Witch Doctor.

Yup. I'm at work. It's the only time I really blog. Too busy the other parts of the day. Which is rather sad.

This weekend I discovered an Album on my ipod entitled "Family Fun from the 1950's and beyond." and it's epic. It has the song "Witch Doctor" on it. As in the whole "Oooh Eee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang" chorus.

And it is now stuck in your head. At least I have succeeded in that.

This side of inconvenience.

Day 17 with no internet at home. All my updates and email checking happen at work or at a coffee shop. It is on this side of inconvenience.

I have life updates.

I now have an adorable kitten. His name is Jamie. He's white with black splotches, and overall very cute. But he's talkative. SO VERY TALKATIVE. As in we think he has abandonment issues. Each time he loses eye contact with us, he starts meowing. It's...distracting. But he's still adorable. And rather friendly. There has not been a person to come over that he HASN'T liked. He's fallen asleep on Evan's lap, he's wrestled with Whiskers, and yeah.

Strangely enough, the only person he ever gives problems to is Allen. They have a weird male dominance thing going on. Not that they don't get along, Jamie will as soon cuddle with Allen as he will with me, but Jamie gives only Allen attitude. It's a little bit funny and a little bit silly.

I'm graduating in almost three weeks. Guess what? I'm frightened. Mostly I'm frightened about money, big surprise there. I'm also frightened about finishing my script by then. Yeah, I have about 45 more pages to go on it. Slightly frightening. I will be getting ten pages done tonight, though. Yeah, it's slightly sad that I'm more worried about finishing this script than I am sending out graduation announcements.

My mother seems to have this wonderful talent of making me insecure. When I was having a low self esteem day, her first comment to me was how my hair is awful. I take her to the Ren faire, she says I'm giving the wrong impression to people by having cleavage. (I mean, it's the Ren faire! Cleavage is everywhere! More than just cleavage, BOOBS are everywhere! And my cleavage is relatively minor, comparatively speaking. Actually, it's very minor. And yet I'm the one giving the wrong impression? And why is she to nag me about it? I'm 22. It's okay for me to show some cleavage, especially while wearing a costume specifically designed to show cleavage.) I'm seriously debating telling her off. Cause her nagging and controlling ways are getting frustrating. She is also of the opinion that I shouldn't post any pictures of myself from the Ren faire, cause it is sending people on facebook the message that I'm looking for men. I don't think she understands it.

She also "expressed concern" that my relationship with Allen will fail now that we're moved in together. Nice, mother. Nice.

I have finally bought the movie "Office Space". I have worked in an office for two years straight now, and I have not yet seen that movie. I understand that this is something of a blasphemy. it will be remedied if I write ten pages today, five pages tomorrow, and ten pages on Wedneday.

It is unlikely that I'll write five pages tomorrow. Tomorrow I have: Work 9-2, class 2-5, wine tasting 5:30-6:30, honors Convocation 6:30-9, and Allen's parents will be out for the convocation. So yeah. I might see if I can take work off and just write in the morning, then make up work on Friday. But I'd have to be careful, cause my parents are coming on friday, and then we're going camping.

By the way, I have no voice at this moment. Well, I have a voice, but it's all crackly and dry sounding. I was told I sound like Bea Arthur by two people today.

Just talked to my boss, I'll be working only two hours on tuesday, then come in for two or three hours on Friday. So thank god, I'll have about three hours to write on tuesday. Uninterrupted.

That leads into the weekend. I'll be camping. Which means I'll have to write by hand. Should be interesting. I'll have to crank out a ton of pages, too. So that just means lots and lots of handwriting.

Also, camping this weekend is gonna be interesting. Allen will be there. Allen has a slightly quicker temper than I do. And Allen gets angrier at my mother more than I do. This shall be interesting. Allen and I will have to go on several long hikes, just to rant. Which'll be nice, get us away from the family for a bit.

Working upstairs from a starbucks has made me a bit of a coffee snob.

I just found the BEST descriptor line EVER! ""Ms. Palmos, an adorable piranha of an agent, said she was driven to take even the most unfortunately placed properties partly out of financial desperation." I mean, holy crap! Adorable piranha of an agent! In an article about Real Estate! That's fantastic! (Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/nyregion/18appraisal.html?src=twt&twt=nytimes )

That amazing description just kinda made my day. That and Allen just brought me a sandwitch. And told me all about how hyper the kitten is. Aww, now I want to just go home and play.

Side note: I always get nervous when my bosses conviene in the front of the office and whisper.

Hour left of work. I am very happy about this. Now only an hour before my marathon writing day (and playing with the kitten).

Have I been talking about my kitten too much? Cause he's absolutely amazing. (kitten).

Tough times

Times are hard right now. I don't really want to elaborate.

So, instead of elaborating, I'm going to list all the things that help me not focus on it. Like the good things in life. The things that make me happy.

***
KITTENS! This weekend I might be getting a kitten. Or two. But the very idea of kittens makes me so incredibly happy. It's like a natural mood lifter. I get depressed, and I start looking at the cost of things and the kittens available...and I get so incredibly happy. It's silly and child-like, but with everything going on, it's so incredibly soothing to have a cat to pet. Or to see cats walk around and play. It's soothing for me.

In whittier, whenever I was upset, my cat (Chewie) always knew, and would always start cuddling with me as soon as she could. It helps.

****
Video games. Particularly mindless ones.

***
Chips and guacamole at work. Speaking of work, kookie and strange stories from my coworkers. As I am typing this, Andy is telling a story about how he moved to California and started playing Starcraft. He used the phrase "so I started training" and "then I triumphed."

***
One of my coworkers just said this "The animation was so raw, that's why it was great. Great and impactful." We were talking about Invader Zim.

***
We just walked to 7-11, and "it's been a hards day night" came on. I started singing, and coworker said "Hey, isn't this like the song from Rock Band"

***
Now we're arguing about Komodo dragons. Apparently they're very poisonous. Who knew?

Real time log of work

1:09 pm: Art coworker just asked what something meant on a wedding invitation.

1:16 pm: Bob just walked by, saw my cost of attendance for usc, and said "well, I thought you wanted to attend the school, not buy the property.

1:19 pm: There is a gaggle of really loud, kinda ghetto girls on the balcony outside my office. I kinda think that they are drunk. Or maybe just really really loud. It's echoing, like, seriously echoing through the cubicles. I feel like that should be a lot more poetic than it actually is. I also just came to the conclusion that I will have to work 3.5 hours today, then 5 hours tomorrow to make up for lost time. Note: Thursday and Fridays are my day off. This rocks.

1:41 pm: I have made the mistake of looking up kittens on craigslist. 0_o

1:47 pm: Okay, I need to stop looking up kittens. I don't need them right now. At all. Well, not until we move into the apartment. We're getting the keys today or tomorrow, but we can't move in for a little while, at least two weeks or so, so yeah. So I just have two weeks to wait to get a kitten. I can do that, right? (answer: probably not)

2:08 pm: My caterpillar is either dead or cocooning. Not sure which.

2:21 pm: Back looking at kittens. today is not a productive day at work.

2:42: The caterpillar is freaking out, like, majorly freaking out. And now covered in goo. It's either exploding or cocooning. Not sure which. Bree says it's pupating?

3:44 pm: I've actually had about an hours worth of work to do today. Yay.

4:01 pm: Ride's coming.

There be lots of things going on.

1. I'm graduating college this summer. Yes, I will be graduating from the University of California, Riverside with my Bachelors of Arts in Creative Writing with a dual emphasis in fiction and screenwriting. It took me 4 years, but I'm getting it done. I've learned so incredibly much in four years, most of it outside of the classroom. It's been rough at times, but I've learned so much. As I prepare to leave UCR, I've been evaluating who I want to keep in contact with as I start my career, and there's a surprisingly large number of people. And not necissarily the people who I thought would be on that list.
   
2. I'm going to grad school. USC. University of Southern California. Probably the best (or second best) school for Writing for Screen and TV. I am as intimidated as heck and as nervous as heck. 1000 people apply, they let in 32. wow. Holy crap. I was in the top 3.2% of applicants. That scares the shit out of me. What is my competition in the classes going to be? Also, I really don't like the price card. Who knows how much debt I'll be in at the end of this.
3. In a weird mixture of the two items above, I will be living in Riverside while going to grad school at USC. There are several VERY key reasons for this: a) With the cost of housing, I will be saving at minimum 500-700 dollars a month by living out here and taking the train. b) it is a high priority to me that I stay near Allen. Which leads me to the next bit of news, which will probably disappoint some people: I am moving in with Allen. BUT it's not just what you're thinking. We will be getting a 2 bedroom apartment, and have seperate rooms. And probably have two seperate locks on the doors, but that might be overkill.
4. In response to that, my parents are not happy. That probably goes without saying. They think that I will be living in sin and that no one would respect me or them anymore. I have my problems with this statement and assumption.
   
5. I'm planning two vacations. I'm doing one in July with Allen's family. A cruise to Alaska. Then, there's a small glimmer of a possibility of a roadtrip. To Maryland. Yes, a cross country roadtrip. With stops in Vegas, Colorado, Tulsa, and Chicago. And possibly Vidalia and Philidelphia as well. Holy crap. That would be so amazingly epic.
   
6. Friends are going through problems. I'm not going to fully divulge this, just that it is taking up a lot of emotional energy, and I am left with exhaustion at the end of each and every day. And it's not just one friend, it's many friends. Sometimes I find myself just having to cry to just deal with things. I don't like crying, and I feel silly, but sometimes things are just too much.
7. I signed up for a graduate level screenwriting course this quarter. And while it is awesome, it means I will be writing an average of 15 pages a week, in order to finish around 120 page screenplay by the end. And that, my friends, is a lot of work.

THIS MADE MY DAY

Well, it made my night. Well, it made it easier to sleep. After, you know, 2 am.

Allen: poke

me: poke

Allen: How be you?

1:28 AM me: insomniatic

and sleeeepy

Allen: I hugz you

I had my Arrogant Bastard, so I'm sleepy from alcohol

not drunk, but sleepy

me: heh

1:29 AM I went to bed at 11, got up again at 1

Allen: :p

me: 1:31 AM

oh! While at dinner with Patty, there was an episode of family guy playing, and it was from the first season, so all the voices were off

Allen: lol

me: it made me want to twitch

1:32 AM Allen: the digital work really makes the show

me: yeah, so do the voices. Meg was awful that season

1:34 AM Allen: thinking of you...

me: :)

miss ya

1:35 AM I'm getting really sleepy again

I'm gonna try to sleep

1:37 AM I love you

Allen: I love you too

1:38 AM me: talk to you tomorrow, and see you in two days!

Spring break

I am not good left alone. I feel so much better when I'm around people.

And not just, you know, at my computer at work. I have coworkers around, but not really. Everyone's doing work, no one's talking.

Tonight, I'm basically gonna be sitting home alone. Not looking forward to it.

****

Grad decisions are tough.