Long ago, back in… August of 2009, I posted consistently to this blog. The world was such a different place then that it’s hard to even remember how we lived. Conan O’Brien had job security, $100 bills were burned for their heat, and I was at the tail end of my recovery, trying to figure out where I wanted to go next (I may or may not have made up the $100 bill part, it was too long ago to remember). For one reason or another, obviously I stopped writing on here for a while. A lot has happened since then and even more will hopefully be happening soon, so let’s fill in the blanks and get this damn blog going again. I’m guessing that one person out there just might have checked the blog at some point. This is for you, random cat walking on somebody’s keyboard.  Read 

I wake up and realize that it is way too early for people to be moving around. I want nothing more than to sleep, but she has to go to work and this isn’t my place. Groggily, I get up and get my disheveled self together. We say our goodbyes and I get into my car at 7am. “What the Hell am I doing up anywhere near this hour?” I think to myself as I start driving and realize how tired I still am. I wouldn’t drive if I didn’t feel comfortable with my ability at that time, but that in no way means I’m in top racing conditions. As I drive the thirty minutes back to my house, I go into autopilot and look forward to sleeping in my bed for just a few more hours. Suddenly the car in front of me swerves from the fast lane into the carpool lane. I start to make some comment about jackass drivers when I see it, a parked car in the fast lane about 50 feet in front of me.  Read 

I started this series of posts last month and people seemed to like the first one, so let’s keep this going. I’m very into movies and find it amazing that there is so much garbage that we have to sift through in order to find actually entertaining films. This is my second post in a series that I hope will turn a few people on to some movies they may not have heard of. I’ll also talk about the first movie in this series that I went to see in theaters last week.  Read 

The door to my room swung open and my dad was standing there in a panic. It was four thirty in the morning and still dark out. He asked if my brother and I were alright and after we responded he told us to stand under our doorway in case of an aftershock. I was barely eight years old and my brother was only five. We had no idea what was going on at the time and didn’t know what to think. We were initially more annoyed than anything at being awake, but slowly as we heard more about what had happened we spent an entire morning scared and standing in a doorway in the dark. Unfortunately for other people that day, our morning had been much easier than theirs.  Read 

“You know this is how you’ll die,” I thought to myself. I was lying flat on my back on the carpet just outside of my bathroom, sweating and starting to worry. It was getting so hot that I would momentarily lose vision before shaking my head furiously to restore my sight. My stomach was a boiling vat of acid and I wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball, but I knew that would only make the overheating worse. I tried to calm myself, but when things start to scare me I breathe faster and shorter, I panic. I started gulping for air and once again I was doing the mental life checklist I had done so many times before. This was ten minutes ago.  Read 

If I ever turn into one of those bloggers that constantly whines about their significant other or why they feel fat that day, feel free to find interesting and creative ways to put me down. I try to generally talk about positive things on here because nobody wants to read the Real World thoughts of a girl pissed off that her roommates can’t do the dishes, OMFG! Or they do, but the people who read that aren’t my target audience anyways.  Read 

The door downstairs swung open and Brian knew that his dad was home for the day. Brian used to be able to tell that his dad was home before his car got there, either from his loud truck engine or the ‘dog alarm’ his dog erupted into whenever his dad arrived. Both of those were gone now. The dog ran through his days and the truck was replaced with a shiny new one, that somehow even with a larger engine, managed to be infinitely quieter. Now Brian couldn’t tell that his dad was home most days until that door downstairs swung open.  Read 

My parents have had a lakehouse south of Bakersfield, CA since before I was born. I’ve grown up there as much as I did in my hometown. I started skiing up there when I was 1½ years old, wakeboarding when I was 8, and I’ve been blowing things up for as long as I can remember. I’ve grown up with most of the kids there since we were all born and everyone is like family. With all of us getting older, going off to college, and generally becoming adults, we don’t see each other as often as we used to. One weekend, however, almost guarantees that we’ll all be at the lake at the same time, the 4th of July.  Read