Community

Last week I went to the midnight showing of The Avengers.  It was amazing!  Since all the set up for the movie was done in the previous five movies, they didn't have to start out the movie explaning everything.  So instead it was like one big, giant fight scene.  Most of my friends don't like 3D movies, but I'm in love with them.  Never in my life have I actually jumped from a 3D effect before like they do in the advertisments, except I totally did for the Avengers.  There's a scene where Hawkeye jumps off a building, turns, and fires an arrow towards the camera.  I swear that arrow was coming straight for my face.  The movie was also hilarious in the just the right parts.


But this blog wasn't going to be a movie review.  I wanted to talk about the geek/nerd community.  And don't be offended by the word geek.  I use it not to set us apart from the rest of the world, but as a way to decribe a group of people who are all the same.  People who can come together because of their love for comic books or video games, even math or chess.


I dressed up as Iron Man for the premeire, and I have to say I missed the community I haven't been a part of for so long.  I got to work on the fun task of getting my costume ready.  I talked with my friends about how they were putting together their costumes, and help them out with theirs.  And as I was walking around Walmart in my costume, I even ran into someone who was trying to quickly come up with something so he could dress up like Thor.


At the premeire, lots of people took pictures of Michael and I.  Sarah didn't want to be in any pictures, so sadly I don't even have one of her.  But she dressed up as Black Widow.  I took a picture with some guy in a Captain America suit that I didn't even know.  The whole thing was just so much fun.  It makes me think that one of these times I should just save up money and actually go to Comic Con.  It's kind of surprising really that I haven't done it already.

Slacker

A tree stood just outside my apartment.  It was pretty big considering the trees we get around here.  But it was beautiful.  The trees were green and the leaves were spaced apart just right... kind of reminded me of The Lion King I guess.  I wanted to draw it, and I kept telling myself that I was going to as soon as I had some extra time.  But even if I had extra time, I'd put if off.  I'd make excuses.  Such as the light's not right or I'm too tired or I want ice cream.  Grant it, some of the excuses were good like Penny hasn't been on a walk in a while or I should clean my apartment.  But I never got to draw the tree.  The people who own the property next to my apartment took it down.  And the tree was so pretty too!  I didn't even take a picture.

So I've decided to do a lot more for myself, especially since everyone's going back to school.  If I leave my life to work, sleep, and Star Trek I will go insane... or at lease burn out.  I mean there are so many creative endeavors I have planned- about six story ideas, a painting of Penny, and a chalk drawing of the lilies my landlady had planted earlier in the year.  And I should really get on those.  I don't want another thing like the tree to happen... Sadly, I'm really good at saying I'm going to do something and then never do it.  So we'll see what happens.

Papa's Chair

When I was little my grandfather was one of my biggest heros.  I wanted to be just like him.  I'd sit in the basket of the hot air balloon and pretend to be a pilot or sit on the floor of my grandpa's workshop and play with scraps of wood and spare nails just like papa.  Things that I only used at his house were assicioated with him.  For example, salami was called papa's meat.  I still call it that sometimes.  Or papa's juice, which was some kind of orange flavored drink that my grandparents got from who knows where.  But one of my favorite things I came to associate with my papa was his chair.

It was an old, ridiculously comfy recliner.  The springs were broken in just right so that I could snuggle in it comfortably whenever my grandpa wasn't in it.  I don't know if I can really describe the color... brown with just a hint of purple maybe, and it had little black dots forming some sort of pattern.  It wasn't in the best place if you wanted to watch television, but you could still see the screen alright I guess.  But it was still my favorite spot to sit.  By the time they decided it was time to get a new chair, the thing had a faint smell of a mixture of sweat and propane.  Not disgusting, but just enough to remind me that this was my papa's chair.

I just about cried when I found out they were getting rid of it.  And they were just going to throw it away too!  Grant it, it was probably time to get a new one, but they could have stored it in the basement or in my grandpa's den or something.  My mom wouldn't even let take it over to our house.  It was so devesting.  That chair represented to much.  Maybe it was the memories behind it; I don't know.  But they did manage to replace it with a nice leather recliner that is slowly getting more comfortable as time goes on.

The Lost Blog

When I copied all of my blogs over, I missed a couple because areavoices was having some sort of melt down or something, but now it seems to be up and running just fine.  Here's one about Penny that didn't get put up.  God, I forgot how cute she was when she was a puppy.

MY <3 BELONGS TO A WELSH CORGI

7-21-10
I am sitting in the dark, staying up late, and waiting for a friend to come home.  Curled up beside my thigh is a small ball of fur named Penny.  She’s asleep now, like I should be.  Her little chest moves up and down as she breaths, but other than that she’s still.  Even as I gently run my fingers down her back, she doesn’t even flinch.  Her ears aren’t perked up like when she’s awake.  Instead, they are flopping down off to the side in relaxed exhaustion.

So far Penny is doing exactly what she is supposed to be doing.  She’s getting me up in the morning to feed her and walk her.  My day doesn’t end at four o’clock after I get off of work anymore.  Instead, I can go let Penny out of her kennel, run around with her outside, take her for walks, play tug of war, teach her to sit… the list goes on.  She’s so cute when she comes running up to me; I just melt.

She’s so playful, like most puppies I suppose.  But she bounces around and jumps to go like two steps to her ball.  It’s so adorable.  It’s also entertaining to watch her butt twitch when she’s excited.  It’s like she’s trying to wag the tail she doesn’t have.  Penny’s smart to.  She can already sit.  I’m so proud of her.  She can walk up and down steps.  She walks on a leash okay, and plays with Blitzen and Charlee.  It’s really fun to watch her herd them around the house.  It doesn’t work so well with that big German Shepherd though.

My mom says she hates to find out what I’ll be like when I have a baby because I keep talking about Penny like this.  I’m waiting for the exciting of a new puppy to fade and for me to be, "Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into?!"  So far she hasn’t completely destroyed anything.  I hope if she gets ahold of anything though that it’s mine and not one of my roommates.

As soon as Kelsey gets home I’ll join Penny and go to bed.  We’ll cuddle for a while until she decides she needs her space then she’ll find a cool spot on the hard floor.  Then at some point during the night I’ll wake up and she’ll be right back by my side again.  Kelsey took a picture of the two of us sleeping.  I like it.  I think there’s one of Blitzen and I like that too.

Trixie

I haven't written about my new car yet!  Ever since I was little, I've wanted a Beetle.  We went on a lot of car trips and the "slug bug" game was a favorite of mine.  Only we used to say "bug bug beetle bug no bugs back."  That's because some little kid in our family couldn't say it right.  That could have been me.  Anyway, it was one of my five dream cars, and now that dream has been made a reality... as long as I make all my car payments and it doesn't get taken away.

As you may have guessed, Sheryl broke down.  She was my first car- a grand am that was handed down to me by my mother.  Although, Sheryl never really belonged to me since my mom payed for the thing and it stayed in her name.  But my new Bug is my first real car.  It's a 2005 black one.  And I'm completely in love with it.  It makes delevery driving so much easier when I have a car that actually works.  And the gas millage doesn't hurt anything either.  It's so small I can park almost anywhere.  When I drive it feels like I'm driving in some huge bubble.  The back seat isn't very big, but my friend Sarah tells me it can seat one person quite nicely without feeling too cramped.

I went through a lot to come up with the name Trixie.  It's sort of after my favorite character from Harry Potter, Bellatrix Lestrange... but only sort of.  A friend of mine wanted me to name her Bellatrix, but I said it didn't fit.  The car just isn't totally crazy with a very strong evil side.  I went through a bunch of other names too- Zoey, Betty, Beatrice... Then one day I came up with Trixie, and I really liked it.  It eventually came down to a choice between Scooter and Trixie, but Scooter, as cute of a name as it may be, just didn't fit.  I decided later that Trixie could be short for Bellatrix.

As much as I love my car, I am worried for winter.  I can't imagine that bugs do great on ice.  A guy that came in to the Kegs one day told me to get these special tires and I should do just fine.  I also don't want to get stuck.  I mean, Trixie is pretty low to the ground.  But I love it, and I hope it lasts me a long time.  Right now I can't imagine having any other car besides a Bug for my entire life. 

Fireworks

This Fourth of July was interesting to say the least.  My day started off at seven o'clock when I opened for the first time at Jimmy John's as a PIC (person in charge).  That week we were getting ready for this huge special we were going to have on Thursday, so there was a lot that needed to get done.  And on top of that we had this gianormous truck shipment that had to be put away.  Thank god Shawn was there or I never would have got it put away on time.  I don't know how he made all of it fit, but somehow he did.  I do know that he had to take out the light bulb in the freezer to get all the bread to fit, but other than that the day went pretty smoothly.  I only made one mistake on the paperwork that was easily fixable.


After work Sarah and I went to go watch the fireworks.  I made the mistake of bringing Penny with.  That is one thing I will never attempt again.  See, last year she was just fine at the fireworks... she was also two months old and a lot easier to control.  This year she completely flipped out.  The poor thing was so scared.  Towards the end of the show, she slipped out of her collar and took off running away from the loud noises.  I took off running after her, but she was going really fast.  I've never seen her go so quick.  She must have been really freaked out.  Because it was at the end of fireworks, lots of people were already getting in their cars to go.  I was starting to panic because I thought she was going to get hit.  I'm so glad Sarah was with me.  She asked for some popcorn from some guy so that when we found Penny, who was hiding under a bush by my house, she coaxed her over with a treat.  Meanwhile, I was dealing with an asthma/panic attack- not fun.  I'm glad Penny was smart enough to run home or else we might never have found her.  After I got Penny inside and safe, we went over to Kaitlin's and she drove us around for a while in her car.  Then we went back to her place and had a bonfire.


I think I enjoyed the third more than the fourth.  The Hanson Christmas party was on the third and my mom and I drove out to Alexandria together.  We were at Phyllis and Vern's lake cabin.  I had wanted to go out to a lake so badly, and the weather was so nice that day.  I went tubing and just layed in the sun for a while.  I didn't do much swimming though.  It always takes me a while to get used to natural bodies of water... it never used to.  On our way back my mom and I stopped at a casino and I won eighty bucks.  I thought that was a pretty good deal.  It got me gas money that I desperately needed.


That night Annie, Sarah, and I went and shot off fireworks.  I had never actually done that before, so I was a bit nervous.  The only ones I could actually light were the fountain kind that I knew weren't going to blow up in my face.  There were times I panicked when ones were lit too.  I was already way far enough away before Annie would light it, but once it started going off I'd take off running more.  I'd get out about twice as far as Annie and Sarah were.  Better safe than sorry I guess, but it was still pretty funny.  The only thing I'd change is picking a different spot.  We were on a hard gravel road with lots of bumps and divets on it.  So we'd go to light something off, turns to run, trip, and then have to get up and run for our lives.


Once we ran out of fire crackers, we just sat on Annie's car and talked about whatever nonsense popped into our heads.  I got to learn a lot about Annie.  We watched to stars, even saw a couple of falling stars. I thought maybe there was a meteor shower or something that night since there were so many.  All in all it was a really good night.  I felt at peace with everything while we were just sitting there under the stars, the lake in front of us, tall grass all around while fireflies lit on and off.  I think it would be well worth it to spend the night there sometime.

The Fair

Last night I went to the county fair with a couple of friends.  I love fairs and I enjoyed myself a lot.  The past couple years I haven't been able to find people to go on all the rides with me.  And a couple of times I've had people puke on the ride with me.  But this year Sarah and Annie went on all the rides with me, and no one threw up.  Good deal.

I just think there's something magical about the fair.  And maybe it's just that it brings back childhood memories or something, but I really love everything about it.  The food.  The rides.  The lights.  The carnies.  While I was there I kept trying to write a poem about the magic of the fair, but nothing came right away and it's usually best not to force anything.

Oh, and I went through a petting zoo for the first time.  Yeah, I'm twenty one and it was my first time going through a petting zoo.  I was proud of myself though, I fed some of the animals and everything.  But a baby goat bit my thumb so I stopped that for a while.  There were some cute baby pigs with swishy tails.  I kept calling them Wilburs.

My favorite part of the fair is definitely the rides.  I love the adrenalin rush that comes with them.  Going on the ferris wheel at night is cool too, because you can look out over the whole fair grounds and see all the rides lit up and whizzing around.  When I go on the Kamakazi I always look towards the rest of the fair just as the ride flips upside down, and I get to watch the entire earth flip.  I just think it looks so cool.