Sweet Catastrophe

No promotion for me. It’s been three months since the job opening was posted and that’s unheard of in filling an open position. They’re only supposed to be open for applications for so long then a set number of interviews are done and a decision is made. That was all thrown out the window for this job because they were trying to avoid filling the position and save payroll. So luck would have it that someone in Florida applied for a transfer at the end of last week and they’ve been in the position for 4 years.

I wouldn’t care so much if proper protocol was followed and someone other than me got the position, but the way it all happened leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth. Valued employee my ass.

I don’t know what to do now. There’s not an open full-time slot anywhere suitable for me, and I can’t live on these part-time hours. Currently my bills are all at least a few weeks behind and I have barely any money to buy gas or food outside of what HAS to be paid immediately to keep anything from being shut off. I’m gonna start looking this week for either another part-time job or something full-time somewhere.

I’m trying really, really hard not to stress too much. I mean, there’s only so much I can do and stressing isn’t productive, but I see wrinkle cream reviews in my future a lot sooner than I would’ve expected.

This is not where I saw myself at 24.

The nightmares have started again. I guess it has to be stress-related. I used to only have the occasional nightmare or I’d have them almost every time I ended up on my back for an extended amount of time, but now it’s most nights. I’ve tried everything I can think of to stifle them as far as sleeping positions, not eating close to bedtime, sleep aids…nothing has worked. There are a few really strong ones that keep replaying in my mind, so maybe if I let them out I can forget them.

The first one I really remember from this recent chain was actually a nightmare within a nightmare– I was dreaming that I’d just woken up from a bad dream and it was still fairly early so I was calling Keegan to calm me down so I could go back to sleep or come over because the apartment was empty, there was a really loud storm going on and I couldn’t shake the feeling of terror from the dream. He wasn’t answering so I curled up on my couch and finally just fell asleep, into another nightmare where I was ringing up an unusually long line of customers. I was already upset because John was on power equipment to carry out something for a customer and was giving me a death stare and then one of our managers came by frantically asking if I had a lot more customers on my end of the store and encouraged me to get them out quickly. She asked me if I knew what it was about and when I shook my head, “no,” she quietly told me that one of our associates had just walked into the restroom, had a heart attack and died. I started sobbing and just trying to get rid of these customers. I woke up right after that and it took forever to wrap my head around them both being nightmares.

I’m having a lot of snake dreams, which, aside from emotional nightmares, are my least favorite. I was fortunate enough to have two back-to-back earlier this week, which is really unusual. I’ve had more than one nightmare in a night, or occasionally fallen asleep only to end up back in the same one, but I’ve never had two of the same kind in one night. In the first one, I was somewhere that dream-me thought was the big parking lot on campus here, but it was completely different, my friend from work, Brent walked up to my Jeep while I was in a long line of cars and we didn’t even speak to each other, I just got out and got in the passenger seat and let him drive. I normally see Brent in just a tshirt and jeans at work, but he was decked out in hip hop clothing and his greek letters, which I’m not even familiar with so my imagination was working overtime there. For some reason he kept turning down the wrong roads and it was making me anxious and pissing me off at the same time. We ended up on some dirt road and by this point I’d been yelling at him every time he took a wrong turn to turn around and go the right way, so on this dirt road in the middle of nowhere I pulled a gun on him and told him if he didn’t pull over and let me drive, I was calling the police. So he pulls over and he grabs his drink out of the cupholder in the middle of my Jeep, and out lunges this huge snake snapping back and forth between me and Brent. I knock it toward the door and when it’s mostly out I take aim and shoot it towards its tail and it jumps back up to bite me. I always wake up right before it bites, thank goodness. The one after that was shorter and less involved, but still terrifying. I walked into my bedroom with someone else, I really don’t know who, and it came to our attention that there was this weird snake darting around my room, but it was like it wasn’t surprising, more like a mouse was on the loose, only I was more scared. We were just trying to shoo it out of the room when Willow appeared in kitten form, and the snake went after her. I woke up just as it was about to eat her. Scary shit.

And this last one was the most upsetting, but I remember fewer details. There were a bunch of strays in my old house that we were taking care of. They were all inside because of some crazy weather, and I walked in to check on Willow and was talking to my mom about how tiny she’d gotten and I was worried she was sick. The next part of the dream I remember was I was carrying her around and she was all snuggled into me until I got around Jesalyn and then she started trying to attack her. My poor little Willow was a zombie and she was trying to eat my 4 year-old niece! I actually woke up already crying after that one.

So yeah, if anyone has any suggestions on avoiding nightmares, I’m all ears. Seriously I’m ready to try anything.

It hasn’t been long since I decided I didn’t need a laptop. I love my desktop and the convenience of a laptop just isn’t enough to tear me away. But now that my desktop has died, I’m reminded of just how useful having a laptop can be. I wouldn’t be flipping out so much right now if I had a laptop as a backup. And I don’t think Netflix is ever going to add a search feature to their console versions, and they only list the first 50 movies in each category so having a laptop handy to find movies and add them to my Instant Queue would be fantastic. Not to mention it’s a pain in the ass to look up video game cheats on my phone ;) And I always wish I had my own laptop with me when I’m traveling. I just hate using other people’s computers. I don’t know why– maybe because I always customize everything of mine just the way I like it.

So yeah, I’m back to searching for a good laptop on sale. Not that I can buy one right now, but if my insurance settlement is hefty enough, it’s going on the list of things I’m treating myself to.

I just can’t decide if I wanna just spend a couple hundred bucks on an Asus Netbook– just a little 160GB backup with a 10″ screen. I’d just keep my browser updated on it and important documents so it’d be a good backup.

Or would I want to spring for a full 15″ screen, 4GB ram, 320GB harddrive, pretty little toy for Jade Asus Notebook? I guess I’ll decide based on what kind of money I have at my disposal, but I really think it’d be worth it in the long run to go ahead and spend a little more to get a system I’d actually like and would be usable as more than just a backup.

Oddly enough, Jared hasn’t been attached to the xbox 360 lately, so I’ve taken advantage of that. Last weekend when everyone was here, JR and I got back into Castle Crashers and remembered we could play with each other on Live, so we’ve been doing that. We’ve already beat the game in regular mode, gotten all the animal orbs, and all the achievements we can. Right now we’re working on leveling up and getting the last few weapons we can get without downloading expansion packs, and then I think we’re gonna beat it on insane mode and try to unlock all the characters. It’s just some good button mashing fun.

I’ve decided I dunno how we lived without ipods. Not a new revelation to me, but I’ve had mine on constantly the last few days. I’ve been off work since 1 Sunday so I’ve been rotating through reading, movies, and Castle Crashers. I didn’t watch any movies yesterday so I ended up with earbuds in for 7 straight hours. When I picked it back up later I put on my big bulky headphones to gives my ears a break from the intrusive earbuds.

Pretty much doing the same thing today, with a little laundry and some minor cleaning thrown in. Not really a ton else to do on my days off with no money and something like a 108 heat index. I’ll stay in here with my air conditioning thankyouverymuch.

I’m hoping to see some cash soon from my insurance settlement. I got what should be my final folder of promotional items and paperwork from the lawyer early last week. I filled everything out and dropped it off Thursday before taking my computer to Ryan and now I’m just waiting. They’re supposed to be putting together my demand letter right now and I guess then I’ll just sign it and wait. I truly have no idea how much to even expect, so I’m trying not to hope for anything specific and just be thankful for what I get. I’m really just praying that it’ll be enough to pay off the Jeep (and the doctor bills) and still have some left over, otherwise this has all been a pretty pointless headache.

Ryan said he’d clean up his laptop so I could use that for a while, which is super nice of him, but I really want my computer to be fixed. So hopefully I’ll get enough to take care of that as well….and finally get my wisdom teeth taken out….get new glasses…pay the rest of my insurance…there’s an overwhelming list of things I need money for right now, so maybe the universe will throw a big “told ya so” my way in the form of a huge insurance settlement that makes all this hassle worth it. Right…..

For the first time in a long time, I wish I were still at work. I got off at 1 and waited around for a while to ask what’s going on with the job. He told me he hopes to have a decision by Wednesday and that I’m definitely not last choice but he couldn’t really tell me more than that. I’m not holding my breath on knowing anything this week, but I really hope I do. I need to figure out what the hell I’m doing and I need an answer on this so I can move on and look for another job.

I ran to get my eyebrows waxed and thought about a quick trim but I don’t really need it so I saved my cash. I made some tacos for lunch and now I’m already sitting around bored. All I can think about is stuff I wanted to get done on my computer today, but ugh. Jared’s Compaq Mini is just not fun to use. I don’t use a laptop often anyway, but this tiny thing is making my hands cramp trying to use the keyboard properly!

I shut down my computer Wednesday night so I’d remember to clean out my case before I booted it up Thursday. One of the fans was making a little noise so I figured it was time to clean them anyway. So Thursday I opened it up and took a qtip to all my fans and just carefully cleaned out any dust. I turned it back on and everything in the tower booted up like normal and the noise I’d been hearing was gone so I reached to turn on my monitors and nothing happened…there was no power going to my keyboard, none to my usb hub, speakers, monitors, etc…I freaked out. I just knew I had screwed something up.

So I opened it up again and checked all the connectors and looked around for any obvious problems but I could see nothing wrong. Ryan built the computer so I finally gave in and texted him. He walked me through a few things to try and when nothing worked, I ended up having to just take it to him.

Seeing him was a whole helluvalot harder than I was expecting. Having my computer be screwed up is more than enough to upset me, but dealing with Ryan on top of that was just too damn much.

Turns out my power supply blew a capacitor and something is wrong with my motherboard. Not entirely sure what’s wrong with it, but even trading out the power supply didn’t bring my pc back to life. Ryan said it looks like it may have taken a hit from a power surge….like I was just talking about trying to avoid…. so yeah, dunno what I’m gonna do yet.

I feel like everything I’ve always been has turned into a fad…and while it’s great to have the things I love be more easily accessible and more accepted, I feel like I’m being robbed of something. I don’t even know if that’ll make any sense to anyone else.

I’ve always owned the monikers of geek, nerd, and especially dork with pride, while they held nothing but negative connotation, and now they’re almost endearing terms.

I’ve been using social networking sites since long before I even knew the term social networking. And I have no idea how many years I’ve had an online blog of some sort.

I get into something dorky and obscure and the next thing I know it’s some sort of sensation.

I don’t know, I’m not explaining very well. It’s deeper than that.

It doesn’t help that I hate jumping on bandwagons, and that’s what I feel like I’m doing even if I’m on board before it gains popularity. I don’t know why that bothers me anyway; if something’s awesome then it’s awesome regardless of what the masses think about it.

I think it bugs me, too, knowing that once the fad passes, I’ll be doing the same things I’ve always done and instead of being quirky, it’ll seem like I just latched on to some dated trend and didn’t let go.

Too much thinking going on today. Don’t like it.

Toy Story 3 was absolutely incredible! I saw it Thursday night and it totally met every one of my expectations and surpassed them!

I still remember when Toy Story first came out way back in 1995. It released on Thanksgiving, which is my Birthday week, so my best friend’s family took us all as part of my present for my tenth Birthday! She has a younger brother about five years younger than us, and between the two of them, they ended up with every character toy on the market! We loved ‘em! And we wrote “Andy” on the bottom of all their feet…at least the ones that didn’t already come that way.

Then it was 1999 before Toy Story 2 came out– Thanksgiving again. We were 14 and wanted to pretend we were too cool for Toy Story, but we couldn’t fight it. We went and saw it anyway by the third week it was out and loved it just as much as the first one.

When I found out they were finally going to release a third one– over a decade after the last– I was way too excited to grab that part of my childhood again! I was even more excited last week when I made plans to go! I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already picked up the first two DVDs on sale at some point. They’re both in my top five favorite animated movies. They’re a must-have for me and I really can’t believe I don’t already own them. I think I just got accustomed to always knowing someone who had them so I always had access to them. I’m absolutely getting them the next time I have any extra spending cash.

When I saw the previews, I knew the movie would be great. If nothing else, it was the same team bringing together the characters I already loved, and not only that, but they were still relate-able to me– Andy’s heading off to college. I essentially grew up with Andy, so it tugs at the heartstrings a little to make that connection.

I was blown away though. I never expected it to be that good, but there wasn’t a single disappointing aspect. I even teared up a few times– during one huge climactic moment that got me super emotional, and the final full scene of the movie with Andy had me constantly watering up and holding back. And in a time when so many movies are just disappointing the hell out of me, it felt so good to have one just really hit the mark.

I definitely say it’s worth the cash to see it soon. 3D was cute, but definitely not necessary. We only saw it in 3D because we were going for free and the 3D showtime fit our schedule best.

I’m not enjoying this transitional age. By that I mean this time in my life when it seems like so many people my age are settling into careers and marriages, new homes and families, etc. And some of us just….aren’t.

It’s so weird to me to browse Facebook and see how many people actually married the people they were dating in High School. I get jealous thinking of their seamless transition and I have to remind myself that on Facebook I’m only seeing what they’re choosing to show, so of course it looks like all smiles and happiness. I really wonder how many of these High School sweethearts are in happy, fulfilling relationships, and how many of them have settled or even tied themselves to a damaging relationship. Add in some offspring and maybe it’s just not as fabulous as the wall photos would have you believe.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for a lot of them, but I just can’t really believe they’ve all just been that lucky.