I think the most my PaPaw has ever said to me (at least over the phone) was when he called to wish me a happy sixteenth birthday. After all the regular well-wishes, he added that I was "sweet sixteen and never been kissed." I distinctly remember feeling a bit affronted by that--slightly embarrassed, even--but I simply responded with an unashamed, "Yep! And no plans to change it anytime soon!" That's the last time I remember feeling that there was anything strange about my unkissed status. Of course I have crushed on guys (lots of guys) since then, and I've even wished for the opportunity to get much closer to some of those crushes; but I've never jumped so far into the wishing that I really hoped for a kiss from any of them... because there are so many other things I would want to happen, first.

For nine years I've just left it in the background as the expected succession to some futuristic, hypothetical relationship that will evolve less-than-gracefully from my deep friendship with some yet unmet individual. I've thought about it, sure--from a hypothetically futuristic daydream perspective--but it hasn't been anything I've craved. Until tonight.

Curse you, Ryan Reynolds!!!

I have never found that man attractive in any way, shape, or form... except for today, when I watched The Proposal. No lie, I tripped a little into his slightly teary puppy dog eyes and a little more into the cute way he (or rather, his character) stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, but I didn't actually melt until the finale kiss. Then, for the first time in almost a decade, I thought: "Hey. That looks fun."

It was a really nice-looking kiss.

And that's all I have to say.

(This temporary relapse into adolescence brought to you by: Ryan Reynolds, Dr. Pepper, and a very noticeable lack of sleep.)



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This journal is eight years old today. Insanity. I was 17 years old when I made it and working my second job EVER as a counselor at my church's summer camp. I taught the second graders, who were surprisingly mature compared to my recollections of maturity from a second grade perspective. I got my first tan ever that summer, because I spent each day sunburning over the previous day's sunburn for several weeks. I received a compliment that, for the first time, made me consider that I might actually have a gift for working with people and seeing the best in them. I realized how very young and insecure my faith was. I purposely misspelled things like "kewl" and "gurl" because I thought it was more fun. My nicknames were Charm and Kit Kat, though I think Sylver came into play shortly thereafter. My favorite colors were green and blue, and I felt my personality--which was much quieter and more sensitive--matched them. I was just a few short weeks away from finally learning to swallow pills, and I still spent just about all of my free time writing. I was still friends with some of the most amazing girls I'd ever met, and I thought we would be friends for the rest of our lives.

It's so strange how things change. Eight years doesn't seem like such a long time until I go back to look at things from the angle of my nail-biting, 17-year-old self. Now, instead of learning to paint on canvases, I'm learning to paint on faces. I aim not to misspell, though I've taken up inventing words. My favorite colors are yellow and orange, and yes, I feel my personality matches these. The summer tan did eventually go away, just as my old nicknames did... but I have new ones to replace them. Many people I expected to still be close to have since drifted from my life, as have others that came after; and my faith is still very young. Maybe that's the way it should be.




Tomorrow is move-in day at The Pirates League, and then it's just a short week until our grand opening! I'm so excited for what's around the corner, but it is just the littlest bit overwhelming. It makes me think about what I've come through, the awesome jobs and people I've lost touch with in moving forward. I'm excited, really excited! Yet I also wish things could stay exactly like they are now, because somewhere along the lines of time, I'm going to look back... and my feelings about RIGHT NOW will suddenly be my "eight years ago," and I will miss this more than words could explain.


(I attribute the random depth of this entry to having had far too much Dr. Pepper prior to writing it.)


"Through shadow, to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight."

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I love making new friends. Love it.






Also, I ate with chopsticks tonight and managed to make no messes! HEE!

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Make that four minutes. Because it somehow seems less disturbing if I can honestly say I made it to bed at least four hours before I need to wake up again. If I have to say, "I finally got to sleep less than our hours before it was time to wake up again," then that just sounds ridiculous.

It's entirely possible that spelling/grammar/actual English words may be corrupted in this entry due to lack of sleep and other sorts of insanity-inducing things.

Pirates League training is going well. I'm not as good at the looks as I'd like to be, but considering we'll be "checking out" over the next two days despite the fact that we just learned our final look today and that I've only practiced ONE of those looks on more than one individual, well... I could be doing a LOT worse, so I'm planning to just keep swimming!

I will say, however, that I feel I've caused my eyes more harm over the past few days than I have over a lifetime of not wearing eye makeup. Grrrrrrrrrr, black eyeliner is filled with such evil that is only surpassed with the pure diabolicalness (word? is now!) of black cake makeup. RAWR. I no longer want anything near my eyes EVER AGAIN. And done.

What else? I don't know what happened to me today. I was in the most fabulous mood, despite all sorts of sleep deprivation, and as the day wore on I found myself spiraling into a pit of anger, frustration, and depression. Those feelings only tend to overwhelm me once a blue moon (hahahahaha SO TIRED I am using lame-sauce clichés!!!! WIN AT LIFE!), but when they do, they fill me with ridiculous and inappropriate amounts of self-pity and -loathing. So that's what I spiralled into today, out of nowhere, and I feel very sorry for anyone I came into any sort of regular contact with, because I'm sure I wasn't the nicest person to be around this afternoon and evening.

Urg, I'm already seven minutes past my own personal goal, and I'm SURE I'm going to cringe at the lack of punctuation and SENSE in this entry sometime tomorrow... so I'm done now. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeepy time.


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Started training for The Pirates League on Monday, and part of our training today included creating a "pirate persona" with a backstory as to how we found our way into the pirates league. Although the names we selected won't be our official names (sadness), and I may or may not tweak (or even completely rewrite) my own story... I am still amused by what wrote during the class, so I'm recording it here.

( Give me a career as a buccaneer! )

During our class, we also had an "exercise" that required us to have a conversation with the wall for about five minutes. (It was meant to simulate the feeling of how we'd respond to a child/Guest who doesn't say anything to us during the makeover process.) It sounds strange, and it FELT strange, but I didn't have a hard time with it (you may a least attempt to feel surprised by this) aside from when someone was standing right next to me watching me do it.

In any case, I came up with a few fun yarns during my five minutes that I wanted to record, too, just in case I ever feel like using them again.

( Spinn' an' Weavin' )

Lalalala... I will probably add to this over time... but that be all fer now.

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I did the math (GASP) a few weeks back and realized that, although I've been statused to Entertainment for almost two years now (since September of '07), I have only actually worked there for a cummulative total of about 3-4 months. Oops? I think that's why I didn't have a hard time turning in my lanyard and costumes and walking away after my last shift yesterday. Between all the temporary assignments I was priveledged to experience over the last two years, I just didn't have the time to get attached to my actual home. There are still several Cast Members that I am sorry to be leaving, the ones who made all the coming and going between T.A's so much more bearable with their welcoming and friendly attitudes. Hopefull I'll still get to see them around.

I can't describe in words how excited I am to start training for Pirates League tomorrow. I've already described it as feeling like Christmas Eve, but it's really true, because I'm all jittery and waiting for time to pass more quickly. I'm still really sad about the fact that this is hurting my friend... I wish there was a happy balance that would allow me to be super-excited about things without feeling like I'm hurting her feelings whenever I say anything. I hope she doesn't think that.

I had things other than piratey things to write about here, but I've forgotten what, so here are random quiz thingies!

( I'm Neville! )

And to amuse me... ( Who comments the most on this journal? )

It kinda makes me laugh that almost half of them are mine. Lalalala...

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Percy is unwell. While I was burning songs off some of my CDs and onto my harddrive for the MegaAwesome Disney CD Set I was going to burn for my car, Windows Explorer randomly decided it wanted to reboot... over and over again. RAWR. I restarted Percy with no effect, but thankfully my web browser will stay open regardless of the Windows death/rebirth syndrome, so I did a bit of research. I found a few sites that blame this on Windows/Microsoft updates (which does not at all apply to me since I haven't recently installed any updates) and a few sites that blame this on spyware. I pulled up a few online virus/spyware scanners (CLEARLY Norton missed something here) and got them going.

So far, two have crashed. The third is still cooking, but it's only %20 done after going strong for about an hour. RAWR! (I RAWR! fully knowing that this is likely due to the fact that I take gadzillions of pictures and foolishly store them ALL on my harddrive.)

I suppose I could just go to sleep, but the fact that Phoenix!Explorer is still allowing me semi-constant internet access is functioning something like a dare to post in the midst of all this chaos. Dare accepted; here I am!

Of course, I actually don't have too much worth writing about beyond the sudden (and random) computer woes. I finally got the call back from my Pirate's League interview and will be starting on June 7! As excited as I am, though, I'm more concerned that my friend Natalie is the only one of us who went in for the interview together to not yet receive a call. I think this is a lot more hurtful to her than she's letting on, and I'm not sure how to make it right. :( There's still a chance she could be called, starting tomorrow and lasting right up until training, so I'm holding out for her.

Also, plans to see Up! after work on Friday, which is insane amounts of exciting! I still haven't seen Star Trek. Woe. :( :( :( But I'm hoping to drag a kicking and screaming convince Sami-chan to go see it soon... :D

Soooo think I'm going to sleep, now, and hope this is actually done scanning when I wake up. So frustrating. Stupid computers. But just like in the books, Percy should come around... eventually.


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It broke into several parts and now sits collecting dust. I've tried gluing it back together a few times, but the pieces are just slightly too porous, and I can't remember exactly how they joined so well in the first place. I haven't given up on it just yet, but I am afraid that by the time I find the right bond, the parts will be so damaged from my trying that they won't fit together again.

(Like us.)


Also, because I'll never be able to say this to your face: You're kind of acting like a selfish, juvenile idiot, and I'm tired of doing damage control for you. Grow up, and be a bit more careful of your words and actions.

(And yes, I am fully aware of the fact that I am so the pot to your kettle right now.)


For the record, I do know that it's possible (even likely) to sunburn when it's overcast. But can someone please explain to me how it's fair that I still sunburn when I'm standing in the pouring rain?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

(I feel I should be allowed this one, small misuse of punctuation to illustrate my frustration over being cold, wet, exhausted, AND sunburned.)


(I'm mostly done with parentheses, for now. Ish.)


Watched Bride Wars tonight and was once again slightly disappointed by a movie that had the potential to be pretty darn awesome. I enjoyed the plot, but its execution and development frustrated me at times. Plus, some of it was just plain hokey. Sure, it's a movie that caters to women... and sure, we can be totally hokey, too. But having a wedding-dress-chick-fight AT the actual wedding(s) was, I thought, completely unnecessary. Oh, and we so should have seen big brother concerned for sister's bff's forthcoming nuptials a bit sooner... but that involves that whole "development" thing again, so oh well.

Actually, I only bring this up because it sent me on a mini-net-surfing trip to look at wedding gowns, thus proving to me once again that my dream dress doesn't exist. Sigh. I'll sew it, one day. Well, if it ever becomes necessary. Hah hah, el oh el.

And to end this crazy ramble-fest? NO day can be bad when you spend even one brief moment of it coloring a picture of the Care Bears fluffing clouds, scattering multi-colored hearts, and painting rainbows in the sky. The end. :D

Sleeeeeeeeeepy now, and hoping for dreams of dry weather and buckets filled with rainbow paint!


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This is a work in progress.

( Happiness is... )

TBC


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Stumbled upon the following description for a new movie I wasn't aware that Disney had in the works:

Join producer Jerry Bruckheimer in his first 3-D film. The government must stop an evil billionaire's attempt of taking over the world with mere everyday appliances. With the help of guinea pigs (voiced by Penelope Cruz, Sam Rockwell, & Tracy Morgan) and a mole (voiced by Nicolas Cage), the government is able to start a covert operation to save the world and prove that size doesn't matter.

OMG.

I'm slightly affronted and ashamed. This seems a bit more promising, but we'll see.

What else can I write about? I interviewed for The Pirate's League last week and am really antsy to hear from Casting on this. It feels something like Christmas, and I'm the little girl desperate to find out if Santa's bringing her just what she always wanted. It seems no calls were made today, so maybe tomorrow!

When I woke up this morning, I had plans to go out and pamper myself with a haircut and maybe a pedicure. That was nine hours ago. The debate on whether or not to blow 50-100 dollars on this very blustery day is still raging within me, but I'm feeling so antsy that I do just want to get up and do something. Of course, that'd require getting dressed at some point, considering I'm still just slumming it in my PJs right now.

...Hey, rainy days are good for this sort of thing!

Tomorrow night's the going away party we GR T.A's decided to throw for ourselves. I'm excited about seeing everyone again; I've missed them tons these past two weeks. (I honestly can't believe it's only been about two weeks. It's felt like much longer!)

Sooooooo craving tacos and soda right now. Maybe I will get dressed and go treat myself. The rain's let up a bit now, anyway. Well, enough that I could get away with going out for a little while without getting completely drenched.

It's probably kind of pathetic that I sit here debating whether or not I want to go out and spend money on myself. Oh well.

Awesome quote I saw in an e-mail: "Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here, we might as well dance."


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