how did it come to this?

I live in a house that holds three people: me, Mom, Dad.

I have no siblings. I have no grandparents or uncles or cousins that live here.

I do not live in a mansion. There are no wings in my house. It's pretty much a square with a very small set of steps. You can hear nearly every other part of the house wherever you're standing.

I always know who's in the house and what they're doing.

So why in the hell does someone always seem to turn water on elsewhere in the house while I'm showering, spraying me with cold liquid unexpectedly?

That is one of my biggest pet peeves. If I was in a situation where someone might not know I'm showering, that's fine; I get it. It's not so much the cold water that bothers me. It's the fact that you can HEAR the water running everywhere in my house. You KNOW I'm taking a shower, yet you continue to flush the toilet or wash dishes.

I’ve finally got a routine down for the morning that puts me at ease and in an okay mood to get to work. I was into that this morning and in the middle of showering when BOOM – cold water.

It’s 7:30. Dad is downstairs, Mom is in bed sleeping. The house is silent.

Can you NOT hear the WATER running? Did you not hear me SLAM the bathroom door purposely, signaling that I was going to be showering?

No. No. Of course you didn’t.

So there I was in the shower, having just rubbed soap all over my face, blindly groping for the handle to crank it full blast, but not too much because then when the water kicks back in my skin will burn off. And let’s never mind the fact that it’s already only twenty degrees outside and the cold water doesn’t help. And I’m running ten minutes late.

Thanks Dad. Happy Friday to you, too.

this will be me in two days.

my town in a nutshell.

just face it, don't pretend.

Oh, and a conversation I was part of this weekend at VGX that made me smile:

"The economy is in the shitter, and I'm going to spend $80 on the sword from Zelda. At least when the world comes to an end because of all this I'll be prepared."

ctrl c, ctrl v.

I'm in a very foul mood today because, not only is it Monday, but it's the start of a slew of days that I have to sit through work and also know I won't be seeing Tony for two weeks. Two weeks = a lot of days to me. It sucks.

Add to this days of work doing nothing but hitting Ctrl C, Ctrl V, Ctrl C, Ctrl V and I want to rip my freshly cut hair out of my head.

I've decided to focus my energies elsewhere: Christmas shopping.

I love to Christmas shop. Generally, I don't even care how much money I spend as long as I'm making the people I buy for happy. I like picking the perfect gifts for people that I know they really need and/or want. It's fun.

I just dropped $112.08 at Amazon.com for a total of seven gifts spanning from my mom to my best friend. With my new check card.

See, I didn't make enough money to possibly conceive of using a credit card for online purchases before this job. Now I can do that.

It's going to become a bit of a problem, I think.

"i take my job seriously."

Why couldn't this have been me?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289242,00.html

oh no you didn't.

I got smoked by a gamer this weekend. A fifteen-year-old black kid with a total disregard for gravity who nearly cracked my jaw.

We went to the video game convention in Philly. Thus far I’ve been to a horror convention and a comic book convention. Both were quite interesting and a lot of fun, but this one topped them all by far.

What was the first thing I saw upon walking into the convention center? Super Mario. A middle-aged fat man dressed as Super Mario and not just THAT but he was the RACOON Mario. You know, from the third installment of the game? Tail and ears and I’m-still-not-sure-how-he-got-overalls-that-big and everything.

In addition to this Mammoth Mario were some Storm Troopers, random Anime characters, a Ghost Buster, Darth Vadar and Master Chief; the latter two I have pictures with. Master Chief was, hands down, the best costume there.

It was interesting to be in the world of gamers, to see the many different platforms that host games and the many different people each game attracts. There was also LARPing and Cosplay, but I will save that for a separate entry – it’s a whole ‘nother beast entirely.

Still owning only an old school XBox and an N64, the highlight of my day was the section of actual arcade game machines (think PacMan) and the huge projection on the wall of people playing Asteroids.

My least favorite part of the day was getting run over for a free t-shirt.

There was a section that could be considered the epicenter of the convention that had a stage where raffles and contests frequently took place. There was an open floor littered with gaming chairs and bean bags in front of the stage. Tony, Kev and I went there for a raffle and some giveaways. We stood for a half hour before the raffle actually started to go off. By that time my feet were burning (because I’m the jackass that decided to wear Nine West pumps to a video game convention) so I sat down in a chair on the floor. I was about five feet from the crowd in front of me. The girls on stage started throwing out t-shirts and shit got hectic. I began scooching my way back and then there it was: a perfect navy blue t-shirt flying in my general direction. I leaned back in my chair, outstretched my arm and saw the fabric just brush my fingertips – before I got landed on and elbowed in the jaw.

I’m pretty sure I heard a collective “Oh!” from everyone standing in front of me. The pretty girl in the heels just got smashed worse than a Koopa Troopa by a kid about twice her size. He rolled off of me quickly and I kind of just sat there, arm still hanging mid-air, outstretched for the shirt I’d never get. Kev and Tony turned around and I think they both wanted to laugh, but they asked if I was ok instead.

No, I’m really not. Never mind the fact that my jaw is throbbing and I think my elbow twisted a way it really shouldn’t, I want that shirt, could you beat the fifteen year-old-up for me please?

and i will whistle a jaunty tune.

So, I was just searching for a pencil in my desk. I found one, but it had no tip. It hadn't even been sharpened once.

I know of no pencil sharpeners around here. None mechanical, none manual.

I just finished all of my projects and have nothing to do. There was a pair of scissors in the drawer next to my virgin pencil.


I actually considered sitting there and whittling a point to the pencil using the pair of scissors.

nose-blowers and cracker-crunchers.

I’m a noise junkie. I cannot do anything in silence. I hate being alone with my thoughts, which usually whiz off in all different directions that are unnecessary. Having music helps deter my mind from going down such paths.

I sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day in a department that not only has half the lights shut off, but is DEAD. SILENT. When someone pages a person over the intercom it’s like a bomb going off. I can’t even bite into the Chicken-in-a-Biskits I keep at my desk – I’m afraid I’ll cause a heart attack from the explosion of noise.

Everybody knows my business through sound. The first week I worked here I had a cold. People literally labeled me as the snot-nosed kid because all that was heard beyond my cubicle walls was the wet noise of boogers followed directly by the thunk of a wadded up bunch of tissues flying into my garbage can.

I make great first impressions, what can I say?

My only savior is my headphones. I have an MP3 player that’s stocked with 500 songs. That’s not a lot when you spend eight hours five days a week listening to it. Alas, some songs really get me through the day.

So I sit here in my silent cubical and have fun dancing in my head while everyone else around me suffers from nose-blowers and cracker-crunchers. I make sure I’m especially obnoxious when I make the slightest movement and why not? I can’t even hear what I’m doing, my music is so loud.

my will. to what, i don't know.

For the past two days at work, all employees have been required to attend an open enrollment session. During the session, reps from all different insurance companies talked about benefits and such.

It was truly pointless for me to attend as I’ve yet to hit my 90-day mark in order for me to achieve any benefits at all. I had to go (stupid sign-in sheets). So, for eighty minutes I sat myself in a hard, cold metal folding chair and watched the clock directly in front of me tick down. I was losing time away from my much adored cubicle, but I was gaining ass sores and droopy eyes.

The only thing that really caught my attention was the man from MetLife, an animated gent with a porn stache who was there to talk about life insurance. He mentioned wills and my ears perked up.

I’m twenty-two. I don’t plan on dying any time soon (you bet your ass I just knocked a dent into the wood desk I’m sitting at), but I thought about it – who would I give my shit to?

I don’t have much to give. At this point in my life I’ve just graduated from college and still live with my parents. Unless someone wants my increasing debt or dirty laundry, most of my friends are shit out of luck. I still own things that I treasure that have to go to someone, not a big yellow dumpster.

There are two things that are arguably my most expensive assets (collectively): my shoe collection and my book collection. These are things I take pride in, as I’ve been working on them both for as long as I can remember and they comprise my favorite things in life.

My shoes would have to go to a fellow size 8, 8 ½-er. This is a common size, but you’d be stunned – all of my friends fall either tragically short or above that standard. So, instead of giving them to a friend of mine that may be my size but not up to snuff fashionably (because of course I am – and also a bit of a shallow bitch, obv), I’d give them to the Salvation Army. Did you ever see the shoes in there? I would kill to walk in and find a two dollar pair of Nine Wests, but all I get are Naturalizers or square toes. And the ones that do fit me smell or have some sort of substance stuck to them.

My books would be split between my aunt, my cousin and my best friends Kelley, Joanne and Cara. That sounds like a lot of people, but trust me – there are plenty to go around. I imagine the more educational and classic ones would go to my aunt and cousin. The horror books would go to Kelley. The girly and humorous ones would be bestowed upon Jo and Cara.

My laptop’s gotta go to someone and that someone would be Joanne. She lives in the basement of her house with a very large family (half of who should be moved into their own place thankyouverymuch) and she has to share everything as the youngest of three. Girl needs something to call her own (besides her dignity and pride – which God bless her for still having some after putting up with her sister’s antics).

My DVDs and video game systems will go to Tony. There is no other person more perfect. Though he continuously mocks my N64, I’m sure that if he had it he’d play it all the time.

Or trade it in for money.

Yeah. Probably that.

I was crowned prom queen my junior year of high school. That and my high school and college yearbooks, along with copious amounts of photo albums, are the big memories of my earlier years. My cousins could have those. I’m sure they could learn a thing or two. (A picture is worth a thousand words, you know? Ones of me doing keg stands are worth infinitely less: “don't” would probably suffice.)

My most prized possession ever is my writings. I’m talking stories from third grade until now. Fanfiction, essays, work on my novel, poems, diaries and random scribbles on napkins. They’re my innermost thoughts; my most carefully crafted words.

These would go to my mother. She is also a writer so I think she’d benefit most from them. This would probably help her realize why I was so difficult to raise. And why there are so many miles on my car.

Everything else is fair game, kids. Feel free to ravage my belongings. You’ll probably only find it beneficial to you if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, mini erasers, or sepia colored pictures of pop culture icons.