Thursday, January 26, 2012

13 Year Old Me

Because can.  In memory of thirteen year old me, heres some of the music that always takes me back to those days.  My silly days of becoming someone I wasnt just to prove that I could make a certain boy like me...  It worked, anyhow ;)

 

1985 - Bowling for Soup

So there I would be, home alone doing sit ups in the living room with the Radio Disney channel turned on.  And this song would come on every day.  It eventually became one of my favorites.  Ill never forget the day i called my friend Corey and asked what the lyrics were.  ha!



What You Waiting For? - Gwyn Stefani

I dont remember anymore which NOW CD it was on...  But my best friend April went out and bought it and this song was my favorite just because of the line "Take a chance you stupid hoe."  This was definitely my jam haha.



Beautiful Soul - Jesse McCartney

Seriously, who didnt love Jesse McCartney back then!?  I never went through the NSYNC or Backstreet Boys phase, so I guess Jesse was the first teenage heart-throb I was ever a fan of... 

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Dial Up

Went to Bogarts with Nicki on Saturday for the Dial Up tour!! It was absolutely fabulous!! We got to meet Mitchell Davis, and given the dinosaur's infatuation with him, I kinda felt as though I actually knew him from how much shes told me about him which was weird to be honest, but it was cool to meet him all the same as I am a Livelavalive fan afterall :)
We were, however, somewhat sad we didn't get to meet Tessa, I was a fan of Meekakitty before Livelavalive, actually, Nicki was the one who introduced me to her channel, so it was pretty great getting to see her in person anyway ;)

Right in the middle of Livelavalive, Nicki turned to me and said "how do you feel about ham?" she paused for a minute, I thought at first maybe it was a inside joke that I had forgotten about until she continued, "and cheese... Wrapped in a croissant.". But when we got back to her condo, that was our dinner. It was fabulous!

Nicki and I had to conquer an ice mountain and icey sloped parking lot to deliver books to her grandparents, before going to Bogarts though. We thought we were going to die, but somehow I managed not to fall at all. Nicki, on the other hand was not so lucky... We thought of telling Mitchell when we met him that we had risked death in order to see him, but it kind of escaped our minds...

Anyhow, here's a picture of Nicki and I with Mitchell Davis. His teeth aren't actually yellow.. I don't think... Nicki did something to the picture before she put it on Facebook and whatever it was made his teeth look yellow... Ours do a little bit too... No telling how long it will take her to remember to post the original..

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Fabulous ex waitress out of work with no license? Hm, problem.

So I took a day to myself for a change... Despite what mom believes, I have applied for jobs all over Harrison and have been out with friends practicing for the maneuverability part of my driving test and badgering the places I've applied to when I have a phone to do so... Because, you know, mom is holding my phone hostage until I have a license, which would make more sense if,

1. I wasn't trying to find a job and
2. I didn't have to get my license in Indiana, out where it's just a rad inconvenient for any of my friends to just take me any old day.

Not to say I have no way there, my friend Corey has offered to take me, but every day we make plans to go, the weather just isn't good for a driving test...

I probably would have had everything by now if I had never moved to Arizona. I BEGGED mom to give me just one year, but she said she wouldn't help with college if I didn't go where she wanted me to. I was scared. I didn't know anything about student loans really, which was my own fault, but the thought of taking out a loan freaked me out and I just didn't feel I had much of a choice but to do what mom said.

Now, I love when mom calls the house to lecture me about how I would already have these things done if I had stayed and lived with her in Arizona. It absolutely KILLS me! I kept my promise, I tried it her way for a year and accomplished absolutely nothing. Every day that I woke up and said, "Mom, let's go to the DMV today!" it was "Not today, im too tired," or "My head hurts today, we'll go tomorrow." and tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow again, but this tomorrow mom spoke of never seemed to come...
I love my mother more than anything, but anyone who knows her could tell you that even though her heart is often in the right place, she can be completely irrational, unnecessarily bossy and pushy, and convinced that she is always right. There is a lot of ego in that woman, and it gets her places, but she seems to wonder why I, her daughter, seems to crumble under pressure. The answer is that it only happens when she is around in my lice too much. Her ego tears mine down, she makes me nervous, sometimes I am honestly terrified of my mother. Our problem is that we just have different ways if handling things. She's a "do it and do it right this minute" kind of person and I'm more of a "do it when it needs to be done" type of person. I never was the kind of person who saw the point in stressing over things the way she does. I understand she's had a lot more to worry about and had a lot more responsibility placed on her at my age, but she has yet to realize that her way is not always the right way for me. She also can't understand why I act so nervous around her all the time, and that nervous and unconfident attitude stuck to me for a long time which is part if the reason interviews went so badly for the past year as I tried to rebuild my ego.

I did eventually find a job when i lived at moms, only because the neighbor put his name on my application, a bar and restaurant who hired me as a hostess for about two days before throwing me on the line as an expedite which was a job I had no experience in and was almost completely unqualified for considering I was given a week to learn the menu (although I actually did learn the menu well enough to function) and they asked me to learn some Spanish as the cooks didn't speak much English.... Uhhh, no?
I was doing fantastic as a hostess! There were two of us, and by the end of the day, I was beating the other hostess to everything, holding the door open for customers, seating them, sweeping, rolling silverware, stocking, and I have a knack for bringing refills just as the customer has considered asking for one... On top of that, I tend to be pretty fabulous at finding productive things to do when I've gone through my list of chores. The only reason they even needed another hostess to work with me was because it was like an unwritten rule that we needed two hostesses every shift and because someone needed to hold the door for customers when I happened to be busy.
I like the restaurant business, my mind is constantly occupied, i know exactly what im doing and what is going on at all times, I get to be around a variety of different people, and I actually kind of enjoy the work. It's the only job I've ever known, but I'm damn good at it. Maybe I'd even be good at expediting if I were to work at a restaurant with chefs who at least know enough English for me to effectively communicate with them... And with a more patient person to train me who isn't a total bitch at all times calling me names behind my back and constantly finding ways to make me feel like a total idiot.
It's like she was always trying to scramble my brain up and confuse me. Better yet, she used to take breaks and take her sweet ass time taking a couple hits of a joint out back and would leave me alone, me, the trainee who had no idea how to properly communicate to the chefs, had never been taught how to properly read off a ticket, and in three weeks my trainer hadn't even specified how many ranch sides go with a certain number if hot wings leaving me to guess judging by how much ranch I would assume one might need. Of course something was always messed up when she came back, and this was completely my fault because I was completely incompetent and never listened. I may have a bad case of ADHD, but in a jumbled up and busy environment, especially a work environment, my brain goes a mile a minute and is already making a mental to-do list at the exact moment I walk through the door. It hasn't failed me yet, except at Teakwoods where my to-do list and food check list were incomplete due to bad training.
Of course, if you were the manager, who would you believe? The new girl who always seems to be messing up and cutting corners no matter how hard she seems to stay on top of things, or the girl who has been there longer than you have been manager who always does her job well without even really thinking? Would you really listen to the little girl who claims your employee was taking a hit out back? Actually, I was pretty sure the manager knew about this and I assumed she didn't care as long as she was able to do her job, and I know that's what she was doing. I may have never smoked before, but I went to high school, I know what weed smells like. And when I went back to find her the first time, I saw what she had in her hand and it was no cigarette. But who do you suppose the manager was more likely to support?
Well of course I never made excuses because I knew the answer to that question, so I took the lectures and the occasional scolding, kept my chin up, took note, and promised to do better next time. But the next time always seemed to present yet another problem that I had not been taught how to solve, a problem for which my own solution was not correct, and with which the manager was too busy, the hostess or waitress didn't know how to help me with, or my trainer was taking a hit out back. The only people who could have helped me were the cooks, but none of them spoke enough English!!
Well, one did, but he usually wasn't working when I was, I was very glad though when he was around. He helped me all the time when my trainer's back was turned, I learned more from him than her. And he was one of the three people in the whole place who was actually nice to me.
I don't claim to be perfect, there were a couple of instances where I had gotten too ahead of myself and forgot a ranch or forgot to grab the pepper for a dish I was bringing out. But I do know that I did the best I could with what I had.
But I knew it was all over when they brought in Super Expo Man who had six years of expediting experience at TGI Fridays, spoke enough Spanish to carry on a short conversation, could carry six plates at a time, and knew everything from the get go. He only made me more miserable, always beating me to everything with a big smile on his face, that was my place, I was always the best employee. No one else ever minded when I beat them to things, anyone else thanked me for saving them the work when I beat then to a chore. I might not have minded so much if it weren't for the strong feeling I had that this was a hint, he was there for a reason.
I was reminded by his presence that I hadn't been an actual employee since I started training as an expedite. I was a trainee who could be let go at any time if a better opportunity presented itself. I was not needed as a hostess, and I was not what they were looking for as an expedite. Super Expo Man was there to take the job that I had been spending long hours in and out of the restaurant to train for, the job that I had always assumed was going to be mine as soon as I was finally done with training, and he would get it without breaking a sweat.

I remember riding my bike home that night in a state of depression. I came home to an empty house, climbed the stairs, collapsed on my bed and cried myself to sleep. I felt useless and completely powerless.
But I returned the next day with my head held high. Only to be smacked down again.
Fast foreword to the long planned trip home for a week which I had, despite having had the plans prior to being hired, asked PERMISSION from my boss to take the week off for the trip which she agreed to and marked the calendar for me to have the entire week off.
And then I get a voice mail on my way out the door to the air port asking why I hadn't been at work that morning. Not only had I never worked a morning shift before, but the schedule she had printed for me showed I wouldn't be working until the day after I came home. I stopped in in my way to the air port only to receive a stern lecture from my boss that I should have called instead of coming in at my convenience. I guess I could have understood that, and would have understood her frustration if there had been more than just two customers at the bar and none in the dining room, and if she hadn't been sitting at the bar doing nothing when I came in. I wouldn't have stopped over if I didn't know it was a slow day at a slow time.
But I was done. I came in on my next scheduled day after my trip, found my trainer smoking a blunt out back and talking to the manager about how stupid I was, took my work shirt off, threw it on the ground, and left.

As much as I hate quitting anything, they didn't deserve my 110% anyway and I was not about to wait around for them to fire me as soon as Super Expo Man got done with his training period. Not when I knew I was better than that. My first job nay have been in some crummy restaurant in some little hick ass town, but I was one of the best that crummy little restaurant had ever had. I was too good for the business at my first job, and I was definitely too good for the people at my second.

Today was application day. I'll take anything at this point but it feels discouraging when even the places who tend to be desperate for employees won't seem to give me a second glance. If anything, I would at least expect one of the restaurants to put me into consideration due to the fact that I actually have experience, but that doesn't seem to matter. Everything from Kroger and Frisches to BW3 and McDonalds seems to not want me to work there no matter how many times I ask about my application status. I took the semester off to have all the time in the world for a job, and still my 24-7 availability doesn't seem to make my application look any better. And the few interviews I've lucked into have had no success, no matter how charming and polite I am, they always seem to go so well, but when calling the place afterward they give me the run around until finally telling me they found someone else for the job.

And it only gets worse when mom calls to lecture me about what I'm not doing right as if she knows what I do with every second of my time. Because I spend time with my friends in the afternoons, I must not be looking for a job. But job applications, on my time watch, are done between 8 and 12 which is the time I get up and walk my ass around town in the cold to fill out applications.

I honestly feel that the more my mom tries to intervene with my life, the more she messes it up. I know she thinks I'm just a big fuck up. But I'm not nearly as irresponsible as she thinks I am. I may not have proved that, but in all fairness, ive done the best I can while having to rely on everyone else to keep their word to get me places. I understand that shouldn't have to be the case, but she never helped me get out if that situation by taking me to get my license when I needed to. Or maybe it was my own fault for being so afraid of driving when I was in high school.

Whatever the case, I know I have to just keep doing what I need to do and take whatever i can get as far as jobs go. At least this year I have a bed to go home to and don't have to worry about where I'll be sleeping tomorrow night.

I'll get there. I just wish mom would leave me to it rather than constantly making demands that I ask everyone to go out if their way for me. There's a reason I don't talk to anyone anymore and it's because I just feel as though I don't want to talk to anyone until I can tell them I've improved. I can't handle being asked if I've found a job anymore, I can't stand being asked how job hunting is coming along, I hate having no good news, I feel like a big disappointment. I never expected it to be like this. I don't really need help at this point, just a big stroke of luck.

Vegan?

I failed at vegitarianism so I have no idea how I could ever survive being vegan considering I love so many things that contain dairy products...  I can imagine giving it up!

Im totally supportive of vegans, I mean, if you choose that life style, its all your decision to make, just as long as you do it the right way and stay healthy.  I totally respect the level of self control that I imagine it would take to go vegan, especially those who havent been brought up in a vegan lifestyle.

Heres what I do have a problem with. 
  1. Vegans who strongly believe that everyone should be vegan so much so that they get nasty toward others who dont share their beliefs, that call non vegans heartless murderers and other such things.  It reminds me of why I dont like going to church...  Seriously, from what Ive seen on PETA message boards, Veganism could almost be a religion....
  2. People who choose a vegan lifestyle as a way of dieting.  Mostly only if this is gone about the wrong way.  I can understand those who choose it because they think of it as a way to help animals, those are good intentions at least.  But to others who do it for weight loss, they often do it the wrong way and wind up very sick and malnourished...  You can not deny yourself protein and then go out and exorcise...  You need to find a way to get the necessary protein, calcium, and vitamin B-12 into your body.
A friend of mine might be having this problem.  It hasnt been confirmed, but I believe it is a possibility.  I think she started out as a vegetarian when she saw that other vegetarian friends of ours had lost weight since they stopped eating meat.  And then came a new eating disorder, she became bulimic.  And the newest is her switch to veganism.  The hell she is unleashing upon her body and her immune system...  Not to mention she also self harms...  And has previously had problems with emotional eating...  I fear that this recent turn to a vegan diet is just another part of her disturbing persistence to harm her body.  Im afraid that she wont take the supplements she needs in order to live this way, that she may end up hospitalized...  Although, the scary truth is, Im becoming more and more convinced that may be the only way she will finally get the help that she really needs.

The problem is, I dont think she really wants help.  She sees a therapist on a regular basis, but it doesnt always seem to do much good for her, maybe for a day or two, but then she just gets worse.  The reason it doesnt help is because she wont help herself.  Shes been looking for solutions in all the wrong places.  She went through a phase where she turned to religion, and is now turning to her love for animals to save her.  She has always been connected to animals in a way that Ive never seen before, I think because, unlike people, they dont let her down.  She has had a lot of people in her life let her down...

The sad truth is, she can pray that God will save her from herself, but he will not come down from heaven and take the razor out of her hand.  Her cat can not physically stop her from self harming.  Her therapist can do nothing but talk to her or make suggestions on how to improve her happiness.  You cant help a person who hates who they are.

This has gone too far.  She wont stop until she has completely destroyed herself, Ive come to understand that.  No matter how positively I try to think, she is not going to get better if she continues to hate herself the way she does.  Im not even sure she knows anymore why she is doing this to herself, what does she hate in herself that she is trying so hard to kill?

The problem is that I have no idea what I can do for her that hasnt already been done.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

My neighbor Totoro the drug dealer...

So this is the second post in a row Ive talked about a theory like this...  And...  Well at this point you might wonder what is it with me and thinking everyone is a drug dealer? I mean, maybe it could be because I live in a town where pretty much everyone is a drug dealer... Seriously, I lived through high school completely oblivious to how many drugs were actually floating around, partially because it didn't effect me in any way, and partially because I didn't really concern myself with other peoples choices. Anyway, on to what I originally set out to write about.

If youve never seen the movie "My Neighbor Totoro" you should probably just skip over this post because you won't have any idea what I'm talking about.

I've seen the movie thousands of times. I've even watched it sped up (which is a hilarious way to watch any anime movie). And recently, my friends and I have come to realize that the movie is NOT about two young girls who move to a new house and make a magical friend who ultimately leads them through a magical adventure and so on... It is actually about two little girls with Stockholm syndrome who are kidnapped and relocated to a safehouse out in the middle of nowhere where they end up caught in the middle of a drug war going on right in their own back yard.

The movie starts out with the two girls sitting in the back of a sketchy moving truck eating Carmel. They hide when they spot a man who they think is a cop.  First sign that something is up. Now, you would originally assume it is because they arent supposed to be sitting in the back of the truck, but thats not true!  They have obviously been trained to avoid the police because they are also kidnapped children and have been brain washed into thinking the sketchy man is their father.

The girls start seeing little spikey black things bouncing around the house when they get there and explore,  they also get ridiculously excited about discovering acorns around the house (and ill get to why that supports the theory in a minute). Lets not forget that they are surrounded by fields of what were told is rice...  But its not really...  Those a drugs too, by the way.  Enter Granny who is creepy as hell, she tells the girls they were just seeing "soot gremlins" and feeds them drug cake delivered by her creepy grandson, Kanta, who obviously has some problems, probably because he's a poor kidnapped child too. 

And I have to say that no matter how I try to look at it, theory or no theory, the bath scene really freaks me out...  I realize that in Japan and other places, that scene probably isnt weird in any way, shape, or form, but for me, its kinda weird.... I wont even get into all that.

Mei stumbles across the Totoro drug scandal while playing by herself in the back yard. She follows two of them carrying a large bag of Totoro Crack (AkA acorns) into the woods to their secret tree base where she meets the drug lord Totoro himself.

Now let's pause right there and think for a minute what kind of creature is Totoro anyway? I mean, he's obviously a magical creature...  I think  I'd place him in the category of bunny-sloth-racoon-owl-bear-cat... Although I was recently informed that "Totoro" is actually Mei's mispronunciation of "Torōru" which, Im told is Japanese for "Troll" so perhaps Totoro is some weird troll beast?  But why would he be so fluffy and cute?  Well, I'll get to that in a minute...

Anyway, this creature is GINORMOUS! And Mei just walks over and wakes up this giant, potentially vicious creature that could easily swallow her whole. But he doesn't because he's obviously high on Totoro crack and doesn't think to. So Mei decides it would be a good idea to just fall asleep on his stomach, but you can't really blame the child who has been through such traumatic experiences as she has, all she knows is there's a giant bunny creature in the world and she's gonna take a nap in it... And hell, he does look really comfy. She falls asleep just long enough for the Totoro minions to carry her out and hide the secret passage shed followed them into and so she is unable to show her sister and sketchy father where she found him. 

And the father, I almost forgot to mention, is actually a powerful drug lord himself, he oversees the production of all the crack rice being grown in the fields around his house and brought the girls there in order to find Totoro and steal his acorn stash...  Maybe Totoro has a weak spot for children?  Or maybe hes a creepy molester, we dont know.  Either way, my friends and I have agreed that it is entirely possible that the girls could be pawns in some crazy drug war. 

Which links them to our old friend Sally out on the sea shore...  Could they all be involved in the same crazy scheme?

Later on, while the girls wait for their "father" at the bus stop, Totoro makes his second appearance. He probably intended to murder the girls, or maybe just warn them to keep their mouths shut since Mei had been telling everyone about him, maybe hes even stalking them, but, yet again, he's high on Totoro crack. He even forgot his umbrella, or what an umbrella even is for that matter. After amusing himself by the wonders of the umbrella (which is quite possibly the best part of the whole movie), he gives Satsuki a little package and then boards a giant cat bus stealing their spare umbrella.

Red light! This is where the whole theory was born. Everyone knows that if someone gives you a bag or a package at a bus stop, it's probably drugs. Seriously, I can probably find old cartoons that teach you never to take packages from strangers at bus stops...  Or anywhere for that matter...  But especially bus stops because thats where all the creepers hang out after dark...  Or so Im told...  And this is no exception, the girls are now involved in the great Totoro crack business and they plant the acorns in the back yard where Totoro comes one night to make them grow and then kidnap them both to complete an initiation ritual up in the trees where the girls have their first taste of Totoro crack and are stuck forever.  The next morning, the trees are gone.  Obviously, Totoro had to get rid of the GIANT crack trees growing in the back yard.

Fast foreword to Mae getting lost. Obviously Totoro had to look out for his new minion, so he shows up to save the day and they deliver Granny's crazy poisoned corn which will assure that their mother will stay in the hospital longer.  Oh yeah, about the mother.  Ive been told she supposedly has tuberculosis...  But thats just not true in this theory.  She is actually in rehab and sold her children for crack rice...  But they're still kidnap victims because they were kidnapped from their grandparents who took them in because their mother was out on the streets eating rice all the time.

Of course, the big uproar about Mei being lost brought in unwanted attention, so Granny drowned another child in the pond and passed her off as the missing child in order to avoid Mei being discovered.  Seriously, even before this theory I wondered about all that, I mean, whos shoe was it then?  Maybe some other child is dead out in the water!!

What eventually happens after the movie?  Well, in the end credits, we see the girl's mother coming home from the hospital cough-rehab-cough and the girls playing with the other children in the town.  Totoro has, at this point, has had more children recruited for his drug plot.  There is a sequel called "Mei and the Kitten Bus" which I havent seen yet, but I assume this must be an adventure had by Mei after having too many acorns...  The girls grow into teenagers, Totoro kills their father and takes over the production of crack rice.  Satsuki and mei are then recruited to work for Totoro and become highly addicted to acorns and rice just like their mother, who is put back in rehab.  But Satsuki is saved by the neighbor boy, Kanta, who helps her escape and takes her somewhere far from Totoro and the dark country side.  She eventually recovers from her addiction and returns to take Mei away too.  Totoro doesnt like that.  He has them both locked away inside their childhood house.  Satsuki sets a large fire and escapes with Mei and the rest of the slave children, leaving the whole village to burn along with all the acorns, rice, and Totoro himself.

Mei finishes her teen years in a normal manner but never fully recovers from her past as a drug slave child, she is checked into the psych ward for short periods of time here and there when it all becomes too much for her. As for Satsuki, she marries Kanta and together they open a rehab center.  They cant have children, though, because of complications caused by all the acorns and rice put in their system as children.  Instead they buy a large old hotel which they convert into a house and adopt all of the remaining children who escaped with Satsuki from the forest the day it all burned.

Everyone still live happily ever after!!

After this theory was born, I've thought about it, and I think the movie is told in the way the girls see it rather than the way it actually happened, theres a picture floating around there that pretty much perfectly depicts the reality of what happened. now, for more explaining!  Cant you tell Im bored?

What Mei and Satsuki see


Reality (original)
Their vision of reality is warped, a way to protect themselves from any further mental damage.  They see Totoro as a fluffy and cute bunny creature but in reality, he is a vicious troll thing that will freakin eat you!  Its kind of the same basic concept as the Little Sisters in the Bioshock games.

Yeah, not the cute family story that you thought it was, huh?  Okay, I know its really crazy and has a lot of holes, but anyone who knows me and these said friends would expect nothing less of us, especially when its four in the morning and we've had WAY too much caffeine.  Also, I needed something to write about to occupy my time ;)