hanging out a lot. She's really cool. We got to the Sass and met Angela, who is SO GREAT! I already like her a lot. She's from Oklahoma and she just so sweet and excited and ready to let us take a lot of responsibility. She just started this job, so she's great about letting us put in input and stuff and asked us a lot about what we like to do and stuff. She's going to be wonderful to work for.

First she took us on a tour of all the storage and stuff and then we sat and talked about where we were from and stuff. Then she left Sara a project in the store and took me into the Sassy to do some training. It's a lot of stuff that I'm sure will quickly become 2nd nature. I get to learn to make coffee. So I'll be a barrista! And I get to be in charge of ordering and everything too. So the Sassy is going to be my own domain. During the off-season I'll have other interns rotating in and out working in the Sassy and then I'll have Summer Staff during the summer. So it's my job to know everything and be able to point people in the right direction quickly. It won't be a difficult job but it will definitely keep me hopping.

After I was done with the quick training, Angela had me defrost one of the ice cream coolers. It was intense. I had to get this crazy layer of ice off the sides and then clean it out. But it was slightly too deep for me to reach the bottom so I had to precariously perch on a step ladder and attempt to clean it. It was not pretty but I got it done. And then organized some flavored syrups and then went back to the office and talked some more with Angela and Sara and prayed to close the day. We talked a lot about how the 3 of us are really going to become a team and I'm stoked about it. They both seem really great and it already seems like our strengths are going to compliment well.

After the Sassy, Sara and I went back to the condo with Mandi (kitchen) and Lacey (d hall) and hung out for awhile while everyone else was at training. Then we went to dinner. And then I fell down. I was kind of skipping out of the dining hall and nailed the door stop and seriously went flying face-first straight to the ground. But I hopped up and shook it off. I was fine. And everyone has to eat it every once and a while, right?

Anyway, now I'm back at my condo. I'm going to spend a while reading the giant binder of info I got on the Sassy and read or something. I don't really know what to do with myself. I don't have to be to work until noon tomorrow because we're open in the evening too. So, I guess I'll just be hanging out, maybe try to catch up on sleep.

Glen- Answers to your questions: I'm about 4 hours from the coast, we're pretty much right in the middle. We're actually going to the coast next weekend, so I'll let you know. We haven't had blue juice yet, but I'm waiting for the day. And I have not yet introduced air hump but we did talk about nakedness today so I think we're working up to the time.

Paige- Thanks for officially making me the first to get a call! You're the best!