I'm a guinea pig!

Okay, so I'm not really cute, fuzzy, mammal often procured as a household pet. I am, however, a test subject in the study at Vanderbilt! So I decided to do what every self respecting blogger would do, and start a new blog for it!

Go here if you want to read all about my mental, emotional, and physical things that I record so that I can answer all sorts of questions honestly at my clinic visits every week. If you don't care, that's cool with me, I'm really doing it more for myself than anybody else. But if you're curious, and want to see what being a guinea pig does to me, you are more than welcome to do so. :-)

This will still get all my random ramblins/discussions/ideas/etc, so fear not.

That's it for now, I have to get up early in the morning for orientation at Chili's!

life is beautiful

I had a stellar weekend. A great end to a pretty stellar week.

I got two job offers this week. Accepted the one from Chili's.
Got called by the lady from the study at Vanderbilt. I have my first clinic visit tomorrow.
Got called by Tiffany & Co. and have an interview Tuesday. I know that I already accepted the Chili's job, but if I could work for Tiffany's!!?? and probably make a lot more money!?!! why wouldn't I at least go interview?

One of my best friends came into town from Cincinnati! Melanie was my roommate Sophomore year of college, and generally helped get me through all kinds of stuff over the last 4 years. Her and Chelle have been a part of my friend base since Freshman year. LOVE them!

Mel came into town Friday afternoon. We went to dinner, and then grabbed some wine and came back to the apartment. Chelle got home right about when we did, so we sat on the porch, had a few glasses of wine, and talked about life for hours. Then we took quite the adventurous trip to WaHo, and ended the evening sitting in the living room talking about politics.

It's funny how sometimes you don't realize how much you've missed somebody til they come visit you. Cause I sure have missed my Melanie. She's one of the most level headed people I know, and sometimes just has this way of cutting through the crap and saying how things are. I love that. I love her! I wish Cincinnati wasn't so far away, and that gas wasn't ridiculous. Cause I need more of her than what I can get right now. She's awesome!

Saturday we just hung out at the apartment, watched Nip/Tuck, and had lunch at Panera. Then we met up with a bunch of people at Chili's for some dinner and conversation. After that Mel had to go meet up with some other people in Nashville that she wanted to see before she went home. Chelle and I went with some of the people from Chili's to a bonfire. Where I met LOTS of great new people, and had a fantastic time.

And today was ridiculously lazy. a perfect ending to a wonderful week/weekend.

I really hope this next week continues the goodness, and that I figure out exactly what job I'm supposed to have so that I can start getting settled into a bit of a routine (and start getting paid!!)

I know I haven't kept track of the Ragamuffintop challenge the last few weeks, I'm just stuck at the same weight, and trying to find a job and stuff has kept me out of a workout routine. I'm glad I'm not gaining, but I'm not losing either. Hopefully things will get settled down the next couple of weeks and I can get back in gear.

What made you happy this weekend?

It's never too late to change lanes

I think some of my favorite moments are little gifts. Little serendipitous gifts the universe throws your way. Sometimes they are just gifts, happy moments to make you smile. Other times they are signs. Little reminders or suggestions to get implanted in your brain.

I guess I use "the universe" as my way of attributing things to God without sounding like the religion major that I am.

But I've gotten three this week. And it's kind of hard to ignore that.

It's been a rough month. moving into a new place. getting situated. dealing with all the quirks that go with living with new people in a new place. job hunting. hating job hunting. sucking at job hunting.

Let's just say that I needed some gifts from the universe.

The first was in Starbuck's. I went in friday to fill out an application. The guy who handed me the application starts telling me how great the benefits and stuff are and how it's a good time to apply. Then he takes my filled out application to the back...and the guy who walks out went to high school with me. Graduated a year ahead of me. Interviews me and tells me he's going to call me monday. I leave smiling and feeling really good about it.

I also filled out an application at Chili's friday. They told me to come back on monday. I went...and they had me take this test. So I'm sitting in this booth, taking a test (which involved MATH. omg. I was not happy.), and all of a sudden the beginning of a song over the sound system caught my attention. It was one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, Stereophonics (gift #2). So that makes me relax a bit, and not worry so much about the ridiculous MATH involved in this test. (have I mentioned I HATE math??) So I turn my test in, and one of the managers comes back and tells me that I passed it (huzzah!) and to come back Wednesday to talk to a different manager and probably get a job offer. sweet!

Starbucks called today with a job offer.
I may get a job offer form Chili's tomorrow.

I LOVE options. and gifts from the universe.


The third came today. I was watching AMC and a commercial came on for a study being done at Vanderbilt on depression. It was advertising for people to take part in the study. I've been off my Prozac since February, and haven't seen anybody about my depression since some time before then. I really needed somebody today.

So I just e-mailed the lady about the studies (there are actually two going on right now). We'll see how that goes.


I wonder how often I don't notice things like a song on the sound system or a commercial on tv. How often I don't listen to what the universe is trying to tell me. How often the worry and the stress overshadow the provisions of the one who dresses the lilies of the field so lavishly.

it's just an ordinary morning, just an ordinary day

Beth wrote a post about how she found out about the events of 9/11/01. It's pretty poetic, and includes a hazy feeling that I think signifies how a lot of people felt on and after that day.


My account of that day isn't nearly as poetic.


I was in 1st period Shakespeare, Sophomore year of high school...

and I was being hit on by the girl sitting next to me.



After we found out about the first plane, and watched live as the second plane flew into the second tower, all I could keep thinking was "but it's Steph's 16th birthday!"



She's 23 now. Happy Birthday, Stephanie. I hope it was a happy one.


To be honest, I miss that friendship more than those two towers in New York City.


Maybe that's selfish.
Maybe that's insensitive.
In fact, it probably is.

But it's the honest to God truth.

Thanks for the memories, even though they weren't so great

I have this problem where my brain permanently connects certain sights, sounds, and smells with certain people. And it's pretty random about what exactly it connects.

For one person it's a relatively generic stretch of road. Just an overpass connecting a side of the interstate I'm on all the time to a side of the interstate I hardly ever venture on. I guess the reason he's connected to it is because a couple of the first times I ventured on it was with him.

So today you get to hear his story. The story of my pseudo-stalker:

I was working at Lowe's, which I did for 2 of the worst years of my life (but that's a whole other blog), and he was one of the relatively few attractive guys about my age also working there. We saw each other on the floor, in the break room, and I always noticed that he was quite attractive, and a little over-confident.

One day I was in the break room eating my lunch when he sauntered over and sat beside me. We struck up a conversation about random things...music, movies, how he had been in the marines...and I was pretty happy with the whole exchange. To make things even better, at the end of his shift he stopped by my register and wanted to exchange phone numbers with me. Score!

A few days later he took me to lunch before work at a restaurant right by Lowe's. We had some interesting conversation, but at one point he kind of slipped in the "this is not a date" sentence that made me think it was all over. Which I was pretty okay with.

But soon after that I got invited to go hang out with some co-workers after work...all of which are friends with him. He insisted on riding with "his girl"...on sitting next to me the whole time...and since he was trashed I drove him home.

Which is why that stretch of road is connected to him.

I got text messages asking me to be his girlfriend.

A. it is not okay to ask me to be your girlfriend via text message
B. it is definitely not okay if I've hung out with you outside of work twice.

So I told him I needed to get to know him better.
Hung out with him and another co-worker at his apartment complex's pool.
Talked more on the phone and via text message.
Decided and told him I really wasn't interested in him as more than a friend.
He kept texting. I kept trying to ignore/discourage him.

I wrote this on my myspace a few weeks later:

It's hella creepy to have an ex-marine trying to find you. I'm pretty sure it's just been two times when he was drunk and lonely...but seriously, I'm uber glad he thought I went to Lipscomb the first time:

(text message conversation)
"Hey whats up."
"Nothing much"
(2 hours later) "Hey whats up."
"nada"
(2 hours later)"Hey im on campus"
(at this point I freak out and a million different horror movie scenarios cross my paranoia prone mind...but my rational side says I better make sure he's where I hope he's not first)
"what campus?"
"Limpscome dont u go there."
(massive sigh of relief.)
"no."
"oh i thought u wemt there."

(no typos there...just exactly what I got.)

and very glad that he still doesn't know where I go to school this last time.

"Hey whats up girl."
"Who is this?"
(I had a hunch it was him, but he changed his number so i wasn't sure)
"****** changed my number"
(I can't remember if I answered or not...if I did it was probably like "ah" or something)
"What u doing."
"laundry"
"What school do u go to."
(no answer)
(later) "What school do u go to."
(no answer)


Luckily at this point he no longer worked at Lowes, although he did come in a couple times after those exchanges...which always freaked me out.

I don't think ex-marines are something to be trifled with.
Especially ex-marines who think it's a good idea to show up unannounced (and probably trashed) on your college campus.

Going down that road still gives me the heebie jeebies.

Anybody else have one of these?

Let's step into the shallow end of the pool

So I'm having a small hair crisis right now. Kind of in the middle of growing it out from the time sophomore year when I donated to locks of love...and I kind of feel like chopping it off again. So I'm in for some opinions.

Short? or Long?
why?









Or does somebody have a completely different idea?

omg.
I just realized that this is a really great before and after shot for my 30lb depression/prozac weight gain too.
ugh.

so glad I toured the YMCA today.

anyways. let me know if you have an opinion.

anti-labor day

Now before anybody gets riled up about me hating a national holiday, let me explain.

"I" am not anti-labor day. I just find it ironic that a holiday named "labor" day actually consists of most people being off work, and generally not "laboring." so in practice Labor Day is actually an anti-labor day.

So now for my "anti-labor day" story.

I graduated a few weeks ago (for more on that, click here). I moved into a new apartment with my best friend and another girl I know from school last week. Which means I am officially a degree holding, bill paying adult. I also got a dog.

All of this means that I should probably have a job about now.

It's not that I didn't look for a job. I did. I saw all sorts of openings for things that I probably could have gotten hired for based on my ridiculous customer service experience working 2 years as a cashier/head cashier/customer service/return desk at Lowe's. But they were all jobs that I looked at and thought about applying for with dread.

So after a conversation with a friend who just started his own printing business I decided that i didn't want to do something that would make me miserable just to pay the bills. I wanted to do something that would let me pursue my dreams of doing photography and other art stuff (design, painting, etc) for a living.

In light of that, I'm going to get a job as a hostess or a waitress at a restaurant (hopefully at the Melting Pot...mmmmm) to pay the bills and give me some flexibility in my hours so I can build my portfolio and take on some artistic projects.

I was going to go to the Melting Pot today to try and apply...but in honor of anti-labor day I decided to sit around, read blogs, and hang up pictures and organize my new room instead.

very anti-labor indeed. :-D


Tomorrow I shall find a job. Tomorrow I shall go and and get a membership at the YMCA. Tomorrow I shall labor.