Update

It has been over 2 months since I posted here, and I was inspired by March. Most of my socializing is done on Facebook and most of my blog friends are over there (Dim is the holdout). I've been busy with summer classes. I told one that was over on July 3rd and then the current one started July 6th, so there wasn't much time to catch my breath in between. The good news is that I will be officially finished with school on August 7th!!! All I have left is 1 quiz, and that's based on presentations that aren't due till July 31st, so I have a little bit of a reprieve. I'm not sure what I'll do with myself when I don't have school work, but I know I'll figure something out. It'll be so nice not to be tied to the chains of school anymore.

In the time I was absent from my blog, it turned 4 and I passed the 6 month moving out on my own point. I've really liked being on my own; I'm the sort of person who needs a lot of alone time. On the other hand, I've been doing more with friends, which is nice. I think I had been in a funk and didn't feel like doing too much, but now I have more energy and motivation. Rusty was here in June, but unfortunately I don't know when I'll see her again. Right now she's in the UK, lucky bitch :). I'm going to D. C. in October for my graduation present and I'm excited about that since D. C. Mile Gravel bumper sticker..is my favorite city. Honestly, that's pretty much it, but I figured I should check in with my legions of fans.

Update: I can probably update by currently reading book and my recently watched movie and take down my Mike Gravel bumper sticker

Update

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I had a couple people stop by to check up on me, so I thought I should probably give an update. I'm doing well; I had my first post-op appointment yesterday and everything's healing as it should, but I do have an infection. It's not anything serious, I just have to take an antibiotic for 10 days. It's more of an annoyance than anything else. Other than that, life is crazy. I transferred to the York office last week, and it kind of sucks, but I have bigger things on my plate to worry about right now. I'm getting ready to move as much as I can considering there's nowhere to put anything in the house. I'm having an issue with Comcast which sucks because I'm going to be using them as my ISP and the spring semester starts the day I move, so it'll be massively inconvenient to try to do an online class without having internet access at home. But I can always stay late at work, go to the library, or go to my parents' house, so it's not the end of the world.

I'm off to bed--I've been so exhausted lately that I actually sat down at my computer last night at 9 to work on a paper and fell asleep right there at my desk. I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas has a great one!

No Smoking

I am currently smoking my last cigarette. I've smoked for 11 years, but it's time to stop for health and financial reasons. I pity anyone who comes in contact with me for the next couple weeks.

Miscellaneous

A coworker did Reiki on me the other day. It was nice, but I wouldn't pay $75 for it. I'm not a spiritual person at all, but let me tell you, I was extremely relaxed on the drive home. So relaxed, in fact, that I pulled into my driveway and didn't remember driving home at all. One of the things she told me is that the spirits demanded that she tell me to relax, so I'm going to work on relaxing more. My goal is to be like Peter in Office Space, but with a little less money laundering.

Speaking of not worrying, I just found out on Thursday night that they are creating an office manager job that would be perfect for me. The person would supervise support staff, do some HR, and generally make sure the York, Harrisburg, and Lancaster offices run smoothly. I already am essentially the office manager in Harrisburg, but I don't have the authority to do anything or the pay of a supervisor. Plus, I should probably have some kind of supervisory experience if I want to get a full-time library job that pays more than minimum wage. I'm pretty sure I'd be qualified to do this (my current supervisor doesn't even have a Bachelor's degree), but my fear is that they are transferring me to a job that no one else in-house would be able to do, and they might not want to go through the hassle of hiring and training someone else. I really want this though, so wish me luck!

My hatred of PETA knows no bounds, but they've really done it this time. They are asking Ben and Jerry's to use human breast milk instead of cow's milk in their ice cream. WTF?!?! First of all, no offense to all the mothers out there, but that is fucking disgusting. Second of all, you don't mess with my Ben and Jerry's. This idea is so ludicrous for a variety of reasons that I'm not going to mention because anyone with two brain cells to rub together (in other words, people who aren't members of PETA) can see how flawed it is. It's so stupid that I'm wondering if it's a joke.

I just finished Season 2 of Dexter and I sent an e-mail to March since he wants to talk about it...still haven't heard back. Where are you Maaaaaach?!

In other TV news, I completely forgot to watch The Office premier on Thursday night. I guess that takes it off my list of the top 10 shows. I did watch it on Hulu and it was good, but I still think the magic that they had in the first two seasons is gone. I won't talk about any specifics since some people may not have watched it, but right now I much prefer 30 Rock. I loved season 1, and season 2 is coming out on October 7 and is on my queue.

Into the Mind of a Schizophrenic

Check out this multimedia slide show at NPR's website about a virtual reality simulation of what it's like to have schizophrenia. You'll need RealPlayer to view it.

More Stuff

There still isn't too much interesting going on in my life. I got my results for the civil service exam and I applied to 4 different counties, but there are really only 2 where I would want to work. For York, 11 people did better than I did, 1 did the same, and 200-some did worse; in the other county 21 people did better and 645 did worse. So basically, I'm tied at 12th for the York list and I'm 22nd for the other list. But, like I said, it probably wouldn't be the right move for me to take this job right now. For one thing, I'd lose all my time off, and we do get massive amount of time off to make up for our lousy pay. For another, there would be a lapse in my insurance, and I have a dentist appointment and a couple doctor's appointments coming up, not to mention that I'm on a couple different meds, one of which is a psychotropic, and you generally don't want to randomly stop taking those.

School has officially started, and I am not in school mode yet. I had my school e-mail rerouted to my Gmail because my school e-mail is a pain to access and some e-mails from my professor ended up going to my spam. Luckily they weren't sent that long ago and I didn't miss any deadlines because of it, but I could have gotten an early start. I like to stay ahead of the game, because if I don't, I feel like I'm drowning. My professor is making podcasts for our online course, which is very nice. I used to have to sit at the computer listening to hour-long lectures and now I can put them on my MP3 player and listen to them while I watch dishes or do other inane things.

I'm definitely leaning toward starting a private blog. I have a bunch of things going on right now that I need to vent about, and I have a crew of awesome, supportive blog buddies. And it's cheaper than therapy! By the way, for those of you who have private blogs, I just did some catching up over the weekend. Bloglines refuses to show when private blogs update, so I had assumed people just stopped blogging.

Stuff

Two good things came out of having our door kicked in: our landlord had a screen door and a deadbolt installed. I have wanted a screen door since we moved in here about 3 1/2 years ago. The weather has been so beautiful here that we haven't needed the AC and I've been able to keep the door open. It might sound like a little thing, but I love fresh air. He didn't have a deadbolt put on the back door, but I got the carpenter's card and he only charges $20 an hour, so I'm going to ask if I can have one put on if I pay for it. It's futile because our doors have windows in them, so all someone would have to do is punch the window out and reach in to unlock the door, but at least you can't kick in a door that's deadbolted.

The kid and his mom were moving out on Saturday (he's actually not a little bastard--he's 19 and has no job and lives with his mom) and I REALLY wanted to go over there, but it's not fair to rip him a new asshole when I have no proof that he did it.

I took one of the civil service exams for a state job on Monday. It was an interesting experience; talk about a motley crew. We were all herded around like cattle and had orders barked at us. One woman didn't know how to use a mouse. Oy vey. The test was pretty easy. It's for an income maintenance case manager at the Department of Public Welfare. The first part was reading over part of the handbook and answering questions that described a household where you had to say whom was eligible for certain benefits based on the text. One of the questions was something like, "Everyone has a right to apply for benefits regardless of eligibility. In this case, 'right' means..." Three of the answers had to do with correctness and one was about something that is guaranteed to you. Are there people who would get that wrong?! There was a math part that was basically calculating benefits and gross income, there was a hilariously cheesy part about interpersonal skills where you had to watch horribly-acted vignettes and say what the person should have done, and then there was a part about grammar. I'm sure I did well, but there's a pretty long wait for these jobs. If I were planning to work for the state and retire I would probably accept it, but my future is so up in the air right now, that I don't know if it would be worth it.

I'm thinking of starting a private blog, but I don't even post on this one so I don't know what makes me think I'd post on a private one. I do feel a little stifled here though, for reasons I don't want to say here. School starts on Monday though, so I should probably hold off.

I hope everyone's enjoying the last few weeks of summer. I'm more of a fall person myself. That's pretty much all that's going on right now unless you want to read more detail about my exciting life of waking up, going to work, coming home, doing inane things in the evening, going to bed, and then starting all over the next day.

Thinking Calming Thoughts

Today is D-Day. My interview starts at 1:15. I feel prepared, but I'm completely exhausted. After work yesterday, I went to dinner (I had fish tacos for the first time and they were awesome--I don't think Californians are crazy anymore) and then to Hersheypark with a work friend and didn't get home till a little after 11 and then didn't go to bed till after midnight, then I had to get up for an 8AM dermatologist appointment this morning. I just finished my coffee and I stopped at Burger King for a Croisanwich and a large Dr. Pepper, the breakfast of champions, so hopefully the caffeine will help me wake up.

Yesterday my coworker accepted a job, so when she leaves I'm going to be swamped unless management is organized and they replace her quickly (pause for laughter). I have a lot riding on this job and, I'll be honest, I'll be devastated if I don't get it. I'll let you all know how it goes when I get home! Thanks for the well wishes!

Answers (Updated w/ B's questions)

From March:

1. Do you recycle as much as you think you can?
I'm pretty good about recycling, but I don't recycle at work since we don't have any recycling bins and if I have a can with really nasty stuff in it, I just throw it away instead of rinsing it out and recycling it.

2. If you could have any band play a party for you who is it and why?
Even though Depeche and The Cure are my favorite bands, they're not really party bands, so I'd like (assuming I can bring people back from the dead) Skynyrd or Zeppelin. They'd both rock out and then throw back beers with my party guests after the set. They'd also probably sleep with all of my friends.

3. When you were a kid what job(s) did you want?
I wanted to be a veterinarian, an interior designer, or an environmentalist

4. You see a person fall..do you laugh?
No, unless it's one of my friends and they aren't hurt.

5. Chewy Chips Ahoy or regular crunchy ones?
Chewy all the way!

6. What is the oddest thing you "knowingly" ate?
I haven't eaten anything too odd...I guess liver (nasty!), wild turkey (really dry), bear (tastes like chicken), and deer (mmm...deer bologna), but none of those are odd if you live in PA. Two of my favorite foods are brussels sprouts and pickled beets, and most people think it's odd to like those.

7. If you drink coffee, how do you like it prepared?
When I make it at home I use Dunkin' Donuts coffee that I grind myself with half and half and 1 packet of Splenda (but I'm going to switch to sugar when I use up all my Splenda packets because I'm trying to stop eating processed foods)...I make it the night before and put it in the fridge, when I do a Dunkin' run I get iced coffee with cream and sugar and a shot of hazelnut if I'm feeling saucy; if I'm getting a frou frou drink I get a mocha latte.

8. If we were dating, and I said you can't watch american idol any more would you break up with me? remember..I'd be the most awesomest B.F. ever..so keep that in mind..
First of all, Jim Halpert is the most awesomest bf in the world; second of all, I've been in too many relationships where I've compromised myself to make my man happy, so I would kick your ass to the curb and curl up on the couch to watch my AI boyfriends caterwaul their way through some of my favorite songs.

9. What is your favorite artificial flavor?
I love anything strawberry, coffee, or hazelnut flavored.

10. You are at a salad bar..what "bad" things do you put on the salad?
Cheddar cheese and croutons

From B.:

If you had to change the name of your blog, what would you change it to?
Oh no! I'm so bad at thinking up names for things. Maybe "The Wayward Librarian." Or, let's be honest here, "Don't Read This; Not Worth It."

Name 3 things you can do better than the average person.
Speak Spanish, remember song lyrics, play time management games like Diner Dash and Cake Mania (these games are my crack)

I'm Alive

Rest easy, blog peeps; I'm alive and my hiatus is over. March wondered WTF happened to me. I finished my Cataloging class (got a B, one point away from an A, dammit) and have been taking two summer classes. One is already over (A) and one will be over next Thursday. Rusty came to visit, but we didn't do too much since I was busy and she had to spread herself around. I was cat-sitting for her two little bastards and they managed to pee on my floor, and steal a chicken breast and shortcake that I stupidly left on the counter. Rusty's coming back in July though, and I'll be class-free (in both senses of the word), so we'll get to do all kinds of fun stuff. I was looking forward to having life go back to normal after Rusty left with the cats and my weekend class was over, but our fridge broke this past Monday and was finally fixed yesterday. Being without a fridge totally sucks ass! That's pretty much all that's going on right now, considering my summer hasn't officially started yet. I've only had one week without school since January and I spend part of that week in D.C., so I've been pretty busy. I don't have any plans for the 4th, except maybe going to Hersheypark on Friday. My friend at work and I are waiting to see what the weather's like and trying to decide how insane it is to go to Hershey on a holiday that falls on a Friday. I'll update more frequently if anything cool goes on, but I've been reading your blogs even if I haven't been commenting. I hope everyone's having a good summer!

The little bastards, in a rare moment of not being little bastards:



Shortcake carnage:

Grass and Weed

Today is a day of great rejoicing!! My landlord, who had not mowed (mown?) our lawn for 5 weeks, finally mowed today!!!!!! The grass was up to my knees and the weeds were past my hip. Plus, I found a tick on my head while I was on the phone with Rusty last Saturday. Nasty!!

I'm leaving you with a joke I heard on the radio:

A man met a little girl and asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She replied that she wanted to be the first female president. He asked her what party she was going to belong to and she replied that she was going to belong to the Democratic party. The man asked her why she wanted to be a Democratic president and she replied that she wanted to help the homeless. The man told her that she didn't have to be the president to help the homeless; in fact, he was going to pay her $5 to clean up dog poo in his yard. He told her she could then go give the $5 to the homeless people to put toward a house. The little girl thought about this proposition for a little while and then asked, "Why don't you just have the homeless people pick up the poo and give them the money directly?" The man replied, "Welcome to the Republican party, my dear."

2 Things

Check out Song Tapper. You tap out a beat with your space bar and it tells you what song it is (well, it gives you multiple choices of what the song might be). It recognized Billie Jean and Iron Man. It thought Iron Man might also be a song called Baby, Pull All Dat Ass Out by a group called Registered Sex Offenders. Nice.

Ahhhhhh!!!!! A library classification game!! Noooooo!!!!

My Favorite Book is Magazines

These scary and somewhat disturbing magazine covers were made at MagMyPic.com. We'll ignore the fact that I was supposed to be writing a paper while I was making these covers.

25 Days of Happiness

I'm going to try something new here in honor of the holiday season...going 25 days without ranting, beginning this Saturday, December 1. The goal is to write one post every day about something good that happened or something I like, whether it be something deep and meaningful or something superficial, but I'm not trying to delude myself into thinking I'll actually post every day. So, don't adjust your monitors; Jenny G is going to try niceness out for a change.

Aqui Esta el Titulo

Yeah, long time, no talk. That's because a.) I've been busy and b.) I have nothing to write about. Most of the things going on in my life aren't really blog-worthy or blog-appropriate.

The receptionist came back today after being off since September 19 for foot surgery (for once I'm living by the axiom "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"), so hopefully work will go a little smoother and my hair will start falling out a little less. BUT, one of my coworkers messaged me on MySpace and said she (the receptionist) is taking Wednesday off. Serenity now...

If you haven't already, head on over to Rusty's blog to check out her two new additions. I hate cats, but these guys are adorable!

School is coming along. I've handed in and gotten back all the papers for the on-site class, so now all I have to do is an online final the week of December 3rd or somewhere around there. I have 28 1/2 pages done on my big-ass paper, and that's without proofreading anything (I can bs an extra page or so during the proofread) and without adding page numbers.

Now that I'm in school, I've noticed I'm much less anal about the house. For example, I usually have to have all the clocks correct to the second (insane, I know) and now they're all off. Although now that I just wrote that, it's starting to bug me...

I'm not voting tomorrow. Feel free to call me a hypocrite or, if you're hot, come spank me.

It's getting to be SAD time again. I can't stand non-daylight saving time.

As far as the holidays go, Halloween was pretty uneventful for me. It's my second favorite holiday, but I wasn't really feeling it this year. I don't have any big plans for Thanksgiving; dinner this year will just be me and my parents because of some drama in the extended family. This will make some people want to bludgeon me to death, but I'm almost finished with my Christmas shopping...I usually have it all done in the summer though. New Year's eve and day are going to be, as always, spent on the couch watching the Twilight Zone marathon. Unfortunately New Year's Eve is on a weekday this year, but I took the afternoon off so I didn't have to miss much of my precious TZ. Wow, I'm lame.

Speaking of Halloween, the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror was on last night. Not the best one ever, but Heck House was definitely the best of the three, although I'm biased because of my love of Flanders. My all-time favorite vignettes are The Raven (even though they didn't do my favorite line--"'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil — prophet still, if bird or devil!'") and the Shinning. The Office hasn't really been doing it for me too much this season. Hopefully the writer's strike won't affect everyone's shows too much.

The Raven:

Este y Eso

Noooooooo!!! Noah Wyle is coming back to ER for 4 episodes. I hate Dr. Carter!

I wish I had something interesting to talk about. I'm a little tipsy because I was cooking with wine, and when you cook with wine you have to drink some. It's the law. So I drank half the bottle, and I'm a lightweight. Rusty, I'm totally sober! Ask me anything! I had all sorts of things I wanted to write about, but now I forget them. I even perused CNN.com to find something to write about and couldn't find anything to rant about. I do know I wanted to mention how much the Doobie Brothers started to suck when Michael McDonald joined the band. I was listening to their greatest hits CD while I was making dinner and I was rocking out to "China Grove" and "Long Train Running" and then "Takin' it to the Streets" came on. Shut up, Michael McDonald.

I've been in a really good mood lately and I'm not as stressed out. I'm not sure why, but all I know is that my skin has cleared up since I stopped being stressed. I'm also using tea tree oil, which is the best stuff in the world, and clears breakouts up in about a day. I love the fact that I have zits and I'm getting gray hair. My body can't make up its mind.

I hate that that we missed out on good fall weather. It went from 90 degrees to 50 in one day.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this, but it's something Oprah wrote about how she took the month of July off when she found out she had hypothyroidism. It must be difficult for you to take a month off from working, fly to Hawaii, eat only fresh foods, and sleep when you want to. My heart is breaking for you. Shut up, Oprah. Guess what? A lot of people have diseases and have to continue going to work, cooking, taking care of their children... I don't know how people can read this shit and not feel condescended towards.

I was cleaning out my filing cabinet today and I came across a "newspaper" we made in Spanish class our senior year called El Gran Flan. Here's a picture of our class. I'm sitting at the table in the middle and Rusty is on my right. We were so young! I would make a pact with Satan to look like that again. The guy on the far right holding the Spanish dictionary died about two years ago of a brain tumor. He was in the popular clique, but he was the sweetest guy you could ever hope to meet, and I know Rusty agrees with me. I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, he's being rewarded.


I leave you with one of my favorite Stephen Crane poems, since my Stephen Crane sampler was in the same folder as El Gran Flan:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter--bitter," he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

Misc.

I was trying to describe to my dad why the only sport I like to watch is hockey, and it mostly had to do with the fact that the players don't have egos. I found these quotes in a 2000 article from Slate that summed it up nicely.

"It is straightforward and unpretentious. Hockey players, all sportswriters seem to agree, are the nicest bunch of guys in professional sports—accessible, courteous, refreshingly modest, if not terribly interesting. Canadian, in other words."

and

"Crass commercialism is destroying the NBA; the final periods of the Stanley Cup finals didn't even have commercials, because the NHL doesn't allow TV timeouts during overtime. Lazy crybabies abound in baseball; the Stars' goalie tried to blame prescription drugs he was taking for his sub-par performance in the first game, and he was roundly denounced—by his own teammates. Sanctimonious God-squadders, when they're not under indictment, are ruining the NFL; I have never heard an NHL player thank God for his help putting the puck in the net."

I have a very bad cough right now and I'm short of breath. I feel like a 400-lb. man is sitting on my chest and I took a 3-hour nap this afternoon. So much for getting schoolwork done! Although I guess I can't complain, because I did write my daily paragraph...never mind the fact that I haven't written anything in days. BUT, the great thing is that I don't have to write anything new till October 22nd. Everything I have due before that is finished!

Chris talked me into getting a new printer/scanner/copier/fax. It was originally $400, but on sale and with rebates it came down to $150. It's much better than the printer I've had since high school where I had to clean the ink jets after every page. I'll have to find some pictures to scan.

I haven't talked about The Office yet! I'm a bit behind...I'm still working on my second viewing of the first episode. I liked the first episode a lot (Toby as Satan, Creed with the painkillers, fettuccine alfredo to carbo load, Jim and Pam!), and I liked the first half of the second episode. I'll have to get better at posting my thoughts while they're still fresh.

I'm Alive!

I'm still around and I'm still alive but work and school have me busy as hell. I'm still reading everyone's blogs, but not having much time to comment. I hope everyone is doing well and hopefully at some point I'll have something real to write about!

No Meds Make Jen a Sad Girl

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I don't think anyone wants to be regaled with stories about how I cleaned my refrigerator and played hours of Diner Dash 2 this weekend. If there was ever a sliver of doubt in my mind that my depression is chemically-based, it's gone now. This is day 6 off of meds and I'm right back to where I was before I started taking them. I'm sitting here on the verge of tears and I'm not even PMS-ing. To quote the late, great Kurt Cobain, "I hate myself and want to die." I go back to see the doctor on Thursday, so hopefully he can find something that my insurance will pay for. I could go on a big, long rant about pharmaceutical companies, drug advertising, and making small changes to brand name drugs to prevent them from going generic, but I won't.

It's definitely better to be numb than depressed and I think I'll take what I can get as far as that goes.

One Year Closer to Death

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way"

Well, today is the big 2-6. I'm officially in my late 20s. How depressing is that?! I'm going over to my parents' house for dinner and an Oreo cake from Maggie Moo's tonight. I took Monday off to go to IKEA. Birthdays just aren't the same once you're over 21. Remember that, kiddos.

"Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"

*Office spoiler* The Office season finale was pretty good Thursday night. I loved the ending. It would have been cheesy if they had done another kiss, but Jim's silent realization and drive home to ask Pam out were nice. I wonder what Karen is going to think when she realizes Jim left her in New York? I thought she'd get the job since Rashida Jones is going to be in a sitcom next season. I guess we'll find out in four months. In other Office news, Jenna Fischer broke her back while she was walking down a marble staircase in high heels. The article I read said she's expected to make a full recovery and it won't affect next season's Office. Here's hoping that she has a speedy recovery!

"And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"

Congratulations to my Bears for winning the East Division Final. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final against the Manchester Monarchs is tonight. Good luck, guys!

"Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say"

I heard on the radio station that the receptionist at work listens to that R. Kelly compared himself to Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that MLKJ never pissed on a 14-year-old. What a tool.

I just finished reading Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres. It was an amazing book! Actually, and I probably shouldn't be saying this, I read about 200+ pages at work on Wednesday because it was an extremely slow day. It's a memoir about Julia's life growing in a white family living in the Midwest with two adopted black children and her close friendship with one of her adopted brothers. Her parents, devout Christians, send them to a reform school in the Dominican Republic, which isn't any better than their life of emotional and verbal abuse at home. I highly recommend the book.