Regrets?

Well, I wrote a whole entry at work today about the old men who visit us regularly at the store. And then it deleted it. ...

Basically, they are both gentlemen who want to be remembered. I don't really feel like writing a ton on it again as it was soooo long the first time. They want to talk to someone who cares, and someone who listens. They want their stories to be remembered. They are around a lot...so it is always nice to hear from them every week. They're great men and I wish their families appreciated them as they should. One of them has very ungrateful grandchildren. They told him they wouldn't use pens which he'd collected for years before they were even born. They told him they were useless, and that is just so disrespectful to me. You don't do that to your grandparents. UGH. I will never forget these two men. They have changed frowns to smiles so many times, just because they always remember to stop in and say hi :-) I'll never forget them.

Anyway, one of them said recently, that he regretted everything he didn't do in his childhood. The pain I felt in his voice brought tears to my eyes. He was old enough that he did not have the ability to do all of the things he regretted not doing. I don't want to do that. I don't want to feel that way when I'm older. I want to achieve everything and leave out nothing. Here is to adventures, and never being scared to try a new thing! I promise to take the offered adventures, and to make the best of all of them!

More on Cali

Anyway, things are falling nicely into place. I have the interview in California coming up. I talked to Bob, the manager of the California store, yesterday, and I am even more excited than I originally was -- if that is even possible. They are a great and very talented group of people, I really hope I fit in and am able to really get into working with them. I hope they offer me enough money to join their team and live out in California.

I can't wait. I leave on the 20th and I get back on the 27th. W00t, whole week of no work. When was the last time that happened??? I can't even remember. I'm so excited. They have such a beautiful place. I can't wait. I need to start studying up on some of the companies they sell which I don't currently deal with. I need to know some specs on each and pros and cons. Welcome back to studying! EEEEP. I cannot wait!

Everything else is going. I can't really say much about Joe. I'm in and out on that one. There is so much distance between us that most of the time lately I cannot tell anything from what he's saying and doing. I end up mad about something, and he doesn't see it at all. I don't know what to do anymore. Four weeks ago I would have said fight until we figured it out, but I'm starting to realize that that may not be possible. We don't talk anymore. He realizes once and a while that he hasn't heard from me and gets back in touch a little, but nothing more. This wasn't supposed to happen this time. I cannot, and will not play this back and forth game anymore. I've felt like this for years, and if this is really the end of it, let it be. But I don't like feeling like a yo-yo. I'm around when he wants me around and that is the way it has stayed. I want him to be around when I want him around, because we want to see each other, and I think it is quite beyond that point now. I think he made that choice when he said that two hours away was too far away to date. I just don't know. It is going to take something pretty drastic to make me really take another look into whether or not this is going to work out in the end. We all want our happy ending, but we have to realize that happy endings are relative. They aren't the same for every person, and they certainly are a little more than deluded childhood dreams.
Happy endings are a thing of fairy tales. They are a thing of dreams. Men are not knights who ride in and rescue you from yourself or your enemies. They don't even have horses anymore. But they are not what we make them out to be. Men are selfish, just like women are. Men are going to go for what works for them. Lack of commitment and lots of ass. And that is fine, we don't have to like it, we don't have to be okay with it even. But what we do have to do is stop expecting each and every guy to be perfect and rescue us. We set ourselves up for this crap. We set ourselves up to be bantered around and played. We know what we're getting into, deny it all we want, but we aren't that stupid. Well, most of us aren't anyway. So what now? Where do we go from here? As yourself what you want and get on to it.

<3
M

So here is to something new

Things had to change. So they changed. And, while I felt things were falling apart, suddenly things were getting a whole lot better.

About a week ago, I was at work, answering phones, par the usual, "Thank you for calling Pen Boutique, this is Emily. How can I help you?" When on the other end of the phone,
"Hi, Emily, this is Bob, from Bittners. We met at the pen show."
"Hi, how are you doing?"
"Well thanks, and yourself. How is your Omas?"
"I love it, it is fantastic."
"I have a question for you. Were you serious about moving to a better location?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Okay, are you busy?"
"No, not really"
"I'll call you back."

That was interesting. About ten minutes later, the owner of Bittner's pens called.
"Hi, this is Bittner. I hear you'd be interested in coming out to California and seeing our location."

So, he takes my cell, and we talk later -- after I'm done with work. Bittner basically said "I'm going to send you a ticket to Carmel California and you can come out for a week and interact in our operations. Then, you we can discuss you joining our team"

Holy cow. I already have tickets to go to California in a few weeks to be there for a week -- they sent them a few days ago. What an opportunity. They both told me how impressed they were with me when they saw me at the pen show this year. I was joking with Bob about getting a job with them in Hawaii. I think I actually prefer Carmel California. It is one of the last little artists' hide aways in the USA. It is absolutely beautiful and referred to as Carmel by the sea.  Even though I'm not addicted to the sea the idea of this just feels so right. I'm actually super excited to get out there and see this place. This shop has so much overhead and so much money to just survive. It is absolutely the coolest place ever. Some of the most famous people in American writing history spent time in Carmel as they were writing some of their greatest works. Count me in folks, I'm outta here if this job comes through. And probably if it doesn't.

Oh, yeah, about that. The rents are moving to Chicago. And though I'm not sure I'll love Chicago, I cannot afford to stay in MD and live around here. Though, my boss says she'll make sure that I have the same two days off so I can get a second job, rather than her trying to help me out or actually pay me what I deserve. She wants me to be the manager, but she doesn't want to pay me anything more than the shit pay she already pays me. I can't wait to get out of here.

There had been other options on the table. There was Philadelphia, but apparently that would have been a horrible choice. There is also Florida, which I don't love the idea of, and there is Tennessee where Angela is. Tho, Angela said that if I am heading to CA she'll come with and move out and find a job. We'd have so much fun together! I really don't want to go on my own...but. I need an adventure. I need to get away from the old things which are always hanging over my head. I need to be out on my own and making my own way in the world. It should be interesting. I am super excited to figure all of this out. Two weeks from Sunday I'm off to California -- Off to figure out what I'm doing with the rest of my life.

Je me sens comme si j'ai redécouvert mon autre moitié.

Hey folks, time for a real update versus a random rant about something which is probably interesting to me -- and not to anyone else.

So what has been going on with me lately.

Work, and a lot of it has been going on lately. I guess that is just what I'm doing these days. I work five days a week and skirt the edges of forty hours a week. I'm making a pretty good paycheck, and speaking of paychecks I need to deposit my most recent one tomorrow. I'm supposed to meet with my boss sometime soon about a raise and such not, but I do not know if that will actually happen before I find another job and turn in my resignation.

Aside from working there has been not too much going on. I've had quite a bit of time to just be around, and do very little. I haven't gotten a lot done recently. I finished The Tenth Circle which was not my favorite of the Jodi Picoult novels. It was quite raw and rather disturbing in some ways. I don't particularly like books about some of the topics she writes about -- and this was very little exception to the rule. I was, however, told to read this book because it was good. I yield to the fact that it was another very well written novel -- but I just did not prefer the subject matter. Tons of things can tear families apart, and bring them back together. This particular novel was a little too -- and by a little I really mean a lot -- predictable.

As par the rest of life. I've a few good friends I'm still keeping in touch with. Angela is doing well and looking awesome lately -- on her new diet. This one is actually working. I've kept in touch with Katy to a large extent --when she actually answers her phone :-). I don't think that I would have imagined that I'd be in this particular situation, again, at this point in my life. I always assumed that eventually I'd figure things out and they'd just meld into the fabric of my lifetime. I almost figured that the memories would fade overtime and that is just how it would end up working out. But, in the long run it isn't the same situation and it isn't going to be. I've gotten back into whatever this awesome thing is with a guy who has been in and out of my life for years now...it is amazing to think that it has been five years. It feels like nothing close to that amount of time. I marvel every day at how much we've both changed, and yet, we're completely on the same page -- which is pretty fantastic.

I have been having issues with thinking up rhyming/coordinating stanzas for things...and then forgetting them. SO I wrote this one down:

When darkness yields to the light of morning dawning

The sadness fades to a field of yearning

Beauty stretches it's fingers through the world

And stories dance, futures untold

At Work Again

Work, work, and...work? I kinda feel like that is all I have been doing lately. I'm here a ton of my life. By the time I got home last night it was 10 pm and I was already feeling as though I wanted to curl up in bed and go to sleep. However, I was at the climax of a rather good book called Skin Trade -- by Laurrel K Hamilton. This is something like the 16th book in a series I've been reading since...Kat introduced me to the 7th book Sophomore year in college?? Needless to say, I'm addicted, and will continue reading and owning this whole series as she keeps writing them. The premise? you ask...well. It is the one and only Anita Blake - Necromacer and Vampire Hunter. The themes of the books have changed quite dramatically and sadly I feel the series coming to an end. I just hope good old Hamilton doesn't kill her off just for fun. I mean, this last book she makes two of the main Vampire warriors promise to kill her if she becomes to evil. I'm sensing this is where it is going... I need to go back and re-read some of these books, as well as this on, cause I keep thinking of things I read which just were not clear at all. I'll chat with Katy about it once she finishes it. Hear that Katy?? Get reading!

Currently I'm at work, though I may have already established that...so I'm going to peace and actually get something done for the next three hours. That something may well be reading The Tenth Circle -- by Jodi Picoult but regardless, it'd be something.

I don't have too much to write about today, perhaps it has all gone into my physical journal :-). Anyway, I'll probably post a little more here later if I do have some time tonight, which I should since I'm off at 6. *Happy Dance*

More Thinking

Welcome back to the world,

I've been doing some serious thinking lately about reading "The Shack". Number one, I think I'm going to read it again, even though I know the ending already. But the main reason I want to read it again is to take a little more time to try and figure out what is going on in the underlying text when I take the time to read it a little more slowly and really figure out what else there is hidden in the words on the page. It was a very very interesting read, and I look forward to getting through it again.

After that one, there are a couple on my list to read, including a few more Jodi Picoult. Looking around here, I realize that I've misplaced The 10th Circle. That is the book which I was to be reading next. I'm going to have to try and find that.

that's the run down for the evening. Until next time --

Ramble, Ramble, Ramble

What news is there these days. I'm not sure anything will ever calm the deadening anxiety which befalls people when the new news comes out. Be stir my little heart. Well, I'm not sure I feel anything these days, mostly uncertainty. That ever present question - Now what? Where do I go from here? How is it possible? What do you do now? How do we do it? We want easy answers to the questions which plague our minds. How do we find them? Not easily is the answer. Nothing comes easily to those of our generation. At almost 23 my laid off brother is making more money on unemployment than I am working full time. Hell, he gets paid to have a social life -- I get paid to do tons of work...

But regardless nothing right now is really easy on anyone. And on top of this recession we've now got the swine flu problem scaring the shit out of people. I'm sure though, that much more could go wrong. But people are resilient. Like crocodiles or cockroaches. They live when they should die, and they thrive under conditions which would kill other things. Yeah, so we have a swine flu. It really isn't that different from a flu...The only death was a Mexican kid brought to the US for treatment. Why did we let him in??? I mean...holy spreading death batman. Hopefully this will be the only death in the USA.

The flu kills every year - this time it wasn't the expected flu, but regardless, there really isn't a huge need to panic. I'm sure Darwin would love the study of pandemics in the world these days, it merely proves his theories even though many still feel the need to debate them. But, it is quite a side of an argument when you realize that when pandemic hits, the elderly and the young die first...

In some ways I wonder if flus, like avian, and now swine, are like the brush fires in Australia and other forest land. They tear through a population - be it tree or human, and they massacre large numbers. but-from that massacre comes a re-growth of hardy survivors, and also, new growth. The earth is over populated anyway. Plague cut the population by a huge percent. So maybe survival of the fittest still applies these days. Maybe it has come to mean something else.

We are a powerful nation, but we are over crowded and we are ruining the land. Maybe V For Vendetta has the right prediction of the USA in a few years. Maybe they'll come through and Civil war will rage through the country. But still further, maybe we'll cycle back to the great dictatorships of the past. Maybe. They do say history repeats itself. I happen to agree.

Well, enough of that for the moment. I finished yet another book, well, two books, but only one was actually worth writing about. Songs of the Humpback Whale by none other than Jodi Picoult. Yet another of her novels read and I haven't yet read one which I haven't enjoyed. Vanishing Acts still comes a close second to Second Glance which I need to re-claim from my friend and read again. But I did enjoy this one. This novel was told in a rather scatter brained style. One character told the majority of the story going forward and the other main character told it from the end to beginning. It was a little weird. They had an awkward overlap in the middle where you already knew what would happen...but it was told in a different view. It was a little weird, but it got the story told.

one of the weird things about her books is that you always end up with a whole bunch of knowledge which was just back story in the novel. Almost as though you've very subtly been taught without knowing it. Cause after reading this last one, I know a lot about travel across country...and a whole lot about apple orchards.

I will admit that Oliver was not a very well written character. I didn't feel that any of them were overly noteworthy. But Jane stood out and Rebecca was a close second, but they weren't necessary all that interesting either. But the story line was just amazing.

A mother, Jane, emotionally despondent -- in a marriage where her husband treats her as though she is a piece of a finshed puzzle. Once done, it now needs to be ignored. The puzzle is his perfect world. And he couldn't care less about her. He would rather be doing his research and following his whales around the country. He fights with her when he isn't ignoring her and his daughter. They get into yet another fight and she leaves, Rebecca, her daughter, meets her in the car. And off they go from CA to MA (where Jain's brother, Jolie, works). Said brother, writes them across the country giving them the freedom of adventure they needed before getting to MA. He gave them the freedom they needed before they could make the real decisions they needed to in MA.

Their journey is an enlightening one, through the grand canyon and into Iowa, where 10 years before a plane crash nearly killed Rebecca, now 15. Jolie takes them on this cross country adventure by writing them letters. He tells us more of Jane's story while Jane tells us more of everything else. Those both done in different voices.

Rebecca's story, the one going backwards, begins at the end of the story and claws its way to the beginning. She is 15 and she falls in love with a 25 year old farm hand, Hadley. Hadley works on Sam's orchard, Sam is Jolie's boss. Sam falls in love with Jane. And so continues the story.

Meanwhile, Jane's husband, Oliver, is on his way to them, chasing them across the country. He makes it to MA in time to find his wife in bed with Sam and his daughter missing as she's gone after Hadley, who Sam sent away due to Rebecca. Rebecca left to find him having her own adventure through the upper north east. She ends up on Hadley's doorstep exhausted and feverish.

Hadley doesn't realize that she's really sick, and takes her into the woods to go camping so that they can spend the night together and get everything figured out. They are found the next morning by Oliver and Sam (Who have had a very interesting drive on the way up). Oliver and Sam have made the journey to find and discover them. Hadley picks up Rebecca when he realizes how sick she is and backs away from Oliver and Sam, who seem to be accusing him of horrid things with a child. Oliver and Sam ask and ask him to give her to them. Finally he does, and he pushes away from her, only to fall off a cliff. Rebecca tries to jump off after him but is held back. She screams and claws at herself as though trying to tear her own heart out.

she's exhausted and feverish. She screams as though she is dying, as though she's lost a part of herself she'll never be able to get back. That may have been the best written part of the whole book. Her description of losing part of her own heart -- and how later she manages to forget.

But, from there, the novel falls apart. Sam, who Jane has admitted is her soul mate, loses not only Jane but Hadley in a matter of weeks. He is force to watch Jane and Rebecca drive away with Oliver. The novel ends with Jane realizing that she can change Oliver and herself...but she leaves behind the one person she feels she is a part of...odd way to do that....

Though it wasn't the est book I've read by her, I enjoyed it none the less. I have The Tenth Circle to read and there after I'll read another I'm sure. But, a friend of mine gave me a book to read The Shack by WM Paul Young. We'll see what this one has to offer. Then maybe I'll get to the pile of books to be read that currently occupies my bed side table.

At least I'm keeping busy. And now the weather is turning I'll have to read outside, more when I find the time. Where I'll find the time I don't know, but I'll try.

But enough about the books for now. Oh how I can ramble on and on about the books I've read. The adventures flow from these authors' and there is little which contains their imaginations. The world is complete and open in these books. It is beauty and style. How I yearn to be able to take my mind to the places they capture on paper. Novels are so different an escape from music.

Music of late has been angry and oppressive or sad and depressing. I don't find things which are upbeat and happy all that often. Maybe that is just me, but I connect to what I listen to, and lately I'm not finding anything which makes me happy.

Though there are those who would disagree about happiness being overrated, I love the idea of it. I don't find it many places - and perhaps that may be why I so love to write. Maybe there is also a connection between my love of writing and my yearning to always be reading. I would live in a library if I could. Between reading and writing I would be in heaven. Maybe I could be oblivious to the world. The way I feel when I write. Maybe oblivion is just better than being here some days.

I can zone out and read books for hours. I don't hear people when they talk to me - much to my mother's annoyance. But I feel as though I'm watching a movie when I read. I feel that real good authors put their works on a screen with their words -- without the director.

But anyway -- enough about books and writing and reading and such... A week or so ago I was talking about Parallel universes and Quantum Physics through talking about parallel universes and how I felt they related to synchronicities. Meaning, something more than mere coincidence. Well, lately, these little things have been happening and they are not coincidences. They're pretty cool. I got up one morning and was thinking about a movie I'd seen one night and couldn't for the life of me remember the name. I tried to at work, talking to a co-worker, but couldn't get it. I came home and turned on the TV only to end up watching the very part of the movie I could see but couldn't name. That is just one example...

These happenings feel as though they are something smoothing the way between two universes. Things just flow better some days than others. But, lately, after cutting those people who had negative energies out of my life - I realize that things are actually looking up. I guess those changes where really for the best.

Anyway, So ends the rambling of the day... Ciao Bella