Bubble Gum and Tape

Pilot Boy and I bought a house.

At the time, it sounded like a great idea-- own our own home, be able to paint, decorate, destroy, etc to our heart's content and not have to ask a landlord if we could. Also, no longer throwing money away on rent! Whooo!

Granted, if I had to choose a place to buy a house, the one where we did, I wouldn't have done it. BUT, there were like no places to rent, we need a house, and we'd spent three years saving for a downpayment. (Of course, we assumed we'd be going to either South Carolina or Washington, not middle of nowhere land...but WHATEVER.)

We found a house on the ONLY day we looked at houses. It was like we were in our own House Hunters episode. We had three houses lined up to look at and choose from (not going to count the last house we looked at, as it was a duplicate of the one we bought, only plastered with carpet). We picked third house, as it felt right and didn't require a lot of TLC. I liked everything about it except the paint. You can change paint.

Flash forward a month and here I am, sitting in MY house sweating to death because the A/C broke last night.

Yeah.

It broke. The motor that pushes the air through the house gave up it's battle to cool me down and went kaput.

I lived the last three years without A/C. Anchorage doesn't do A/C. What do you do in Anchorage when it gets too hot to exist in your house because while the weather man keeps telling you it's a lovely seventy degrees, he fails to tell you that in direct sunlight it's 110 and no breeze?

You go to Fred Meyer. (Seriously, it was the coldest place in town when it got "hot" out.)

I think the hottest it got in the house the three years without A/C was maybe seventy-five. And I was MISERABLE. (I managed to drag my trip to Fred Meyer out for two hours that day...)

It's seventy-seven in here right now.

And it's just gonna get hotter.

Brilliant.

After discovering the reason it was so overly warm in our bedroom, Pilot Boy tried to solve the problem. Upon discovering the issue, he called the so called several twenty-four hour, seven days a week maintenance places.

No one answered the phone.

Bloody brilliant.

So, the first weekend with furniture in our house, we're going to bake to death. (Along with Basil Bea, the black dog who sunbathes while outside then wonders why she's hot.)

I expected the house to have some minor issues...besides the whole let's paint the ceilings the same color as the walls, find the most annoying shade of gold and use it and some sort of strange paint effect, but whatever. Paint can be changed! (You keep telling yourself that, Ireland.)

Yeah, it was annoying the oven and fridge weren't cleaned. Yeah, I don't understand why the microwave sometimes turns itself back on to move the tray back and forth after use. It was annoying when the water dispenser in the fridge spewed out water without prompting the first few times we used it. (It finally stopped.) Sure, it was irritating that there was no dryer tube to connect the dryer to the wall. (Pilot Boy later found the one that came with the dryer inside the dryer with all the packing paper...he failed to look before buying a new one.) Yeah, it was maddening they took the shower rod for the guest bathroom. (Why do people take shower rods? Seriously, just leave it behind.) Sure, the fact the dishwasher makes a god awful noise each time you open it is kind of vexing. (It sounds like a dying animal.)

But, you know, it's the kind of stuff I kind of expected. (Well, not the dirty fridge. It wasn't even wiped out, people. It was seriously disgusting and if I was bothered, that's saying something.)

However, did I think the A/C would DIE literally seven days after we signed the papers?

No.

Was I all that surprised?

No.

Pilot Boy said this morning this place is simply held together with bubble gum and tape. I would have argued before, but I'm currently doing a slow bake within my own house, so I'm thinking yeah. Bubble gum and tape.

Where I Will Make Some Lists

Things I Miss About Texas:

1. HEB

*Now why would I miss a chain grocery store? Because. Unlike many things within the state of Texas I detest, I have ALWAYS for some unknown reason loved HEBs. When I lived in Del Rio, it was mostly because it was something familiar (a real grocery store, not a pretend one like they had on base or Walmart. I loath Walmarts for the most part.) They had good produce and I'd spend my Friday mornings buying fresh fruits and veggies. When we returned to Texas, we did all our shopping at HEB because once more, the base store failed at life. (Seriously, the only good base commissary we've seen was at in IL. Seriously. The one in AK was well stocked, but priced similar to Fred Meyer).

2. Four Zone Weather
*While they failed at life at predicting when it'd rain sometimes (Weather man: It will not rain today! Ireland Scott: *looks out window and wonders what the water falling from the sky is if it's not rain*) I like the fact they had Doppler and could somewhat tell me the various weather in the various sections.

*tries to think of other things besides Target she misses about Texas at the moment and fails.*

Thing I Do Not Miss About Texas:

1. Humidity.
2. Access roads along side the interstate.
3. Their inability to merge.
4. Heat.
5. Bugs.
6. Did I mention the access roads?
7. It's hot there. And it doesn't rain enough. But it's humid. (Didn't I say that already? I did. I guess my list on things I do not miss is short as well.)

Things I Miss About Alaska:

1. The weather (all times of year. I like it.)
2. Their lack of highways and access roads.
3. Their local news.
4. The weather man who never knew what was going on and it was adorable because there's no Dopplar up there so he kind was just guessing anyways. (Weather guy: It might be snowing. Or not. I'm not sure. We'll see! Ireland Scott: Looks out window and laughs because it's snowing. Quite a bit.)


Things I Do Not Miss:

1. The dirt and tiny rocks they used on the roads in the winter that never seemed to go away.

Things I like about OK at the moment...

1. Lack of humidity.
2. It's better than the Dirt Hole.
3. No access roads!
4. The town I'm located within doesn't even have an interstate, so duh, no access roads.
5. There is an Old Navy and Lowes. Woot.
6. There are plenty of Mexican restaurants to keep Pilot boy happy.


Things I Do Not Like:

1. MILK IS LIKE FIVE DOLLARS A GALLON. WTF?
2. The cheapest place to buy things is Walmart and there is no Target.
3. Seriously, who decides the price of food in this place? And why am I paying full sales tax of food? What is wrong with you OK, I thought you were a red state, don't you hate taxes? Or did I learn that wrong?
4. It's hot. (like 100 plus, but it's not humid. Or it wasn't. It MIGHT rain today, so it's humid.)
5. The way they pronounce ALTUS during their ENTIRE state WIDE weather forecast on the news. Seriously, they do the ENTIRE state in board strokes. While I understand this, they never talk about where I am. Just ALTUS. And they say it all WRONG.

So, all in all, I hate very minor things. Right?

It's Research, Not Stalking...Honest

When I first began writing seriously (meaning past naming characters, putting them in designer clothing and making up some dialogue), I never did research. I sat in a cold, concrete floored room at the back of The Ditch and wrote what I knew.

Pages upon pages of what I knew.

Then, I began to make outlandish things up.

And I filled pages upon pages with words.

I never sat around thinking, "Hey, I don't know enough about that, I should look it up."

Granted, this was the day and age before the internet was in your hand at all times, but the Internet was a happening thing and I believe I sometimes ventured over to use it to research things whilst still in high school. I know I used it in college.

I hated the internet.

I'm honest. I hated with with a flaming passion because I could NEVER find what I wanted. Throughout college, I sat in the dusty library and did my research using books that sometimes hadn't seen the light of day since the sixties.

And I still wrote.

Still filled pages of notebook paper with words, still typed Word docs filled with stories and characters I grew to love.

But, never once did I research anything passed maybe looking up a meaning of a name I was unable to find within one of the numerous baby name books I own.

It never occurred to me that as a writer of works of fiction, I'd have to do research, have to do something similar to what I did when writing an essay for school.

Then, one day, my mother informed me I ought to "look something up" so it sounded like I knew what I was talking about. I do not remember WHAT she told me to look up, only she created a monster.

I am a research monster now.

I'm still not any good at it, the internet still fails ninety five percent of the time to tell me what I want it to tell me, but I research everything now. Hours of my life are wasted on various websites looking up random bits of information. I've spent time hunting down slang used in the Old West for ONE SENTENCE.  I've wasted time trying to find how a British person would say "crazy" in the twenties. I spent an hour trying to find out when the rollerball pen was invented and how widely used it was in the 1940s. I spent at least two days searching floor plans online till I finally gave up and made my own-- just so I could describe something better. I've lost track of how many time I've made sure the stupid pop culture reference I've made actually would be known by certain characters and are the right time period.

It's a lot of freaking work.

And that's just for the fan fiction I've been working on as if recent.

Last summer I spent days on end looking at school catalogues to get ideas for course to stick students in. I've wasted hours making sure the schedules I made for them actually worked. I've spent years trying to figure out what colleges some of my characters are going to attend, though I don't plan to actually write about them IN college. I've spent days staring at a map of Glasgow on a real estate site trying to find a flat. For a fictional character. (I did find one. Well, two. Then I merged them, as what I wanted doesn't actual exist.) I've scoured the internet for images of interiors so I'd have a good idea how to describe them. (One day just to find out they'd remodeled the building I was trying to write about so I really had to just use what was in my head. No one thought to take pictures of the fourth floor Adam Smith lecture hall before they redid it...)

Hours of my life were lost when I was working on HYRM and I got lost in a world of quotes. Quotes ate me alive for days on end.

Many of the clever things I come up with in my original works as well as my fan fics no one bothers to really take note of...it's like I always thought: no one notices. They are reading and enjoying the story-- not looking for symbolism, not looking for those little things.

Then, I got feedback when someone noticed the painstaking effort I put forth.

One of my stories follows two real people, who are quite famous. I went back to my roots in my fan fics and started writing about actual people instead of fictional ones. I had the idea in my head for awhile and it wanted out, so I let it out. Yeah, you might think it is rather teenybopper of me, and I think it is, but I like the two OCs I created and if I REALLY wanted to, I could change the names of the famous people, change the names of projects, etc and it'd be orignal. So, I guess you can say I'm just too lazy to change the inspiration. (10p technically started out as a fan fic, only I changed the main romantic interests name, then his profession, thus, it's not. See? No...that's fine.)

Anyways, I've become somewhat fixated with where these two people WERE. I don't care where they are right now, I care where they WERE. I get caught up in trying to figure it out, till I suddenly realize what I'm doing and I laugh.

I'd be worried if I hadn't done the same thing when I was writing some of my original works. Granted I cannot scurry the internet to figure out where my characters were located, but if you saw the pile of paper I carry around for RAB, you'd see I'm rather keen to know every detail.

It wasn't always like this. Once upon I time, I just made stuff up and called it a day.

(Except that one time when I was in high school and I drew a map of the town RAB takes place in just so I could name the street's D used to get from one end of town to another. I could have just made that up, but...I didn't. I made an entire map. On lots of paper. I still have it and use it too. Well, I did have it...I'm not sure where it got off to now that I think about it. Hopefully it survies the move.)

Vivid Imaginations Are Not Always Good

Those indeed are my feet. And they do not actually look that small in person. It's the camera angle and pointing my toes together. I took the photo myself with my iPhone. Because no one helps me photograph things in this family. (Hence why the last photos of me that were taken were at Christmas.)

In other news, I'm NOT dying!

(There was about an two hours this morning I assumed the worst, panicked and had to medicate myself. Pilot Boy, of course, abandoned me for the first time since we left AK, so clearly, I'm going to wind up dying in the hospital or something...or that was my thinking. Clearly, I'm not in a hospital or dying.)

Why am I excited about the whole not dying? Because I've been in very minor pain (read, most people would have completely ignored it, but I am me and I HATE pain) for a few days longer than I thought normal, so finally I dragged myself in a mild panic to the phone to make an appointment. Last time I had similar pains, I wound up in the hospital for four days and had some guy cut me open and remove my appendix. And that wasn't the worst thing that happened whilst I was there. But, that is not a story y'all want to hear. Trust me.

Anyways, after suffering a panic attack, I downed those one of those little happy pills I picked up in Alaska for moving and felt...a weird combination of calm and panicked. To came in waves. I'd panic, then clam down and feel sleepy. Then I'd panic again. It was an annoying cycle till I had to leave.

When I first got the pills, due to the fact I read the warnings, I refused to operate a car whilst on them. However, seeing as Pilot Boy flew the coop, I had no choice but to drive myself and seeing I'd taken a pill on Sunday (I was thinking the pain was part of an upcoming panic attack, which I was having due to the prospect of being out in the sun for hours around hoards of people--which wound up not happening because Pilot Boy can't read the date on his iPhone correctly and the air show/car show wasn't going on when we got there) and managed to watch Iron Man 3 and pick up on things Pilot Boy failed to notice, I was like, "I can drive!"

So, I did.

It wasn't really until I actually got into the clinic did I become super loopy.

First, I went the wrong way to Flight Med. Luckily a nurse pointed me in the right way. (I might have scared her with my huge smile and cheery thank you while looking like death warmed over-- which I look like usually, as I am the palest thing in Texas. And I was super pale today, as I forwent my usual makeup in fear of being shoved into the hospital.) After going back the way I came passed the coffee bar (yeah, the clinic's got a Starbucks), I arrive at the correct place and handed my ID over and waited for the paper work.

"You can sit down," the woman said, handing my ID back to me.

I stared at her, cocked my head and sat down.

Without any paperwork.

I sat with some babies who were getting shots till they called my name.

Fifteen minutes early. (I was super early because I thought it'd take me longer to get there and I knew I'd get lost. I still refuse to use the highways here unless I have to. So, sometimes I wind up somewhere I've never been before.)

I wandered after the nurse to the exam room, sat down and began to laugh. I was also shaking, twitching and just all around acting strange. I quickly explained my issues and added the fact I'd taken some anxiety pills that morning.

She knew which one I had taken and I hadn't needed to drag the bottle out to tell her.

In fact, she knew everything about me from the past five years. (Medical wise, she failed to know that I sit around writing, making up my own words, and singing songs about my dog.)

The computer worked. My records had transfered.

I kind of died of shock at this point. In the past five years since I "joined" this whole military thing, no one has ever known anything when I've gone to the doctor because the computer never works and my chart never says anything past my name (though something they don't even know that and call me Pilot Boy). Hence why I simply gave up trying to solve my allergy issues whilst in Alaska because the last doctor they'd shoved me off on used GOOGLE to look up what drugs to put me on. GOOGLE. I use GOOGLE to figure out what drugs I want to take. (Well, when I research that type of thing, which was once. Google failed me, so I began asking people I knew who were on the same thing. It yielded better results.)

But today, they knew EVERYTHING. They had all my blood pressures, all my medications (they frowned as it'd clearly not been updated in some respects. There were a few things I'm not on any longer that were still on there as if I were taking them) and basically everything I'd ever written a million times on that damn paper they always hand me first thing!

It was so shocking I almost passed out.

The best thing, though, I got a prescription for Zyrtec. I could write odes to that pretty little pill that allows me to kind of breath and not die from the fact Russia likes to live in my head right between my eyes.

Anyways, the pain I was in there for turned out to be strained muscles from over zealous Pilaties crunching. So, no core working out for four to six weeks. BAH. Just as I was getting back into it. At least I'm not dying, they do not have to cut me up to drag something out of there or give me another vile cat-scan. (You do not want to know.)

Moral of the story: for the first time ever, I'm actually somewhat impressed with the medical wing. They had their stuff together. Or I happened to catch them on a good day. I only was at the pharmacy for maybe a half hour-- if that. I didn't pay attention. I was reading and coming down off my panic high. (Trust me, I'm feeling it now...and this one was bad...I haven't ached like this since I got the happy pills. I can't imagine what state I'd been in without the meds....eek.)

In other news that has nothing to do with my health, I finished book four of my Potter series. I also began posting my newest obsession. Links to all can be found under the tab with a list of all my stories. I'm trying to get my act together and get something posted on Wattpad-- something original. I was thinking of posting Elle, but I think she needs some more editing. Mostly because when I looked, I couldn't figure if I'd put the edits in or not. Or if I had been in the process of editing it on my Kindle. Basically, I got confused. Not unheard of.

Well, I have one last read through on the next part of the New Obession. Since I posted one this AM, I figured I'd post this in the PM. Get more readers in the afternoon than morning.

Laterdays.

No way, Jose

Today, Pilot Boy sent me a text asking if I wanted to move to the Dirt Hole.

I said, "Over my dead body."

"How about for $10,000?"

"No. You can't pay me enough to go back."

Granted, then I began thinking....I've been there before. I know where things are, I know where to go to get things and I know how things work.

Then I remembered: It's the Dirt Hole. It's literally a dirt hole. I hate dirt. I'm not a big fan of holes.

So, I came back to my first thought: No way, Jose.

I still have this unsettling feeling, though, that at some point...I'll have to go back there and then I'll be trapped there. Again. Granted, it wasn't like it was THAT horrible, but the reasons it wasn't THAT horrible last time around won't be there next time.

Someone once said, while in the Dirt Hole, if you're happy to leave, you'll be back.

I cheered loudly the day we left.

I mockingly cheered when I came back to Texas.

I almost cried when I left Alaska.

I sighed sadly when I pulled out the shorts and it was February.

I'm not meant for hot locations. I seriously am meant to live where it's cold and dark. I thrive there.

The Dirt Hole is hot. The sun is bright. And storms go around it. (Storms don't even want to go to the Dirt Hole.)

Hazards of Driving

Well, it was that time of year again...or time of my life, rather.

I packed myself up, threw it all into the Monstrosity and headed back down the Alaskan Highway-- only I changed it up and instead of spending weeks on end (or so it seemed) mucking through Canada, I didn't bother trekking across the country and instead took a sharp dive southward and kept going till I hit...Texas.

I hate Texas. And not just because I spent a year living in a dirt hole. No, I just...dislike it strongly.

I'm currently suffering from culture shock. Not all that surprising considering where I came from. I always seem to suffer from culture shock, or rather reverse culture shock. Going back to where I came always throws me for a loop. When I get somewhere odd, the culture shock never really gets me. When I went to Scotland, I adjusted easily. It was when I came back that was hard. It took months for me to feel at ease again and not constantly thinking, "That's wrong..."

When I left the Dirt Hole all those moons ago and went back to Chicagoland, it was the same thing. I was overwhelmed by the cars, people, stop signs, speed limits and where I was. I grew up in the area. It's seared into my mind's eye to the point it's easy for me to call up areas and write stories about them without needing Google Maps. And yet, I drove around with my Texas plated car and got passed on suburban streets for going too slow (also known as the speed limit) and beeped at when I actually used stop signs.

You see, I forgot how the people of Chicagoland drove. While I loved them for their predictability  I'd forgotten their lack of use of speed limits and stop signs. After living in the dirt hole where it was cause for celebration when someone went the speed limite and you got a ticket when you failed to come to a stop for three seconds, it was jarring to realize I'd get run over if I ventured out onto the interstates of Illinois.

So, I didn't. I kept to the mean suburban streets and thanked God I had Texas plates.

When I arrived in Alaska, I don't remember finding things jarring. They were strange, but in a similar way Scotland was strange once I got over the jet lag. They drove fast during bad weather and slow during good weather. Generally speaking, Anchorage drivers were predictable and I never honestly feared for my life when I drove around the city. I drove around with ease and never one felt road rage or had the urge to announce I was a FIB, don't mess with me. (This happened often in the Dirt Hole...)

I honestly can't say that during the times we visited the Chicago area during our three years in Anchorage, I feared for my life whilst in the car. I even drove a few times...I never wanted to scream, never wanted to hide or close my eyes and pray.

San Antonio....oh, how I hate you and your love affair with highways/interstates/access roads.

One thing I learned during my few visits to SA during my tenure in the Dirt Hole was this: SA drivers are not predictable.

Honestly. You never have any idea what the hell they might do at any given point. They go slow for no reason, change lanes without warning, fail to look when they merge and kind of just...scare the living crap out of me. The lanes are also extremely...narrow. And while they know how to paint lines (something no one in Anchorage has gotten the hang of for unknown reasons), sometimes they just don't paint lines and the road is SUPER WIDE and you've got no idea how many lanes a road has.

And I have only drive through SA once in my life. In a small s40. And I only drove on the interstate and never had to get off.

You can't get anywhere without using the interstates and loops and access roads here. It is confusing, annoying and frankly frightening because you never know what someone is going to do. And most people have HUGE trucks.

Granted, I've got a huge truck like vehicle, but still.

I refuse to drive. Pilot Boy keeps mocking me, as I love civilization and hate being in the middle of nowhere, and yet I'm a hermit.

A well dressed hermit who loves hangers, but still a hermit. Even more so now that we've only got one car and I refuse to drive it.

Anywhere.

I'll drive when I get to where I'm actually going, which is in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma. Till then, I'll sit around a pine for Anchorage and the mean suburban streets of Chicagoland (which are way less scary than the road system of SA).

Still Kicking Around

I missed my birthday post. Oops.

I'm 29. I don't remember much about being 19, other than I was in college. I liked college.

The lack of posting is partly due to writing/editing/communing with voices in my head. This is what happens when I have a spurt of creativeness and it eats me alive.

At least I'm getting feedback and people are reading my current project. It's a large undertaking that I will see through. It might take me fifteen years, but I will complete it. I WILL. Mostly because I have been PLANNING.

I know. Odd. Me, planning. Run for the hills.

But, I have EVERYTHING planned out.

And then I realize I am writing...fan fiction...and want to bang my head into the table a few times. But it is so much FUN. Honestly.

Only, I've hit a road block in flushing out the middle of my second story. I have the beginning written and the end. (I have the end of every story I plan to write written for the most part except for six and seven. I know, I know...I'm getting ahead of myself. Especially since I keep CHANGING things.) But I finished the first story and felt so accomplished and had no one to tell, so I'm telling you.

Yeah. You.

Also, I have no idea where I came up with that pen name. Honestly. I should have stuck to my first pen name, but I decided I would keep it separate for...my orignal works that do not start other people's characters so blatantly.

So...that is what I've been up to. Just so you know.

I'm Alive!

My mother told me my blog is outdated. There is an array of reasons for this, one being: Nothing has really happend in the last two months that inspired me to ramble at length. I've been mostly reading and writing...something I haven't written in over ten years. It's just BURSTING out of me and I'm HIGHLY annoyed with it, yet not at the same time. I'm only posting it here because I plan to actually post it else where someday. So, here ya go: Misplaced in Time.

A Walk Through Handbags

I have three designer purses.

Three.

Coach. Linea Pelle. Rebecca Minkoff.

The Rebecca Minkoff is the most recent edition to my tiny collection. None of these designers is so called high end, but I still like them. I've lusted after Rebecca Minkoff purse for years, at least four. I stare at them, see the price and find myself sighing loudly and waiting for a sale. When I lived in the Dirt Hole, I told myself I'd hit up the after Christmas sale next year, as I was amazed at how much I could get a Morning After Bag for (now I don't remember the price).

I never did buy one.

Then, in the fall (I think), I discovered Bluefly. Or rediscovered it. I don't know what lead me there, or how I got there, but I was there, looking at Rebecca Minkoff purses and drooling once again. One day, I was going through the SUPER SALE on handbags the site was having and came across this Linea Pelle bag that was, well, TARDIS blue. I thought the brand name looked familiar, so I used Purse Blog to check it out and sure enough, it was a brand they'd covered. They had even reviewed the bag.

So I bought it. For something like $180, which for the fracking size of this bag, that was a good price. (It's leather.) I was so excited when it finally showed up. It's really a great purse. It's HUGE. Things get lost. But you can cram a whole coat in it! Among other things.

Well, it's summer now, and technically, I could carry a purse of my own creation. But then it rains and cotton purses don't do well in rain. So, I kept carrying my TARDIS blue hobo bag. (Which did really well this winter. You just brush the dirt off!)

A few weeks ago, I was staring at Facebook. Or Twitter. Or both at the same time. One of these outlets informed me of a sample sale Rebecca Minkoff was having.

Online.

My eyes bugged out.

I wasn't holding out too much hope, as the last few collections she's come out with haven't really caught my fancy. Why? Because I'm boring. I like her orignal line of handbags. I don't like my handbags cluttered with...zippers, studs, or whatever. I like Nikki, the Morning After Bag, Morning After Clutch and the Manatiee (a bag she doesn't really make any more...) I like the mini versions of these bags. (Well, not the MAC mini, it's just too small.)

The sale was going on a week. Or something. And daily, the selection changed. Sometimes it changed hourly. (Yeah, I checked it often.) I know what I want, which is a tragic thing as usually when I know what I want, I cannot find it. However, low and behold, the bag I wanted magically appeared.

Well, one of them.

The Nikki and MAB that were on sale weren't what I wanted. I wanted colored leather, not too bright, with silver hardware. Most of the bags seemed to carry gold. Not into gold. Then it appeared: a full size MAC in purple with silver hardware.

I stared at it for a full twenty four hours before I bought it. I spent the next day freaking out, but then rationalized myself off the ledge. I was bouncingly giddy by the time it arrived. I opened the box and found the purse packaged the same manner I package my own purses (tissue paper with a sticker bearing the designer name). Granted, the bag was also in a plastic bag and came with a dust bag, but it was similar.

I spent the day peeking at the purse, unsure if it was really here. I still catch sight of it and think, "Do I really actually OWN a Rebecca Minkoff purse? Did I really only pay less for it than I paid for my hobo bag?"

Yes. That is the answer to all those questions.

The Coach purse cost roughly $300 dollars. I used it till I wore it out. I spent a lot of money on it, when I didn't really have a lot of money, but I had my first real job and I wanted a nice purse. After I got it, I always regretted not getting the little hobo bag in all leather and going for the stupid bag in canvas. But, I still brought it out when I needed a "nicer" purse. The major issue with it: it's a arm purse, meaning it's meant to be carried on your forearm or in your hand. It fits over my shoulder and into my armpit, but it's not meant to be there. And don't try it if you're wearing a winter coat. You'll pull a muscle.

It got squished in our last move. I unpacked it and it was...dented.

I tried to be outraged. I tried to get mad.

I didn't care.

This of course alarmed me greatly. I should care. I spent three hundred freaking dollars on a purse! What is wrong with me!?!?!?!?

So I hung it on the back of the closet door and forgot about it. I have not carried it since I left the Dirt Hole, which was when I discovered a plastic bit sticking out of the bottom piping and thought, "WTF? I paid three hundred dollars for this stupid purse."

When I traded the Linea Pelle hobo for the MAC, I put it in its dust bag (after I fished it out of the pantry...dont' ask) and hung it on the back of the door with the Coach bag (which has a dust bag, I just don't know where it went.)

I ought to find the Coach dust bag. I think I stuffed with fabric remains.

The Linea Pelle purse isn't falling apart. Granted, I only carried it through the fall and winter, but still, I dont' think it's got any plastic bits in it. Honestly, plastic bits?

I love the MAC. It the perfect size for me and things don't get lost. I also can wear it cross body, so it doesn't fall down on my arm and try to rip it off. I could use a smaller wallet though, as my wallet takes up the whole purse almost.

Not that there's much I carry besides the wallet.

The wallet is Coach. I bought it after the purse, at an outlet mall. The day after Thanksgiving. It's leather. Brown and cost roughly 80 bucks. And would have matched the purse I should have gotten instead of the one I got.

Notice a trend? The one I paid the most money for, I regret getting at all. Hmmmm....mental note: only buy things on sale.

I Do Believe in Commas, I do!!!!! I do!!!!!

I have no idea when I discovered The Shoebox Project, or how. I don't actually read what it is: Fan Fiction. I don't look for it, I don't really write it any longer and at the time I read that I was definitely passed the stage of fan fiction. In high school, I was massively into boy band fan fiction, which I don't remember how I discovered either. But, if I want to be honest-- fan fiction is what REALLY got me started writing, creating stories and getting interested in writing honest romance instead of whatever the hell I'd been writing before this point in time. I learned quite a bit from the fan fiction I did read. I was REALLY picky on what I'd read too. I had one site that I liked and I only branched out of things this author suggested.

Then she went to college and my life exploded around me, and I stopped reading and writing fan fiction. I also started listening to Eminem and Limp Bizkit.

At some point, freshman year of college, I read some sort of fan fiction about Trigun. I remember I read it covertly over winter break, because I couldn't get a minute alone, so I pretended to go to bed-- then stayed up till all hours reading on my computer, silently giggling.

Freshman year, I also read fan fiction written by my friend C. It was Buffy based and introduced me to a whole new kind of fan fiction. What do I mean by this? Well, up till this point in time, all the things I'd ever read were independent stories. (Which with bands, is easy, as there is no actual story line, with a TV show, there's a story.) Anyways, she created a new character and worked her into the actual episodes of the TV show, which was utterly fascinating to me.

Then I started writing fan fiction again, as I created my own Buffy verse story, working my characters into a few episodes. I was all over the place with the whole thing and never really knew what I was doing, but it gave me something to do for two years till I lost interest.

I read Shoebox after I got married. And I honestly have no clue how I discovered it. I think one of my livejournal friends must have been reading it or something and one day when I was bored, I stumbled upon it. All I remember is: I read it at work.

Yeah, you read that right.

By the time I found it, all the Harry Potter books were out and I could tell by the dates, updates were beginning to get to be few and far between, because like all fan fiction writers, it seemed that life got in the way. I think after I found it, the authors might have updated twice.

Then the account was hacked while I was in Del Rio.

I thought the world was going to end, because I adored the story. To the point, I took their created story as the back story to the actual Harry Potter novels.

Luckily, someone had either saved the posts or something, as they are still online in PDF form. After the account was hacked though, it'd been almost a year since the last update and I knew one thing: it was over. One of the authors was now published. She's even appeared on the CBS morning show, I guess. (She's got a few more books out now, I guess. I don't know. I didn't look in it before I began writing.)

I don't know what got me really thinking about Shoebox again. I think it was something I saw on Pinterest when I was scrolling through for images for whatever I'm working on right now. Something...reminded me of it. So, I went looking for it and found it was not in e-book format. So, of course I downloaded it and put it on my Kindle. And spent the past two days reading it.

It's freaking long. It's actually longer than Summer Story, which I thought was the longest things in the world (after those classic books that wax on for pages about moor and rainfall).

But, I just finished it and feel that ache again, so familiar. I want more, if not just to get to the point where JK really starts telling the story of James, Lily, Sirius, Lupin and Wormtail.

While the e-book itself is littered with errors (like many e-books tragically are...I guess they are hard to format?), the storyline is still good. And while my Kindle isn't the best thing for images, I still got that same anticipation and envy I get when I read something brillant. (It's why I read, actually.) Did it give me the urge to create fan fiction?

No, not really. But, it did renew my want to create something brilliant. I've been in this sinkhole for the past two weeks. (Writing Alexis's stories tends to do this to me because I hate her.) So, I haven't been writing very much during the day. I've watched the entire series of Star Trek: Voyager. This is only okay because 1) I've never watched it totally in order and 2) I never saw how they got home.

Of course time travel was involved. Of course the Borg were involved.

I've watched Fortysomething, which amused me to no end. I was honestly surprised I liked it, if I'm honest with you as I don't usually like that sort of thing.

I've read a few books, one of them twice. (My Life Next Door, check it out. Brilliant.)

I've spent way too many hours on Pinterest. Which lead me back to Shoebox, with it's made up words, air filled with exclamation marks and characters that we all know the names of, but don't really know before the Major Events of the actual Harry Potter series. Personally, I think the two authors of Shoebox (I keep typing Showbox for some reason) do a brilliant job at creating believable characters that end up as they do. (Granted, we only really get to know three of them at all, as two are all ready dead at the start of Harry Potter.) But, it's easy to see Lupin winding up as he does, doing what he does, seeing things as he does. I think they do a brilliant job hinting at why Peter turned. And it's so easy to see Sirius...well, being Sirius. (Full disclosure: Sirius and Lupin are my two favorite characters and when JK killed THEM BOTH OFF, I almost had a conniption.)

So, if you have some time to kill, enjoy Harry Potter, give it a shot. It being Shoebox.