not complaining!

I just noticed that the last few posts on here were kind of whiny, so I figured I'd talk about something not irritating for once. A break from the monotony and all that. (It's just that the annoying stuff is more noteworthy than the fun stuff, especially when I'm still annoyed.)

But I digress... Had a hell of a good day yesterday. I didn't get to sleep in, much to my dismay, because I had to be at the doctor's office around nine-ish for an allergy shot. The good news is, this one actually seems to be working a little bit. I'm still a little congested, but the point is I can breathe without my nose whistling a tune.

Later on in the afternoon, I went to go see the new Harry Potter movie with Devin, Ralph, and Adam. Despite having a few complaints with a couple of the changes they made, I thought it was excellent. And apparently, I'm going to see it again on Saturday with Jonie.

After the movie, we came back here and played football, then frisbee, then we went swimming, played Marco Polo (again without the Marco/Polo part), then we went to CGs, I became a member (so I can go down and practice playing pool whenever I want), Adam and I got drunk (Devin and Ralph both had to go to work the next day), we all played a few games of pool (I didn't win, but I didn't suck either), then we came back home, played Wii Sport, and Adam kicked all of our asses at tennis.

Then I kicked them out, 'cause it was 2:30 and I was falling asleep. Still, it was a really good day. I had fun. Now I just hope today is a little quieter, because I have a lot of work to get done. I'm dreadfully behind on submissions for Loose Yarns.

End.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

The party last night was massive bundles of fun. It really was. I got home from work at five-ish to people everywhere. (Funny how I don't mind that as much when I know it's going to happen.) Saw a bunch of people I haven't seen in years. One of them tried to strangle me--old grudge from my abrupt departure to Norway.

So after me and some friends got a few drinks in us, we played all manner of stupid games. Hillbilly golf, horseshoes, tackle football, and even Marco Polo (the hard version without the "Marco!" or "Polo!") There was music, dancing, fireworks, and general tomfoolery--all in all, a good party.

Now it starts to get iffy though. Stayed up till five in the morning, slept three hours, woke up, and went to work. Since I knew that was going to be a bitch, I wasn't too ruffled by the ordeal.

Then I came home to a house full of people again. Not the fun people from yesterday that I spent the day with, but most of the people that I don't really care to talk to or hang out with.

It's been five hours; they're still here. Music's going, little kids are in my pool, and I just wanna go to bed and sleep before I have to get up and go to work yet again tomorrow.

Seriously.

I spent a solid ten hours yesterday drinking, dancing, swimming, and having an unbelievably good time. Is that not enough for people? Am I unique in this respect--that after a night like that, I just want to be left the hell alone to recover in silence?

After party, my ass.

grr snarl bitch bitch

Current Song: Hate My Life by Theory of a Deadman

[rant]

I fucking hate my job today. Most days I just hate it, but today I fucking hate it.

First off, I got to work today at 12:15, as scheduled. Today is Wednesday. Every Wednesday and Sunday, all the small animal and bird cages get cleaned. It's a major pain in the ass, but it needs done. Now, the person who works 10-6 is the one that's supposed to do the cleaning. That wasn't me today.

Well, my greeting from Roe this lovely Wednesday afternoon was, "Hey Steph... Sorry, but you got picked to do cleaning today."

OK, we were really busy today, like all day. I don't care that Roe didn't get a chance to do the cleaning. I don't even care that I had to do it. What I care about is the fact that I know who did the picking (not Mike--he's on vacation), and that just pisses me off.

To be fair though, Roe did help and it only took about two hours to get it all done. Roe's cool. I like Roe.

About an hour into the fun cleaning, Dan came back to show me next week's schedule. What do you know, I get shafted again! Part one, I have to work Sunday. I have to clean again. Part two, our shindig this Saturday is going to go on literally all night, and I'm not missing out on this. So, Sunday morning I get to go to work on zero sleep, and probably still drunk to boot. Don't care. I wasn't supposed to work this Sunday.

The only thing that will make this worthwhile is if Amy and Erin have to work together next Sunday. That means Amy will have to clean. Amy never cleans. Amy can do no wrong at that fucking store.

It won't happen, I'm sure. But I hope.

So the rest of the day passed with little incident, minus an amusing lady on the phone who asked me if she could put piranhas in her pond to eat her neighbor's cat. But then she realized that if said piranhas could eat the cat, they might stand a pretty good chance of eating her three-year-old son too, should the little tyke fall in, so that idea didn't quite work out.

Six o'clock rolled around and Roe went home, leaving me and Amy to close the store together. Number one, we got slammed with people wanting tarantulas, hamsters, fish, and snakes. Not fun when there are only two people working. And number two, and let me emphasize this: I fucking hate working with Amy!!!

You can't talk to her, because no matter what you say, she turns it into something about her. Plus, she bitches the whole goddamned time, about nothing. She bitches about having to close (because she never has to close), but if she didn't close on Wednesday, she'd have to clean, and to be sure, she'd bitch about that too.

Not only all that--those are minor irritations compared to what really pisses me off about her--while she's busy bitching about everything she can find to bitch about, should a customer come in and ask me a question, she jumps in to answer it before I can even open my mouth. Even if I manage to answer quickly enough to beat her to the punch, she still jumps in, basically rephrasing everything I just said.

So for the better part of two hours, I visualized what it would be like to feed her to the red tail boa.

[/rant]

Have a nice night, peeps.

a lucky shot and a shout to the locals

Current Song: 'Misery Business' by Paramore

First off, I don't have any idea how many of you locals still read this. I know of one. If there are more, great. Anywho, my neighbor Spider (Dave) is throwing one hell of a shindig this Saturday. It's kind of a joint party between him and my dad, complete with a pig roast, lots of alcohol, music (supplied by me--so mostly good music), a bonfire, and everything else that goes along with a kickass brouhaha. So, if you're not doing anything around sixish, feel free to drop by. If you wanna bring a dish, great. If not, there'll still be plenty of food. Call or text me if you need directions, but the place is real easy to find.

With that out of the way, I've gotta share my good news. For the last few weeks, Ralph's been giving me pool lessons. I used to be pretty good (or so I thought) but now I really do suck. I've gotten better with Ralph's help though. I almost beat Devin earlier tonight, and then I did successfully beat Ralph at a game of nine ball.

Mind you, it was most definitely an accident. I was trying to sink the eight, but it bounced off the nine (unintentionally, I assure you) and knocked the nine in. I win, I win! Yay.

The drunk dude that had been hitting on me all night gave me a hug (awkward), and even the creepy guy that had been watching us play gave me a congratulatory smile. Or a 'you-just-got-lucky-bitch' smile. Either way.

Nevertheless, I did beat Ralph. So, I think I'll start challenging Ralph to nine ball from now on, and just keep practicing eight ball with Devin where I actually have a fighting chance to almost win.

Triumph!

rawr.

Current Song: 'Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll' by Blue Oyster Cult

Love this song! ^^

So sometimes pretty much all the time lately, I really can't stand my dad's girlfriend.

The other night (the cold, cold night) Ralph, Devin, and myself went swimming. We played with balloons while we did this, and because I haven't been home hardly at all since then, I didn't clean them up. They ended up in the pool and the filter basket from the wind and whatnot.

Yeah, I fucked up. If they actually make their way into the filter, bad things can happen. I admit that, no problem. Dad called me out on that one, which is fine. But while dad's telling me (calmly, I might add), Lisa's chiming in, half-screaming about how I can't be trusted and so on and so forth.

And this is a card I've not wanted to pull with her, because I know what kind of position it puts my dad in, but, well, this is the time of the month where I'm not going to be especially soft-spoken about anything.

So I said, also calmly, "Listen Lisa, I understand what could happen if the balloons get in the filter, and I'll gladly admit that I should've cleaned them up that very night. But this is something I want to make very clear to your right now. You're my dad's girlfriend. That's all. In no way does that constitute you being in a position of authority over me, so this whole lecture, 'you-can't-be-trusted' thing needs to come to stop right fuckin' now."

She gave me one of those 'oh-no-you-didn't!' looks and said to dad, "Are you going to let her talk to me like that?"

Dad shrugged his shoulders and said, "She's right."

Boo yah, biatch!

She's been out of town for a week, and I've gotta say, this has been one of the better weeks I've had since I've been home. No Lisa showing up unannounced, no Lisa getting drunk and crying like a baby over stupid shit, and best of all, no Lisa calling 37 times each hour.

'Course she's back now. Joy.

ain't got a good title for this one

Ha! I typed the title to this post, then stupidly hit enter, so I just published...nothing, really. Not sure why that amuses me so much, but hey, it does.

I'm in a pretty good mood, though I can't figure out why. Lots of little mildly pleasant things all added together, I guess. Went swimming in the cold, cold water a few hours ago with Ralph and Devin. And when I say 'cold, cold', I mean not only was the water frigid enough to make my legs and feet go numb, but the air was cold enough that I could see my breath. Still a good time though.

They're trying to get me to play WoW and that's just not working out for them. Games don't really excite me much anymore. Except, like, Guitar Hero, and on the rare day, Harvest Moon. I don't even think I could play a Final Fantasy game from start to finish now if I tried. I think I'd get bored. Le sigh.

So my stupid rabbit needs her nails cut and she's decided that I'm not allowed to pick her up anymore. And stupid Trouble Duck is just a pain in my ass. Still want a bearded dragon though, but dad's still scared of them and thinks I'd let the thing run around the house. (Have you ever smelled bearded dragon poop? Yeah, that's just what I want to get on my carpet.)

We had a cookout at work today, which was cool. In fact, it was made even cooler by the fact that I didn't work today, so I could go in and just stand around. No asking customers if they need any help or answering the phone to tell people what time we close. It was wonderful!

And apparently, we're all going to pick a day and go get something pierced. Not sure how I got roped into that one, but whatever. I've been wanting my eyebrow pierced for like...six years. That makes me unique because everyone except Dan plans to get their nose pierced. (Dan wants his nipples pierced. *cringe*)

I just wonder what Mike's going to say about it. No one's asked him if he cares if we get facial piercings, though I do remember something in the employee handbook about only having earrings showing. But that also says no visible tattoos too, and both Erin and Roe have those.

Ah well. I guess that's the end of tonight's babble. Oh, happy 4th, fellow yanks!

boy, am i glad i'm not a duck...

I found out why Trouble Duck keeps getting his ass kicked. He's a she. And they're not beating her up; they're raping her. I witnessed it today. Twice.

I took her down to the creek to swim, and she eagerly and immediately swam over to my other ducks. Kind of a stupid move on her part, but for the last couple of weeks, she hasn't really wanted my company. She's wanted theirs.

She got her wish in more ways than one.

Two of my big males (a pekin and a mallard) took turns grabbing her by the neck and climbing on. Needless to say, she didn't appreciate it. So after I chased them away, she stayed with me again. She wouldn't follow me back up to the house though. I didn't feel like chasing her, so I left her down by the creek. I figure she has to get used to it at some point, and I'm tired of babying her.

Well, about a half hour later, I went outside to check on her. I heard horrified quacking, saw rustling in the bushes at the back of the property, and then a few moments later, it got quiet and my big white male pekin came walking out all pleased with himself. Then the male mallard strolled into the bushes and the quacking resumed in earnest. They both came out a minute or two later, and she's beat up again. Not as badly, but they got her eye again.

She's back to following me everywhere. Their mating season lasts all summer, apparently. Poor Trouble Duck.

man, this is a lot of work!

Drama at work today. Drama at work tomorrow. It took me a few months to become 'friends' with the people I work with (in that we now hang out outside of work), and I kind of wish I hadn't bothered. Drama everywhere because everyone there just has to talk about everyone else behind their backs. Blaaaaaaah.

Anyways, Loose Yarns is going strong. This is the third day I've been taking submissions, and I've already gotten 24 of them. (Rejected twelve, accepted two, still considering the other ten.) I wanted to do this all by myself, but considering the volume of submissions, I may just have to take on an editorial staff.

Any volunteers? Hehe.

I've already gotten a bitchy email from one such submitter though. See, I want to send a few lines of feedback about the stories I'm rejecting. I'm rather familiar with form rejections myself (having gotten ... ohhh... fifty or more), and while they're convenient for the editor, they don't help the author any.

In response to one story, I replied thus:

I felt the writing was a little lazy--you used too many adverbs where you could have, with a little extra thought, illustrated them better with stronger action verbs, similes, or different methods of description. Also, I found the story to be a little to pat and predictable. The idea that the MC's grandma's dog shows up all of a sudden for unknown reasons is a good one, but then it turned out to be a little too Lassie-esque for my liking. And the reincarnation of Prince at the end was a little over the top, too pat so to speak.

He didn't care for my opinion, so he sent me this:

As an editor, there was no constructive purpose in your reply. I found your comments pompous and insulting, A form reply would have been enough.

After reading this, I added an extra line to my submissions guidelines.

Also, please note that our feedback on rejections will be constructive criticism. We will never seek to insult you or your writing; we'll simply tell you the reasons it didn't work for us. If you feel you are unable to receive such feedback without sending us whiny emails in return, please refrain from submitting.

And I also sent this in the author in question:

As an editor, you should understand the purpose of constructive criticism. Form rejections don't help the author improve their writing, as you well know. You're free to ignore my comments on your story if you feel they're in the wrong. Either way, I wish you the best of luck with your writing.

Some people are just so damn touchy. I see it all the time on WF.com. They post a story for critique, and then bitch at everyone who dares say the piece is anything less than perfect.

Still though, I'm enjoying this quite a bit. I'm sure months down the line I may be whining about all the work, but right now it's freaking awesome, even if I've only accepted one story and one poem. Each of them are so good, they've made reading the myriad average and poor submissions worthwhile.