Being Amber Rhea (Archives)

I went to the dentist this morning and was there for 2 hours. :-P Also the place seemed really ghetto... but the dentist himself turned out to be very nice, even though I only saw him for like 5 seconds. Anyway, I have to go back on the 19th and have a root canal!! :-( I'm skerred! Then I have to go back 2 other times after that to finish the "procedure"... one time for something called a build, the next time for a crown. Yeah my insurance pays for a lot of it, but I was trying to save as much money as possible to move back to Georgia... and most importantly... I F%&KING HATE GOING TO THE DENTIST!! I do not have a good threshold for pain! :-(

Mark your calendars everyone -- January 17th is National Penguin Awareness Day! Unfortunately I couldn't find any web sites about this obviously under-appreciated holiday, but it is noted on the monthly calendar my apartment leasing office distributes. So don't forget to celebrate!

I need a .Mac account. I've been too lazy and/or busy to make pages for all the pictures I want to link to from my Bio page.... it would be so much easier if I could just have iPhoto do it for me.

Here's something I heard yesterday that I liked:

Someone was trying to make an important decision and was torn on which way to go with it. So their friend said, "Why don't we flip a coin?" The person said, "No, this is too important to just leave to a coin toss." The friend replied, "Yes, but in that second when the coin is in midair, you know which way you want to go."

Ok, so I did sort of a crappy job of telling it, but hey, I've never claimed to be an excellent storyteller. ;-) The point is, I like what that little parable is getting at... that when there is a difficult decision to be made, often you already know within yourself what decision you want to make, but are afraid of committing to it because of real or perceived potential consequences.

So, I know what I want to do. And I wish I could honestly say that I don't care what anyone else thinks about me or my decisions. But I'm just going to try to go forward with it, and if people disagree with me, then I'll just have to let them disagree, but I can't let it stop me from doing what I know within myself to be right for me. Also, what's "right for me" may change depending on the time and place -- something else that if other people don't get, then well, they just don't get it.

Is this making any sense? This is the thing: My friends, loved ones, and acquaintances matter a lot to me and I wish that I could have their blessing from each one of them (horrible grammar, I know)... but if not, then I guess that's the way it'll have to be, and hopefully they won't think any less of me.

Oh and be sure to check out Chris's excellent page documenting our recent pilgrimage to the Georgia Guidestones: http://tangerinecs.com/~chris/blog/guidestones/index.php

MacWorld Expo is going on this week. I wonder what new and exciting things Mr. Jobs will introduce. I still have plans to buy myself a new iBook, eventually. And an iSight... then I can set it up beside Franny and Zooey's cage and have a 24-hour "bird cam".

I am still irritated by the fact that my rouded corners don't line up perfectly in Safari. If I have time tonight, I may just tear the whole thing down and start over from scratch, rebuilding it piece-by-piece. It doesn't make sense, because I have done rounded corners plenty of times before, in exactly this manner, and it's worked fine. I know it's not a big deal, but it's the principality of the thing, yo!

In terms of the soap opera known as MY LIFE: I'm still just as confused as ever, but I think I need to take it easy and go with what I feel to be right for me; block out all the noise. Of course, that is easier said than done. But that's where I stand right now, philosophically anyway.

Hey, Jenny and Niki! Are you out there?? You have been incommunicado for too long! What the dilly-o?

My moods are all over the place. Maybe it's due to all the medicine I've been taking; ever since I got back to Dallas I have been bothered by cold symptoms and persistent headaches. So I have been drugging myself on ibuprofen, Sudafed, etc. to try to get rid of it. I can't help wondering though if some of these symptoms (the headache, at least) could be *because* I'm back here in Dallas; read: are they stress headaches? I suppose it's likely. Also I have a nagging toothache... I should really go to a dentist and/or stop eating so much chocolate. Geez it sounds like I'm falling apart, like I'm 70 years old or something. Anyway...

One minute I'll feel like I've got to get out of here, NOW; that there's no way I can stand it until May and I need someone to come "rescue" me. Then at another moment I'll feel like it's not so bad and I can probably stick it out. And other times it's somewhere between those two extremes. Some general questions: What would I be proving by staying here if I'm unhappy? Would leaving make me a quitter -- or a person taking charge of her own life? What shape is the future going to take in terms of friendships and relationships? Does anyone really know, at 24, what the hell kind of direction their life is going to take anyway? (Answer to that last one: I think not.)

These are just a few questions swimming around in my mind.... and there are more, many more. But right now I'm going to eat a mess of raviloi and watch this show on the Discovery Channel about Easter Island. Stay tuned for more arcane musings.

I don't wanna go to work today. No no no no no! :-( I didn't sleep well last night and it's 29 degrees outside. I wanna stay curled up in bed. Waaaahh! <whine whine whine>... (What if I can't do this until May? Does that make me a loser and a quitter?) Waaahh!!

Tomorrow (later today, actually) I'm heading back to DFW, but reluctantly so. It's not the place itself really. It's not any *one* thing. It's a complicated combination of many things. Location, circumstances, job, et cetera... it all just combines with the result being that I have a big headache. Add to that my bad habit of second-guessing myself and the insidious feeling that people are judging me, and it's not very good. This sounds like a television commercial for Paxil or something. Screw that. I'm on anti-depressants and have been for many years; they keep in check a chemical imbalance. But people also live in the real world and have real emotions and have to deal with real, *hard* issues in life. I don't know where I'm going with this, so I'll stop this train of thought. I wish I could just "trust my gut" more and live 100% true to my mantra of doing what's right for yourself and not worrying about what other people think of it. So here is what my gut (for better or worse, whether right or wrong) is saying right now: I hate my fucking job. For the most part, I am dissatisfied living in DFW. I want to move back to Athens and work at a bookstore.

For any of you who have the urge to get all holier-than-thou and comment-happy about my thing of "doing what's right for yourself and not worrying about what other people think"... don't. Or do. I don't care. This is a personal blog and I'm not trying to impress or please anybody. But here's the disclaimer anyway: if I had kids, that philosophy would not apply, because when kids are in the picture everything changes. But I *don't* have kids and I don't intend to have them for quite some time. I figure I've got a good 10 years or so ahead of me to do my own damn thing rather than burdening a child with my soul-searching. -Oh, and don't tell me to find Jesus either.

Thanks for listening. Or not. (If you think I sound bitter and defensive, it's probably true.)

You should not be allowed to name a neighborhood after features that don't exist there. Exhibit A: Park Oaks, off Highway 441 in Athens. A new, sprawling neighborhood of cookie-cutter duplexes, which contains neither a park nor oaks (nor hardly any trees at all, for that matter). To me it resembles the aftermath of a nuclear bombing. But that's just me. (Unfortunately a Google search turned up nothing I could link to, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)

Last night Chris and I were in Wal-Mart and they were playing Driver 8 (R.E.M. song) over the sound system. It was weird and unnerving.

Weird Georgia Roadtrips, a preview:



More will be posted soon, when I finish my Bio page and Pictures area.

We live in a world where so much is just fabricated and fake, and standing on very wobbly legs.

Your cryptic one-line post-o'-the-day.

I sat down having the feeling that I wanted to write something very eloquent and profound, but now that I'm here I don't know exactly what I want to say. Well, it's Sunday 12/28/03, and I have been in Georgia for a week now, and I'll be here for almost another full week. For the rest of this week we'll be mostly staying in Athens.

I'm trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with myself. When I was in Augusta a couple days ago, I got together with SB for lunch, coffee, and just generally hanging out. It was a good time. Shockingly, I have found myself contemplating the possibility of moving back to Augusta for a while. I discussed this prospect with SB, since she's been living back there for over a year now. As we talked, the benefits of such a move seemed to line themselves up right in front of my face. -But I don't know. I never wanted to get stuck -- and certainly not in Augusta. But if I did move back there, it wouldn't be permanent. Maybe just a year, or even a few months, to get my bearings and try to get myself in order. I just don't know.

Because then I actually go *out* in Augusta, and I see all the reasons why I *don't* want to be there and why I left in the first place. (And SB won't even be there for much longer, since she graduates from Augusta State in May and is applying to grad schools elsewhere.) Weighing the pros and cons is difficult. -And things always seem clearer in retrospect. More and more I am beating myself up for not taking the job with TRX in Atlanta. That salary they offered my hangs over my head like... hmm, I can't think of a good metaphor; it just hangs over my head.

And now I am back in Athens and feeling so at home here. I find myself thinking, "I don't want to go back to Texas." But I know there are good things about me being there. Even if I do quit Katapultz after this school year, I do think that it has been a good thing for me -- not the job itself, not Texas, just being away for a while, to myself. Of course I probably could have accomplished the same thing in Atlanta. Oh hell I don't know. This morning I woke up feeling all sunny and thinking of how great it would be if I moved back to Athens, got a job at Borders or something, got a little apartment, hung out at Blue Sky and Jittery Joe's. I think I have a problem of seeing "other possibilities" as too perfect, until the realities really happen. But maybe everyone has that problem.

I just feel very confused and frustrated. This is what I think a lot of it comes down to: I think my 18-year-old self is mad at my 24-year-old self. But more on that later. I have a lot more I wanted to write about but I'm suddenly feeling distracted now. Time to go out and about in Athens. More later.

Chris and I acquired a wealth of gift cards this Xmas -- Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Old Navy, et cetera. Shopping will ensue shortly. I'll also post pictures soon. Tired now, don't have a chair, will write more later, but just wanted to post something as 2003 is coming to a close (wow). We had a good time this holiday season. Yay! :-)

I'm an Amazon Affiliate now. Click on one of the colorful links in my sidebar (to the right and down) and buy stuff -- that means I get money!!

Still baffled by the rounded-corner issue. I will get to the bottom of this once and for all, I swear it!

Ok, I better get to bed... I drugged myself up on cold medicine today in an attempt to fight off impending ickiness caused by artificial heat, and I slept most of the day. Happy 3rd anniversary to Chris and me. :-) And Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (sp?), joyous solstice, etc. etc. et al.... this is a good time of year.

Finally I am reunited with my iBook. :-) And yes I am aware of the issue with the corners of my nav bar thingy in Safari. Will be fixed.

So anyway, here I am in Athens. :-D Chris and I already opened our Xmas presents -- who says we need to wait? I am now the proud owner of a calphalon skillet, a cool silverware set, a towel with penguins on it, and the new REM DVD set, "In View" (which we are watching now -- the video for Bad Day is hilarious, so if you haven't see it, you should). Alrighty, I'll post more later, now I'm off to eat my leftovers from the Cheesecake Factory (and I wish I had gotten some cheesecake!) :-P

So I'm heading to the laundry room, which is on the other side of the parking garage (Friday night is the best time to do laundry btw, because the laundry room is sure to be deserted while all the party people are out gettin' they drink on) and on the other side of the door to the garage, I see these four people coming up the stairs. They see me -- with my big-ass overflowing laundry basket and unwieldy box of detergent, understand -- and instead of getting their keys out of their pockets and opening the damn door themselves, they start tapping on the glass and gesturing for me to open it for them! So I open it, and this rich bitch who was probably younger than me says "Thanks honey" and then instead of exhibiting some common courtesy and holding the door, two of them (one guy and one girl) scoot past me into the building without speaking; finally the rich bitch who deigned to speak to me says to the second guy, "Hold the door for her", and he obliges. I mumble "Thanks" and get the hell across the parking garage.

Good great bejeezus, what is it with these people?? Lemme not get disillusioned with humanity... :-P

Chris said the reason I don't get tons of comments in my blog is that I don't write about anything controversial. (What, CSS formatting isn't controversial?? Pshaw!) So, here it is: Your Controversial Blog Entry. Enjoy!

Abortion: I support a woman's right to choose. The government -- especially a government dominated by *men* -- has no right to tell me what to do with my body.
Gay Marriage: This proposed "definition of marriage amendment" is absurd. Why is this such a big effing deal? Doesn't this country have more important things to concern itself with? In 50 years we will look back on this whole issue the way we look at Jim Crow laws today.
The Bush Administration: When Dubya was elected President, my disillusionment with the US rose to a new high.
War in Iraq: Waste of time, lives, and money. Disillusionment rises yet again. Why can we spend gazillions of dollars on the damn military but public education is in an absolutely *abyssmal* state? (I see it on a day-to-day basis at my job...)
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Am I the only one who finds it ironic that *we* probably have more of them than anyone else in the world...?
Where to spend money: Education, child protective services/social services... who is going to defend the defenseless? I find it absolutely pathetic that we can go to such great lengths to track down Saddam Hussein but we can't take care of innocent little children here in the US who are abused, neglected, going without food or a stable home environment or a proper education, etc...

I think that'll do for now. :-) I wonder how many comments I'll get now! ;-)

Somebody suggested that I try eHarmony as a way to make friends. So I figured, sure they have cheesy commercials, and obviously I'm not looking to meet someone to *date* or anything, but what the hell! Well, I filled out their "personality survey"... and get a load of this shit:

eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive testing of married individuals. One of the requirements for it to work successfully is for participants to fall into our rigorously defined profiles. If we aren't able to match a user well using these profiles, the most considerate approach is to inform them early in the process.

We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish and enjoy happy, lasting relationships that we choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match.

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching system is not suitable for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply would not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand that we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time.

Apparently I'm not good enough for them. Thanks for wasting a good 30 minutes of my time when I could have been out getting dinner at Chick-Fil-A or something. Fuck that shit.