The first time I was kicked from within, I was lying on my back (when it was still safe to) and had my hand just resting down near where many moons ago my appendix was ripped out of me...ever so lovingly. (And for 7,000!) I was trying to convince myself I ought to get out of bed when I felt a sharp thump against my hand.
I froze.
Had she just kicked me?
I waited a moment for it to happen again, but I didn't feel anything. But, I knew it was a kick. My baby had kicked me for the first time.
Later that day, I put my hand back down in the area and waited for her to do a repeat performance. It took hours, but I finally felt little jabs of her tiny foot. (Or fist, but I think it was a foot.)
Pilot Boy couldn't feel anything. He thought I was making up.
As the weeks went on, the movements got stronger and more pronounced. There were also clear kicks, head-butts, and just random movements (like rolls or something). Basically, I spent a lot of time with my hand down my pants just to feel my kid move around.
Finally, shortly before the winter holidays, Pilot Boy felt his daughter move. It was a bit movement. It felt like an earthquake going on in my uterus and I said, "You've had to have felt that one."
"Yep."
And that is when the kicks stopped and the earthquakes really began. Seriously. Sometimes they are concentrated earthquakes-- like in the area where my former appendix lived till it decided it hated me and moved out. It moved on to green pastures seven years ago, yet when my daughter decides to beat up on it, it hurts. Her other favorite thing to do is stomp on my bladder. Or one night, she decided to do headstands or something on my poor bladder. I spent the entire night thinking I had to pee, but I really didn't. I just had a baby on my bladder.
Rumblings tend to happen at night, like when I'm trying to go to bed. Since I hit week 25, the little quakes have been happening more often. I'll be sitting around during the day and suddenly the book, laptop, phone, Kindle will just go tumbling over from where I had it perched because my kid decided she didn't like it there. Or my arm jerks.
"What the hell was that for?" Pilot Boy asked when I accidentally elbowed him this weekend in the side whilst we sat on the couch reading.
"Your daughter wishes you to know my pain," was my reply.
He didn't buy it.
Sometimes all this movement (which is a good thing, as she's old enough now she ought to be moving and shaking and channeling a soccer player) is fine with me, while other times I just wish she'd kick me in the stomach. Or the spleen. Or somewhere other than my bladder or my former appendix. I've no clue what it is about the scar tissue hanging out there, but man...each time she hits that spot it feels almost as bad as when I made the mistake of going bowling two weeks after I had it removed. Or when I went bowling three months after it left me for some jar. (Or whatever they do with infected appendixes.) Or when I went bowling almost two years after it was cut out of me.
I shouldn't go bowling. I tend to hurt myself in the area where the appendix used to live.
I also shouldn't be pregnant as my kid loves to kick me there and it's freaking annoying. It's either a sharp paint or a dull pain, depending on how much oomph she puts into her movement.
I've yet to see anything, like a foot or hand poking out. I've yet to see anything really as when I'm paying attention and staring at my bare belly, she decides to do all her moving towards my spin or something. I do know it moves, though, the belly. My shirts sometimes ripple during earthquakes.
She is kicking me down. Just little jabs right behind my belly button.
I like it best when I do catch her out and get to feel her little foot as it rams itself into my innards. There is just something completely mind blowing about the whole thing--you know feeling it inside and on your hand and knowing it's a little foot and some day there will be a little human outside who will kick you in the face with the same foot. (And not on purpose. It'll just likely happen. Most likely whilst changing a nappy.)
21 January 2014
16 January 2014
I Heart Water
We went away for two weeks.
Now, since we've owned this house, we've not left it alone for more than hours at a time. I did not honestly think we had to sit around looking after the house, as it's a house. We've lived in a house before and left it for extended periods. It was always perfectly fine when we returned home.
Of course, this one wasn't okay.
Yeah, it looked fine. Everything was where we'd left it and from the outside it appeared to be perfectly normal.
It felt good to be back, out of the car, and not going anywhere anytime soon. The whole upheaval of the holidays was over. Brilliant!
I went to get the dog some water, as she hadn't had any in quite awhile.
I turned the tap and nothing happened.
"Did you turn the water off?" I called out to Pilot Boy.
"No. Why would I do that?"
"I don't know. It doesn't work," I replied, moving the tap up and down some more.
Nothing happened.
Seriously. Nothing.
It is winter. Since it got "cold" we've seen signs telling people to leave their taps dripping, which to us former residents of Alaska sounded idiotic. It doesn't get that cold here.
And it DID NOT get THAT cold here while we were gone. Sure, they had some winter weather, but it wasn't THAT cold. And our house is NEW(ish).
Pilot Boy didn't think the pipes were frozen (it was 60 degrees), so he called the water company. I payed the bill (and the new bill I had in my hand claimed I did as well). But, he called them and asked if they'd turned it off.
Nope. Our pipes must be frozen.
It was sixty freaking degrees out. And the day before it'd been forty. Why are our pipes frozen?
Pilot Boy went about calling plumbers and "thawing" the pipes.
Nothing happened. At least unlike the a/c guys, the plumbers all ANSWERED their phones. They couldn't show up that day but they ANSWERED.
Pilot Boy at some point talked to this guy he knows down the street who'd been around and he told him it'd been warm throughout the entire time we'd been gone. (Except the day we left, of course.) Basically, our pipes shouldn't have been frozen.
(I lived in Alaska for three years. It actually GETS cold there. Our pipes never froze. And we left in the dead of winter quite a few times during those three years and never came home to frozen pipes.)
Let me tell you something: it sucks not having water. You do not realize how much you use water until you don't have any. Yeah, our toilets flushed and you could get two flushes out of them before they needed to be reloaded and yeah, we went out and bought drinking water, but you can't do dishes, you have to carry around water to wash your hands, and you cannot bathe. (Well, we could if we went to the gym or the neighbor's house, but still. I'm pregnant. I don't want to shower in a stranger's home or a gym.)
Luckily, the plumber showed up the next afternoon. He was confused when he was told we have frozen pipes and no water pressure.
"It's been warm," he informed me.
"I know," I said.
He went to investigate at the water thingy in the front yard and discovered it was turned off.
"Did you call the city?"
"Yes. They said they didn't turn our water off."
"Someone turned your water off."
I could only shrug.
He turned the water on, then turned it off.
During his quest to find the water thingy (you know, the thing that turns water to the house on and off), Pilot Boy had done something to cause the sprinkler system thing (I've no idea what it is but it's for the sprinkler system) to spout water off straight into the air next to the house. The plumber had no clue how to fix it, as he'd never seen anything like it before. He suggested in the spring we call the company that installed it and have them look at it. Or they (the plumbing company he worked for) could look at it. He did shut it off, cutting off the water supply to the sprinkler system.
Then he turned our water back on and oh, how it was lovely to have water again. (After I spent an hour running water through the pipes and getting all the stale water out or whatever my dad said I ought to do. I had no clue, but it made sense at the time.)
Moral of the story?
Someone turned our water off. Our pipes were not frozen, our water was off. Thanks city. You're really on top of things.
Now, since we've owned this house, we've not left it alone for more than hours at a time. I did not honestly think we had to sit around looking after the house, as it's a house. We've lived in a house before and left it for extended periods. It was always perfectly fine when we returned home.
Of course, this one wasn't okay.
Yeah, it looked fine. Everything was where we'd left it and from the outside it appeared to be perfectly normal.
It felt good to be back, out of the car, and not going anywhere anytime soon. The whole upheaval of the holidays was over. Brilliant!
I went to get the dog some water, as she hadn't had any in quite awhile.
I turned the tap and nothing happened.
"Did you turn the water off?" I called out to Pilot Boy.
"No. Why would I do that?"
"I don't know. It doesn't work," I replied, moving the tap up and down some more.
Nothing happened.
Seriously. Nothing.
It is winter. Since it got "cold" we've seen signs telling people to leave their taps dripping, which to us former residents of Alaska sounded idiotic. It doesn't get that cold here.
And it DID NOT get THAT cold here while we were gone. Sure, they had some winter weather, but it wasn't THAT cold. And our house is NEW(ish).
Pilot Boy didn't think the pipes were frozen (it was 60 degrees), so he called the water company. I payed the bill (and the new bill I had in my hand claimed I did as well). But, he called them and asked if they'd turned it off.
Nope. Our pipes must be frozen.
It was sixty freaking degrees out. And the day before it'd been forty. Why are our pipes frozen?
Pilot Boy went about calling plumbers and "thawing" the pipes.
Nothing happened. At least unlike the a/c guys, the plumbers all ANSWERED their phones. They couldn't show up that day but they ANSWERED.
Pilot Boy at some point talked to this guy he knows down the street who'd been around and he told him it'd been warm throughout the entire time we'd been gone. (Except the day we left, of course.) Basically, our pipes shouldn't have been frozen.
(I lived in Alaska for three years. It actually GETS cold there. Our pipes never froze. And we left in the dead of winter quite a few times during those three years and never came home to frozen pipes.)
Let me tell you something: it sucks not having water. You do not realize how much you use water until you don't have any. Yeah, our toilets flushed and you could get two flushes out of them before they needed to be reloaded and yeah, we went out and bought drinking water, but you can't do dishes, you have to carry around water to wash your hands, and you cannot bathe. (Well, we could if we went to the gym or the neighbor's house, but still. I'm pregnant. I don't want to shower in a stranger's home or a gym.)
Luckily, the plumber showed up the next afternoon. He was confused when he was told we have frozen pipes and no water pressure.
"It's been warm," he informed me.
"I know," I said.
He went to investigate at the water thingy in the front yard and discovered it was turned off.
"Did you call the city?"
"Yes. They said they didn't turn our water off."
"Someone turned your water off."
I could only shrug.
He turned the water on, then turned it off.
During his quest to find the water thingy (you know, the thing that turns water to the house on and off), Pilot Boy had done something to cause the sprinkler system thing (I've no idea what it is but it's for the sprinkler system) to spout water off straight into the air next to the house. The plumber had no clue how to fix it, as he'd never seen anything like it before. He suggested in the spring we call the company that installed it and have them look at it. Or they (the plumbing company he worked for) could look at it. He did shut it off, cutting off the water supply to the sprinkler system.
Then he turned our water back on and oh, how it was lovely to have water again. (After I spent an hour running water through the pipes and getting all the stale water out or whatever my dad said I ought to do. I had no clue, but it made sense at the time.)
Moral of the story?
Someone turned our water off. Our pipes were not frozen, our water was off. Thanks city. You're really on top of things.
15 January 2014
This Is Mostly About Clothes
So, I'm pregnant. You know, knocked up, preggers, with child, blooming, glowing, kind of round...that thing women of a certain age tend to do.
I don't know why anyone gets pregnant.
Okay, I do know why people do. They want the baby you get at the end. At least that is why I got pregnant. I've heard some people ENJOY being pregnant.
I hate being pregnant. It's like having a never ending period, only no bleeding. You get the cramps, the headaches, the upset tummy, and on top of all that you loose your waist. And there is this tiny being inside who decides it'd be a great idea to do headstands on your bladder all night long. (I swear to god that was what she was doing last night as I had to pee all night long.)
I spent the past six months feeling completely rotten, throwing up, and not looking pregnant.
Yeah, that sucked.
I only began to look pregnant about two weeks ago. And I'm six months pregnant. I didn't even really start gaining wait till about three weeks ago. Yeah, you think I'm lucky. I might not have been gaining weight, but I was loosing my hips and waist. One doesn't realize how vital hips and waists are for holding up pants until you don't have them. I couldn't wear my maternity bottoms because it was all too big (I had no bump), nor could I wear my old stuff because it didn't stay up. Yeah, I could button my jeans, I could wear my skirts without an extender (till about last week), but they didn't stay up. Just like all the new maternity pants I'd gotten.
I still only have ONE pair of maternity jeans that kind of fit. They are still uncomfortable. I do, though, like the whole pull up concept going on with maternity jeans, but I do not like the whole...panel up over my stomach thing as I am always hot and it itches. I don't know why it itches, but it does. And it never stays up. It is dumb. I've got pairs that are "under belly" and I like those, only two pairs are way too big and don't even stay up, while the other one claimed to have a 32 inch inseam, but they don't. I took them down, but they still are too short. And I'm not tall.
It's been hit or miss with shirts. The maternity tops I got from The Gap...they are all made for third trimester bellies. Or something. They are HUGE in the belly area. They still look baggy on me. The tops I've picked up from Ross...not sure other than the ruching on the sides how they are maternity tops. But hey, they're only five bucks. I've gotten tops from lots of places and they all claim to be wearable through all stages, yet quite a few of them I can't really wear yet because my belly isn't large enough and I look like I'm swimming in the top...on the bottom. While I don't think my boobs are huge, they are (hence why I can't really wear my pre-pregnancy tops. My stupid boobs don't fit).
The most success I've had with anything maternity is in dresses. They fit me like dresses from before I got knocked up. And I've gotten them from ASOS. The best tops I got were from there as well.
So, besides being unable to clothe myself, the never ending nausea, the random throwing up, having no energy, loosing my waist and hips, and having a tiny being inside of me who likes to kick and do headstands on my bladder-- it's been great.
I don't know why anyone gets pregnant.
Okay, I do know why people do. They want the baby you get at the end. At least that is why I got pregnant. I've heard some people ENJOY being pregnant.
I hate being pregnant. It's like having a never ending period, only no bleeding. You get the cramps, the headaches, the upset tummy, and on top of all that you loose your waist. And there is this tiny being inside who decides it'd be a great idea to do headstands on your bladder all night long. (I swear to god that was what she was doing last night as I had to pee all night long.)
I spent the past six months feeling completely rotten, throwing up, and not looking pregnant.
Yeah, that sucked.
I only began to look pregnant about two weeks ago. And I'm six months pregnant. I didn't even really start gaining wait till about three weeks ago. Yeah, you think I'm lucky. I might not have been gaining weight, but I was loosing my hips and waist. One doesn't realize how vital hips and waists are for holding up pants until you don't have them. I couldn't wear my maternity bottoms because it was all too big (I had no bump), nor could I wear my old stuff because it didn't stay up. Yeah, I could button my jeans, I could wear my skirts without an extender (till about last week), but they didn't stay up. Just like all the new maternity pants I'd gotten.
I still only have ONE pair of maternity jeans that kind of fit. They are still uncomfortable. I do, though, like the whole pull up concept going on with maternity jeans, but I do not like the whole...panel up over my stomach thing as I am always hot and it itches. I don't know why it itches, but it does. And it never stays up. It is dumb. I've got pairs that are "under belly" and I like those, only two pairs are way too big and don't even stay up, while the other one claimed to have a 32 inch inseam, but they don't. I took them down, but they still are too short. And I'm not tall.
It's been hit or miss with shirts. The maternity tops I got from The Gap...they are all made for third trimester bellies. Or something. They are HUGE in the belly area. They still look baggy on me. The tops I've picked up from Ross...not sure other than the ruching on the sides how they are maternity tops. But hey, they're only five bucks. I've gotten tops from lots of places and they all claim to be wearable through all stages, yet quite a few of them I can't really wear yet because my belly isn't large enough and I look like I'm swimming in the top...on the bottom. While I don't think my boobs are huge, they are (hence why I can't really wear my pre-pregnancy tops. My stupid boobs don't fit).
The most success I've had with anything maternity is in dresses. They fit me like dresses from before I got knocked up. And I've gotten them from ASOS. The best tops I got were from there as well.
So, besides being unable to clothe myself, the never ending nausea, the random throwing up, having no energy, loosing my waist and hips, and having a tiny being inside of me who likes to kick and do headstands on my bladder-- it's been great.
03 August 2013
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.
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.
10 July 2013
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?
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?
10 June 2013
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.)
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.)
07 May 2013
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.
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.
12 April 2013
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.)
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.)
11 March 2013
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).
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).
13 November 2012
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 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.
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