If I Die It's Because

I obviously didn't succeed on keeping any of my goals; except for the read friends' writing, I've done that at least a bit.  Hopefully I'll be able to post at least once a week now.

But school has started, so that will be harder than it should be.  I have six classes this semester, but I don't want to just let my blog fall to the wayside.  I have three English classes (fiction writing, world literature, and technology and writing [which is actually about blogging]), two women's studies classes (urban folklore and love and friendship), and my first PE course, women's self defense.

For the latter I signed a permission slip that said I was aware of the possible risks it listed and accepted them.  They talked about possible death at least three times.  So, if I die, it's because my partner, Sarah, and I did something stupid.  We met and decided to be partners in this class while exclaiming "what the Hell?!" over the permission slip.

This week has been a little rough, due in part to the fact that it is the first week back.  I need to get ready to leave for school, so I'm going to leave you with a piece of my creative work.  It's a writing exercise for my fiction class.  Kevin encouraged me to go with it and follow my heart on what I wanted to do with it.  The format looks kind of strange here, but if you'd be so kind, comments are lovely.

            Her hands rested on the curve of her stomach as she eyeballed her aunt’s damn cuckoo clock.  She’d obviously misjudged the older woman.

            “Cassandra,” her aunt smacked the table in front of her.

            “I’m listening.”

            “If you’d been listening you would’ve answered my question.”

            “If you’d been saying something interesting I would’ve listened.”

            “Do you want my help?”

            “Yes.”  Cassandra’s gaze settled on her belly before returning it to her aunt’s eyes.  “What was your question?”

            “How do you expect me to believe that you’re pregnant and—”

            “I expect you to trust me,” Cassandra said, then swallowed hard.

            Her aunt pushed her chair back from the table and started to clean the kitchen.

            “Are you dismissing me?”

            “There’s nothing to talk about if you’re only going to tell me fairytales.”

            Cassandra jerked up from her seat and left through the kitchen door, making sure that it slammed behind her.  The door of the car she slid into received an equal amount of abuse.

            “Went well then?” the driver said.

            “Don’t talk to me.”

            “That’s right.  I just drive the get away car; I’m not supposed to be able to talk.”

            Cassandra glowered out the window.  This jerk, her roommate and lifetime friend, was the one that everybody thought was the father of her unborn child.  She’d never even had sex…

LaLaLaLa

First of all, I came to the conclusion that I haven't been taking myself and my craft seriously.  I'm not just a cashier and frontline worker, I am a writer.  Despite this, it doesn't seem that I've been doing all that much writing, so I'm going to set myself some goals that you should hold me accountable for.  I will blog at least once a week, twice if my work schedule allows.  I will write one new poem, or edit a previously written one.  I will work on my newest novel project for at least an hour every day.  And I will read Maciena and Stephanie's work that they have both gifted me with.

I don't remember if I've talked about my little fish tank children yet, so I'll introduce you to them today because of our new addition.  A couple of weeks ago one of my glofish died, so on Tuesday we went to the pet store and found the person we were looking for, Carrie.  With her help, Mom and I got a Julii Cory Catfish (Kitty) to join my remaining glofish (Pinky) and my aquatic frog (Sminth).

So yesterday was my sixth day at work in a row, which I am not used to so I was slightly zombified.  Since it was a Thursday, I was honestly expecting a slow night.  Instead, BG experienced a freak thunderstorm that sent the city into chaos.  Most of the electricity (including half of the mall's and nearly everything on our side of the bridge) was out.  Two or threes planes at our small local air port were literally flipped over and their were trees and power lines down everywhere.  The stop lights on our main road were out and reduced to mayhem producing stop signs.

The buffet where I work was one of the only functioning restaurants left.  After the storm quiet, we got slammed.  The only way that we were affected by the power outage (other then the large number of hungry people)  was that our electricity flickered on and off at the beginning of the storm.  This made my credit card machine go extra slow and act up a bit.  Oh, our phone wouldn't stop ringing either with "do you have electricity? are you open?"

I'm glad that I wasn't out in that storm, and that, as far as I know, everybody is ok.

I'll have to share with you the book that I just finished next time because it was quite amazing.  Last night I started reading "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett and am planning on seeing that movie.  I didn't listen to music this time, I've watching "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" with Momma and texting Kevin (who is coming home tomorrow!!!).

Don't Let Soap in Your Eye

Can you tell that titles aren't my forte?  Sometimes I feel like titling as Emily Dickinson's poetry is, with the first line of the poem.  When it comes to my poetry and fiction writing, I often ask other people for help or ideas because I'm not sure what to do.

This title actually pertains to something that happened today.  While scrubbing my head in the shower, a glop of shampoo fell on my closed eyeball.  It was closed, so Huzzah! we will simply wipe it off with the towel.  But me being me, I wound up somehow grinding it further into my eyeball resulting in panicked pained me.

Two other exciting events of the day: I finished cleaning! and Momma and I went to the movies.  We saw Zookeeper, which was hilarious.  I think we literally laughed through the entirety of it.

Something that I thought of that I have yet to do here is babble about books, so I'm going to make a
listy:

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter

Anne Bishop's Black Jewels Series

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, anything by him really

Jane Austen, anything she has written

You must read these.  Harry Potter, and thus, Rowling, has been a huge part of the lives of many people around the world.  There are many people, such as those in my generation, who literally grew up with these books and latter the movies.  Rowling has finished writing this particular series (I hope she never stops writing) and at midnight, the movies will be done.  This fact marks the end of something grand, yes, above greatness.  I hope that someday I will be able to write with even an iota of her brilliance.

The first book in this series of Anne Bishop's (Daughter of the Blood) was found at the Book Rack, a store of second hand books here in BG.  When I finally got around to reading it (I possess a frighteningly large collection of books, but that's for another entry I think) I instantly fell in love.  If I remember correctly, I started reading these books last year, and last month finished the series.  I think that there wound up being at least ten books, I'll have to look and let you know in future entries.  I've bought the first book in one of her Tir Alainn series as well, Pillars of the World because I'm so mystified by her writing.

Tolkien and Austen are both literary geniuses as well, though they aren't contemporary and might be something different for you to read because of this.  They are both fabulous and favorites of mine.  I think that it's important as readers and/or writers to experience both the new and the old that is offered to us in the vast world of literature.

Reading: "Seaborn" by Chris Howard and "Interview with the Vampire" by Anne Rice

Happy Anniversary Kevin <3

Interesting People

It's only natural that you'll meet some interesting characters and have interesting experiences when you work directly with people.

On Monday night, one of our customers made her way to our bathrooms.  (Her baby is due in September). At some point her water broke in the restroom, so one of my managers called 911.  The family apparently wasn't even from here because the grandma and woman's three kids had to attempt to follow the ambulance to get to the hospital.

An interesting person that I met was on Saturday night (I think).  He came in maybe a couple of hours before close, so we were fairly slow at this point.  After explaining our take out system, he informed me that some other restaurant does it better.  (At dinner time, take out equals one normal sized take out box to stuff as much as you can along with a separate box that we put two rolls in for you for $9).  I apologized and told him that that was what we had.

He proceeded to circle our buffet, which always makes me nervous.  So I stood leaning against my counter making sure that all he was doing was looking.  I forgot to mention that my stomach was also rebelling the amount of delicious greasy new items I had decided to try that evening.  He finally comes back to me and informs me that we only have four varieties of shrimp when we claim to have it five way.  This lead to him following me around the hot bars as I showed him the FIVE varieties of shrimp.

Customer finally decides that he's going to eat in instead of getting carry out.  Latter, he finds me and tells me that all of the steak is well done and that it's been sitting there for a while.  I inform the man taking care of the hot bar and he tells me to tell Customer that he needs to let his server know how he wants his steak cooked and he or she will get it made that way for him.  At Customer's table, I explain this to him.  He replies that the steak needs to be completely replaced and if I sat there and watched with him, I'd see how people picked over it and how long it'd been sitting there.  Then he tells me that it's OK because I "did the best that I could."

I finally gave up and told my manager that I didn't feel good, so she let me sit for a little while before telling me to try to get customers and sit down in between.  During one of the moments while I'm sitting (and folding crayon pockets at this point because I don't like being unproductive) he flags me over after talking to one of my managers.  She left so that I could talk to Customer.

He proceeds to tell me that he was write about the steak; he told my manager and she apparently yelled at the hot bar people about it.  I apologized and nodded my head in reply to his blahblahblah.  Then he put a dollar on the counter to tip me with and told me that it was OK since I was "still learning."  I thanked him for his kindness and refrained from informing him that I'd been there for nearly a year and felt crappy at that point in time so didn't particularly care.

I returned to my crayon folding and soda water and crackers (which one of the servers had made me because it was a trick he'd learned when he started).

This post is taking longer then normal, as you can probably tell by the number of songs I've listened to, because talking to one of my best friends, Maciena, and trying to clean as well.  I understand the need for some organization, but I believe in that organization being full of masterful chaos!  But, no, that would make the world and life even more difficult.  It's important to be actually able to find things.

I took Grandma out for lunch and some bumming around at the mall today after somehow managing to sleep till 9:30.  That rarely happens.  Dinner of leftovers with Momma and Cafe Life playing on facebook with her.  Got a week and a half till Kevin comes home.

Currently Reading: "The Body Artist" by Don DeLillo
Listening to: "Wait for You" by Elliot Yamin, "The Edge of Glory" by Lady Gaga, "Someday" by Nickleback, "Ain't no Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, "Crash into Me" by Dave Matthews Band, "Hungery Eyes" by Eric Carmen, "Heaven" by DJ Sammy, "My Last" by Big Sean, "If Everyone Cared" by Nickleback, "SexyBack" by Justin Timberlake, "What was I Thinkin'" by Dierks Bentley, "More Than Words" by Extreme

Class and Other Things

I haven't posted in a while, and it's more due to laziness then business.

We're over a month into summer vacation, and it doesn't feel like it's been that long for some reason.  Kevin's been gone to South Carolina with his dad and that side of the his family for four weeks now and will be back in another two.  I've also been in a summer class for those past four weeks.  I discovered one of my fish at the bottom of my little aquarium one day when I came home.

And I'm writing again.  It's such a glorious feeling to play with words.

The class that ended, literally today, was a summer fiction writing workshop that resulted in three new short stories, new friendships, and a renewed drive to write.  Robert Olmstead (http://www.robertolmsteadbooks.com/) was our guest author and we had an intimate class of ten students.  He introduced us to seven novellas (though we only touched on 6 of them) by Ernest Hemingway, Jim Harrison, Elise Blackwell, Margarite Duras, Lorri Moore, Don DeLillo, and Berry Hannah.

I wrote "Train Banshee," "Fish," and "A Tale of Love" while being blown away by the talent and advice of the other writers.  We were restricted to 2,000 +/- 100 words per story, which is a lot harder then I thought it would be.  I never knew how many "likes" and "hads" I used until he told us to ctrl find them.  I'm so glad I took it; it's one of those once in a life time opportunities.  Thank you Dr. McCaffrey (www.iwillnotdiet.com) for suggesting it!

Currently Pleasure Reading: "Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?" by Lorrie Moore
Currently Listening to: "Promiscuous" by Nelly Furtado, and "You Got it Bad" by Usher. Pandora mix

"Muse"

First of all, I lost .8lbs this week for a total of 5.6lbs.  This means that I recieved my very first 5lb sticker and am uber excited!  A family friend told me that he could tell I had lost some weight at church last week.  My boyfriend loves me no matter what size I am (my goodness he's wonderful!) and I've had some friends ask me why I'm doing WW.  I'm doing this for me.  I want to be healthier.

In the writing world, we often talk about our "Muse" and how she or he or they inspire us in our writing.  Personally, I have more then one supposed "Muse."  My God, my family, my boyfriend, my friends, and the beautiful world around me.

I have had a bit of a writer's block for quite some time now.  Just last week, I started writing poetry again and I am phyched!  One of my problems has been that I don't have that much time, and I still don't.  But now I'm making time.  Whenever and wherever I have an idea, I write it down; don't tell my professors....

One way that I really know that my creative "Muse" has seeped its way back into my veins is when I start writing love poetry.  I started a love poem last night.  These are, naturally, for K; although, he hasn't seen all of them.  There are some poems that will never be seen by anyone else's eyes but my own because they are way too sappy.

A poem that I wrote the day before the day before is one that I actually like (I rarely like my own work) but am very unsure of at the same time.  This is the first time that I have used profanity in one of my works; it isn't something that I use in my life.  "Savage Beast," this poem I created, simply felt as if it called for foul language.  And I gave it what it desired.

Never stop writing...

Pie

I lost 1 pd at WW this week, which is really odd considering how stressed I've been.  When I'm stressed, I eat more.  I also didn't track as well as I normally do, so am going to work on it this week.  In the meeting this morning we talked about how there's always a rainbow.  It's not just about loosing weight; for some people it's about feeling healthier, being able to put on an item of clothing/jewelry that they haven't worn in years.  For others it was being able to look down and see their feet again, or painting their toe nails without getting out of breath.  Personaly, my rainbow is feeling healthier and being able to excercise for longer and harder than I have been in the past.  But I also have rainbows outside of WW.  My family, my boyfriend, my friends, my church family, the ability to write, and my job.  What's your rainbow?

My job is pretty amazing.  I work with a group of wonderful people who are sometimes as crazy as I am.  My managers, coworkers, and I create a large dysfunctional family.  Naturally, there's drama.  Sometimes the ideal team work scenario doesn't work out and people tempers run high.  Someone tells me she thinks that a certain group of people at work are lazy, and then another person from that group walks by after person A asked me to help her with something.  Person B informs me that A is lazy.

Don't you love being in the middle of things?

I also love my customers, especially my regulars.  The ones that have actually learned how to pronounce my name and get happy when they see me.  Who make a point of having an actual conversation with me.  There's one couple that used to come in all of the time, and I'm starting to get worried because I haven't seen them in months.  Another couple that comes in, the wife delivers papers every day, and the husband did the driving for her after she had surgery.  One couple I saw last night brought their son and his new girlfriend with them.  The son informed me that he was excited at how well his parents were getting along with his new girlfriend; I talked to the wife about her spoiled dogs; the husband teasingly flirted with me as always; and on their way out they told me about his upcoming heart surgery.  There's an older man that comes in with his friends all of the time, who has informed me about a book that I must read; he keeps forgetting to bring me the promised copy.  One of our server's relatives comes in and calls me "Trouble" all of the time.  A couple of ladies that are always there--and I think that they're related to one of the managers--often bring in pies for the managers.  They gave me a pie last night.  And the kids that come in all of the time, they're wonderful.  I've been hugged my a couple of the little ones, and bought girl scout cookies from one of them.  I helped sing our Happy Birthday song to a little girl who had just turned one last night.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm bursting with stories, but they aren't all mine to tell.  I'm not that talkative most of the time, but I love listening.  I carry the stories of many different customers and coworkers with me, and they will stay with me out of love.

I do love my job.  No, it isn't my dream job, and I honestly never intended to work in food.  But it's amazing, and I'm so blessed to be able to have this experience.