Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Writing, Running, and LOOK GAIL IS ALIVE!

Gail is fixed! I picked her up Monday afternoon and hooked her up. I would've posted yesterday, but I got distracted by Law and Order: SVU.

This now means that I can find a new route for running. The route I'm currently taking is like 2.36 miles. If I want to be ready for Warrior Dash, I need to start going farther. Luckily I found a route that's 3.65 which is daunting but necessary. Next Monday I will put on my game face and attempt to conquer the awful route.

Here in Virginia the weather is acting super wonky. Today it's in the forties. Tomorrow it will be in the sixties. It's wreaking havoc on my vocal chords, which is unfortunate for those who have to hear me sing. After a bit, my voice is fine, though. But those first few minutes... awful.

Oh!

I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. I'm hoping to at least make it past the first round, although I'd love to win the whole thing. I'd get $15,000 and a publishing contract with Penguin! And if I make it far enough before losing, I could get an agent! It's all so exciting.

If I get far enough, I'll be sure to tell all of you that it's time for you to vote for my novel. That's not til the very end, though.

Monday, January 23, 2012

1005 Page Views, I'm Proud of Y'all!

We have surpassed 1000 page views! YAY!

Gail is still in the computer hospital. She'll hopefully be home again by Wednesday or Thursday, but no matter when she returns I shall post a victory post.

So, I've got a horrendous, awful crush on a boy at my church. His name is Alex, and he's tall, blonde, broad, and all around attractive. He's very shy, but talks to me more than pretty much anyone else there, and surprisingly sarcastic and clever. The problem: he's three years younger than I, which would make him, for those of you bad at math, sixteen.

I'm being awful and flirting with him outrageously so that he won't think about going out with a girl who isn't as wonderful as I am. You see, I'm terribly jealous of him and don't want anyone else stealing him away. I know it's wrong. That doesn't stop me. It should. But alas, my self-control has always been lacking.

In other news, my self-defense class is awesome and lets me kick ass.

Not much else has happened. Things are slow right now in the Life of Hattie.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Ah, the New Year. Thus Far: Suckish.

You all know that I was sick on New Year's Eve. Things aren't looking up, though I am healthy once more.

My computer, Gail, has died. She just... died. I'm not sure how else to put it. She'd been giving us trouble for quite some time, and finally she just wouldn't turn on. This meant that I had to take her to the computer hospital so that she could hopefully get diagnosed. They haven't called us yet to let us know how much it would be to fix her. I hope it isn't much, because otherwise we have to get a new computer and I don't want to have to name yet another.

School has started, and it's boring as hell. Which probably isn't boring, but you know what I mean. Macro economics is the worst. I spent all bell writing a scene for my 12 novel series. The class is huge and I seriously doubt anyone in there has an IQ over 70. Only one thing keeps it from pure horror: the teacher is from Kenya. While the others struggle to understand her accent, I'm fine because of my brief stint in Tanzania when I was fifteen.

My other classes are... okay. Biology lab is awful, but for lecture I have a teacher that I had in seventh grade. He used to call me "The Bottomless Pit" because I could eat more pizza than anyone else in the class, except for Matt Turley. We usually tied, mostly because we ran out of pizza before we were full.

I haven't been to chemistry lab, but I have the same teacher I had for chemistry last semester, so it should be relatively easy. My lecture professor is pretty cool, but I feel like I'm the smartest one in the class, which is odd because I'm not that great at chemistry. It's far too much like math. And yet, I'm the only one answering his questions with any degree of competency. Ah well. It IS a community college.

The one class I'm really looking forward to isn't until tomorrow, aka Thursday. That's self-defense, and I'm super excited to kick some ass for a grade. I really, really hope that's what the class entails, and doesn't have any written work or anything stupid like that. While I love reading and writing and all that jazz, I want to punch someone in the face.

As for my love life, it's rather dull. Well, to me. I went on a date last week, but the guy wasn't great or anything. Fun enough that I don't want to stab him, but not anyone I can see myself dating seriously. He hasn't texted me since a few days after the date, but I'm not particularly worried. I don't even care, actually. He's a bowler. Enough said.

Oh, I think my manager might be into me. I mean, I always thought he might find me attractive or whatever, but lately it seems like it's more than that. He looks at me like I'm the greatest thing in existence, and while I am, it's a little disconcerting to see. Plus, we've been texting a bit, and I think he's telling me things he doesn't share with other people, especially not our coworkers. I'm not too sure how I feel about this. He's attractive in a strange way, but I certainly can't imagine actually, you know, going out with him or even having a fling. It's just too weird.

That internet guy, Matt, is writing a song for/about me. Kinda weird, very flattering, and more than a little interesting to hear.

But on the whole, I haven't met a single guy I'd want to seriously date. I'm left pining after lost loves, or whatever you want to call them. Guys that I wish I could date but would never actually get the chance to. You know the kind. I'm seriously hoping to meet a guy in my self-defense course or something, but it doesn't seem likely.

That's all for now. Hopefully I won't have to post these things from a library computer for much longer.

Monday, January 2, 2012

New Year's Panic Attack

Well, my beautiful readers, there has been havoc in the life of Hattie. Christmas was wonderful, although I didn't get a Rottweiler puppy like I wanted. I blame all of you, but hey. Maybe you had a tight budget and couldn't afford a purebred male Rottweiler.

However. The Friday before New Year's Eve, I got horrifically sick. It started out simple - the night before I had lack of appetite, that afternoon I had to force myself to finish my lunch - but then degraded into me feeling like my stomach was getting mauled by evil little elves. As I had work that night, I forced down some peppermint flavoured Pepto Bismal knock-off. It didn't help. About thirty minutes before my shift, I called and let the manager know that I couldn't come in. He, Allen, sounded titchy about it, but I didn't really care because my stomach hurt.

Eventually I started vomiting. Yes, I know. Gross. You have no idea. It wasn't even the nice, gentle vomiting most people experience. It was the kind that has you flat on your stomach as you get rid of every single thing in your stomach, possibly including your stomach, until you nearly fall off the bed and things start coming out other orifices. Not. Fun. As I couldn't even keep down water and I felt like I was going to die of thirst, my mother decided to take me to the hospital at 11:00 at night.

There was literally no one else in the waiting room. Thus, it was only a matter of minutes before I was called back to a room and a nurse took my blood pressure and my temperature and all that. Incapable of my usual witty repartee, I merely sat and shivered and sucked on ice chips. Then the nurse gave me one of those ridiculous hospital gowns and said she'd come back with an IV.

Wrong thing to say. I haven't told y'all this (unless you know me, and then you know), but I have a severe phobia of needles. Only medical ones, though. I sew all the time. Anyway. It's haunted me all my life, making things very difficult for everyone involved. The last time I'd had an IV, I was seven and it took five people plus my mother to hold me down so that they could get it in.

So when the nurse left to go get her Cart of Doom and Evil, I began panicking. As in, hyperventilating, crying, and making rather pathetic whimpering noises. My mother forced me back into the bed (I had stood up in a misguided attempt to maybe run away) and did breathing exercises with me until I at least was getting oxygen. The second I heard the Cart of Doom and Evil wheeling in, though, everything started right back up again.

The nurse seemed very surprised when my mother explained what was going on. Apparently she wasn't used to adults acting this way. She asked if I didn't want the IV, because if I was adamant, then they wouldn't give it to me and my mother couldn't override because I'm nineteen. Despite the insane fear coursing through me (and trust me, unless you have a phobia or have been chased by a murderer, you have no idea what this feels like), I knew I needed it so I told them to go ahead. I also told them to get another nurse or orderly or something to hold down my arm because my reaction to needles is scream-cry-punch-maul.

Apparently I have "beautiful veins" which I already knew because I'm so damn pale you can see my veins going throughout my entire body. At least this means it only takes one try. If it took more than one, it wouldn't happen.

Anyway. We got the IV in, I went through two bags of saline and nausea medicine, and then I got to go home. I'm finally better, three days later, and my other managers at work say not to worry about my missed shifts because I DID call, and I DID end up in the emergency room so it's not like I could've been faking.

That was my New Year's. How was yours? Unless you got shot, probably better than mine.