Tomorrow Is Another Day...

The Scarlet Z

I had my doctor’s appointment yesterday and it went as well as can be expected. I sat outside the clinic for about 10 minutes, my stomach in knots, working up the courage to just walk through the damn door already. It was strange to walk into a doctor’s office and to not know quite what to say when the PA asked me what was wrong. I’ve read a few accounts lately of other women going to see their doctors for similar symptoms, and it seems we all try to walk a fine line of communicating that there is something wrong, while not coming across as total Looney Tunes. Other women (and possibly men) tend to try to convey their sanity through their attire—a nice button down shirt with nicely ironed pants or a pastel twin set (probably not men in this case)—but I was stuck with my uniform, and felt an added pressure to come across as “normal”.

Turns out, I must have achieved the perfect harmony of normality and dementia, because the PA was quick to assure me, “Oh! We’ve got lots of drugs for that!” when I told her that I was there regarding my mental fitness rather than physical. I couldn’t figure out if I was relieved to hear that or intensely disturbed. I gave her a brief history of my trials and tribulations over the past year and that I’d been feeling slumpy since some time in October or November. Then the doctor came in and asked a bunch of questions about sleeping, concentration, eating, relationships, and on. It was extremely uncomfortable as I didn’t know exactly what the “right” thing to say was, and I felt under the microscope in a lot of respects. I answered as honestly and completely as I could, watching for some kind of change in his face or a different inflection to his voice, but he remained rather impassive (read: sat there like a lump, nodding every now and then, but mostly staying lumpish).

Then he asked me how I felt about prescription drugs to treat depression, and then I really didn’t know what to say. Should I be stoic and insist that I don’t need medication, just vitamins thank you, and internally plead that he would still do something to help me, or should I throw myself at his mercy and cry out for the drugs and hope that I didn’t look too desperate. I went with a sort of unintelligible combination of the two, minus the throwing of myself at his feet.

I guess he figured that I wasn’t opposed to a little capsule of sunshine and ended up prescribing Zoloft, starting me off at 50 mg for the next five days and then I’ll raise the dosage to 100 mg after that. I have no idea how large or small a dosage that is, but I’m assuming it’s not too large since he didn’t have a hint of fear in his eyes when addressing me. He also suggested that I could stop by Mental Health anytime I needed to, and I’m scheduled with a follow up on the 17^th. Maybe just to make sure it hasn’t given me adverse side affects such as jumping from high rooftops or beating coworkers about their heads. If I have shown any signs of jumping from buildings we’ll try a different type of medication until I’m feeling all rainbows and daisies, and bouncing along happily with bluebirds chirping and bunnies trailing along in my wake.

So, it feels good. It feels good knowing that I was brave enough to get help for this and it feels good that within the next couple of weeks I should start to feel more positive about life. I will admit that I also feel a little paranoid that I have it emblazoned on my forehead, "I need drugs to take part in normal day to day activities without crying like a little girl", but then I eat a piece of cake and feel more at peace with myself. I'm also a little nervous about possible side affects, but I'm smart enough to know if this is working for me or not, and now that I've made the first step, I'm not afraid to go back and say this is the wrong treatment for me.

Thank you for all your kind comments and emails over these past few weeks, they’ve been quite inspirational, and I really think if I hadn’t ever started this site and met such great people (and opened up to people I already know!) I would still be sitting in a pool of my own despair and self-pity. And despair and self-pity do not go well at all with my new shoes.

Ah, So This Is Real Life?

Colby left Friday afternoon to do his job for the first time in 2 and a half years in the Air Force. He spent eight months in “casual” status—or the current PC term “awaiting flying training”—in Destin, then the next almost two years transitioning from one base to another to finish his pilot training. I was so proud of him when he got the plane he had worked so hard for, but it didn’t really seem real to me that soon he’d be off flying Over There. Where people die. When we went on our trip to Washington we drove around the base quite a bit, went to see where he would work, checked out the planes on the flightline, and I still felt as though all of this was a long way away, he still had a few months worth of training to finish and spent most of his days playing Age of Empires III or skiing the slopes with his friends.

Then one day his trip was a month out, but still tentative, then it was a few weeks out, again tentative. Then all of a sudden, last week, it occurred to me that, hey, this is actually real now. If you plan on staying with this guy, welcome to the next 10 years, at least, of your life. Gone for 3 weeks, back for a week, gone for 3 weeks, back for a week. Stomach in knots, knowing that by all accounts and probability, he’ll be fine, but knowing that there’s that teensy tinsy possibility that he won’t. Planes go down, pilots make mistakes, in wars people shoot guns and build bombs. It’s reality and it’s the profession that we’ve both chosen. But up until now I’ve been so sheltered from that reality. I’ve spent the entire year and a half of my career behind a desk. He’s spent two and a half years in training. I suppose both have your day to day hazards—me realizing that there’s the possibility I may get a paper cut, him knowing that there’s a chance he may have to eject from his airplane (okay, okay, he wins this one) but somehow it’s different knowing that he’s Over There.

The other thing that has come as a sort of surprise is that he really does feel further away. I know, duh, because he is further away. But really I thought, well, it’s not as though he’s around anyway, so what’s the difference if he’s in Washington or Timbuktu. Turns out, there’s rather a large difference. I’m used to talking to him for a couple of hours every night, short phone calls sprinkled through the day and emails back and forth while I’m at work. Since he left on Saturday (early afternoon my time) I haven’t heard anything from him, and just knowing that I can’t call to check in or send a text message is so strange. I sent him an email last night, but I don’t know when he’ll get a chance to check on it, and he was supposed to call when he got a chance yesterday, but I haven’t heard from him yet. I’m sure he’s fine, and he’s just very busy and racing from one place to another, but I can’t help but worry.

I FINALLY have my Crazy Doctor appointment this afternoon, although it’s not actually with a Crazy Doctor, it’s just with a primary care manager since our Tricare Online appointment system is all screwed up. I guess he’ll either give me a referral for an actual mental health doctor off base, give me drugs, or tell me to bugger off and get a life already. My hope is that it is not the latter.

(Editing to add: Yay! I got an email from Colby and he’s a-okay and having a wonderful time! This does not mean that you are allowed to stop saying rosaries for him, that is, in fact, still very much encouraged!)

Why I Should Not Shop While Depressed And Hungry

1) Dove Mint Chocolate Serenade Cookies

2) Rocky Road Ice Cream

3) Jello Chocolate Pudding Cups

4) Four Cheese Pizza

5) Krispy Kreme Cake Donuts, assorted flavors

**********

Also, on a completely unrelated note, a very pretty bandwagon drove by my apartment last night and I joyfully leapt upon it. Hopefully everyone already on the bandwagon will be blinded by confusion at my sudden arrival and will not throw me off.  Anyway, you should all go here, to my lovely map, and tell me where you are! It's okay if you're not a regular commenter, I'd just love to see where everyone is from (but not in a creepy, stalkerish way). And maybe at some point I'll make an actual effort and put a link up in my sidebar of something.

And on another somewhat more relevant note, my appointment with the Crazy Doctor got pushed back to tomorrow so that instead I can go watch other people win awesome awards while I wallow in despair and self-pity. I'll keep you updated.

A Work In Progress

I’ve been spending the last few weeks watching the trainwreck that is the American Idol audition process. I’m not really sure what I find so fascinating about this show. Half the time I spend either on the computer or reading a book with the tv on in the background, but every now and then this amazing watercooler/pop culture moment will occur that makes the whole two hour event seem worth it.

I’m also completely taken in by these kids and their incredible self confidence. They may be some of the most appalling singers I’ve ever heard, but they are so incredibly certain that their names are going to be up in lights someday. I can’t comprehend it and I really and truly envy them—maybe not their clothing choices, their personalities, or their singing talent, but their assurance that the opinions of 3 professionals in the music industry have no idea what they’re talking about and they’re going to Show Those Bastards. Yeah! Bitches!

I’ve never been exceptionally self confident. I can fake it with the best of them, but I really am happiest sitting in the audience as opposed to on stage or behind a podium. I love to sing—ask anyone who’s ever ridden in the car with me or heard me belting in the shower. And I think that I have a decent voice, but I would never think that I could be the next big thing or even the next kinda decent thing. And probably a large part of why I never could be is because I don’t have that belief in myself. Think about Britney Spears. The girl has a decent voice, she’s attractive, she can dance well—but is she truly amazing at any of those qualities? No, not really. I’ve met much prettier women, much better singers, far greater dancers all through my life, and none of them are making the millions that Britney has made. But what set her apart was that she had the guts to say “I’m going to do this, and I’m going to the top” (as well as a fantastic team of promoters, PR agents, makeup and hair people, and choreographers) and the conviction that she was going to make it.

Sometimes I wonder if making it in writing works the same way. I’m positive that half of the bloggers I read every day are at least as fantastic, if not better than, many of the authors whose books I have sitting on my shelves who have made a name for themselves and lived out their dreams. The difference between them and a large number of us who say we want to be authors is that they were willing to put their work out there and say to themselves and the publishing world “I believe in myself and I believe that my writing is good enough to be read”—they had that same conviction that they were going to “make it”.

Personally, I’m terrified of receiving that inevitable first rejection letter tell me that I’m not good enough. I don’t know if after receiving that first letter I could put myself on the line again and keep trying until I eventually found some publisher so desperate for a novel they’d give me a try. So much of myself goes into my writing—just like any other person’s art. I can’t imagine hearing that it’s not good enough, because I equate that with me not being good enough.

So, maybe that’s why I really watch American Idol (on top of the hilarious soundclips), in hopes that I’ll absorb some of that blind certainty, some of that belief that no matter what anyone says, my own self worth will carry me through. I just hope and pray that I don’t turn out to be the perplexingly self-assured William Hung of the writing world.

Single White Female

One of the things that I’m most terrified of with leaving my current career path is the fact that I might be broke, and even worse than that, that I may have to acquire a roommate. I really can’t think of anything worse than that. No, I’m lying, I think dying all alone in my apartment and Jack eating my face off when I don’t arise and give him his food and bowl of water would be a bit worse. But having to deal with a roommate again after living on my own for almost 2 years comes a very close second.

I had a different roommate every year during college, and only one of them would I ever choose to speak to again. I’m not sure if I’m the problem child here or if I just lived with a bunch of screw-ups, but prefer to believe the latter.

My freshman year, I was put in a room with a girl from New Orleans who had Blues Clues sheets for her bed, and seemed totally cool at the outstart. We went out to eat together and hung out frequently at the beginning of the year, and then she started inviting her boyfriend over for more and more extended periods of time. I had seen Undressed, I knew the protocol for scenarios involving the roommate and her boyfriend. Namely, you leave them alone. So, I took myself and my piles of books into our common room to study. Thing was, the boyfriend kind of moved in and I was spending more and more time in the common room or in the hall outside our door. I actually fell asleep out there one night. That’s when I decided that the time had come to Take A Stand—and I stopped leaving the room whenever the boyfriend made his entrance. I didn’t let them change the channel when I was watching Passions, so there were just going to have to learn to love Harmony and live with it, dammit! But… this didn’t seem to stop their activities whatsoever, and so I would sit and try to focus on Plato’s Symposium and ignore the giggling and shifting going on underneath Blue. Then I got a boyfriend, and I pretty much stopped living in my dorm room. It was a fantastically dysfunctional escape.

The next year I moved in with an absolute doll—truly one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. So, of course, at the time I was obsessed with previously mentioned dysfunctional relationship and never really got a chance to spend time with her, and then she got married. Oddly enough, she didn’t want to be my roommate the next year.

Following the demise of the dysfunctional relationship, I entered into dysfunctional roommateship. I had the great idea with living with two other girls would be oh so much fun! This was all before they decided to start hating me for a reason I’m not completely sure of to this day, but I think hinged upon the fact that they didn’t like that my bed ran against a wall where THEY HAD PUT IT, and resulted in early morning discussions amongst themselves when they thought I was asleep about what a horrible person I was. Or something like that. Anyway, that ended badly and I haven’t talked to either one of them since then. It did however, reinforce the important life-lesson that three girls living in one room is a baaaaad baaaaad idea.

The last year of my roommate adventure, I at least had my own room, but also happened to live with a herd of pigs. (Do pigs herd? Or is it more of a flock? Or a gaggle?) It would have been fine had their noxious explosions been confined to their own rooms, unfortunately we shared a kitchen, and I got really tired of seeing two week old cornbread sitting uncovered on top of the stove next to a pan of congealed and dusty bacon grease. And we won’t even go into the pile of dishes that I washed daily because apparently everyone else’s hands were broken. Of course, I also heard the whisperings a couple of times—the most notable time being after I had fainted in my room and cracked my head on the floor. Everyone in the apartment was convinced my boyfriend was beating me, “because, you know, he’s military, and they just can’t control themselves.” Dude, Colby didn’t start beating me until last year, and he certainly knows better than to hit me anywhere that I can’t cover with my uniform. Please, do you think he’s an amateur?

So when I graduated and moved out into the great big world, I swore that I would never live with anyone else until I was married and another person was legally bound to me and had no one to whisper mean things to about me in the middle of the night. But, then, I’m looking at almost certain unemployment by the end of the year, with the possibility of the pittance that the Guard or Reserves will pay me, and I’m thinking the practical thing to do would be to just suck it up and allow myself to share a roof with another human being. Then I laugh, and convulse a little, and start to think that those pretty ladies on the street corner really may have something going for themselves. You know, it is the world’s oldest profession, I’d just be carrying on a tradition.

ob•ses•sion - n.

I have this thing. About obsessions. As in, it is quite easy for me to latch onto a certain entity and then eat, sleep, and dream about nothing but that obsession for weeks—nay, months—nay, years on end.

Surprising thing about me, isn’t it? Bet you had no idea. It’s true though.

First it was angels, quite originally based around my name—I was a narcissist from the beginning. I have boxes and boxes of angel décor in my parents’ attic that I am quite frankly terrified to even begin delving into. (Isn’t it very wrong to end a sentence with a preposition? HA! Am REBEL. Will end all sentences in prepositions… on!)

I watched Gone With the Wind for the first time when I was 12, then proceeded to read the book 900 times, put the movie on repeat for the next 10 years of my life, found 2 or 3 different versions of the soundtrack (very different, all of them, I’m sure), plastered my room (and now apartment) in various Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley, et al paraphernalia, and created a binder of All Things GWTW from this great Internet I had recently heard about. It’s kind of insane. It’s actually more along the lines of a lot of insane.

Then there are the boys in my life, and we won’t even get into some of the unhealthy obsessions I fostered from middle school through college. Horrifying.

And now, I have a very new, bright, and shiny obsession that I can nurture and build into a delightful, unhealthy neurosis. This is all thanks to my darling little sister (of previous birth control fame) who introduced me to the glory of the Wicked soundtrack when I was home over the holidays.

Y’all, I LOVE this illegally acquired cd with the heat of a thousand suns. I listen to it in the car, I listen to it at home on my computer, I think about listening to it when I’m at work. I’ve used every video search engine known to mankind to find clips of the musical and certainly did NOT spend two and a half hours of my life watching a blurry, low-quality version of the performance that certainly did NOT take up about four square inches of my screen computer screen. That would be wrong. And quite silly as well. I tore through the book and love it in an equal and yet entirely different way from the musical.

And this summer, when my sister has her internship in New York, I will certainly NOT be going to visit her solely for the possibility of getting half-priced tickets to the Broadway production from TKTS. Nope, no way. It will be because I enjoy her company immensely and she is very wonderful and glorious etcetera. And I won’t have to pay for room accommodations.

Do You Want To Take My Picture?

Let’s have a little chat about photographs. Last night I was given the joy of receiving a buttload of pictures of my dog, my glorious self, and my boyfriend’s puss filled small pox injection site.

The dog was cute.

Truly, if I were to live out the rest of my life without ever seeing another picture of myself, I would still feel as though I lived a full and satisfying life. The girl I see looking back at me out of, oh let’s say 82.6%, of the pictures that I take look nothing like the girl I see in the mirror.

It’s as though I have some sort of internal mechanism that senses a camera has been leveled in my direction and causes some sort of spasm resulting in a horrifying sneer, slack jawed gaze, mid-blink catastrophe. And none of these things are helping me in the pretty department.

I don’t think I’m anywhere near supermodel proportions here, but I also don’t consider myself an ogre. Of course, there are days when I’d prefer to leave the house with a paper bag over my head, but I think with the right amount of attention to hair, makeup, and clothing, I manage to look rather presentable, possibly some may say “hot”. And I’ve never had a problem attracting admirers of the opposite sex, creepy or otherwise. I like to think that, at least on some level, part of their attraction to me has to do with physical appearance, and doesn’t all hinge on the $100 I slip them under the table when no one is looking…

Let’s just say that fairly often the photo-Angela would need a lot more than a hundred bucks to get a man interested.

I think it’s the Amish who won’t allow their pictures taken for fear that the act of taking a photograph will rob their soul. I think that’s a load of bull-hockey. I think one day, many moons ago, an Amish woman had her picture done for the man in her life, took one look at her image, immortalized forever in a bad hat, no make-up, and an unflattering hair style and said “My stars, no woman should ever have to go through that again”.

I’m moving to Pennsylvania.

Getting To The Bottom

I just went online to make a doctor’s appointment. I got to the drop down box to identify what I would be coming in to see a doctor about. I clicked on Mental Health, sat here and stared at the big, black letters and closed the window.

Why is this so hard?

Why is it so hard to admit that there might be something wrong with me?

I’m going to go back to that website and make my appointment. I made that promise to myself last night when I saw rock bottom rushing closer and closer to my face. I know that I’ve reached a point where I can’t find happiness in anything and that it is turning people away from me.

It’s so hard to admit that I’ve lost control. That maybe I haven’t had control for a very long time. But it has become easier to grasp onto my life tightly because that was all that I had and it was what made me, ME. The thing is I don’t even know who I am anymore. Not really. I know who I think I am, but it seems as though my assessment hasn’t been totally on the mark for a while now.

The more I feel myself losing sight of who I am, the more I hang on to who I think I might be.

Am I happy? Am I sad? Am I confident? Am I terrified? I can’t answer a single one of those questions.

I feel as though people will look at me differently, think of me differently.

I already look at myself differently.

Crackers? Cotton Candy? Car Mechanic?

So, just to reinforce that I am not the only Crazy in my family, I would like to share a moment from a recent shopping trip with my sister (who we can totally make fun of as she just returned from a trip to Rome and Florence and we all hate love on her now).

Her:  Remember to remind me to buy cotton balls later?  Okay?

Me:  Okay... I would not depend on my powers of recall though...

~~Later~~

Her:  Oh!  I have to get... birth control!

Me:  Shocked and horrified look in her direction

Her:  No... not that... Croutons!

Me:  Attempting to process the jump from birth control to croutons

Her:  NO!  COTTON BALLS!

And Now For A Nice Dose of Cheer!!

This morning I woke up and I immediately thought to myself, “Oh, thank God it’s Friday! This has been the longest week ever…” Then I realized it was Thursday. Shit.

And I’m kind of realizing that I haven’t felt completely “okay” for a couple of months now. I’ve been tired. I’ve been ready to cry at the drop of a hat. I’ve been looking for arguments. And have I mentioned that I’ve been tired? And that I’m getting sick about three weeks out of four? And I’m tired?

I don’t know what exactly is wrong with me. I’m certainly not crying depression here—that seems a little extreme for what I’ve been feeling. It’s not as though I’m constantly upset and waking up every morning trying to think of ways to get through the day without stabbing myself in the eye repeatedly. I think I put on a good front at work and with my friends, but I’ll find myself sitting on the couch, staring at the tv, having completely lost the storyline of whatever it is I’m watching and on the verge of tears, for WHAT I don’t KNOW.

I don’t think it’s anything healthwise—I’ve actually been eating better in the past few months than I have in years, I’ve been running more regularly, aside from the constant colds I’m pretty okay.

I don’t think that it’s an after Christmas slump because even leading up to and during the holidays I was feeling this way.

I haven’t talked about this too much on here because I try to keep it light and entertaining and also a fair number of people read this site and I want to protect the privacy of my loved ones. I like to be funny and I like to laugh, and this has become my place to let that side of me run free.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in October. I think it’s safe to talk about here since apparently the whole of the Baton Rouge restaurant industry is keeping her in their prayers, so it doesn’t seem to be much of a guarded family secret. The cancer has been removed and she started chemo right before Christmas and spent the vast majority of my time at home in the hospital.

So my parents decided, screw chemo, who needs that if you don’t even have cancer anymore?

And so I’m happy because she should begin to feel better soon, but damn if it doesn’t offer up a nice gooey slice of mortality pie.

Of course we all know how I feel about my job, so we just won’t go into that right now.

I’m not even sure what I’m trying to tell you all right now. Just that I’m sorry if I’ve dropped off the face of the earth or if I yell at you a lot or whatever, it’s not just you it’s everyone. Don’t hate me. Because mostly I hate myself enough right now for making everything about me. God, I’m a drama queen.

Anyway, apparently you are all supposed to be delurking this week by the orders of the fabulous, and much less depressing than me, Sheryl.  So, this time the delurking is all officially sanctioned and so you should. Although maybe I just don’t even want you to because maybe I don’t want to know just how many of you are here because Google told you I offered free porn and big boobs. I’m sorry. I have neither. But you can still say hello if you want. I could use it.

Perhaps With the Tasteful Arrangement of Feather Boa and Artfully Placed Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Boxes

I must admit, I’m a little disappointed.

I have been a shining beacon of light resident of the “Blogworld” for 4 solid months now, and I have yet to receive a search engine hit for my name. Am I the only person in the world who sits around when I’m bored and Google every blessed person I’ve ever crossed paths with in my lifetime?? Surely not… Or perhaps I’m just that forgettable.

Most of the time my searches are pretty fruitless, because seriously, people? Your names? Not actually all that original. The most common result is some sort of genealogical chart dating back to 1782 when a “Natalie Miller” married a “Guy Pierce” and had a child named “Shani Lynne”—which although quite humorous? Not helping me in stalking you all appropriately. At. All.

I do, however, get some pretty fabulous search hits which keep me highly entertained. My current favorite is “angela naked”. And what really touches my cold stone of a heart is that this person is obviously quite frustrated and looking for motivation in their life. Trolling the internet for “angela naked”, they stumble upon my site through their industrious labors, read the blurb that comes up under the link to my site, and think to themselves “this is it! I have found it! “Angela naked” at long, long last!” And then they proceed to my website where I am probably rambling on about puppies or purses or rainbows and very much not naked (except for my soul, oh how I bare my soul). “Oh the HUMANITY!!” they probably cry out in utter hopelessness, “This is not “angela naked” they observe wisely, the stark reality that they have failed yet again, and they retire from their computer foiled in their pursuit of this elusive “angela naked”.

And then 2 weeks later try again.

Coach: It’s Not Just A Purse, It’s A Warm Hug on A Cold, Cold Morning

Sweet Jesus, it has finally happened—I’ve always known that I’m capable of loving men far more than they deserve to be loved, but I had no idea that the feelings could be transferred onto an inanimate object. But just you dangle a lovely, perfectly sized, jacquard fabric bag with oppositional c’s, a gorgeous leather trim and silver accents in front of my greedy eyes and I am immediately transfixed. And then, on top of it all, I get a great deal? This, my friends, this is what love should be all about. And how fitting for me that I should fall so in love with an object that will never return my affections and instead suck me dry and leave me alone at the end of the day—It is truly perfect!

My beautiful Soho Mini Signature Pocket Flap, how many months have I waited, alone in this dark life of mine, for your warm embrace. May you keep my cell phone and newly empty wallet warm and secure in your loving folds. I promise to love you and cherish you for all eternity, or at least until I can find the Signature Poppy Demi or Gallery Tote on Ebay for a decent price from a highly rated seller. Fly to me quickly my love, for until your arrival I remain a sad and lonely woman, alone in the world without a Coach to her name. Godspeed my poppet, Godspeed.

Life is a Crazy, Messed Up Circus...

...and what do you do when you just don't know what to do?

Things That Make Life Worth Living

I had a flash of clarity this morning and a certain word that I have known since the age of about five suddenly took on a whole knew level of meaning for me.

Pipe cleaners—not only a critical ingredient in every kindergarten craft project. I’ll bet they call them "pipe cleaners" because you use them to... clean out pipes.

Why has it taken me 23 years to figure this out??

Taking Chances

I think that I may have mentioned this before, but just in case I have not made this painfully obvious to the Internet at large—I do not take chances. In fact, I can’t think of one big chance I have ever taken… Well, falling in love I guess is pretty much a gamble, but I don’t consider that something I actually have any control over, otherwise, I would probably not ever have done that…

Anyway, I’m the girl who has known exactly what I was going to do with myself since I was about 16. I was going to go to college for 4 years and major in English literature, I was going to graduate and join the Air Force because, yay! they paid for me to go to school, then I was going to get married have kids and eventually die some day after a lot of other things happened.

Up until this year I’ve followed this track pretty closely. I did graduate college in four years with an English Lit major (and wild and crazy me threw in a history minor just for giggles!), I commissioned in the Air Force in May of 2004 and have been trucking along rather miserably for the past year and a half. And, okay, the money is pretty great for a liberal arts major and I’m going to make my first big raise in June, but I am just not having that feeling of totally fitting in here.

Warning: Commencing to bitch about work, which is sort of one of my cardinal rules of things NOT TO DO ON MY PUBLIC AND NOT ANONYMOUS WEBSITE. But given the following material—what are they going to do? Kick me out? For talking about getting out? Yeah… go for it…

I absolutely adore the position I’m currently filling, but it is outside of my career field and I think the longest I can manage to stretch out my time here is until the end of March. That means going back into personnel in April and staying there in a job that I learned to loathe in 3 short weeks. Hang on for a minute I need to go sob violently.

Back now.

In short, I really, really, REALLY don’t want to go back to that life.

So then God knocked on my door in the form of Air Force Force Shaping, a.k.a. Holy Hell How On Earth Did We End Up With This Many Freaking Lieutenants, and Oh My God They Want Us To PAY Them??? So, they are trying to get rid of us, in case you couldn’t tell. And I am now considering Taking A Chance. If I decide to take up the Air Force on their offer I will basically be out of a job in October and not a clue what to do with myself as I am the girl who has had jobs fall into her lap her entire life and has never had to interview for anything as anymore than just a formality. What they want me to tell them why they should hire me? For I am awesome, that’s why!

I’m thinking that I will probably stay in the guard or reserves. I’ve sent an email out with questions to some friends I have who are personnel officers in the reserves just to get a feel for what their life is like, and that would be enough to get me by until I find something to do with myself. I’ve gotten an interesting offer from my sister with Arbonne, an awesome cosmetics and skincare company that I adore. I’d just have to find some people to work under me, and that could get me a bit extra a month as well. (Hee, consider yourself targeted by future spam from me, I’ve got my EYES on a few of you!) But the fact remains that I would have no real reason to go anywhere. The concept that I could live literally anywhere I wanted to is a bit mind boggling. I went from living at home with my parents to LSU, meaning that I would stay in Baton Rouge, and then on to Arkansas with the military because that’s where they wanted me. I’ve never had to figure out where to go or what to do with little old me.

I could go back home, but hello? Have you been to Baton Rouge since Katrina? Hi there 9^th Ward, welcome to my neighborhood! Okay, it’s not that bad, but still, I think I’ve crossed that off my list. I could go to Washington where Colby is, but I don’t know how I really feel about that since there doesn’t seem to be any sign of wedding bells in the future and I don’t know if I want to tie myself to one particular place because my boyfriend who won’t even be there 200 days out of the year lives there. I loved living in Virginia and I have family spread all over the country if I wanted to live near them.

It’s scary, and overwhelming, but at the same time I can’t help but feel this thrill of excitement that in 10 months, if the Force Shaping continues through then, I could have some semblance of control over my own life. It’s pretty much to the point that if the Air Force ends up not cutting lieutenants in October, I’ll actually be incredibly disappointed because then I won’t be able to finally Take My Chance, and I think I’m finally actually ready to take that leap. Maybe I’ve finally grown up!

Cake or Death?

Well, after a rollercoaster holiday at my parents’, I’m back home in one piece—gerbils and dog still alive. I think this is some kind of record for me. Three animals all under my roof and I have yet to kill them—I for one am highly impressed with myself!

I’ve been looking to trade in my car for a few months now. I have a Mazda Tribute for 3 years and love having all of the space to cram stuff into, and it’s a cute vehicle; however, comma, I’m not so much loving the whole buying gas all the time thing. It’s got pretty good gas mileage for an SUV. On average I get about 22 miles to a gallon, but I know I can get a lot better as well as a much smoother ride with a nice mid-size car. I’d even be fine with possibly buying something a year or two old—I’ve had my brand new car and am over the need to be the first person to ever sit in the driver’s seat.

So yesterday I’m driving home along the highway that shoots pretty straight from Natchez to Little Rock. It was a four lane road at that point—two lanes going each direction with a narrow median. There were about 5 cars in the two lanes going my direction about 4 or 5 car lengths ahead of me, but other than that there was no one else around me. I’m driving along minding my own business when the wheel suddenly jerked to the left into the median and almost into the oncoming lane, I overcorrected to the right but then the wheel jerked back to the left in the same way and my entire car spun around completely backwards, fishtailed back and forth a couple of times, and then spun 360 degrees 2 of 3 more times, wildly spinning across pretty much all of the lanes. I held the wheel loosely and let it do pretty much its own thing until it got back under control and kept myself from instinctively slamming on the brakes. The smell of burning rubber was overwhelming and the screeching of the tires against the pavement was amplified in my mind. Eventually the car spun back in the right direction and I drove for a couple of seconds in complete shock and then pulled over onto the side of the road when I felt the shakes coming on. The whole experience probably didn’t last more than 10-15 seconds tops, but it felt like an absolute eternity.

All I could think about was how many things could have been different about that scenario that would have left to an entirely different outcome—there could have been cars behind me or in the oncoming lanes that I would have smashed into, my car could have flipped easily as SUVs are so famous for, a tire could have blown, there could have been light poles or trees along the side of the road that I could have wrapped myself around. And only 100 yards or so up the road the highway became a narrow two lane road with heavy traffic going either direction. For such a terrifying occurrence it certainly happened in pretty much the safest place possible. Well, aside from a field of cotton candy and Serta mattresses—but really, how often do you drive under those circumstances? Not often, I’m betting.

Logically, I realize that this could have happened no matter what I was driving—probably the tire just caught in a ridge or small pot hole that I didn’t see and got thrown out of its forward momentum. It would have happened to any tire that happened to hit at whatever angle I hit it at, and there was nothing I could do about it. Even so, I sort of want to throw up when I get in my car now. Like it’s a huge deathtrap looking to throw me off of bridges or into dens of hungry lions. Every time my tires rumble over a patched pothole my heart drops into my stomach and I expect to go hurtling round and round like the Teacups at Disneyworld.

With that being said I also feel extremely thankful that nothing truly tragic happened and that I was able to drive away from the scene, leaving my little curlicue skid marks in the road far, far behind me. Still, if anyone would like to buy me a car, I’d be fine with that. I’ll even give you mine! A trade! Or, you know, cake. I’d take cake too.