I've Found Sunnydale

Yes... I've found it. Sunnydale. The infamous city located directy over a hellmouth in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Now, this version of Sunnydale goes by a different name and to my knowledge doesn't have any actual un-dead running around in the night, but I am finding so many similarities, it's uncanny.

Would you like to know the location? Yes? Okay... here it is: my home town.

Not that the entire town is bad - that's not the case at all. Just my little corner consisting of where I spend most of my day. Oddly enough, it's in a school - like Sunnydale High, just not a high school. And the vampires here don't actually drink the blood from the veins and can be seen during the day, but they are still the same kind of demons that slowly drain you of all the things that make you feel whole, alive and what makes life worthwile.

Once you're here, also, it's like you can't escape. Even after graduation, I find myself still stuck here - I've been here 7 years now, and I'm desperately looking for an out before I become devoured completely and I'm nothing but a shell. I'm already between half and 3/4 of the way there, and I'm going insane. Not a single day goes by that I don't dread coming to this place and dealing with the people I have to deal with. Again, it's not everyone, but those certain people who you can't avoid... I want to avoid them. Unfortunately I can't go around wearing garlic or carrying a spray bottle of Holy water. It wouldn't work anyway, and crosses just seem to attract these minions instead of scaring them away.

The ungrateful spirits of some of these people have pushed me to the limits. They're also drama-seekers, as if they didn't have enough of their own. And I know they have plenty of their own because they're also full on gossips and everything gets circled around whether I want to hear it or not. I've had to learn the hard way that I'd better not say anything anymore in confidence if I really want it kept in confidence.

One way or another, I've got to get out of this hell-hole. I may have to fight my way out or quietly dissappear, but I've got to get out. The end of the year is my deadline.

Birthday Gifts & Obnoxious Chicks

This weekend has gone really well for me. I've had a good time going to the movies with my guy and hanging out with friends and my mom - and trying to guess what my birthday present is. Although my birthday isn't for another FOUR months, my guy has already bought one of my gifts.

All I know about the gift is that it fits into a box (sized about 3' x 2' x 1'), it's pretty expensive (I consider expensive anything over $50, but I'm guessing that this has fallen into the range of between $100 and $300), my brother was with my guy when the present was bought (at Wal-Mart), my female cousin loved it when it was shown to her, and my guy's best friend and his wife now know what it is. Also, there is apparently going to be a small gathering when I'm given my gift which has been scheduled to be gifted to me around the 4th of July, two months early. My love says that he's giving it(them) to me two months early because of two reasons: one, we had planned to go to Gatlinburg that week, but now we won't be able to go due to money contrictions, and two: because last year my birthday gift came two months late. This is all I am allowed to know, and all that anyone has told me. I may be updating on this situation from time to time, since I'm so intrigued by what it could be. I have my guesses, but for now, I'm not going to post what they are.

On to the obnoxious chicks thing... we went to see the Pirates movie yesterday and though the movie was great, I was dissappointed with the experience at the theater all because of one girl that just had to sit next to me. She was about my age, it looked like, but she was so incredibly loud that it almost ruined the movie for me. She was apparently so easily amused that she was laughing at everything, whether it was funny or not. At times, she was the only one in the entire theater laughing. And it wasn't a little laugh either. It was a big, loud, boistrous laugh that rang through the entire theather above all the sword-fighting action noise - right into my ear drum. At the parts I wanted to laugh, my jolliness was cut short by the annoyance of her laughter. I had to plug my ear from time to time since the shrill pierced right into my ear drum. She was so distracting at parts, that I'm sure I will see new things when I'm finally able to watch the movie again.

In other news - i got new glasses - yay! They are extremely different from the ones I've had for about four or five years now - and they're purple! However, I have to go - like now - to get them adjusted. They are killing the behind my ears area by being just a bit too snug. I've actually been typing half of this blog without any help corercting my poor vision, so I spologize for any mis-spellings. I just can not take the pain any longer. Straight to the eye people  - after my questions for you.

Questions: What was your worst movie going experience? And... what do you think my gift could be (please do not guess "ring" though - I've come to the conclusion that it's not)?

The Good News/Bad News Game

I feel like today has been a day of the good news/bad news game. The day started out with the power going out while I was trying to get ready. Bad news. The boss was in a rage first thing this morning, and were told to try our best to avoid them. Bad news. After much debating, the decision was made that we wouldn't be able to afford to go to Gatlinburg for our summer vacation. Bad news. I forgot about a "street fest" at the cafeteria today that I got a reminder about which meant free lunch. Good news. We got $1500 deposited into an account from the insurance company to help pay for repairs on the car. Good news. We need another $500 to cover the cost of the repairs on top of that. Bad news. I have a huge zit on my chin. Bad news. It's sunny outside so we can finally grill. Good news.

Most of today's news has apparently been bad. I just realized that, but I am so grateful that it's Friday. Good news. I think the fact that it's Friday helps even out the score, but the dissappointment of not being able to have a real vacation weighs the bad news side down pretty heavily. And that bad news will last all summer.

That's all I have to blog on for today, since I have a mini-migraine and it's worn my brain out. (More bad news.) Searching for a question to ask today...  ...  ...  ...  ...  What has been the best news that you've gotten today (or event that's happened)?

Mistaken Relations

Today, I have to blog about something both interesting and slightly disturbing that happened to my guy and I over my lunch break. We were paying a utility bill - scene: I was sitting in a chair across the desk from the teller with my guy standing behind me rubbing my neck. After the transaction was completed the teller acted like she wanted to say something but was having trouble finding the words.

Finally she pointed back and forth to both of us and asked "husband and wife?". As much as I would have like to have just said yes, I told the truth and shook my head no. She then proceeded to ask us if we were brother and sister then. OMG - NO!
That answer was nearly shouted by the both of us. We are still not sure why she would think that we were brother and sister after seeing him rub my neck the way he was doing. She told us that we resembled each other. We have been told that before even though neither of us see it. If it weren't for the fact that I don't want to post personal photos of anyone, including myself, on my blog, that would be the question I would have for you today.
The teller finally got the right combination of "boyfriend and girlfriend" right. But the baffled thoughts of our mistaken relationships had already done their damage for the day. Ten minutes later I had to force my beloved to "take the brother/sister thing and throw it out the window" since he wouldn't stop talking about how inappropriate the thought was, especially after the teller saw him rubbing my neck, and that even twenty generations ago our families were unlikely to be related, and so on and so forth.

Now that I have been mistaken both for my boyfriend's sister and years ago mistaken for my brother's wife (even more disturbing and grotesque), I ask you: have you ever been mistaken for a partner's sibling or a sibling's partner?

TidBits and a Dream

This post also will be short and sweet, since again today I am experiencing a "writer's block" and can not think of any inspiring topics to write about. So I will share wil you some personal tidbits that I find - interesting.

One: did you know that the pesticides that are sprayed on the majority of our food crops is actually a derivitive of the nerve gas that was used in WWII? I learned this little fact on another documentary (I told you I was a geek about them) called "The Future of Food" that I watched last night.

Two: last night I recieved the new eyeshadow that I ordered, so I wanted to try it out. I put some on and decided to just leave it on, since it wasn't hurting anything and I'd be taking a shower later on anyway to wash it off. I ended up falling asleep on the couch, and when my boyfriend came home and woke me up he looked at me and asked "What's wrong with your eyes?". Still being half asleep, I half-freaked and wondered what was wrong with my eyes - were they swolen or red or - what? Then I remembered that I had on some darker colored eyeshadow. Relief in part because nothing was wrong with my eyes; slight annoyance that the color made my dear think there was something wrong with me.

Three: my dream last night. Now, if you were to know me, you would know that I have quite vivid and quite frankly - weird dreams, and I almost always remember them. So here's what I dreamt last night. Please don't judge, because I myself was a bit weirded out:
I was at a luncheon with everyone in my office, not unlike a two hour event that happens once a year for us. In this dream I was very pregnant (I am not pregnant in "real" life). All of a sudden I felt a contraction and announced that it was "Time" and I needed to leave. A couple of co-workers drove me to the hospital where my boyfriend (was husband in the dream) met me. For some reason, I didn't want to stay, since there didn't seem to be many doctors or nurses around to help, and the pain wasn't that bad. However, on our way home, we ended up pulling over and I gave birth half squatting - somewhere. Now... before I tell you the next part, I will tell you that in this dream world it was a normal accident of sorts for doctors to sometimes place an animal embryo into the womb of a human to help her get pregnant, instead of a human embryo. I, apparently, had been placed with an animal embryo. I proceeded to give a not very painful birth to a - purple haired daschund puppy. The birth not being very painful since the puppy was so small. And why it had purple hair, I have no clue. In my dream, I did realize that this was not normal and that I did not actually give birth to a human baby, so therefore I didn't consider myself a real mother with a real child. But, I was not entirely upset, since I now had a very cute and interesting new pet, who enjoyed climbing to high places such as the back of the couch, but was also clumsy and kept falling off of things.
I do not know what this dream really means, as the only explanation I could find online specifically about the birth of an animal such as a dog, is that the dream was foretelling that "allies who will be of great assistance to you soon surround you". That just makes me wonder what I'm going to need great assistance with.

Ending on the dream note, here's my question for you today: What's your craziest or most interesting dream?

Super Docu-Geek

Since I'm stumped on what to write about today, I'm going to keep this post short, sweet and personal. It's not in my profile, but I'm about to share a fact about myself that most don't know.

I am a documentary super geek. Seriously.

You know how some people love SciFi (well, now spelled SyFy for som ungodly reason) or Fantasy and are complete nerds about Star Trek or Lord of the Rings or some other big show like that? I'm all about the documentary. Normally it doesn't even matter what kind it is, but I do have a tendancy towards National Geographic and BBC. But the topics can range from war to animals to the production of plastic. I guess I find visual learning about things fascinating.

Last night I wantched a documentary called "Living with Wolves" and also the extra DVD called "Wolves at our Door" that came with it. It was about a couple, the Dutchers, who lived with a pack of wolves in the Sawtooth Valley in northern Idaho for 6 years. The wolf pack was enclosed in "camp wolf" to ensure that the Dutchers could easily record and document their behavior. The wolves that created the successful pack were also bottle fed as pups to ensure that they trusted the Dutchers enough to be around them and allow themselves to be filmed partaking in normal wolf behavior.

I noticed something about this documentary that was really familiar. Has anyone seen the animation film "Alpha and Omega"? I could swear that many facts from this single documentary were taken to make the cartoon. For one, it talked about the fact that the Omega of the pack was the peace-and-fun-maker. Another interesting similarity is that one of the female wolves that seemed destined to be an Omega was actually chosen by the Alpha male to be his mate, thus becoming the Alpha female.

I know to a lot of you, this may not seem that interesting, but this is the kind of stuff that I love - learning new things, and learning different views on the same things and how it all fits together with everything else. It's my kind of learning. I'm not sure what that all means about me, but I'm not worrying about that aspect too much.

I'll get on to my question of the day for you so I can stop my rambling:
What are you a nerd about?

Money Down the Drain... literally.

Over the weekend my boyfriend and I decided that we would try out one of the area laudromats instead of using the laundry center at our apartment complex, since he was sure the wash and dry cycles were faster at the "nicer" laundromat, and we were pretty busy that day and trying to save time. However, when we walked in and saw the prices - I refused to pay and we strode right back out.

I still can not believe that the price to wash ONE load of clothes ranges between $3.75 and $5.00 depending on which type of washer you use. And it's the same amount to dry. At our apartment laundry center it costs $1.00 per load to wash/dry. The washers are tiny, but I can live with having to do three loads for $6.00. I can't pay roughly $16.00 every week, and I honestly don't see how anyone could afford that. I'd rather buy an old metal washboard and scrub my clothes in the bathtub. I can be 1850.

Luckily, my mom is nice enough to let us do our laundry free of charge when we come visit, so I ended up taking it all out there while visiting her for mother's day. She's just awesome like that. But there is a caveat with going to her house - she lives a good 25 - 30 minutes away, so sometimes it's cheaper to just pay the $6.00 than to put enough gas in the vehicle to make it out there and back. I swear that now-a-days gas is the root of all the evil in the world... well, make that oil in general. But I won't go into that right now.

Another thing that has risen in cost to ridiculous levels: the movies. This summer, we have a movie just about every weekend that we want to go see. (This past weekend we saw the movie "Thor" - really good; I recommend.) I wouldn't have agreed to such frugal spending had we not found a super great deal. I'm not sure if this applies to all Carmike theaters, but I know for sure that the Carmike theater in the Governor's Square Mall in Clarksville, TN has a deal on tickets between the hours of 4:00pm and 5:30pm (I think - please check with the theater, or for an update on this post, for more accurate hours) for only $5.00! Of course, you do have to pay the extra fee if you want to see your movie choice in 3D. But for the two of us to enjoy a movie at an actual theater, $10 is a steal these days. If you want a drink or popcorn or candy, you're out of luck there unless you go on Tuesday afternoon, where you can have a small drink for $1, a small popcorn for $1, and a candy for $2.50.

I feel like I've rambled in this post, which I will try my best to stay on subject and not ramble to much in any of them... but, my mom has nicknamed me "Babylon" because at time I tend to "babble on and on". Apologies in advance if I ever do so. It's a work in progress to get better with that. So... on to my questions for you today:

What is the most that you have ever spent to wash your clothes (this includes if you have ever sent something to the dry cleaners)? And... what would the ticket price of a movie have to be for you to completely say no to all theater outings?