THE DREAMS ARE BACK...WITH A VENGEANCE!

Wow. I had the strangest dream last night. It's surprising, because for the last two months or so, I haven't had that many memorable dreams. I have always had such vivid dreams that it became a joke in my family that I would spend whole mornings telling people about them, but lately I haven't been able to remember any of them.

Last night changed that!

Far be it from me to bore you all with every minute detail, but I will give you an overview. First some background!

There was a spider in our mail yesterday. Not just a little one, either, and I didn't realize it until I was leafing through it in the car. I move over a Netflix envelope and Shelob runs out from under it. There are many words that describe the surprise of finding a spider in your mail, but none of them are appropriate to put in a blog read by several of my beloved church family! So I throw the mail to the floor of the passenger side and begin beating it, hoping to smash the spider in between the Alabama Baptist and the book of coupons. I pulled the mail back, piece by piece, but didn't find the mangled remains of the spider. This caused be some concern because I didn't want to driving along one day and suddenly have a bug on me somewhere! So I began searching in earnest, and it wasn't until I was about to give up, when I noticed the big spider sitting on my gear knob (that I had just been bending over) watching me! *BLECK!* Needless to say, I grabbed some piece of mail and sqashed Mr. Spider. Ew. I have a nameless dread of all things creepy and crawly, and although I have learned to kill spiders, that is all I can bring myself to do. So, anyway, I believe this is the basis for my bizarre dream.

I dreamed I wasn't married (no that's not the scary part) and lived in a community of people who worked at a nearby college. I was dating some guy who was working in genetics, and had a fondness for splicing animal genes to make new and exciting (and as it turns out very dangerous) critters. The first thing that I came across was some kind of lobster-person-bat-scorpion thing that skittered around the room like a big spider. It tried to kill me with it's big stinger. It was horribly disgusting, and I can't do justice by just describing it. I could get away from it, but it was always after me! Boyfriend (cause I'd never seen him before and don't know his name) kept having to chase it down and trap it inside a plastic bag. He assured me it was harmless and he'd take care of it. He lied. Later I kept seeing him with all of these other weird and deformed animals, each of them dangerous and trying to kill people. I found out later that it wasn't just the gene splicing he was playing with, he had developed some kind of liquid that accelerated gene mutation and would cause these animals to go crazy. Boyfriend apparently had accidentally ingested some of whatever it was and went Dr. Jeckel & Mr. Hyde on us. Me, and one of boyfriend's friends, had to get away from him because where the animals were just sort of mindlessly killing, he could think! We had to hide in the college. It finally got so bad that a bunch of people had to barracade themselves inside a lecture hall. There was more, but that is the gist.

The dream, although scary AND which would make a fairly decent B grade SciFi channel movie, wasn't the weirdest part.

I woke up after having this dream. I knew I'd been tossing and turning and gernerally not resting well, but I didn't stay awake for long. When I went back to sleep, my brain gave me a RECAP of the dream and then went on to finish it! Not only did I have a wild dream for the first time in a million years, but now my dreams are starting out like episodes of Battlestar Galactica! "Previously in Kelly's Dreams..."

Anyways, just thought I'd share!

Going to class in the fine arts building is an interesting study in sociology. Giving yet another proof of the old cliche "Never judge a book by it's cover", the students I come in contact with from day to day are mostly unclassifiable. I mean, sure, you have the goth/emo kids who painfully dress as mismatched as possible in the effort to look as if they woke up and threw on the first thing that they found bunched up in the bottom of their closets (but you know they probably tried on AT LEAST three different sarcastic Hot-Topic t-shirts before they found the right one) and the soroity girls who have so many Greek letters on them that you start feeling as if your on vacation at the Parthanon. However, it's the ones you can't quite figure out that are so interesting.

Take for instance the guys I've met in my trek through UAH. I can never tell who I should avoid and who is going to end up being a friend. You've got the blue-haired, tattooed guy with the facial piercings and the t-shirt that says "Satan is my Homeboy" who ends up being a sweet, gentle soul who holds doors open for you and talks about his cat like it's his child. Then you have the well groomed, Abercrombie & Fitch poster boy with the Jesus fish on his car who you overhear talking about being wasted all weekend and who will all but knock you down to get into the elevator before you do. The chicks are pretty much the same. The scary lesbian with the mullet ends up being the nice one and the little, blonde, twinset lady with her little, blonde, bow wearing daughter ends up being the one who shouts at you for your Christian beliefs and makes the weird art with images of women giving birth that-she-took-herself!

I'm not sure why this is something I've never noticed, or never really thought about, before. Do you?

Now I've pretty much heard everything.

Did you know that they have a MySpace type website for your dogs? You put in their picture and their bio and they can even make "pals" with other dogs. You can even give your dog a blog if you are so inclined. I think you can even sign up cats!

Of course I signed up, are you nuts?! Here are the pages for Butler and Bear. If you sign up your pet, make sure to send a "pal" request.

Don't judge me.

After this weekend, I feel as if I should be in traction.

All in all, the weekend was almost uneventful. I slept a lot, listened to "Pride and Prejudice" on the iPod and did the dishes. I've also become violently addicted to Tetris, which Steve installed on my PC. I can't stop playing it! I've turned into the "Just one more game and I"ll stop" person. Sad, I know.

Very exciting stuff, no? :0)


Actually, I had a rather relaxing weekend except for two things.

Saturday I was at my desk in my office. Both of my big computers are on one desk, so it's easy for me to transfer images and files without having to run across the room. I was doing something (can't remember what) and I rolled my chair from one computer to the other. I grabbed the edge of the desk to pull myself back to the first computer and somehow the leg of my chair caught on something and I went over. Hard.

*I'll stop here for a moment so you can giggle.*

Had I not been holding on to the edge of the desk when I fell, I'm pretty sure I would have been badly hurt, but I ended up catching myself before my head hit the floor. The rest of me wasn't that lucky. Imagine, if you will, hearing a loud "THUMP" and walking into the room to see someone lying on the floor, one leg caught on the chair and the other flung over into a box of art supplies, one arm on a pile of books and the other hanging onto the edge of the desk for dear life. Then add in some whimpering, and that is what Steve saw when he ran into the room to see what the sound was. I'll give him credit, he did show concern and try to help me up before he laughed! :) I actually had to lay there for a few minutes to make sure I hadn't damaged anything important. I did manage to pull the muscles in my left arm catching myself on the desk and I hit my tailbone on the arm of the chair when everything hit the floor, but other than that, I nothing was damaged but my pride. Steve stopped laughing long enough to help me up and I limped around the house for a while. I eventually did lay down for a bit once the stuff I hurt caught up with me, but it wasn't so terrible. I did, however, end up flling asleep and not waking up in time to make a dinner date we had with our friends. :( Later that evening there was a wonderful thunder storm, so I got to fall asleep listening to the rain. Gotta love that!

Sunday when I woke up, I was more sore than I thought I'd be, but it still wasn't that bad. Our church picnic was that day, so I spent the morning at church running back and forth between cooking and doing my secretary stuff. The picnic was a big success. Not as many people showed up as we thought, but it was mainly because it had been raining earlier that morning, and I suppose not everyone thought a rainy picnic would be that fun. Fortunately the rain stopped and the day was cloudy, but otherwise lovely. I took a lot of pictures and played 4 games of vollyball! That is where I hurt myself the second time this weekend. I'm a decent vollyball player, but I don't get to play hat often. In fact, I haven't really done much of anything that active since school started. Since there were a few people batting the ball around, and the sides were uneven, I joined the side with not enough players and we started a game. It was really fun, but I ended up hitting the ground as much as I hit the ball. I like to throw myself into vollyball (plus, I'm clumsy). Out of the 4 games we played, my team won three of them! Playing helped to work out the kinks of my fall the day before, but it gave me a whole new set of kinks that I didn't realize I was going to have! I was so tired by the time we got home, I fell asleep for a little while and when I woke up I could barely move! That pretty much proved that I need to move around more! :P

Steve and I watched "Empire Strikes Back" (again) while we had dinner. Apparently Star Wars has new DVDs out that have the original versions of the movies on them. The whole "Han Shot First" thing and no Jabba the Hutt in the first movie and all of that. I was confused as to why Steve wanted the movies since he already has the original versions of the movies on VHS. When I asked him, I got a dissertation about how these are the original versions without the added scenes in, PLUS the fact that they are on DVD rather than VHS and yoda, yadda, yadda. I think I finally pieced it together in a way I can understand.

Seems to me that it's like having 3 pairs of the same shoes. One pair is the original pair you bought. Then you have a pair in the same color, but with a shiny gold buckle added on. THEN you get another pair, just like the first pair you owned, but newer and no scuff marks. I hope that's close, because after we talked about it for a while, I just got more confused.

I looked out of the window this morning and saw that the sky was overcast, throwing the world into a dim, shadowless, somewhat two dimensional vista. I like to think of this as "Super Villian" weather. I can picture someone standing on a roof in the strong wind, hair whipping around, looking over the world and trying to decide what the best way to take over the government would be.

Of course, then the rain started and all of that disappeared. Then it was just your normal, everyday, rainy weather. I had to run outside and get the dogs. They had spiky mullets when they came back inside. Butler really hates having a dog-mullet!

Not much has been going on here lately, just school and work. I've got to write yet another stupid research paper this semester. This one will be about the Boscoreale treasure. Yeah, I'd never heard of it either, but the teacher nixed the other two subjects I had pitched and took pity by pretty much assigning that topic to me. Heck, I'm not going to complain about that! At least now I have a direction to go. Of course, I will also have to sequester myself for most of the semester to get the dumb paper done. There is not much I dislike more than research papers for this teacher. The woman knows EVERYTHING, and doesn't let you BS too much. SIGH. Otherwise, I really like Ancient Roman art history so far. My graphics course has been interesting. Our next project is creating elements for an Annual Report for a public company. I'm going to be doing one for Starbucks. Unfortunately another girl in my class is also going to be doing Starbucks, so I hope she doesn't make me look too bad!

I officially R.S.V.P-ed to my 10 year class reunion yesterday. I wasn't going to go, but someone who will remain nameless (but her initials are SARA ULTZ) guilted me into going. She'd make a wonderful Jewish mother. I'm sure it will be fun. Yes. Yes it will. Got to keep saying that to myself.

Our air conditioning has been out on our floor for a week. We don't rate high enough in importantce to get it fixed right away, so we've had to leave the roof access doors open all day. The trouble with that is if it's humid, it's humid in our offices, it's only as cool as the outside temperature, and the main door to our entrance will periodically open and slam shut depending on the wind. Scares the life out of you if you think you're up here alone! : )

Oooh! Speaking of scaring the life out of you! The other day I was doing some sketches and I was listening to an audio book on my iPod. It was a story by Stephen King called "The Mist" and instead of being read straight from the book itself, it was acted out like one of those old radio shows. I've read the story a million times and always thought it was a little silly, but hearing it acted out made it really kind of scary! I was so intent on my sketches and listening to the story that when on of my co-workers walked in and knocked on my door, he scared the crap out of me. Now I can better understand the issue with "War of the Worlds!"

My tongue still hurts from Tuesday, by the way.

That is all.

OY!

Sorry to disgust you so terribly, but I have to tell you what I did this morning.

I was sitting at my desk eating a bagel and out of nowhere I chomped down on my tongue!

I didn't just bite it either, I took a chunk out of it! It hurt so bad that my whole face went numb for a few seconds before the pain came. Then like the genius I am, I thought that by taking a drink of my juice would help. It might have worked if I hadn't been drinking orange juice! Oh, yes, let's pour citric acid on the newly aquired hole in my tongue. Gosh almighty! I think I said curse words that haven't even been invented yet...loudly.

Then it started bleeding like no one's business. It bled all down the side of my face. I had to wrap a napkin around my tongue to keep myself from bleeding to death. I looked like that kid from "The Christmas Story" who stuck his tongue to the flag pole.

It finally stopped bleeding, but now it hurts like...well, it hurts alot.

That is all.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRG! Happy National Talk-Like-a-Pirate-Day!

You lubbers...

; )

PRECIOUS MEMORIES

OK. Several months ago I told you about my friend who was in the band that I would go to see at the Coffee Tree. Every night that I was there, he would sing the song "Trashy Women" in my honor because of the line about the date for the senior prom.

Well, I finally have conclusive proof that I was NOT, in fact, a trashy woman, nor did I wear a Dolly Parton wig.

Behold! Oh, and try not to go blind from the cuteness!



Okay, now, let's ignore the fact that my date looked like Ritchie Cunningham and I could wrap my arm around him twice. He was the son of my FFA teacher. It was actually his senior prom because I was only 16 at the time. We had actually broken up a couple of weeks before this and he was dating someone else, but I had already bought my dress and he was too scared to tell me he wanted to take his new girlfriend. Could you blame him? I could have snapped him like a twig! ; )

First off, look how skinny I was! Of course, I thought I was a cow, but I think most 16 year old girls think that at some point in time. My dress was so uncomfortable. When we went out to dinner, I ordered ribs. Don't have a clue what I was thinking, but luckily I didn't get anything on me. :) I was ROCKING that sideways pony-tail thing, wasn't I? Although you can't see them, I had on silver shoes (OMG, silver shoes) and I thought I was the stuff. However, I am perfectly certain that I didn't look trashy at all. You can give me your opinion, though. :)

Anyway, I just thought I would share.

Elmer Fudd Ain't Got Nothing On Us!

Saturday night I was sitting in the living room reading when Steve opened the garage door and called for me. The way he sounded, I thought I was going to have to go kill a spider or something, so I steeled myself and walked into the garage.

When I asked what it was, he pointed behind the dog food container and said "Bunny!" Sure enough, there was this tiny, perfect, sweet little brown bunny hiding back there. As Steve and Josh sat outside, it had apparently hopped in and realized it was boned. There was no place for it to go once we spotted it. Since we like bunnies and didn't want it to die hiding from us, we had the bright idea to scare it out of the back door so that it could go on it's merry way while the dogs were inside sleeping. I grabbed the "Going Outside Stick" better known to everyone else as "the Broom" and slowly worked my way to the right of the bunny. My intentions were to put the broom in front of it so that it couldn't hop any further into the garage and get lost among the asteroid belt of junk we have in there. Unfortunately, little bunny Foo-foo saw me raise the broom and took off before I could put the broom down and ran into our shelves.

OK, so we have a bunny loose in the garage. Steve and Josh are near the garage door and I have now wedged my way behind an unused server rack so that I could stick the broom into the shelving to scare the bunny out from behind the boxes. So I gently stick the broom behind the shelf and shake it. No bunny emerges. I move a box and shake the broom again. Still, no bunny. All I could think of was that bunny dying in our garage and stinking up the place, so I went another rout and began beating on the shelf with the broom handle and yelling "RUN BUNNY! RUN AWAY!" This still got no bunny, but Steve and Josh got a kick out of it. :) So Steve gets the idea that we could open the big garage door and bring one of the dogs out on a leash. I mean, dogs hunt, right? They are supposed to sniff things out AND our dogs catch and eat rabbits all of the time! So I move away from the shelves as Steve brings Bear out on his lead. Of course, the only time we really have Bear on the lead is when we take him to the vet, so he's cowering and lying down and generally being a chicken-dog. Steve finally pulls the dog over to the shelves and Bear just sits on Steve's foot. I went back inside and shut the door because Bear kept trying to get inside, and Steve makes him start looking around. Well, we found out quick that Bear is NOT a hunting dog. So Bear comes back in and we get Butler on the lead. Butler is a Labrador Retriever...he's supposed to retrieve things! Butler immediately chokes himself with the lead and tries to get back inside. I have to close the door again and Steve closes the garage door and lets Butler loose. This didn't work either because Steve brought him right back inside and Butler looked ashamed. Apparently, Butler doesn't retrieve. So once the dogs are safely back in the kennels, Steve and Josh go back outside and I start hearing things move around. Then I hear Josh start to bang on the metal shelf again. They had to chase the bunny all around the perimeter of the garage before they set up an obstacle course that looked like a game of Mouse Trap. I don't know how long they were out there, but they never saw the bunny again. We are hoping that it somehow got out while Steve and Josh were playing Wylie coyote.

What I want to know is, how can a bunny the size of an egg cause so much trouble?

Well, I'm apparently still invited to the Sparkman High School class reunion. You'd think the fact that I graduated from East Limestone would be a factor in all of this, but Gay Ex-Boyfriend still hasn't had me removed from the mailing list! I'm serious, I asked to be removed from their stupid list last October after the embarrassing mix-up that got me signed up in the first place! But, no...I'm still getting the silly reminders about it!

I should show up. I could wear a t-shirt that says "I (heart) Kevin!" and carry a machete in one hand and a jar of Vick's Vapor Rub in the other and scream "WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME?" every time he walks by.

He'd probably wish he hadn't ignored me about it! :)

Sorry, I don't mean to sound bitter. No, seriously, I don't. I'm just tired of such blatent rudeness. I mean, come on, love me, hate me, but spare me your indifference. It's not my fault he was both a jerk and gay when we were dating, so why has he insisted on acting as if I did anything to cause it. A teeny bit of honesty and backbone on his part could have saved us both a great deal of embarrassment (not to mention the jokes I STILL get about having dated him) and he wouldn't have to feel as if avoiding me or my request was his only option. Oy vey! Anyways, enough about that.

Now it's time for the WEEKEND UPDATE! Yay!

Friday night Steve and I met up with everyone at The Outback. We hardly ever go to a place like that when we get together, but we were having dinner in honor of Crocodile Hunter Steve Erwin. Crikey! *moment of silence*

No, that's a lie. Anthony was just craving steak. :) We had a good time, but it was so hot in our booth. Shannon and I were on the inside closest to the wall, and there was NO air moving around. Our waitress was a flake and a half. She couldn't remember anything and kept running off. She was also very chatty. Now, I have no problems with friendly staff. I prefer it, actually, but I don't really enjoy when they stand there for a really, really long time and talk. Well, unless they have something interesting going for them, but this girl didn't. Bless her heart... After dinner we went to Barnes & Noble. We mainly just walked around for a while before we headed home. It was nice, but uneventful. Well, except for the fact that I bought a box of Godiva because they had some new pieces I'd never tried. I even shared a piece with Steve, although that is highly unusual.

Saturday was another one of those days where I had good intentions that didn't come to fruition. I didn't sleep all day, believe it or not. I actually got up at a decent hour and contemplated making biscuts, but I didn't. Steve had already made plans, so I decided to work on a little more of my Christmas shopping. I found a few things, so that was good. I'm almost done, as a matter of fact, but I feel bad that some things I've found aren't exactly inspired. It's not that they are bad, but I just think that some gifts should be very well planned. I'm having trouble with that this year! :( After shopping, I came home and began doing some laundry. I didn't get very far, because I was reading a book that I was really into and kept having to pick it up to see what happened next! That night, Steve and I went to dinner with Josh. We were situated so that Steve's back was to the TV while the Tennessee/Florida game was on. I can't believe I'm about to admit this, but watching the game was kind of fun. (shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...) Since I could see what was going on, I was giving Steve the play-by-play and reading off the scores for the other games he was interested in. Auburn beat LSU (yay), Alabama spanked Mississipi State, and there was a plethora of other scores I don't remember. After we ate, Josh came over and he and Steve spent manly time talking out on the back patio.

Sunday began as a normal Sunday. We ended up over-sleeping, so Steve had to leave earlier than I to get to orchestra practice. When I finally saw him after classes were over, he said he was dizzy and weak. He looked like hell, I know that much. We made it through the service and he hobbled out to his truck. I was afraid he wouldn't make it home, but he did. We swerved all over the place, but he made it. I followed close behind him in case I had to pull him out of a ditch or something. Once we got home, I called my parents and told them we wouldn't be coming out since Steve was sick and I was afraid if I left him he would fall and hit his giant head on something. :) I also called to let his dad know we wouldn't be back at church that night. I told Steve to try and eat something and when he had lunch he was feeling much better. It was probably some kind of blood sugar thing, but since that had never happened to him before, I got scared. He ended up sleeping for a long while and woke up around 7:00. We watched "V for Vandetta" which was pretty good, until he DVD stopped working. Now we have no idea how the movie ends! Netflix, here we come.

So that was my weekend!

Woo-HOO!

I finally applied for Graduation in the spring! *happy dance!*

I stopped by Charger Central and payed my $20, and that was that. In a way, I was expecting something much more complicated, but I'm glad that I didn't have to deal with jumping through hoops for it. I'm wondering why they need a further $20 to process my application, though. I'm so in debit with them from student loans that I'm going to be paying for my own education until any children I have start college, but I'm not going to complain too loudly. :)

I literally had to remind myself not to do flips in the hallway for two reasons: 1) There isn't an awful lot of room in the UC for acrobatics and I didn't want to kick out someone's office window and 2) I've got about as much grace and agility as an athsmatic manatee, and I don't know how to do any flips - - ergo, I didn't want to hurt myself. However, the desire to flip about and tap dance was there, even if the ability was not.

Yay!

I still can't hear out of my left ear and it's starting to get irritating. It's been stopped up for the duration of this sinus infection I've been trying to get rid of, and it feels like there is something stuffed down in there. I don't love it.

There is something else I wanted to say, but it escapes me at the moment. I'll be back...

We like the police. The police are our friends. We like the police. The police are our friends...

I'm going to have to keep repeating that to myself after this afternoon. You know how you can sometimes have a string of bad luck? Nothing bad, but just annoying more than anything? Well, that happened to me today.

It all started in my graphics class when I got claustrophobic. The teacher shut the door so that we could have a critique and I felt like the room ran out of air very fast. I had to run out into the hall for a few minutes so that I could breathe! It was embarrassing :( After class, I had to go to the gas station to fill up my car. Isn't it sad when $2.32 seems like a bargain? : ) I had the worst time trying to get the stupid pump to work, and then I was almost got clobbered by a Domino's pizza delivery man on my way out of the parking lot. I ended up having to drive the completly wrong way just to get onto the street, and then I ended up behind Mr. Magoo, who was driving all of 12 miles an hour while traffic piled up behind him. I was also lost, by the way. I stopped at a gas station I don't normally go to, so when I got turned around I lost my bearings. I finally got back on track and figured out which way to go, but I ended up having to enter SpRocket Center grounds by the back way, which leads you down a bumpy, 2 lane road that comes out next to the Mariott. I was already running late because of the getting lost debacle, so imagine my surprise when I came up on 2 cops in their cars, side by side, facing different directions and having a chat. So I slide up behind one of them, thinking that once they saw someone coming, they would move. Not so much. They just sat there. So I inched closer, hoping they'd move. Nothing. Then one of them sticks his hand out of the window and makes a "turn around" motion in my direction! There was no good reason for them to be sitting there like that and they are telling ME to turn around? It took all of my good breeding (ahem, shut up) not to stick my hand out of the window and make a few solid hand motions back at that cop! Grrrrrrrrrrr, that ticked me off. So I had to turn around (a 6 point turn in the space I had around me) and go back the way I came in and find another route into the Center. I was late getting back into work because of them. Hastareds!

Of course, looking at this in a different way, my life can't be all terrible if these are the things that I have to worry about!

I don't care what the Doctor has said. I think I have Mad Cow Disease. : )

In lieu of a weekend update as I normally post, I am going to delight you with the weirdest weekend that I've spent, healthwise anyway, in a long time. I know you're excited, so stop trying to hide it! ; )

Friday I was feeling under the weather. Not so much that I couldn't function, of course, but enough for me to know that something was amiss. I had a very busy day, so when I got home and took a nap, I didn't think anything of it, really. Later that evening, Steve and I met Josh for dinner at Surin of Thailand and then went on to Books-a-Million as we normally do when eating over that way. By the time we were over there, I was feeling weird. I can't really explain how, but it was like I was in a dream. I wondered around for a while and found some books and my dad's christmas gift (the Bible on CD, as read by James Earl Jones. Steve calls it, the King James Earl Jones Version) and ended up wondering through the arts & crafts section. Somewhere right in the middle of there I realized I couldn't breathe very well. I've noticed that as much as I love bookstores, they have begun to depress me. I can't really put my finger on why at this point, but they remind me of something very sad. It's kind of annoying to get depressed over something that you can't remember, but that is what I thought was happening to me at that point. I stood there for a moment struggling to breathe until it got easier and then went to sit with Josh and Steve for a while.

*I'll stop here and remind you, if you don't know already, that I have a phobia about not being able to breathe. I've been this way since one of my cousins almost smothered me with a pillow when I was 12. Any time I feel closed in, I panic, so I never know if I really can't breathe, or if my panic makes it hard to breathe. But I digress...*

I felt better by the time we left and didn't think anything more about it until I woke up finding it hard to breathe again. Of course, everything was stopped up by that point, so I got up and took some medicine and went back to sleep. By the time I woke up Saturday morning, however, it was clear that I was sick. The kind of sick where you don't want to move and you head feels like it's full of tiny little imps that are trying to claw their way out of your skull. I had a lot to do that day, so I once again, medicated and went about my business in that wonderful, floaty, medicine induced way that one has when you take Non-Drowsy medication. At some point, though, I had to lie down, and I fell asleep again. This went on and on until Steve got home from helping out some friends in town. We had made plans to go out to The Jazz Factory and the new coffee shop "House of Brews" with Josh and Anthony, but I just couldn't do it. This was about the time I started hallucinating things. Weirdness. I kept thinking I was in a room with someone who wasn't really there, and thinking I was holding things that I wasn't. I ended up falling asleep during this because Steve woke me up before he left for dinner because I was crying really hard. I made myself get up after that and eat dinner myself, and I wound up taking more medicine and reading until I was too tired to do it anymore. Steve got home and begged me to go to the doc-in-the-box, but I knew if I went, I'd end up getting a shot. I hate shots. I decided that I wouldn't be sick much longer, so I told him I'd be fine. Sunday morning, though, I was worse. I didn't go to church, and while Steve was gone I drug myself to Walgreens and bought all kinds of different medicine, but forgot my tissues...ugh. I got home and took the stuff and lay about until we went to my parent's house. I know they wouldn't have minded if I didn't come, but I felt bad for missing it. I didn't go last week and my mom always sounds so disappointed when I have to cancel coming to sunday lunch, so Steve and I went out there. It was nice, but I just kind of floated through everything. Angie's neice was there and she thought it was funny that I carried a box of Kleenex around everywhere I went, but she probably wouldn't have laughed so hard if I didn't do it and had to wipe my nose on her! : ) We came back home and I fell asleep again. Steve went to church and got home in time to order in dinner. After that, I slept like the dead.

Monday morning I woke up and realized that if I didn't do something, I would probably die. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but it didn't feel like it at the time. I knew I couldn't go to work, so I got up and drove to the doc-in-the-box for my shot. Actually, I drove to the wrong place first because I was so muzzy that I took the wrong road, but I finally found it! I even just wore my pajamas, becuase I didn't care at all by that point. I'm glad I went early because the place was already getting full after I signed in. My head was thudding and I kept coughing. It's bad when people at the walk-in clinic don't want to sit near you because they are scared of whatever you might give them! I finally got called back and almost fell asleep on the little paper covered table. They gave me a strep test and did chest and head x-rays, and indeed, I got the shot. The nurse was good at it though, or I was too sick to care, because it didn't hurt very much. Although, I'd love to know why they insist on giving me a shot in the rear when it's clear that I have some kind of upper resperatory issue! It tured out I had a bad sinus infection and bronchitus (don't know if I'm spelling that correctly). They gave me the ubiquitus orange codine based cough medicine that we always get and antibotics. The shot was supposed to help my congestion, but it didn't. I came home, took my new medicine, and slept.

So here I am, still not at work or school, trying to get well enough not to sneeze on anyone or fall asleep in the middle of a project. I am feeling much better that I did over the weekend, though, so I'll probably be back into the swing of things by tomorrow. That's a good thing. And hey, I can't complain too much...I'm not hallucinating anymore! Actually, I kind of miss that part...

I've never watched this show myself, although I've been told by many people that I need to. However,I thought this looked like fun.

This is my "On Notice" board!

Is tying a tie really that hard for most people?

Since the day Steve and I had our engagement pictures made, I have known how to tie a tie. I looked up "tying a tie" on the internet, found the directions, put Steve's tie around my neck and fixed it. Not hard at all. Granted, I have better manual dexterity than most folks, but still, it isn't that hard of a thing to do!

Josh drove across town last night with two hangers full of ties that he had just had dry cleaned. He asked me to tie them for him. Of course I did it for him, I mean, what kind of heifer would I have been to say no, but come on! We had a little tie lesson while he was there. He almost had it down by the time he left, but I still tied all but two of them.

Steve can't do it, Josh can't do it, and my B.I.L. Shawn had to have my dad tie his tie for Grandmother's funeral. In fact, I don't think I know guy close to my age (except for maybe those folks in FFA with me, because it was part of what the guys learned to do...for official dress) who can tie one. Maybe guys just don't wear a tie as often as they used to. You got me.

So I implore you, if you are a man between the ages of 18-40. Learn to tie a freaking tie if you don't know already!

I used the word "Tie" a lot in that entry...

On another note, Steve and I watched "Shaun of the Dead" last night. Absolutely hilarous. I was afraid Steve wouldn't like it, but once the first zombie popped up on the screen, hilarity ensued. I recommend putting it into your Netflix que or seeing if you can record it with the TiVo. Two thumbs up, but they do use the "F" word 77 times. :)

Have you ever done something so stupid that it took more than several days before the stupidity of what you did sank in?

I have!

See, it's like this. Sometimes when I'm about to do something really dumb, my mind says to me in it's clipped British voice (which is strange, seeing that I'm not British) "Oh Deah, that seems sew unwise!" Sometimes I listen to it, and sometimes I think back at it "SHUT UP YOU LIMEY BRAIN! WHO WANTS YOUR OPINION?!" Well, I didn't listen.

Normally, I would regale you all with my actions, seeing that I like to make you laugh, but because the absolute idiocy of what I did makes me die a little every time I think of it, I'm going to keep this one to myself.


So why did I bring it up if I'm not going to specify? Well, because the stupid finally caught up with me. I was walking along, minding my own business, when suddenly I felt as if something was creeping up behind me. I turned around to see what it was, and BLAM! Hit in the face with a whole blob of stupid. The trouble is, I can't wash this stupid off! Oy vey. You know how normally telling people that you've done something dumb makes you feel better, even when they make that hissing sound by sucking air over their teeth (because they know how you feel)? Well, basically I just want the relief of telling you I'm an idiot. So start the hissing, folks, because I deserve it. I did a dumb thing that can't be taken back. I mean, it's not going to kill me or anything, but it makes me feel so dumb. I suppose it should make me feel better that I know I could have made it 100% worse and I didn't, but all the same...yuck.

Please pity my stupid. :( That is all.

WEEKEND UPDATE!

I don't have very much to report for this weekend except that I slept the sleep of the damned. I have officially become like my dad an will fall asleep if I sit still long enough, no matter where I am! Ugh, horrible. Anyways, in between naps (and to be fair, after falling asleep at my desk on Friday - not underneath as I had mentioned that I might - Steve told me to sleep a lot during the weekend) I did manage to accomplish a few things.

FRIDAY!

Steve had planned to spend his holiday weekend with the family in Georgia, so when we got home from work, he packed up and headed on out the door. I was left alone, bereft of friends and loved ones. : ( Nah, actually, I was fine! I took a short nap and then decided that I was craving chinese food. The best chinese take-out place around here is located at the Parkway Place mall, so I combined my supper run with a little Christmas shopping. I was able to find my mother's gift with little to no problem and then went home with my food. While I was eating, I watched TV for a while and once again fell into a sodden and dreamless nap. It wasn't a very restful nap, I guess, because I woke up feeling like I had been drug about by a large cat while unconcious. However, I knew I couldn't just lie there like a sardine, so I got up and made myself fold some laundry. We had a lot of it to fold, so that kept me occupied for quite a while. After letting the dogs in, I ended up going to bed and falling asleep again.

Saturday I had attempted to sleep in a little, and I did for about an hour longer than normal. It's weird, I can fall asleep at night, but I wake up - wide awake for about two hours in the morning before falling back into the fuzzy world of fatigue all over again. Maybe I'm sleepwalking around the block at night... Eh, who knows?
I watched TV and folded more laundry and read some of "Emma" before falling asleep again! The day sort of went like that, over and over, until it was time for me to go to my parent's house. I was going to be staying with my brother while my parents went to their 40th class reunion (yikes)! Me and Tommy had a lovely time eating lasagna and watching TV. I managed to get him into his recliner at one point, and we were set! Logan was suppsed to have come and stayed with us as well, but I was totally stood up so that he could watch the PPV Alabama/Hawaii game. Somewhere deep inside, I have a feeling I should be offended at that! heeheehee. On my way home, I had to stop and get a Sun Drop to keep me awake long enough to drive. Of course, I shouldn't have done that because by the time I got home I was so wired that I couldn't sleep. Grrrrrr! However, once again, I finally slept.

Sunday was a Sunday with only a couple of changes. I went to church in the morning, but was too sleepy to make the drive out to Athens again. I had to stop and get some milk and stuff on my way home, so I had to defer my Sunday nap until 2:00. I slept for HOURS. I don't even really remember much else about Sunday to be honest.

Monday I had every intention to come to work and catch up on some stuff that I've let fall by the wayside since school has started. I woke up, wide awake, at 4:00 and by the time I would have had to leave for work, I was too tired. I did, however, make myself get up later and clean. I got quite a bit of stuff accomplished, even to running out for art supplies and making a pot of soup. I was more awake than I had been all weekend. Unfortunately that wind didn't hit until afternoon, but I took advantage of it! Steve finally got home at about 9:30 pm and he told me about his weekend. Sounds like he had a lot if fun! He even finally got to hear someone give directions by referencing the "Big Chicken" in Marietta. Good times.

Sorry for the abundance of naps that I spoke about in this entry. I've come to think of sleep like some kind of luxury I don't have the money to obtain! I don't sleep well at night and so I'm tired during the day. It's most heinous! However, I think it's the new medicine my doctor put me on that makes me feel like this, so I'm going to have to ask for a change if possible when I go back! Well, either that, or I've contracted the African Sleeping sickness. Either way...

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've just felt kind of blah and unmotiviated. Not just about writing, but about a lot of things. It's funny how things can seem extremely important until you lose your motivation to do them. It's also funny to realize what your real motivation is for some of the things you do, if you've never sat back and thought about it before.

Not much has really been going on this week. School started (yee and/or ha) and it's almost an exact repeat of last semester. Ancient Roman Art History (research paper included, of course) and my last, senior level Graphic Design course. The former is already very interesting and easier to process than the Greek stuff we studied last semester. Hopefully it will remain interesting! The latter has the potential to be a lot of fun. From what I can tell, it's a course on marketing, packaging, and display design. Our first assignment is to design an "Edgy" logo and brochure for an
"Edgy" business. Personally, I don't know what to think about it because my idea of edgy and my teacher's idea of it differ wildly. However, we must cater to the teacher because he is the one who giveth the grades. I'll keep you updated. :)

Can I make one request of everyone out there? Could I ask that none of you die this year if you can help it? I don't want to attend any more funerals for a while. Granted, we don't get to pick when our time is up, but...you know...just don't. :) I actually sang at Grandmother's funeral last week. It was harder than I thought it would be. I wasn't going to do it, but I'm glad I decided to after all. I'm sure my grandmother would have loved it, and my family appreciated it. It's nice to know you can do little things for people. Making people happy is one of my favorite things to do!

Oh! I forgot to tell you about my sister at the funeral! Steve and I went to my parent's house before it started, and Angie (my sis) and her family were there. They hadn't changed clothes yet, so she went into my dad's study to change. She walked out with a kind of disgusted look on her face and said "Gaw, I forgot my panties!" I was confused for a second, but then I just told her to wear the ones she had on. Apparently, therein lay the problem. So my sister had to go commando to my Grandmother's funeral! So very classy. Heeheehee.

Yesterday I left school and went home because I wasn't feeling well. I haven't been sleeping well lately. I'll sleep badly at night, or wake up completely wired at 3:00 am, and then be exhausted all the next day. It caught up with me yesterday and so I got home at about 2:00. I lay down on the couch and tried to sleep, but I never actually did. I stayed in that weird, pre-sleep stage for two hours or more. I could still hear sounds in the real world, but I couldn't go all the way asleep. I'm still tired, but not as bad. Possibly I'll take a nap under my desk later, we'll see! :)

Well, that's about it for now. I think there was something else I wanted to post about, but I don't remember it at the moment. I'll be back!

WEEKEND UPDATE!

Greetings! I'll go ahead and let you know, this update is not going to be all that interesting. Since time apparently ceased to flow in it's normal channels last week, I mostly made up sleep! It was lovely.

Friday Steve and I got home and ordered in dinner. He had rented some movie called "Hackers" which was really not that great, in my humble opinion. Angelina Jolie was in it along with the guy who played Shaggy in the live action Scooby-Doo movies, but they were the only ones I knew for sure. I suppose in 1995, the computer tricks that they used wouldn't have looked so ridiculous and dated. However, with the technology we have today, it ended up looking kind of dumb. Oh well! I ended up finishing the John Updike book I bought a couple of weeks ago and falling asleep. Of course, then I woke up at 3:15 in the grip of some kind of pointless panic attack and didn't get back to sleep again until almost 5! I'm not even sure what he panic attack was about this time! I hate that!

Saturday I had planned to do some Christmas shopping! Of course, it's kind of hard to get into the spirit when it's 900 degrees outside, but I got a little bit done. I also had to go get groceries, so that was exciting. :) Did you know that Target doesn't have their deli section anymore?! I wanted chicken fingers, but they only had a tiny little box with 3 of them in it in the chicken warmer thing! How dare they! 3 chicken fingers isn't enough to take home to my house! What were they thinking? Anyway...Steve had been working at church all morning and was doing yard work when I got home from Target. He had hoped I'd be able to help him when I got back, but no dice! *Evil Grin* I still had to eat lunch and get ready to head out to Athens again. I ended up falling asleep on the couch for a while, but we weren't that late. My family was having a get together at my parent's house so that we could all be together to go to my Grandmother's house and get out the stuff we didn't want sold at the Estate sale.

It was kind of sad, this little party we had. My Grandmother had wanted everyone to get together at her house again for home made ice cream, and it was supposed to be on Saturday. Unfortunately she passed away Monday morning, but we still got together in her honor. It made my dad cry. :( However, once we got passed the being sad, we had a good time. All of the little Martins were there. My cousin Scott had his 4 kids and Michael had his son. Add that with Angie's kids and that made 7 kids ranging from 2-12 running around. It's one of those moments that make me happy that I only have two dogs! Heeheehee. Nah, they are sweet little kids, really. Somehow I got put in charge of taking their picture and as we all know, I have zero knowledge on how to handle children. My uncle Mickey had to help me round them up, but we got the picture made. I think my mom did that to me on purpose! I know for a fact, everyone was laughing at me! It's a good thing I love my family. We finally went down to Grandmother's house and I was shocked that it looked so empty. I suppose it's a good thing that Dad and his brother are not holding on to everything for too long, but it seemed to be almost too quickly dissassembled for my taste. I already knew what I wanted to take, and luckily no one else wanted it. I had mentioned before that she had all kind of costume jewelry, so I got that. I also wanted the big box of buttons that she had. It might sound strange that I wanted this box of buttons, and no one but my family will ever really understand why they are important. She kept a cigar box full of the most amazing buttons from everything you could think of. When I was little, I used to take the box and play with them for hours. The parents also used the buttons when they would play cards, instead of using money. It was just one of those things that you could take a look at and immediately think of my Grandmother. So when I mentioned that I wanted these buttons, no one else seemed interested in taking them home, but they helped me look for them and we couldn't find them! We tore the house apart trying to find those buttons, but we never found that box. The whole family got upset that we couldn't find those buttons, but Dad said he'd tell the people tagging stuff for the estate sale to be on the look out for them. Hopefully they will turn up. We found a lot of other interesting things in our crazy button search. I ended up with two boxes of things that no one else wanted. I couldn't help it. I am extremely sentemental and I love antiques. I love to own things with a history, especially things that have family history. If I could have taken everything in her house home, I would have, but of course that would have been silly. I just can't stand the thought of someone coming in who didn't know anything about her and taking her stuff away! However, some things just have to be done, I suppose. I do have quite a few of her things now, and my parents let me have her engagement and wedding rings, the wedding band I now wear with my own set. I don't think I could have stood that going to strangers, so it's a good thing! : ) Now I just have to find a place for all of this stuff!

Sunday was another regular sunday except that we didn't have lunch with my parents. My mom was exhausted after this week and didn't want to cook, and Steve and I have had to fill up the car two times since last Monday and it needs more gas again, so we decided to just stay at our house. Once we got home, we slept. Oh, how we slept. It was wonderful. There is something about a Sunday afternoon nap that just makes you feel so cozy. I'm even tempted so say that you sleep deeper and better on Sunday afternoons that most any other time you take a nap, but don't quote me. :) Sunday night we went back to church and we had an ice cream social afterwards. There was so much ice cream and cake and cookies, you wouldn't believe it. I didn't actually eat any of the ice cream, though. I just wasn't in the mood, if you can dig that. However, some wonderful lady made a crock pot of homeade fudge sauce that was better than any kind of topping I'd ever had before. I almost didn't try any, seeing that I didn't have any ice cream, but after hearing everyone raving about it, I decided to try it. I was going to dip a plastic spoon in and taste it, but I ended up getting busy washing dishes and never got the chance. It wasn't until we were cleaning up that someone brought the ladle to the counter and laid it aside to be washed. I picked it up off of the little plate it was on and couldn't help myself. I just started licking it off of the ladle. It wasn't one of those dainty little sauce ladles, either, it was a soup ladle! It was WONDERFUL! I was just standing there, licking the thing with careless abandon, my toes tingling, when I got caught. One of the other kitchen ladies started laughing and pointed me out to the preacher, who started laughing too. I tried to wipe mt face and realized that not only was the chocolate all around my mouth, it was on my nose and everything! You know, I'm not ashamed and I'd do it again! It was that good!

Well, that was my weekend! Hope you had a great one!

MONDAY!

Monday Steve and I had to get up earlier than ever. I think combined, we might have slept for about three hours total. I was nervous, he was nervous for me, and both of us were excited about the day ahead. We had planned on leaving at exactly 2:00 am, because the lady at registration told us that everyone was going to have to be back there by 5:00 am Monday morning because of some "activities" before the auditions. We didn't end up leaving that early, but we were still down in Brimingham and in line just before 4:00 am.



Since I didn't have any idea how it was going to work, I was worried because we seemed to be much further back in line than I thought we would be. We were once again jammed among throngs of people, all sharing the same space and air. Luckily, I had remembered to bring my little hand held fan this time, so when I started getting hot, I just turned on the little sucker and cooled off. Unfortunately, once we got in line, the lack of sleep began to sneak up on me, and I would kind of fade out while fanning myself. My head started to loll, and the fan ended up getting twisted up in my hair! Twice! The second time it was so wrapped around the blades that I ended up having to break my hair on one side to get it out. Ouch, much! Steve, plus the two guys in front of us from Louisiana, found this to be great entertainment! Me, not so much. The sun wasn't even up yet, but it was already hot and humid outside. Everyone was sweaty and uncomfortable, plus we had been standing in one spot for several hours. Had I not been so excited, I might have lost my sense of humor about the whole situation. :)



I could already tell that my throat was getting dry, and my allergies were just on the verge of clogging me up! I should have known something like that would happen with me standing outside for so long, but I didn't think about it before hand. We were told not to bring anything to eat or drink on the sheet of directions that we had been given that Saturday. I thought it was because they would be using video from before the auditions on the show and didn't want food and drinks that weren't supplied by their sponsers on camera. This meant that I hadn't had anything to eat or had anything to drink except for some water before we left the house earlier that day! Needless to say, I was getting dehydrated just standing there, and that didn't do any good to my throat. At some point around 8:00 am or so, the line up ahead of us suddenly emptied. The huge line was seperated by three sets of barracades. Steve and I were in the second section. We kept waiting for them to let us follow the first half of the line, but we never moved. We all started getting kind of antsy until we realized that the producers in charge were opening up the barracades behind us and filing everyone in our section to the set of stairs at the front of the BJCC. The first part of the line that we had seen empty out earlier was already sanding on the stairs. It was as if they were positioning us up for the biggest class photo in the world! Actually, that wasn't too far off of the mark.




They were taking as many people as would fit on the stairs and in front of the stairs, so that they could film some footage of all of us screaming and acting crazy for the Birmingham segment of the show in the fall. There were literally thousands of people around us. Steve and I were about 6 steps from the bottom of the staircase, stuck behind these two slightly annoying teenage girls who kept fluffing their giant blonde hair and squeeling about everything. By this point, the sun had risen over the building, making the temp shoot up and the body heat around us oppressive. We really just stood there for a long time while everyone who would fit was crammed into the space. The producer, who's name I can't remember (but he was kind of an ass) had a megaphone and kept talking to all of us like we were third graders on a class outing. We had to keep our eyes on him as he told us what his hand signals would mean, and what we were supposed to do when the camaera was rolling. He also introduced the "Sniper" cameras on the roof of the hotel next to the civic center, and told us what they were there for. Finally, we got down to business. I'm assuming that I now know what it's like to be an extra on a movie set from what we did that day. Mr. Producer-man kept us very quiet until he needed us to scream our heads off, or yell something like "Welcome to Birmingham!" or "I'm the next American Idol!" or even "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" A lot of us weren't really screaming because, come on, we were about to go in and sing fer cryin' out loud! You can't scream for an hour and then go inside and sing! So, I did a lot of pretending to scream and waved my arms around like crazy. Even Steve got into it and he jumped around and screamed like crazy. It was a lot of fun. I guess we had been out there on the stairs for about an hour when the crowd parted and Ryan Seacrest came strolling through the crowd of screaming, adoring (koff koff) fans to do his bit in front of the camera. He's kind of orange in person from what I could see. The lady behind us was almost wetting her pants when she saw him. It was kind of embarrassing! Well, we screamed and waved to the camera for another 1/2 hour and they finally let us go inside. By this point, I was exhausted, nervous, dehydrated and had gotten a tickle in my throat, but we pressed on. I found out as we were going in that we could have had drinks or food outside of the arena, but they didn't want us bringing in outside stuff when we went in! Wow, thanks for making that clear, American Idol Folks! I was afraid that we would only get to audition in the order we got inside the arena, but fortunately we got to take the seats on the tickets that we had been given. They had "Sweet Home Alabama" blaring on the loud speakers, over and over. Steve and I finally got settled and I tried to repair the damage being outside and sweaty had caused my face!




Once everyone got settled, Mr. Producer came back in and told us we still had a few things to do before audition time. They were going to use something called a "Jib Camera" (see, camera on some kind of crane-looking thing) to film the crowd in the arena screaming and cheering some more. This was done. The whole bottom section of the arena was filled and some of the seats in the upper mezzanine were as well. We all screamed and waved our arms and jumped up and down like lunatics. It was so much fun! Amazingly, I wasn't nervous, just excited! Normally, I'd be about to throw up by this point, but I was having too much fun. Then Mr. Producer told us that he needed us to sing "Sweet Home Alabama", in harmony, accapella for the camera. The camera pretty much stayed on the section that Steve and I were in the whole time we sang, and we sang for what seemed like hours. It was not that long, of course, but geez. I never thought I'd get tired of that song, but I came pretty darned close that day! You'll have to watch the Birmingham segment of American Idol this next season and see if you can spot Steve and I. Even he was singing and clapping! I couldn't believe it! : )

Finally....finally, finally, we got to start the auditions! They gave us the ground rules and the procedure. They would call us down by section (fortunately, Steve and I were sitting in one of the first 5 sections that would be auditioning). We would give our release forms to the production assistants and form a line. Then we would be seperated into groups of 4 and then sent to one of the 13 judges tables lined up on the arena floor. Each table had 4 lines of 4 people in front of them. ***I'll stop here for a second to go ahead and tell you that Simon, Paula and Randy were not there. You have to get through at least two rounds of auditions, possibly more, to get to see them. What we got were some rather tired and bored looking producers and assistants who did the first rounds.*** The producers then went on to tell us that there was a song that they heard A LOT. Not just often, but A LOT. He warned us that if we were going to sing it, we'd better know how to sing it better than Etta James, becaus they were so tired of hearing it that they would have to be really blown away by our performance of it to let anyone though. It was the song "At Last", which is a beautiful song, but you DO have to be able to sing well to pull that song off! As soon as this came out of Mr. Producer's mouth, some girl in the front row burst into tears! Apparently that was the song she had picked to sing! Mr. Producer had to go and apologize to her...and surprisingly he was much less of an ass for the rest of the time. I bet he felt like crap! I hope he did, anyway! We were also told that if we did NOT make it past the first round of auditions, we had to leave immediately. We were not allowed back into the arena and we had to surrender our gray arm bands to the trash so that we couldn't somehow get back in line. We had to leave quickly and quietly and meet our party outside and leave. We FINALLY got to start.

Section after section was taken to the tables and only 2 or three people were given passes onto the next round. One chick, whom I named "Half-Naked Girl" tried to beat the system and get back into line to audition again. Fortunatly someone recognized her and she was escorted out of the building. Steve made a good point. If you are going to dress (or not dress, as the case was) like a Hawaiian hooker, you are going to be conspicuous, so don't try to do anything stupid! She was wearing a skin tight tank top and a hot pink sarong skirt that was only, and I mean only, tied at the hip. A strong wind could have come along, and the whole world would have been her gynocologist! Yuck! We saw people dressed in freaky clothes, doing freaky dances, and all other manner of craziness. Some of them were passed on to the next round, but presumably to be put on the blooper show everyone likes so much.



Then it was time for our section. We were led down to the arena floor and lined up. We slowly walked towards the guy who seperated us into our groups and we walked across the floor in front of thousands of people to the table we were directed to. I was given table number 7! Lucky number and I wasn't even nervous! Go me! So me and my three other group mates got in line and slowly made our way to the table. Not one person in front of us was passed on to the next round! Finally, there we were, standing in front of the judges. I still felt excited, and really not that nervous. Maybe a little, but not the kind of nervous I probably should have felt. The people in my line were (left to right) Harry Potter Kid, Me, Dark Haired Girl, and Black Guy. We only had about 10 seconds to wow the judges, and we were more than ready! Black Guy went first and did a great job! Dark Haired Girl went next and sounded okay, but not great. Then it was my turn!



I took my step forward and they asked me what I was going to sing! I had picked the Dixie Chick's song "Tonight, The Heartaches On Me" because I love the way it starts out and is suitable for my vocal range. I took a deep breath and started my song. When the first note came out of my mouth, my nerves exploded! I was out of tune! I couldn't sing! I completely bombed! It was like my brain was saying: "Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing here? Sing? What does that mean?!" However, my mouth kept on trying to sing the song. He probably let me sing longer than he meant to before holding up his hand and saying, "Thank you." and moving on to Harry Potter Kid. I was both appalled and trying so hard not to laugh. It was so funny! I couldn't believe myself. I know I can sing! I can sing really, very well! How could I get to this point and screw up so badly?! After Harry Potter Kid got done, the producer motioned us all forward and informed us that he would not be recommending any of us for the next round. We all got our things, had our bracelets removed, and went outside. Steve finally came out with my stuff and we got into the car and went on our way.

You know, for about 30 minutes, I was disappointed. Not just because I didn't make it past the first round, but because I wasn't able to use my talent the way I knew I could. Plus, the people I had told about the audition, (there weren't that many, so if I didn't tell you, don't feel hurt), the ones who truly gave a crap anyway (and there were some who didn't, believe it or not), had all sent me off with good luck wishes and telling me that they knew I could do it! I felt like I had let them all down horribly. But then I stopped feeling bad. I never really believed that I would get very far. I may be able to sing, but I'm certainly not the best one out of 7 or 8 thousand people! I had hoped I'd at least get to the second round, but I didn't, and that was okay. I've come to learn that smashed hopes are a lot easier to get over than beliefs that are proven wrong. Besides, I had finally done something! I have always been so afraid to take a chance on anything, barring a few exceptions of course, but I have never put myself out there to be judged. It's easier to stick with the people who will always tell you you're doing a great job, no matter how things are really going. But I finally did something that took actual bravery. I failed miserably, but it didn't really matter in the long run! I had a great time! I did things I'd never done, and possibly will never get to do again! I'm proud of myself, and I wouldn't change anything (except for possibly the numbing fear that over took me at the last second) for anything! Go me! : )