Hey, presto.

Life is okay.

I'm still working at Iron Bridge Inn (and enjoying it for the most part), and now dogsitting for a church friend on Thursday mornings. I've hit upon an ingenious solution for writing--I carry a small notebook with me to work. Anytime we're slow and I have nothing to do, I pull it out and write a few more sentences in it. There are only 32 pages (I hit page 11 today, and I've only been working on it for about a month), so when it's done I'll probably type it all up, edit it, and post it somewhere for people to read if they so desire. I wrote three pages today, and then a poem, because I was angsty. 

My problem is I never feel the drive to write poetry unless I'm being a particular sort of angsty. Thusly my poetry all tends to be variations on a theme of angst and bores and embarrasses me when I re-read it later. 

The story is fun, though. 

Hint: there is an alien. 

Actually, come to think of it, my story is like E.T., only not as horrifying. I think I accidentally saw that movie when I was very young because my parents weren't paying attention. It scarred me. This is exactly how my fear of volcanoes played out, only the movie in question was Dante's Peak and I recall hiding behind the couch while people dissolved in acid lakes. 

Half of this woman is a puddle of bubbling goo. 

If I think to myself "nightmare" and "alien", the first picture that pops into my head is of E.T., all white and pasty, lying at the bottom of the ravine or in the clear plastic sheeting.

This = Pure Terror

Incidentally, the second picture that comes to mind is this:

I blame this one on the fact I also live in a house in PA, surrounded by cornfields, and we had a German Shepherd.

Unfortunately, we do not also have Joaquin Phoenix living in the barn. 

At any rate, despite the fact I love Signs, I do not like aliens. I suppose those two facts are not mutually exclusive. 

True story--I made one of these hats. 

I also kept a spray bottle of water with me for about a month for 

whenever I had to roam the halls of our house alone. Ask my siblings.

To return to my original point: In my mind, E.T. sucks; my story is my attempt to remedy this, mentally. Caitling helped me come up with characters and their names. The basic story is that there is a family, and then an alien shows up in their backyard and all parties react. I don't know how it ends. I presume it will end well, considering I dislike tears and as of yet don't know if I can write well when the topic includes any sort of sentimentality. Stay tuned, though.

Anyhow, I feel kind of lame sometimes, living at home and working a non-college-degree-appropriate job. My comfort is I had the possibility of a couple college-appropriate jobs that would also have been awesome, but made the decision myself not to pursue them. If my reason for not pursuing them ceases to be a reason, I can always pursue them again later.

But I do feel better, writing.  

Disclaimer: there is a female butt I do not approve of. Awesome music, though. 

Not as complete a post as I would wish

My duck spree continues, though I figured it was high time to update this blog--just to keep in practice.
Since you last heard from me the boyfriend came to visit, my sister and her roommate got back from college, I got a speeding ticket, and finished Christmas shopping.

Everyday, pleasant things... except for the ticket. It was coming back from Pittsburgh after picking my sister and her roommate up at the airport. There's a section of I-79 that goes down to 55mph for no particular reason, and I wasn't paying attention, and passed a cop while going 70 mph. So he nabbed me. I was polite and I've never been pulled over before, but he was cranky and unimpressed and still gave me a ticket for $110 and told me to be grateful he didn't double it because of the work zone I was approaching that was still a half-mile ahead.
Rawr.
I was annoyed, obviously, but dutifully paid my fine. Then last night I realized I had two letters, dated one day apart, warning me about suspending my license for failing to pay fines. Apparently I still owed the state 0.50. The cop, might I point out, had horrible handwriting, and added up the numbers incorrectly, so they were all a scratched-out black spot on the paper. I wrote my check by remembering the total he'd given me when he snagged me.
So given that the price of an average piece of paper, printed, is 0.15, an envelope, printed, is about 0.13. Now, granted, they probably didn't have to pay postage because it's a government thing, but it's still costing money somewhere. We'll pretend it's not though.
They sent me:
3 papers (two white, one orange)--0.45
2 legal envelopes----0.26
Total: 0.71

So basically, I'm fifty cents poorer, and they're twenty-one cents in the hole because they insisted on taking my fifty cents.

I did, however, include this note with my check for 0.50:

I feel some small sense of victory because of this note. Dad got all angsty, though, about the Feds coming for me. I don't think telling somebody to buy two gumballs constitutes anything like a real threat, though. I mean, what could I have followed it up with? "I hope you chew them until your jaw hurts"?

I had more to write about that wasn't as full of complaints, but it's late and I have work tomorrow, so you will have to wait. You could also read my most recent Duckling Saga update to pass time if you wish: Pascal's Duckling Bildungsroman

I will end with a song to cheer you up. Kate Rusby is one of my all-time favourite artists, and Priscilla, my friend who introduced me to the joys of Ms. Rusby, sent me this today. Make sure to read the lyrics.

Winter comes around,
And he knows he is homeward bound,
His heartbeat is the only sound he's known,

He once lost his way,
He knows now that was yesterday,
He fell down on his knees to pray for home.

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing till the wandering soul is found.

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing till the wandering soul is found.

He's found his way at last,
With each turn a new bond was cast,
His friends now hold him steady fast and true.

With peace in his eyes,
The fear now is a pain in the skies,
With friends near he sees only skies of blue

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing till the wandering soul is found.

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing till the wandering soul is found.

It's clearer every day,
He knows now he is here to stay,
He cares not why he went away so long.

He's found where he belongs,
He know he's been here all along,
He is smiling as he joins his friends in song.

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing till the wandering soul is found.

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing now the wandering soul is found.

On a Duck Spree, Will Return Shortly.

"Hey, you guys; I have a lot of opinions about things!"

Dear Abby...

Back in the day tons of people used to ask me for relationship advice.

Then I acquired a boyfriend and they all stopped. I had enough distracting me that it took me a while to realize nobody wanted me. Once I figured it out I assumed they were under-impressed with the way I handled my own relationship, which was not an unreasonable opinion for them to hold at the time. Recently, though, I realized it was probably more because almost to a man (or woman), they were engaged or married by that time. My work was done, I suppose.
At any rate, my relationship counseling services have been mostly in disuse for the past two years. I've noticed a slight resurgence recently, but I had a jem of a counseling experience today.
I was up far too late (early?) last night and didn't get to bed until 3am. I was woken at 6:35am by a text message from an unknown number that said, cryptically, "Hey." Seeing as I'd only been asleep for three and a half hours I ignored it and went back to bed.
When I woke several hours later I answered it and said "Sorry, who is this?" and signed it "Abby."
I didn't hear anything until I got off work around 4pm when I checked my phone and saw I had a text from the same number. The text informed me that the texter's name was Courtney and she was under the impression that I was Chad.
I am not Chad, and told her so.
She apologized, I graciously told her it was no problem, and left it at that.
A moment later I heard the sound of the Tardis materializing in Mom's office.

http://www.moviesoundclips.net/tv1/drwho/tardis.wav

Yes, this is actually my text alert sound. 

I had another text from the strange number. "How old are yu jw lol" it said.

"Courtney," right...

I attempted to be very nonchalant and said "22." I have no problem telling random people my age and am so worldly-wise that I knew that if my texter next asked for my credit card number, I should probably be suspicious. Instead, this is the reply I received: 

"Ok," she said. "this may seem weird but I just want to get a girl's opinion from someone I don't know. Can I ask you a relationship question? If not that's okay," she hurried to add, "I totally understand."

There was no way I was letting this one escape me. 

"Sure," I said. "Fire away."

She proceeded to tell me a fairly normal story. Boy dates girl for year, she likes him, he's been hanging out with another girl. She wants to know if she should be worried that he's cheating on her.

I told her I didn't think her boyfriend was necessarily cheating on her, or intending to give that impression, but the more time he spends with another girl the more likely at least one of them is going to end up liking the other. "Courtney" was perfectly justified in feeling uneasy, and should tell her boyfriend how she feels. If nothing's going on and he loves her, he'll understand and cut back/out contact with random other floozy. If not, "Courtney" has her answer. 

Courtney responded that she didn't want him to think she doesn't trust him, she's just worried because he's seemed more distant from her recently. That is what's really bothering her about the situation. 

That is indeed cause for concern, I said. I suggested (again) that she sit him down and tell him how she feels about it--that she feels as if he trusts and cares about this other girl more than his own girlfriend because of the time he's been putting into that other relationship, and that upsets her. "Men suck at picking up on these things," I added, usefully. Heaven only knows how many times this wisdom has been uttered by people better and wiser than me. Yet it continually needs to be said. 

"Okay, thanks, girl," she said, including a smiley face to let me know she really was grateful. Then added as an afterthought, "you should be a therapist." 

I thanked her, she apologized again for the randomness, and I told her not to worry about it--it made my day a bit more surreal, and therefore improved it considerably. 

Thus ends my recounting of my correspondence with Courtney. Good luck to her, and I hope her boyfriend's not a jerk. 

Recently discovered song that is awesome.

Girding up my loins, here.

For all three of you who read this blog but aren't friends with me on Facebook or real life, I'm actually attempting NaNoWriMo. In case you didn't know, that stands for National Novel Writing Month. If you're interested in doing it yourself, go here--> http://www.nanowrimo.org/
Basically the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.
Unless you're brilliant, nobody's expecting you to have an actually good novel by the end of it. Writing that much in thirty days mostly precludes the possibility that it will be "good." Unless, as stated before, you're brilliant.
What the point actually is, is that normal people who want to write sit their butts down for a month and just get words on paper. At the end of the month hopefully you have something that needs serious editing and plot-hole-mending, but something that has promise that it could be Actually Good and Worth Reading.

I'm putting mine online so maybe some people will actually read it and I'll feel guilty and embarrassed if I don't keep up with it.

http://fearlestifail.blogspot.com/

I'm going to aim for 1,000 words a day. I realize this doesn't actually come out to 50,000 words by the end of the month, but I prefer to make resolutions I might actually have the possibility of keeping.
Today I wrote about 120 words more than the 1,000/day goal, so I'm going to be pleased with myself and go watch Scrubs or something now.

Wherein I mention Canadians and try not to make Canadian jokes

Work today was not lucrative for me.
Business was slow, and I got all the Canadians at my tables. I did get one denizen from Erie who hung out for an hour and a half, sent me on random trips for bread, asked for free bleu cheese crumbles on her salad that doesn't come with bleu cheese, and gave me a $2.38 tip, thereby making even the Canadians seem generous. We did have a nice chat, though.
Actually, in the Canadians' defense, servers in Canada make minimum wage, so many Canadians probably do not realize gratuity isn't included in the check in America, and therefore tip only according to the norm in Canada.

The only thing everybody agrees is cool about Canada. 

The story that makes today semi-worthwhile, though, is a monetary interaction I had with one gentleman from Canada.
This man had a very sweet daughter who seemed slightly embarrassed by her father's lack of gentility throughout the meal and made sure to thank me excessively for things and tell me her meal was very good.
Anyway, I'd given the man his check and went to pick it up while his daughter was in the restroom. He'd given me two twenty dollar bills and, as I realized when I got to the computer, a Canadian dime. Figuring he just hadn't noticed, I went back to the table.

"Excuse me," I said. "I'm sorry; this is a Canadian dime."

The man stared at me for a minute.

"You mean you don't take them?" he said.

"Uh. No," I said, thinking he was joking around--the first sign of good humour I'd yet seen in him.

"What; you don't take Canadian money here?" he asked.

"No," I said. "This isn't Canada."

"Well, I realize that!" he said, and made an exasperated noise. "I've seen Canadian money all over the place here!"

"Probably because the people didn't notice it was Canadian when they took it," I said.

He fished around in his pockets and came up with a quarter. "I hope this is enough." He handed it to me.

"Thanks," I said, and went back to the computer. I returned with his change. He took it without grace and then commented, "the Canadian dollar is worth more than yours, I hope you realize."

"Yes, sir," I said, and left him to deal with himself for the rest of his life.

Inclusion necessary.

For some reason this moment matters

I stood by the restaurant door, leaning against the greeter's desk, and dreamily staring past the decorative retro kitsch and into the recesses of my mind.

The door banged into itself gently, sucked against its frame by a pressure change in the entryway outside. I straightened up and waited for the door to open. It was flung wide to admit an old man on crutches. He handled them well and shifted through the door before it had a chance to close and bang into his heels. 

"Hello!" I said. 

"What's the special today?" he said, smiling and approaching the desk. 

"Soup, booze, or food?" I asked. 

"Hm, food. Prime rib. I've had that before. I think that's what I'll have," he said.

I picked up a menu and specials board, intending to show him to one of my tables down the hall in the larger, main room.

"Got anything handicap accessible?" he asked. "Can I have one of these?" He indicated a booth under a window to my right. 

"Certainly," I said, and led him there. 

Meanwhile another server saw that I'd sat the guest and went to find Megan, whose section our patron had chosen. 

My guest began to talk--of food, family, politics, money, jobs, his daughters, Japan. I watched and listened. His cap said Air Force, his manner hinted at WWII veteran, and I knew he was lonely. He looked me in the eyes, appreciated my company, and didn't patronize me; he didn't tell me that he was there "for a pretty face," and he asked me for directions.

I learned that his wife died last year, his daughters live in Seattle and had just been up to visit him. From what I gathered, they'd just left earlier that day after seeing him through an appointment at UPMC. 

There was finally a lull in the conversation and I invited Megan over--she'd been hanging out by the greeter's desk, waiting for us to be done. She was peeved, but I couldn't have abandoned the man, and Megan could have come and joined us quite easily. I wished the man had been at one of my tables.

A while later I saw he was finishing up and had a bag with two take-home boxes in it. Given the crutches I knew he'd have some difficulty carrying the bag out. It would not be an insurmountable problem, but not particularly easy, either. I was overcome by uncertainty and pity. Have you ever felt like you absolutely must do something--everything is driving you to do it, and it's a good thing--but you're not sure it's appropriate, given your circumstances? That was me, wandering through the dining rooms and kitchen, wringing my hands and dogging my manager's steps. Finally I pulled myself together and asked my manager if I could carry the bag out for the old man--not knowing the policy on employees leaving the restaurant while on their shift. Doug is a very comfortable sort of manager--cheerful and encouraging, laid-back and honest. He is easy to approach.

"Oh, yeah, of course. Definitely do that," he said.

So I did. I walked with my Air Force vet out to his truck, gave him directions, and wished him good day. I watched him drive away, and then walked back into the restaurant.