Waiting for the end of work to roll by at work, I got into conversation with my co-worker, Nyan (just call him 9, he understands that ny-an can be hard to pronounce at first), about our old hangs, specifically a little hole in the wall bar called Cukoo’s Nest.

It’s a bar that nearly no one knows about, yet it’s popular enough that if you’ve been drinking for a while, you’ve probably been there once or twice.

It’s a dark hole, the main drinking room consisting of a small wooden dance floor, a few tables, a few booths an a bar. It has a second pool room attached to the other side of the bar. I used to do karaoke twice a week there.

Lo and behold, Nyan used to drink there too!

My mother was friends with the bartender, Mike, who in turn was Nyan’s basketball coach.

There was an old feller there that I used to call Uncle Carl (far from my real uncle, I came to know him a my uncle for how many times i used to visit that bar with my mother, sit on his knee [an action that would have a person for pedophillia quicker than you could blink these days] and down a few Shirley Temples and match my mothers BAC with my own Blood Sugar Level).

This same Uncle Carl was also an assistant coach to Nyan’s baseball team.

He began listing off people that I knew, and the world shrunk just that much smaller.

There was a Third Eye Blind concert that my friend James and I went to. My mother won the tickets off of the radio. James and I went after Pride at Elitches (six flags) and had the time of our life at that age when freedom was having your own drivers license (or in my views, a friend with a license).

Last year, chatting with Jake, who was my boyfriend at the time of our conversation, we found out that he had gone to the same concert and sat in the row in front of us, in the freaking SEATS in front of us.

I have high faith in the six degrees in the world, even if a place has to be considered for one degree.

In the past year alone, I have met Cassandra. She used to live with the drummer of-one of my favorite- bands Everybody Else…Everybody Else opened up a string of shows, and are besties with my favorite band, Hanson…she also links to them through the band Rooney, who’s opened and shared the stage with Hanson for this years tour. Cassandra and I went to the Rooney concert when they came to Colorado this year. She’s friends with Robert, Rooney’s lead singer. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet, and gives te best hugs. Oh, did I mention that Cassandra was living not more than 2 blocks from me at that time for months, and we would have never of met had it not been for Twitter? And that I knew her for a while before I knew any of te links?!

My mama, she’s Humphrey Bogarts (2nd? 3rd?) cousin.

My family lineage leads back to Edward Doty, who was a servant on one of the main Mayflower voyages.
–just this lone alone would easily give me a six degree to whoever may be reading this, right now!

No matter how many times I come across this phenomena, it never fails to blow my mind and have me noticing just how much of a small world this really is.

Xoxo!

Since I’ve started saying that years ago, I have noticed my slight need of hobbies increasing. With that, I have also noticed that if it keeps up, I’ll still never afford to have a child.

I’m ok with that, like you have no idea how ok with it I am.

When I was younger, I didn’t mind babysitting, or hanging around kids, but with the change of a generation, my views on children have become increasingly horrid.

I have yet to meet a kid that fits my standards.

Working at Claire’s, I noticed the change in my thinking right away. As I was around kids constantly then, there were only a handful that I could get away with actually liking.

Looking at the kids I work with today, they’re rude and inconsiderate, and just downright assholes.

Most people will blame it on parenting, but looking at the children that get busted for stealing, drinking, or putting graffiti on our walls, and their parents coming in with a full steamed head that don’t even wait to start beating their kid up until after they leave the office, I’m starting to believe it’s not the parents fault; weeks later, they’re back to doing it again.

I deal with teenagers on a daily basis who give ne attitude when I tell them to leave property because fornicating in our property is not how things are run. I deal with kids who think that replying to a text message is more important than answering a real bonefide cops question. I deal with kids who dress in barely any fabric, complain it’s cold outside yet refuse to wear a jacket.

I deal with kids who mouth off to their own parents, who destroy the malls property right in front of me, then tell me to ‘fuck off’ when I go to accompany them off property.

I deal with kids who thinking hanging out in an elevator is the thing to do on a Saturday night.

I deal with kids who think that being caught red handed is an excuse to deny everything, and try to run.

I deal with kids who do things I never even would have dreamed of doing at their age.

True, I’m only ten years older than they are, but I was raised in a different generation. My mother would have blistered my ass with half the stuff kids do here. And I would have listened, not wanting to be killed by her on the next go around.

I was raised to respect elders, tell the truth, and take my punishment with a strong chin.

If my kids are to grow up in an environment like this where parents can’t have controll over their kids, even going to jail for a spanking, then I don’t want any part of it.

I’ll foster a kid who’s a year or two away from 18, who would be thankful for a famiy, and would have good goals in life.

It’s been, seriously, a good five or six years since I’ve been able to ‘websurf’ and so far I’m lost. 

I remember a time when I could spend hours upon hours on the web, surfing anything and everything.  But now, those days are long gone.  Spent about ten minutes on Facebook, then surfed on over here to wordpress, and I’m trying to think of how to elaborate my websurfing so I dont go downstairs, pop in a movie and start knitting again.

I do need to get knitting though.  I need the backstock so I can set up my etsy account and as soon as I can get the backstock filled, I’ll be good to go.

Read my horoscope the other day, for the year, and everything it’s said for this year has so far come true, so I’m a little weary on starting my Etsy before June.  The ‘scope told me that I shouldn’t start anything big before then, and I’m pretty sure this ‘etsy’ deal counts as big. 

Work’s been going wonderfully.  Finally seems like things are beginning to be put into shape.  Chief has finally caught onto Pigpen’s smell (which has only gotten worse since the last time they had talked about hygene in the workplace).  He asked for us to give him a call, should he smell like that again, and today he surprisingly wasn’t all that smelly!  I know, right?

Caught six juveniles putting graffiti on the back of our Hobby Lobby/Party City building last night, so that filled up a good five hours of work.  First big catch like that in a few weeks.  Caught some more kids doing graffiti a few weeks ago behind the station, and had caught up with them off property, across the street at McDonalds.  Chief seems to be happy with both of those.  Only know Lary, our property manager is quite pleased himself.

I have been growing out my fingernails again for the past couple of weeks and so far, they’re pretty long.  Long enough to hinder my typing abilities, so right now I’m deciding on if I want to cut them down again.  I’d hate to see them go, even though I know they’ll grow back, but there’s just something about the sound of nails click, click, clicking away at my keyboard that is driving me batty, not to mention the amount of times I have to hit the backspace button because I hit another letter on accident. 

Choices, Choices, Choices.

<3,
XOXO!

It was confirmed when I walked into work and my Sergeant tells me they just caught two shoplifters from Claire’s and they were with LPD in the station. Though this is very exciting for us, catching teenaged criminals who think they’re the masterminds and would never get caught, I knew it was only just beginning.

After listening to Pigpen (who surprisingly didn’t smell as bad as he usually does) for 10 minutes repeat the account of one of the two’s mothers coming into the station to retrieve her daughter and basically ripping her a new one in front of her friend, the cops, and security. After sitting out with the teary-eyed offender and the LPD officers Johns and Thomas, and even after they all left, I was still certain something was going to happen. The feeling only grew stronger until 2000. (that’s 8pm for you non military time peeps), when the first call came in to stop door checks.

Every 5 minutes after that, for the next 2 hours EXACTLY, every 2-5 minutes, I’d be called for something, from a slip and fall to graffiti.

What really got my tauruaniean horns really going within that time was when Mrs. Klebba called for her sound complaint.

She’s called us for about 2 years now, complaining about the music too loud for her to sleep with her window open. She expects the bar, that’s been there before she moved in, to shut down. Funny thing is, she knew about the bar when she moved in, and knew it was going to get noisy. That’s the basis of living in Belmar; multi-million dollar lofts and condos on top of shoppette’s and offices, make you feel like you’re living right in the middle of the excitement.

Tonights sound complaint, however, was surprisingly not about Baker Street Pub and Grill, but rather, the sushi bar, Wasabi’s…my neighbors restaurant.

As if that wasn’t fighting grounds enough for me, I held back my remarks and continued the call as pleasantly as possible.

“good evening, mrs klebba. How can I help you today mrs klebba. I’m sorry the bass is disturbing your sleep mrs klebba, I’ll send one of my officers over there right away mrs klebba, good night mrs klebba…”

Soon enough, Simms, the “tall black man” officer, reports his location from the plaza where the sound complaint is coming from. He tells me that baker street is quiet and the skating rink barely has anyone on it. I tell him we need information from wasabi, he tells me to basically fuck wasabi, and continues giving me information from the rink and baker street. I tell him we need information from wasabi because she’ll be down tomorrow morning to look up the results. He tells me again that it’s the baker street information we need and to forget about wasabi…I ignored him. I wanted to go off on him, but I didn’t.

Before you know it, he has his ass in the dispatch room, and he’s continuing to explain to me why we could forget about wasabi’s info. I was yet again, reminding him that it was specifically WASABI that she had called about, and that she was going to be by the office tomorrow morning to look at the findings we did for WASABI, and see the sound reading we took for WASABI, and to see if the bass was playing at WASABI. I told him I knew why he had given my Bakers and the rinks information, but Klebba was only curious as to the things coming out of WASABI!!!!!!!!!

He looked at me, and told me wasabi didn’t have any music playing, but her window was open and that the rink and baker street were…

You get the picture.

Love simms to death, but honestly, when he starts using his claim to fame as a way to act snobbish, know-it-all-like, who doesn’t give a rats ass about his job or anyone else, I just want to spit!!! (He played for the Harlem Globe Trodders for a while back in his youth).

Honestly.

While she’s drinking, I change. My bedroom is anything, but nea and clean right now. That’s mostly because of my mama’s hypocratic ways. You see, if I leave my clothes in the dryer for any reason at all; be it they’re still wet, I’m tired and want to go to bed, going to work…etc…I get into trouble. I get into more trouble if I leave clothes in the washer. Folks I’m talking starting world war 3 kind of trouble. And I can count on one hand, with fingers left over how many times I’ve let clothes alone in the dryer in the past three years I’ve lived here.

My clothes are strewn over my floor, because my laundry hamper is over flowing with even more clothes. This is because, as I said, mamas a hypocriate who leaves her clothes in the washer and dryer for days at a time.

I used to fold them, and finish them for her, but after the last fight that started over me leaving clothes in the dryer to put through a second time because they were wet, I’ve stopped doing mamas laundry, therefore I haven’t had time to do a single load since the week before Christmas.

I have knitting stuff all over my room as well; from my month straight of knitting since thanksgiving. Though those supplies are neatly strewn over my room, packed in boxes, it’s still everywhere.

The funny thing about it, is I know exactly where everything is. I know my heart shoes are under that pile, the yarn I need is in that box, and anything else is strategically placed and remembered.

I noticed I had a drinking glass gone from my room; the one I keep in there for night time…well, my night time, so I don’t have to walk the mile it takes to get to the kitchen. For the past 3 years, I’ve had one in my room, and for the past three years, it always goes missing, turning up in the dishwasher later.

Now, I know that a missing glass is nothing to fret over or go snooping around to find ecause they know very well where it is. It is not in harms way, and is not in any way lost. So why would mama go sneaking through my room?

I’ve grown up with a mother who used to break the locks on my diaries to read what I had written inside, and then get mad when she’d read that I had written about her being a bitch for sneaking through my room and reading my diary.

I’m sick and tired, after 25 years of parents constantly going into my room and sneaking around!! I know she’s just going in there to grab my glass, but still, I feel violated. Do they not think that I am not going to switch it out if it’s dirty?

Are they searching for something else?like drugs maybe? Drugs that I’m obviously not on besides the occasional asprin or mydol? They aren’t going to find anything else besides that!

I cannot WAIT to move out of here. I’ll be 26 in four months, and yes, while I’m still living with my parents, I abide by their rules. They pay the bills, so I don’t complain about what they do to them, but I still paid rent! I think that’s a fair trade for a bit of privacy.

<3,
xoxo

Well here it is, the first day into 2010…second now if you want to get technical (four and a half hours into the second day precisely), and though it does feel new and shiny, I’m still shaking off the nerve of 2009.  It hasn’t been a very eventful day, really.  Just went to work, that’s about it.

Usually, a friday at work means actually working until about 11:30 pm, and taking it realitively easy the next couple of hours.  Today, however, there were no kids to chase, no drunks to fight, even the local cop we call in for extra security at my mall fell asleep in the parking lot in his cruiser!

I ate a nice mushroom burger with gouda cheese and friend onion rings today.  Made sure to make the first meal of 2010 a good one, and omg it was delish! 

Still have the last bit of my cold; sneezing and blowing my nose like crazy, but not near as bad as I was at first.  I can actually think clearly.  My nose, however, looks like it’s peeling from how much I’ve been blowing it.  I’ve gone through a box of kleenex in the past 2 days!

Well, as there’s not much exciting to write about, I’m going to log off and probably knit up a few things while my laundry’s finishing.  Hopefully I can get to bed by a decent time!

<3,
XOXO!

P.s.  Saw this video for the first time a few nights ago and it turned into one of my faves! Though it’s anything but new, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

My first resolution was to stop biting my finger nails, and in a little less than 19 hours, I can celebrate on that account.  I never much liked the taste of nail anyway, and glad to not put up with the pains of accidentially biting too much off.  Of course, with that, came less intrest in my playing violin or guitar.  I guess, now that I think about it, I enjoy listening to others play music, more than I enjoyed playing.  Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy to fiddle every now and again, but if I don’t have a pair of nail clippers near by, then forget it.

My second goal was to do a Walk.  Most of you who actually know me, already know what the Walk is and are probably screaming ‘Don’t talk about it, Jen! we’ve heard enough!!’  But for those of you who don’t know about it, The Walk (www.takethewalk.net and www.tomsshoes.com) is a charity that’s made possible by the band, Hanson, and Tom’s Shoes.  For every person who walks one mile, Hanson donates a dollar to Toms.  And for every pair of shoes purchased from Toms, a child in need gets a pair too.  So far, they’ve walked one and a half times around the world, and have donated more than 50,000 shoes.  The Walk doesn’t stop there, that dollar goes to five other causes besides giving shoes to a shoeless child.  Go, check them out, and add them to your new years resolution.  Just doing a walk (which is free), is really a life changing situation.  I walked one mile, barefoot, through snow with my best friend, Jozette, and that day will forever be with me.  One of the happiest moments in my life thus far.

The last resolution, I’ve been working on for more than a decade…even before the Internet was accessable to people in their homes.  You see, my dad had another son, five years before I was born, with another woman. As I was growing up, my mother and my dad would quite often talk about Josh and hoped that some day I would get to meet him.  I knew that Josh grew up in Bear Creek, which is the town to the south of Golden (the town I grew up in), and went to high school at one of my rival schools. 

Every year, I would ask my dad if he had heard any word from Tina (Josh’s mom), or Josh.  Every year I would hear ‘no.’  Every year I would ask to scout out Josh, but nothing would come of it.  I even wrote Oprah a letter once, explaining to her about my long-lost half brother I had never met, but knew about.  The only thing my dad had that proved he even existed was a baby picture.  I never heard back from Oprah.

Janurary 5th, 2009, I asked dad for some further information on Josh, and used Facebook and Myspace.  I found a Josh fitting the description daddy gave me, and wrote him.  For the next couple of hours, my dad, mama and I had kept our fingers crossed.  When the confirmation came that I had found my brother, we were over joyed.

My daddy hadn’t seen Josh for close to 30 years, let alone spoken a word with him, so that first email exchange between Josh and I nearly had me crying.  I don’t know why, Josh was a stranger to me, I’d never known him, only of his name, and wasn’t even sure that I’d like him.  However, he was my brother, by blood, and I was glad to have finally, after nearly 20 years of asking to know my brother, had found him.

Josh and I first met in person when I was working.  It was a chilly night, and he called me out of the blue saying he was at my mall.  Immediately we clicked, knowing just from little manerisms and similiarities we thought were our own, was shared by the both of us, and the brother-sister bond had been opened.

Out of work, Josh and his family invited me and my boyfriend out on their newly bought boat.  The second time I was able to get out on the lake with him, daddy and mama came along.  This was the first time in 30 years that Josh and Dad had met. 

If you’ve never felt the kind of happiness and fullness that comes after rekindling a family who hasn’t seen or heard from eachother in that long of a time, I highly suggest you help someone, if not yourself, do that.  I’m not married, nor do I have kids, but I have a feeling this will be the happiest day of my life, even after marriage and the like. 

19 hours left of 2009, I’m really not sure what to expect from this next year.  I haven’t really set any New Years resolutions for myself yet, except to learn how to speed knit.  I already know that in a few weeks, or days even, I will be living in a place of my own, instead of in the basement of my parents house…though I wish I could stay.  I’m not a fool.  Living with parents (if you get along with them, that is) is the smartest thing a kid can do.  Rent’s cheaper than an apartment.  As long as your working, its basically like living with friends.  At least here, with my parents it is.

I do think 2009 is the last year I try to rekindle my real mothers and my relationship.  For the past three years I’ve kept it at a Christmas Card and gift level, yet I have never received a card, or a call in return, all the while my mother keeps crying to my nana that I am not doing anything to try to make up to her, and all the while my nana crying to me asking me why I’m not trying to fix things between us.  Maybe this year they’ll understand that I don’t mix well with alcoholics? Haha.  <– That laugh is lighthearted. 

I think, 2010, I’m going to take it day by day, like I’ve started doing.  I’m going to continue to not bite my nails, hopefully set up my knitting shop on Etsy, or find a small store in my mall that would like to sell my things.  I hope to write more, as I accidentally happened upon old, unfinished Hanfics that I started a few years ago, and have written more of lately.  I hope to continue building stronger bonds with the friends and family in my life today, and I am determined to keep Walking. 

As for those of you reading this blog, I hope your New Years turns out excellent, and may this year be blessed for you and yours!

<3,
Xoxo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwGFxVX6uwg

I replied ‘I’ve never taken a lunch. It’s been forever since I’ve had a lunch break. In fact it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten how to take a lunch!’

Got to thinking about the truth in that, and it’s been a good 4 years since I’ve had a lunch break. Or rather, been sent on one.

My last lunch break would have happened in 2005 when I was working at Perkins as a hostess. My job after that, when I moved to Virginia for 4 months, was as a sandwich master at Subway, and a waitress at a nice little pizza place called Atlas Pizza, both of which were between 4-6 hour shifts, and therefore, unneccessary for lunch breaks.

When I came back from Va, I worked in a gym as the receptionist, and though I worked 8-12 hour shifts, I worked straight through my lunches because we were short handed, so between computer work and pressing the buzzer to let them in, I would take bites from the Villiage Inn or coffee shop food that we would order from on occassion. Sometimes I didn’t even eat!

At Claire’s, after moving to Lakewood, I would mostly work a shift alone, and wasn’t able to leave the store; even my short breaks were cut shorter from answering phones, or customers walking in, so lunch breaks there were nil.

Pier 1 worked me 4 hours a day, sometimes I’d be lucky to grab a double, but when those doubles came, I always had a few hours inbetween, so that’s not really considered a lunch break.

In security, sure I’ll take lunchbreak…the whole day! We only really work when something goes on and that changes from day to day, but I don’t announce that I’m on an official lunch break, going to a call in the middle of it, and continuing it after everything has slowed down. In dispatch, I’ll eat as I work, only calling for breaks when I need a cigarette, or to run and get food from the fast food places right across the street.

And because I’ve forgotten how to take a lunch break, I figured I’d write a blog about it, to fill in my 30 minutes, and get my mind off of it. Now that I think about it, I really don’t care for lunch breaks. It’s boring. All I’m doing is sitting here, outside, in the cold, looking like a chimney as I continuously take puffs from cigarettes I should only be smoking every couple of hours.

<3,
xoxo!

I tried for NaNoWriMo, but only got 28,000 words written. For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for national November writing month, in which, thousands of people try to write a novel, or 50,000 words in the month of November. That was exciting.

World war 3 nearly broke out at my house because of a laundry mishap and me walking from the bathroom to my bedroom in a towel. The outcome of that? I got kicked out of the house. I have to start searching for a place by the first of the year. I don’t mind though, I’ve over stayed my welcome and was just basically waiting for the kick out to happen lol. I’m not stupid, I’ll take advantage of $400 rent here without utilities anyday, but now it’s time to husstle.

My brother and his family came over for thanksgiving bumping our guest count up to 16 people. That was really nice. My dad and brother haven’t spent a thanksgiving together in 30 years! So it was a real joy to have the family together. Not to mention, finding out that our family line leads back to the first Mayflower voyage, thanksgiving this year had a whole different meaning to us.

Besides that, everything else is pretty much the same. Job’s going as stressfully as can be and I’m loving it, my life is beautiful, and I am wishing your hollidays will be grand! Time to get working on my Christmas gifts (handmaking all of them, have 20 people to make for and only have 2 things done..eek!)

<3,
xoxo!

True he can be a grouch sometimes, but it’s only to be expected.

This year we got him a looper. For those of you who don’t know, a looper is a machine that allows one musician, or a few of them depending on what you’re going for, to play a section of music, hit a pedal, and it will playback the section it recorded, while at the same time, recording another track on top of it, so on and so fourth.

Just using your voice as sound effects with the looper can turn out hillarious tracks. Just the other night it sounded like there was a rainforest in my basement!

I’ll be taking him and mama to DQ in a little bit so we can get ice cream.

It’s nothing much for a birthday, but we are spending time together and in the end, that’s all that matters. I love you daddy! Happy birthday!

<3,
xoxo