Patience Please

I've been writing by hand lately so I have a notebook full of things that need sorted out and posting. Check back Thursday (if it's not up by then I'm being lazy) for new and exciting posts!

Nature: Second Only to Human Desire to Master it or Why Bears Don't Make Good Pets

So I got a text message today. It's not a first but it was interesting. It asked if I had gotten the news, I replied that I hadn't because if I had I wouldn't have been utterly bewildered at what news it could be. Then I got a response to my reply, and I feel a bit bad about my reaction here guys, the text said "Max passed away, he was killed by a bear." In my head I'm like: who is this Max?? And after running though a list of people Max is not I realize a second before asking my sister, who seems upset, who he is it smacks me in the face (too soon?) Max is-was one of my father's cats. He was a 25 pound orange cat with paws the size of my palm and fur so long and soft.

And he's dead. Killed by a bear. This isn't surprising though, my dad lives in the mountains with black bears. He has, for as long as he's lived there, thought of them of giant wild pets, feeding them (illegal) and getting unreasonably close to them (stupid). Recently my dad decided that his four kitties were outside eligible, all of them were raised indoors (stupid) and two of them are declawed (inhumane). Mind you outside cats get fed outside. Bears have been counting on food from my dad's front porch for a few years now-- are you getting where this is going?

So now my dad has a permit to kill the bear and my sisters all we're going to make a rug out of you m***er-f***er (is there a hyphen in that?). So the bear will get it and all will rejoice.

Am I the only one seeing the injustice here? Animal cruelty perhaps? What I'm saying is that killing a wild animal for competing for its food (natural) seems rather unreasonable. Also putting cat food on the front porch might be good for the cats but in a place where you can't store trash outside or food wrappers in your car why would you leave food where the bears could compete for it? Why would you put inside cats outside? Why would you put pets where they could become prey for coyotes (they eat cats too) and bears (though he wasn't prey from what I understand, he was an obstetrical)?

So my friends, I'm thinking that given the amount of criticism I receive for ragging on the family I will not go too far with my judgement of my father. I will only say that occasionally one gets what is coming to him. And if there is a God then he will make a special case of reincarnation to the swell fella I call Dad.

Sleep Deprived and Accident Prone

I shouldn't whine about working, as I continuously chant my mantra "Happy to have a job." But the news says things are turning around and all I'm seeing is more of the same thing. Also, working all the time has made me a bit short and craven of routine (I just wanted Monday to be like Monday, is that so hard to do?). My seven day a week schedule has me so messed up by 8:30 PM I'm staring waiting for the clock to strike an appropriate sleep hour.

Even with seven or so hours of sleep a night I've become accident prone. We have the ankle/screw injury obtained at work, yesterday a mysterious crescent shaped laceration appeared on my palm (today it is purple and really sore), and then this morning in the shower I discovered a long bloody gash down the back of my right arm. It had scabbed so it wasn't terribly fresh, but with the exception of the short time it took me to get into my pjs yesterday I had been in long sleeves for 24 plus hours.

I fear my car is next or I'll lose an eye. I've turned into a weepy mess any time I'm alone but I'm agitated when people are around. Every night I sit on the couch and turn on the tele thinking it's Thursday. No lie, Monday I even asked my younger sister why the normal Thursday programming wasn't on.

I now know why there are people who drink heavily everyday. I can't, my jeans are a large enough size as is, but the idea of continuing on like this is disheartening, the future is bleak. Basically I fear I've dug myself into a hole of resignation and will live there working two part-time jobs, living with my mother and lamenting both of these things for the rest of my life.

Some days this fear is motivation, some it is just the opposite but I need a change, if only to keep my mystery injuries at bay.

Flying Flags

Today as I drove to the most beloved Target for socks, which I didn't end up buying, I passed the outlet mall where two of the four sets of flags were at half-staff. This puzzled me for a few reasons: 1. not all four sets were lowered and 2. all the other flags I passed throughout my day were fully raised.

I could think of a few reasons for the flags to be lowered, Japan and Frank Buckles being the most obvious, but with none of the government flags down I was left to worry about the safety of the outlet mall.

Alright, alright you caught me, I wasn't worried about the outlet mall, I know that until the day I find a "real" job that mall will be just fine. But it is a reoccurring pattern and it is cause for alarm. I'm not heavy into traditions but I have some respect, and coming from a generation that is lost with and without them I feel that traditions need to be kept in place so that we can be anchored in something (reading Super Sad True Love Story may be influencing me a bit at this point). The lack of understanding, or caring, that the outlet mall has is, for lack of a better adjective, sad. Lazily raising the flag is piteous, management letting it fly, disgusting.

And before you suggest I do something about it, I have been considering how to go about this. The problem with the outlet mall is that it as an entity is evil. I am only exaggerating a little, the reality is mall management doesn't respect the people who work for them or the stores that keep them in jobs. The security guys do more chatting, smoking, spitting and eating than securing. The maintenance guys do their jobs more or less and fairly well at that, so why do they keep messing up the flags?

Tell me mall management, why?

My Voice

In every writing class, lit class or general English class I have taken since eighth grade there has been one message that has sprung up: As a writer you must find your voice.

Having read an infinite number of written works I can tell that it is more of a challenge for some people than it is for others. Those two-best-sellers-a-year novelists have voices so strong that their voice alone can carry an entire 700 page book. Some of the writers for the free, local newspaper struggle weekly, I can tell without having ever encountered these people in a writing capacity.

I have a voice. It's a bit of a unique thing, it can be very strong, boisterous and arrogant at times, and flat and weak at others. The potential problem with my voice is, and this is being written spur of the cuff, that like me my voice is sarcastic to hide any flaws, it is uncomfortable in more serious settings. My voice can fake it but, and from now on my voice has become its own entity, it knows that at any second the jig is up.

Just last night I was helping a friend create her wedding website, she asked me to make it lighter, and seeing as that is where I am most comfortable, I obliged. It is very funny and everything I wrote received her seal of approval but she was already putting down the comments about this type of laughable, lightness being frowned upon. I didn't waiver in my attempts at hilarity (which is by no means to say I am a comedy writer) but I do kind of worry that the things I say will make her look silly. One of our mutual friends read the site after I took hold of it and immediately knew that I had contributed to the site.

I am glad for the recognition of my voice. I am glad for the opportunity to lend my voice to a friend. But I'm afraid that my voice is going to close the lid of the little box I have created with it.

And it is that fear that has kept me from writing poetry for the last year. Tomorrow, because I am very tired tonight, I will sit down and write the way I used to do. I will literally put pen to paper and have at it until I am drained. I will keep this up whenever I have the time so that my voice grows. It has to be less scared among the adults. It has to stand in the sun without fear of being burned, even though some burning is inevitable.

Boomerang Explained

As a child among all the bats and balls my brother, sisters and I had a pink plastic boomerang. As I was never adept at throwing it it held little more power than a frisbee and though I remember having it it definitely was not one of toys that I mourned when my mother gave it away long after my siblings and I had out grown it.

It wasn't even within my grasp when I threw that hunk of plastic that one day I would become the very thing that frustrated me. I am now a boomerang. I returned home over a year ago after being flung into the world. My brother and I have both landed home displaced and dissatisfied several times but he manages to get flung back out for short bits where as my temporary stay at home has me more a one-winged bird, flightless and hopping, than a boomerang. I have suffered a few setbacks, financially, emotionally and in some ways socially in the last year as I've been poised to be flung into the world but at home I sit.

I joke about it with my mother, telling her as she goes on dates to make sure to mention me quickly and often for it is always good for potential suiters to know what kind of weapons she has waiting at home. All joking aside she's ready for me to leave and I am too. It was 14 months ago when I unpacked my things into my youngest sister's room, unaltered from when she had left it for my bigger and more maturely decorated bedroom. My stay was supposed to be temporary. The room I live in still lacks any sense of me, because I am a guest in my own home, one who has overstayed her welcome but a guest nonetheless.

I had a few exciting moments in the beginning, I did a short internship and kind of fell in love with magazines. Not long after it ended I had an interview that looked promising, I was asked back for a second interview and the day before that interview took place I received an email explaining that I was no longer in the running for the job, they had hired internally. I was down trodden but given the economic clime and the other person's time invested I chalked up to experience and continued applying to two to five jobs a day. I had a few more interviews all without call backs of any nature, not even "Thanks but no thanks" emails. And as my one year home mark came into view I became very discouraged by the whole thing.

Though I have not given up completely I have changed gears, school is looking more and more interesting though it is still financially impossible. I have taken a second job to help cope with my finances and after only a month the clouds are beginning to break and I can feel the rays of hope warming the air around me. All sappy metaphors aside as much as I'm enjoying my new job it still stings of failure.

My plan is to suck it up a bit longer and put myself out there a little bit more.

Here's to hoping it works.