Moving Apart

My parents and brother are out of town this weekend visiting various colleges, coincidentally including Madison.  So this morning I had to take the dog out.  I'm standing outside in the dewy yard only half covered in sunshine because the sun is still partly hiding behind the house.  Bailey is screwing around sniffing things so I'm looking around my immediately visible neighborhood.  Then a car pulls in the driveway across the street.  My attention is piqued because I haven't seen this car or the driver in a month and a half.

It's K.  And we haven't spoken for a month and a half because that's the last time I sent her a text (which she never replied to).  I'm standing in my yard tethered to my crazy dog who is trying to find the best spot to pee, wondering if she sees me.  If she's wondering what the hell happened as much as I am.

I was going to text her last night.  But then Grey's Anatomy came on, I had some Smirnoff Ices and soon it would be time for bedy-bye.  I thought that it was unlikely she'd text back anyway, especially if it was 9 pm.  (For the record in normal situations, I would have called such a person, but whenever I would call her, she would text back.  So I don't call anymore.)  I thought, Oh, I'll just text her tomorrow.

And then this morning happened.  Nothing huge.  Except that while I'm standing outside in the wet grass watching Bailey take a leak, I notice some men coming out of the front door of her house.  They are carrying a piece of furniture.  They are loading it into the truck parked outside the cul-de-sac.

She's moving?  Today?

This wasn't that big of a surprise.  I knew her parents are getting a divorce.  I knew her mom was moving to an apartment 15 minutes away.  I knew K was moving with her.  I knew all this but when I saw the men moving the stuff out I was enraged.  I was sad.  I was some bundle of incoherent emotions.

She's moving today?

She didn't tell me.  She didn't text or call or walk the thirteen steps to my house to tell me she moving all of her shit out of her house today.

What?

When was I supposed to find out about this?  When I finally decide that I want to make an effort for our friendship even if she won't?  When I text to see if she wants to do something and she says 'Oh I'm at my mom's place.  Can't.' ?

When did our friendship come to this?  Should I even call it that anymore?  Does our relationship warrant the use of that term anymore?  What happened?

I don't know.

I know people grow apart.  I know I've talked and complained about this situation to you guys and to my mom.  I know it gets annoying.  But I think if I can figure out what's wrong I can fix it, I can repair this whatever this is.

And then this morning I saw the moving truck.  I saw her car pull into the driveway.  But I didn't see her come over to talk to me.  I didn't see an incoming text explaining that, oh yeah, she's moving out today.  I didn't see anything.  So I consoled myself with a tub of red velvet cake ice cream and Firefly reruns.

Maybe I shouldn't try to repair this.

But I'll probably text her.  Finally.  This afternoon, tonight.  Asking if she wants to do anything.  Really, asking something else entirely:  do you still want to be my friend?  

A Very Embarrassing Store

In romantic comedies (or just comedies in general) there is often a slapstick scene where the hero/heroine due to their lack of foresight or clumsiness gets into an embarrassing/potentially harmful situation. (See pretty much every scene in Meet the Parents.)

Now in most romantic comedies it's usually a girl falling down a flight of steps or off a piano or something. It usually endears us to the girl as a likeable character we can easily root for.

My life is not so cinemagentic.

What follows is a story involving all of those elements without none of the appeal because it contains me and, by extension my feet. I apologize for sharing this story with you, but I can not hide my shame any longer.

Every now and again I come down with a case of athlete's foot (Athlete's feet? atheletes' feet? What's the proper punctuation there?) I don't know why. Maybe it's because I have very hot feet by nature, but it happens. Usually I try to ignore for a night or two and see if it goes away. If it doesn't than I have to go out and buy some spray which, after a few days, with get rid of this pretty gross fungal growth on my foot.

This past week I have been suffering from a bad case of athlete's foot. What happens is I get into bed and my feet, when they're under the nice warm covers, go into paroxysms of ichiness. When it happens at night I know there is nothing I can do so I just try to ignore it and go to sleep.

The problem with this, is that I forget about my agony when I'm awake. So it's a couple of days before I remember to do anything about it. Two nights this week I went to sleep gritting my teeth and trying mightily hard not to itch my feet. I cannot describe to you the agony of unitched athlete's feet. It's like there's a tingling in your feet but it's a tingling that burns. It's like little insects are walking over your feet and biting you . . . but it also itches. I heard recently that it's irritation and not pain that's the worse thing your skin can endure. When you itch a scratch, it's actually pain you're feeling. It just feels good by comparison.

After the last few nights, I believe it.

So last night it was about 12:30am and I was sitting in bed. My feet started to itch as I was falling asleep and I decided I just couldn't stand it anymore. I got up, threw on some clothes, and went into the kitchen to steal my parent's debit card.(Btw. Our parents pretty much hand us the debit card whenever we want any money, so this part of the story isn't quite as bad as it sounds.)

Why did I have to take my parent's debit card at all, you ask? Well, because I am currently broke city. I have less than ten dollars in my bank account. I start my job at Harmony Cafe tomorrow and I probably won't be paid for another week after that, maybe too. I literally could not afford the eight dollars to buy my own athlete's foot spray. It's just terrible.

So I grabbed my mom's card out of her purse (I grabbed my dad's initially, but then thought of how embarrassing it would be if I was caught buying athlete's foot spray with someone else's card so I put it back. (I can usually pass as my mom.)

I took the card to a nearby gas station, but I'm pretty sure that the gas station was closed and, to make matters worse, they had JUST decided to repave their parking lot apparently so I couldn't even get in.

My heart heavy, I went to the local Festival Foods which I knew was open twenty-four hours. I drove up, walked in, and I promptly realized I was the only customer in the store. I was very, very tired at this point. I hadn't slept much the night before and my eyes were watering. So I was pretty braindead as I started walking around the store looking for spray for my poor itchy feet (which were still itching mightily, I might add).

Now I hate asking salespeople where things are. I can't stand it. Whenever I'm with my parents and we go the store for something they walk right up the salesperson and ask. It drives me nuts. I want to hide. So I was going to be damned if I was going to ask one of the six salespeople that were taking inventory of the store at night where to get podiatric medicine. (It's so a word.)

I'm not that familiar with where everything in Festival is anyway and it's a huge store, so I had to look for about ten minutes before I finally found it in the aisles with soap and other cleaning supplies. (It was not by the toothpaste and advil as I had suspected.)

Then I walked out of the store, checked out where the clerk said, "Good night, Gladys!" (That's not my mother's name, I changed it here to protect the innocent.) To which I thought. "Yes, yes my name is Gladys. Because that's who I am." I went to my car, drove home, and immediately got out the bottle to ease the pain in my feet and-disaster struck.

I was tired, mind you, and I incorrectly assume that it was the kind of bottle where you took off the bottle top and then sprayed it. Instead, it was the kind of bottle where you just pressed down at the top. So I took off the top, realized my mistake, and tried to put it back on.

It started spraying everywhere and it wouldn't stop.

I had to run to the bathroom (I had been just inspecting it by the front door) and jump into the bathtub to avoid it from getting everywhere. The spray made the bottle really cold and it actually hurt to touch so I was having problems getting the top back on. And there was all my precious Lotramine Ultra disappearing into the bathtub and NOT providing soothing relief to my feet.

So I scooped it up off the floor of the bathtub and wiped it on my feet and then struggled to try to get it to stop spraying. Finally, I managed to fix it. Then I got up, sprayed my poor feet, and then spent a good five minutes cleaning up the bathroom. (Which included the snowy footprints my feet left after I sprayed them, which meant that I crawled on my hands and knees back to my room so I wouldn't get them on the carpet.)

Anyway, long story short, my feet feel better. Also, I'm gross. If anyone ever asks you, "What's your friend like?" You should, "she's gross." She's a gross individual.

Women in romantic comedies have adorable, pretty people problems and pretty people mishaps. No one would ever write the story I just told you into a screenplay because it is too unspeakably horrible for words.

Pretty girls never seem to have these problems. I wish I could be like them.

Michael Vey: the electric boy

I finished this book about week ago, so I should probably review it for y'all.  It's called Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans.  It's a YA novel.  It's the first in a series.  It's sci-fi.  My mom read it and suggested it to me.  And I loved it.

Of course this type of book has been my bread and butter since I was ten, so of course I'm biased to like this genre, but this also makes me a little more critical if something isn't working.  But this book works.  From the first chilling chapter to the introduction of Michael to the action-packed finale, I was engaged, fascinated and left wanting more.  Exactly what I want from a book.

The initial chapter (like 2 pages) focuses on two nameless villains discussing "the last two" children they are looking for.  They have a million dollar bounty on both of these kids, because they need to find them quick because "you know how difficult they are to turn at this age."  Then they ominously mention Cell 25 as a place to put these kids if they can't be turned.  Terrifying, brief, lets us know how serious these villains are, and whets our appetite for more.  Though I will concede that this is not a new tactic.  (See Ender's Game and almost any other YA sci-fi novel...)  But I love this genre, so it works for me.

The second chapter (another short one) introduces us to Michael.  This could have been a throw-away chapter, Hi, my name is blah-blah, I'm special, read about me.  But I was really impressed by how much we learn about him, how clear his voice is, and how drawn into the story I was.  It starts: "It's not like I was looking for trouble.  I didn't have to.  At my height it just always found me."  Gold.  We learn a lot and want to know more.  The rest of the chapter is similar.  Michael is 14, lives in Idaho, is short and bullied, and has a huge secret.

We soon find out (if you didn't read the book jacket) that he is electric.  That is he can control electricity.  Over the course of the book we learn more about his abilities, the others that have abilities, and actually quite a bit about electricity itself.  This rooting in actual science make the abilities more believable and intriguing.  Clearly, the author did some heavy duty research and I appreciate the realistic credentials it lends to the story.

More about character voice: Michael's is pitch perfect.  From the first few chapters, we get small details that inform his character.  (He thinks rice krispies are the best food invented, he knows ninth grade is the armpit of life...)  These are great and having them peppered in the story giving Michael a more realistic feel and a genuinely 14-year-old point of view.  Also, POV in first person, at least when we are following Michael around (which is most of the time).  But we do slip into third person to see events that Michael is not privy to.  I didn't have a problem with this.  I know having 1st person, especially in a YA novel, makes sense since the reader is that much closer to the character.  So I couldn't decide if there was really any way to do this better.  We need to know about the other things that happen, but I don't think we need to sacrifice the 1st person of Michael just to have a little smoother transition from character to character throughout the book.  Like I said, I didn't see a problem here, but others might so thought I mention it to see if you have any further comments on this issue.

More about action:  There is a pretty long action sequence at the end (which I zoomed through) and it's executed superbly.  Many of the characters are very intelligent and some have powerful abilities.  This combination made a great climax because Evans utilized both smartly.  And once it was over, I wanted to read about them to continuing on their quest (it is the beginning of a series).

So I have to say, mission accomplished for this book.  I enjoyed what I read and wanted more.  So I recommend checking it out.

Decisions are so much easier when they are made for you

Didn't get the job.  The one I was flown to Madison to interview for.  The one my dad coached me on interview questions and bargaining tactics.  The one my mom was pretty sure I was a shoe in for.

I guess that makes the decision of whether or not to move to Madison easier.  And whether or not I want to deal with their shit winters.  And whether or not project management is really something I want to do.  And whether or not I want to be traveling more than half of the time after moving to a new city where I don't know anyone.  And whether or not I want to move to a new city and have a job that prevents me from bringing my cats.  And whether or not I want to cancel that last craft fair I signed up for.

All no's.

So like I said, it makes that decision easier.  Okay, eliminates my decision altogether, but now I don't have to make those other difficult decisions.  So that's good.  I still don't have a job, my mom wants me to work at Macy's again, and I don't know when I'll have a real job.  But, hey, my cat is still gonna be sleeping in my bed, so I'm sure everything will turn out.

Mightier Than

I'm so tired

I'm back, but first I'd like to say




Okay, now back to business.

I got back from Toronto on Saturday after a supposed eleven hour drive turned into a thirteen hour drive after a ton of highway construction. The only good part about adding two hours to my trip was at least I had some amazing bagels and David Sedaris audio books.

For the past few days I have suffered from a great amount of fatigue and just plain woe. I did not have internet on the road or barely at home because of my parents living in the middle of the woods. Currently I am just hoping to make it to Minneapolis or somewhere in the MidWest next year so I can get out of here.

Just wanted to give an update. A more concise one will come soon, but I just did not want you guys to worry. Now for something fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laq2rNiWDYQ

The Shadow Self (Who is Your Shadow)

So my parents and I were on the way to see Horrible Bosses yesterday (which I thought was very funny despite a few problems with the story) when we started to about my brother. Apparently my brother is not getting along with his roommate. I mean, it's not like they're fighting or anything like that, they just NEVER talk.

His roommate is super religious (I mean, not like he's tried to convert my brother or anything, it's just there.) More than than extremely quiet, which my mom's private response was "THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE TRYING TO TALK YOU!" But I digress.

My dad was joking about how my brother's roommmate is his "shadow self." I'd never heard this term and so I asked him to elaborate. Apparently Carl Jung (a contemporary of Freud) talked about the shadow self being the dark side of the ego. It's the part of you that you don't like and it's always there, but sometime suppressed. He goes on to talk about how sometimes the people that you instinctively hate are manifestations of your shadow self. (If you want to read more about it, here's the wikipedia entry. I didn't do super a lot of research okay.)

Anyway, despite the fact that Jung's view on psychology is problematic and wrong, I think the idea of a shadow self is really interesting. I started to think about who my shadow self might be. The kind of person that I just instinctively hate. And then it hit me.

The girl from the class me and Ada had together. You might know the one.

For the purposes of this post I'm going to call her "Stephanie." There's usually a Stephanie in my literary and creative classes. Stephanie is a girl who dominates conversation. She talks about her own personal projects and eats up all the class time discussing obscure parts of the literature with the teacher. This not only detracts from people that want to have other conversations, but she brings up the same things AGAIN and AGAIN.

In my case, Stephanie always talked about how translated poetry is problematic because sometimes there's just no equivalent for a word when you translate it into another language. (Which is a good point. It is a problem.) Then she WENT ON to hammer this fact into the ground until I just wanted to scream, "Fine, Stephanie. We'll never read any poetry unless we can read both languages and translate it line by line. I'm going to have to go back and learn ancient Greek for the Odyssey, but I'm sure it'll be worth it. WILL THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY?"

She also talked about how she had this fabulous job lined up in London but she didn't take it because she loved her nieces so much which A. If it's true is SUPER annoying and braggy and B. Isn't true.

But getting back to the point at hand.

I think that Stephanie might be my shadow self. At least, she's the kind of person that I actively avoid trying to be. Self-important, dominating in conversations and sort of an unbearable know-it-all. I think there are things that I hate more about my self (lack of self-esteem, weight, etc.), but I really fear becoming a Stephanie. It's someone I really don't want to be, especially when it comes to my own writing.

I think that all writers get into a swing every now and then where they think, "Everything I create is the purest poetry!" but I want to be able to look at my work critically. I want to be confident but still realistic about the things I make. Especially because I want to be able to make the tough calls that will make my writing better. (I believe the phrase is, "You have to murder your children in a bathtub with an ice pick." I'm 90 percent sure.)

There's also the fact that a good portion of the time I made poop jokes aimed at a fifth grade reading level. So clearly I have no business getting a big head about my writing.

With all that in mind, I ask you this. What is your "shadow shelf"? What kind of person do you instinctively hate? Who do you fear becoming and why?