Sad People Love Fast Food

Sure, we all know that I've only been in the business of dishing up the fast food delicacies for almost two months, but, even in such a narrow timeframe, I have already witnessed the most depressing trend that could possibly exist. Sad people (and really, let's just be honest and just say people in shitty moods in general) are attracted to fast food. I'm not even exaggerating this at all. It's probably the greatest love story/ romantic rendezvous that has ever occurred.

Droopy faces and fat thighs come waddling in through the front doors at around 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening like clockwork. With distant eyes and exhausted minds, these people aren't hard to miss. It gets even better when they approach the counter and you have to ask them how their day was and they just release this long, heavy sigh and let their eyes flicker under the florescent lighting. You really wish you could just walk away and wait for someone else to help the customer, but it's really too late.

Me: How are you doing today, m'am?
Customer: *long, heavy sigh*
Me: One of those days, huh?
Customer: You have no idea.
Me: *fake laugh that everyone knows is totally fake and actually a deep-seeded cry for help*

As someone who interacts with these people on a regular basis, it can be a little, shall we say, weird. You want to treat them just like any other customer that walks in the door but it's like they are dragging a sack of steaming cow dung behind them and it kind of really smells bad. The dark, thick cloud of suck hanging in the air is just the cherry on top of a super awesome 5-hour shift.

One time, when I was working the evening shift at work, a woman came in during a dead time and I was working the counter. She seemed so out of it. She would mentally tune out reality and then, once she'd returned back down to earth, apologize for being so out of it. Finally, when I was finishing up her order by offering her sweet and sour sauce, she started telling me all about how she'd recently had her mother put in a nursing home and how exhausted she was and how she really didn't care what she put in her body as long as it was food. I could have probably fed her cold food, and she would have been fine with it. I'm not that mean, though.

WHY WOULD YOU TELL ME THAT? MY JOB IS ALREADY KIND OF DEPRESSING AS IT IS SO WHY WOULD YOU BRING MORE SADNESS TO IT? 

But, let me tell you, the best part (and I really meant THE best part) of this whole ordeal is when you tell them to have a nice day and they just roll their eyes like they have just given up all hope in ever feeling a real feeling ever again.

I witness people give up on life and any possibilities of them actually enjoying their cold sweet and sour chicken every shift I work. I'm probably going to need years of therapy after this. Or I'll finally have the inspiration for my first great American novel.

But that's kind of the same thing, right? 

Trust.

Trust (along with communication and overall compatibility) is one of the key ingredients in any lasting relationship (either platonic or romantic). Honestly, I'll be the first to raise my hand and say that I'm not one to jump on the trust train when I meet people, and that a lot of people don't see me as a proper candidate for someone they want to put their trust in at the end of the day. I have major trust issues because of life experiences, and I have broken the trust of others by doing and saying really stupid things over the years. I'm not perfect, but I'm sure that everyone was already aware of that fickle slice of information. 

In the hustle and bustle of trying to woo someone over or even maintain something that's already been constructed, it is fairly easy to forget to show that you trust someone AND that you're worthy of being trusted. Like cooking bacon, if you leave it alone for too long, something is going to end up burnt, and, let's face it, burnt isn't tasty and it isn't something you'd want to invest your time in. That crap is going straight for the trashcan.

Something happened recently (not something bad, for all those who will read this and assume that some kind of God-awful thing happened) that reminded me that trust is not a simple thing, and it comes in all types of forms. Growing up, trust meant keeping secrets. (Don't tell Bobby that Judy has a crush on her,  Don't tell Lisa she's getting an American Girl sleeping bag for her birthday, etc). Trust was created through verbal agreements like promises and pinky swears. It wasn't until recently that I realized trust can be shown in ways I wasn't even aware of during my adolescence. I've realized I trust others more than I thought.

If I sing in the car (even when I know I don't sound good) when I'm with you, I trust you. If I let myself eat half a pizza while sitting across from you, I trust you not to judge me for being such a fatass. If I allow myself to fall asleep right next to you, I trust you. If I let you touch me at all, I trust you. If I let you see me cry, I trust you. If I let you read my writing, I trust you. If I tell you things you know no one else knows, I trust you. If, despite the struggle I'll put out, I watch something scary with you, you better bet your booty that I trust you.  If I let you in, I trust you.

The catch, though, is that that trust can be gone in a blink of an eye. 

At the end of the journey, I want to be able to look at the people I've brought along with me and know that I'm not going to be betrayed or hurt by any of them. Sadly, I've lost a lot of cool cats along the way so far because of trust issues. As I get older and a little bit wiser, though, I've learned that anyone who didn't cut it has had something in common with the others who also didn't cut it.

I want to be surrounded by those I love and those who send love in return. Is that too much to ask for?

Hey June, Don't Make It Bad

Happy June, lovely readers! Although I have no idea if anything cool happens in June due to the fact that I haven't changed the page of my zombie-themed calendar yet, I'm sure there's something. And, if not, whatever.

Mike Falzone and Coffee Girl

Anywho, lucky me is on a day off from work today, so that pretty much gives me permission to do nothing that can be defined as physical movement. Happy day! In reality, though, I'll probably end up trying to finish unpacking (a chore that seems to have taken me three blissful weeks to complete, mind you) my stuff from college along with cleaning my room while listening to Mike Falzone's podcast "Welcome to the Podcast!" (which you should totally go give a listen because he and his lady are hilarious and it is totally free and available on iTunes! **language warning for the kids**). Actually, none of that will probably happen, but it's nice to think about, ya know? But for now, I'm just going to take some time to write this lovely blog post. Boom!

With the summer heat starting to roar into Oklahoma, I've been hit with a lot of nostalgia. Past summers have typically been pretty nice to me (with exceptions here and there). Concerts of the Jonas Brothers variety (don't judge, just put yo' pom poms down for me), going to the local water park, staying up until who-knows-when and sleeping until never-gonna-happen after drinking energy drinks (Grape NOS and Black Mamba Venom Energy were once the only ways I could pretend to be awake) and having access to the Internet. Smells like summer, right? Oh, the good old days when I didn't have responsibilities or financial burdens. 

Sexxxy

The summer before my freshman year of high school, if I remember well, was actually a pretty decent summer. Despite my constant need to update my at-the-time blog (mentioned in detail here) and fiddle around on Paint Shop Pro, my life wasn't entirely consumed by one thing. That summer was the summer of movies for me. I was fresh out of middle school and still in contact with my close friends
from those torturous years, so we went to the cinema all the time (it probably wasn't actually all the time, but actually like 3 times pfft). Can we all just take a moment of silence for emo Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3? *touches up eyeliner* Okay, we're done with that.  At the time, though, he was the hottest thing in my mind. That summer I also ate a lot of Arby's. I don't even know.

STOP JUDGING ME! YOU DON'T KNOW MY LIFE!

But the big thing about that summer was the loss of my J-Card. Yup, that was the summer the Jonas Brothers entered my life and stayed a long three years. I can't even remember how exactly I found the Jonas Brothers. Was it that I had their catchy single "Year 3000" on my iPod?  I don't even know. I just know that I was hooked. Here, I'll paint you a picture! I found out they were coming to Tulsa, so I begged for tickets (which had a cost of $27.50 each, btw. That's never going to happen ever again). I wanted a physical copy of their out-of-print debut album so I found a copy on eBay for like $30. They had a new album coming out in August of that year, so you know I had to preorder that ish. Sadly, though, that was probably the cheapest year for my JB obsession.

Man, my life is so sad. 

I'll tell you what pisses me off about that whole JB ordeal, though. At the concert, they did meet-and-greets afterwards and each pass was like $20 (HAHAHAHAHAAH!). I made the biggest mistake of my whole life that night. I decided to not get a M&G pass and instead get a stupid t-shirt and hat! Disastrous, I know! But whatever! 

Life goes on. But, as you can see, I'm still not over it. Never. 

Orange Mashugana

Long time, no blog, right? Oh well! I have good excuses for why I failed to write much over the last week or so. Like, oh, I don't know... That I AM NO LONGER UNEMPLOYED! 

Yup, yup! You heard it! My streak of perpetual unemployment seems to be not as perpetual as I once assumed. That, kids, just shows that you shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch. Anyway, the last four days of my life have been pretty booked up, so I hope I can make it up to anyone who has actually missed reading about my life, thoughts, and other mashugana that I come up with from somewhere deep inside the crevices of my fragile mind.

So, last night, I got off work and went over to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market to get a sick Bruce some orange juice (how nice am I? Seriously?). Okay, let me just say that this Wal-Mart is open 24/7, so when I went prancing in at 10:30 at night, I really wasn't sure what kind of crowd I was going to see. Well, apparently, it's just workers restocking things. To be honest, I was hoping for a late-night crowd of crackheads, but when has Wal-Mart ever actually met my expectations of anything? Never. 

I found the orange juice in the maze of aisles and sectioned off arrays of baked goods that I really wanted to buy but talked myself out of eventually. When I was looking at the small selection of orange juice that was at my disposal, I realized I had no idea what any of the information on any of the containers meant. "Made from concentrate?" What? What the hell does that mean? Was it made by a worker who was really concentrated on making the best bottle of OJ ever? And what about pulp vs no
pulp vs extra pulp? Personally, I hate the feeling of drinking pulp so I always opt for the no pulp, but what if pulp is actually really good for you and pretty much the only nutritionally beneficial element of a bottle of OJ? This was really something to think about especially since I was buying it for someone who was sick, you know? 

Eventually, I just grabbed a big bottle of Tropicana without pulp because it had the prettiest label. I'm sure that says plenty of untrue things about me. 

I'm sure this story had a point, but, a few Sour Punch Straws later, I can't remember what that might have been.

Being an adult and having to make choices like "Which is the healthiest brand of orange juice?" just kind of freaks me out. Like, I have no idea how people walk into grocery stores and know what all the labels mean. Sure, I know not to buy anything with high-fructose corn syrup (or really anything with corn in it) or artificial sweeteners that rhyme with gross, but what else should I know? I can't Google every grocery product individually like "Are Sour Punch Straws bad for me?" because I'd be in the store for the rest of time. But, idiots shop for groceries. So, I don't know.

So, I guess the point of this is that there should only be one brand of OJ and it should be the healthiest OJ ever because I am incapable of picking out a bottle of juice.

Why Not You?

Every once in a full moon, I like to go on FaceBook and see if I can remember the names of all the people I graduated high school with. Sadly, I can't remember like a fourth of them. So, when someone I had totally forgotten existed pops up on my feed or in the search results unexpectedly, I instantly have to know what happened to them since I apparently forgot they were a person that I even knew or just really a person at all because my mind is special. Yeah, so some investigation happens. It's kind of very entertaining to find out who got fat, who is still a narrow-minded buttface (no, seriously, his face looks like a butt), who dropped out of college, and who got really freaking hot once they abandoned that awkward high school charm that I swear is sewn into private school uniforms. (Or maybe my tastes just changed).

My question is, for those that look like they've got it all together, why not you? Why didn't I fall in love with you when you were in my second hour chemistry class sophomore year? Why weren't we closer than you just copying my algebra 1 homework 5 minutes before class? Why didn't we hangout more when we had the chance instead of just passing each other in the halls everyday like "whatever"? Why did it take me 2 years of being away from you to realize how awesome you are? 

I can't say exactly why I would even want to consider anyone I went to high school with as a regret, but some nights I'm just left to wonder why things weren't different.

I mean, I have theories about why things were the way they were back then, but I'd rather not get into that stuff in this particular post.

The honesty behind this post is that I wouldn't want anything to be any different from the way it was because the people that are on the computer screen or under a name in my phone didn't exist in 2007 or even in 2011 when we all graduated together on a sticky May evening. There were reasons I didn't
want to be closer to them, and they didn't want anything to do with me.

Also, these people that I'm talking about, they really don't have it all together. Instagram posts and tweets don't mean anything. The Facebook statuses about whatever might be happening in the lives of these people don't mean anything. Trust me, I've faked my way through my own fair share of social networking sites (I'm kind of a pro, no big deal).

John Green once wrote, "Just remember that sometimes, the way you think about a person isn’t the way they actually are…People are different when you can smell them and see them up close, you know?"

So, as to not crush my dreams that the people I went to high school with are actually good people deep down passed their rotting livers, I think I'll just avoid being in the same room with any of them until our 10 year reunion (when hopefully I will have a classy, tall-dark-and-handsome kind of husband and a great body) so that the realities of these people don't have to be a thing.

Wait, I bet you're thinking that that's not the way to live. You're right. Thankfully, I don't know any of these people anymore, so it's not like I'm making up stories and lives for people I actually see on a daily basis.

But I'm still going to wonder and ask myself "what if..." and "why not?" and "how come?" because I'll never truly be satisfied with my life choices. But I have what I have and I had what I had. The people that I call my friends today are way better than anything I could have every imagined, and that should be enough.

 It is enough. 

When The Girls Stop By For The Summer

Amen!

Well, it is very much official. I AM ON SUMMER VACATION, CAKE SNIFFERS! 

But, you know, I've still got that whole "perpetually unemployed" thing to resolve. We'll see what happens with that. But, other than that, I'm on vacation from EVERYTHING. And after the Hell of a semester I've just finished, I think I am pretty deserving of some major R&R and a big bag of Sour Patch Kids.

So, what are my plans for the summer? Nothing fancy or super exciting, I swear (ain't nobody got the money for that!). Actually, I don't really have plans. I'll probably just go with the flow, and take it one day at a time by sitting around complaining about the Oklahoma heat (no, not the Thunder, sorry) and  thinking about all the productive things I could potentially be doing instead of not sitting there doing nothing. But, I do have things I want to do (but that really means nothing because I always WANT to do things, but you know how it is). So, here's my "Optional Sensational Summer Bucket List" (Maybe you'll get some ideas as to what you might want to do with yourself this summer from how lame I really am).

1. Finish the book I've been reading for the last 2 months (The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, for the curious reader)
2. Dip into my feminine side and do some of those DIY Pinterest craft things (which would require me to actually get a Pinterest account to begin with. Ugh.)
3. Get a job (shut up)
4. Lose 7 pounds / go down a jean size
5. Hit up the library and check out the erotica section and read it in public without an ounce of shame
6. Learn to use chopsticks
7. Throw out all the high school stuff I've been hoarding for the last million years
8. Immerse myself in historic Oklahoma culture by doing one of my favorite things: going to museums
9. Find a new song to be stuck on that isn't "Kokomo" by the Beach Boys (♫ Aruba, Jamaica, oooh I wanna take ya..♫)
10. Take it easy

Pretty much

So, now you guys know how lame I am when I have no immediate responsibilities or a routine to uphold. Hey, what can I say? I'm a college student with repressed ambition. 

But, let's be serious, if I can't get a job, I'll probably spend my entire summer feeling ashamed that I'm not worthy of making money and that list will just die like the dreams of angry men. I'll be a little Gavroche crawling through the barricade to my untimely and under-appreciated death. I'LL BE NOTHING BUT TROUBLE AGAIN AND AGAIN! Can someone please do a parody of "Red and Black" for me about my first world struggles? Les Mis, man. 

I'm just Chandler Bing, guys. 

My Internet Friends and Me

While a majority of grown-ups and people who were raised on something other than the great and power World Wide Web are hesitant to venture out into the not-so-safe areas of the cyber universe, I can say that I have been there and done that, and you what I figured out? Every adult who has ever told me that everyone on the Internet is a pedophile was lying to me. They all told me about the dangers of talking to strangers on the Internet, and I nodded in agreement, but my impressions of the lurkers of the Web quickly changed when I finally swam out and ... touched the butt.

When I was about 13 or 14, I got really into web design and web coding (because what 13 year-old girl doesn't love twiddling her fingers in Paint Shop Pro and CSS coding?). I fell in love with my hobby, and started looking for places to showcase my skills and knowledge. I joined staff teams for a few websites (run by young people) that specialized in graphics for, and don't you dare judge 13 year-old me, Neopets (yeah, like guild layouts and user-lookup layouts. I told you not to judge me). This gave me tons of practice to learn new coding and find new brushes and styles on Paint Shop Pro 9 (because I couldn't, and still can't, afford Photoshop at the time). Eventually, towards the end of 8th grade, I talked my dad into letting me buy my own domain and get paid hosting so that I could have my own website to offer graphics on. I called it InsaneTruth.net because I was lame and weird but thought I was insanely cool.

One of the last pieces of graphic design I did during my prime
(click for bigger view)

Anyway, around that same time, I had an affiliate (basically link 4 link, now) on my site and she had a message board (or mb if you want to be hip) called Splash MB on her domain. I joined it because why not? It was there that I ended up meeting my genuine best friends during high school. Everyone on there was between the ages of 12 and 18 and primarily female (with the exceptions of some...
questionable characters from the UK).

We all grew together and had inside jokes and leaned on each other during hard times and, yes, there was drama. I learned how to write fan fiction and about British television and who Gaspard Ulliel was. We fangirled over Twilight together... and then later hated every single aspect of it. Oh, and there was a fictional dude named Pedro, but that's a story for a night when I'm really drunk and full of pizza.

Eventually, the message board died, but I continued to talk to a couple of girls every single day on a website called Plurk (it's like twitter, but lame). We skyped, added each other on FaceBook, discovered Tumblr, and continued to grow as young women together. During late night skype sessions that were filled with gossip, innuendoes, and laughs, we put ourselves on the line and secured our most private secrets with each other. My life became full of sexy jokes about geometric angles, secret chatter about the French exchange douche, and Ringo Starr's dramatic plead for NO MORE FANMAIL. PEACE AND LOVE! We watched TV shows together and freaked out over bands (even ones each individual didn't care for... we just supported each other's interests no matter what). We had it made. We had a time...

Always and forever

Honestly, these girls probably know more about my four years of high school than I remember. They know every crush, every geometry class scandal, every single time I was blocked on FaceBook, every Jonas Brothers concert I ever attended, and even about the first time I fell in love. For someone who doesn't easily trust or open up about anything, looking back, I gave a lot of myself to those women.

We don't talk like we used to anymore. Some of us went off to college and started new lives that didn't allow us to spend every waking minute online, and others just matured out of the awkwardness of being in middle school and early high school. We're still FaceBook friends who wish each other the best on our respected birthdays, we follow each other's Tumblrs, and every once in a full moon, we catch up on each other's lives as if we never stopped talking.

You can say that online friendships don't count, but I'd like you to think about what makes a friendship. Is it seeing someone in person? Is it being in the same city? Being able to hug the other? No. Its none of those things. Friendships are made on trust and laughs and common interests. Distance means nothing. And that's what I had with these beautiful women.

So, thank you, Ale, Jellaw, and Roni. You guys will forever be in my heart. <3 

Crossin' & Creepin'

Well, do they?

So, my best girl friend who isn't Julia, Darian, likes to constantly keep me in-check with the outrageous things that come out of my mouth. She calls it crossing lines. Sometimes I'm just a toe over the line. Other times, I'm crossing so many lines that it's impossible to keep track. It's important to note that I rarely think about what I am going to say before I say it. That just takes up time that I could be talking and the other person could be responding. Plus, it just keeps people wondering what kind of magical stuff is happening up in my noggin all the time. Like, holy shit, what is this girl going to say next because there is no way she can top that? And, you know, I'd rather be an awkward enigma than a walking, talking computer reading from a socially-accepted script like the rest of society.

I live on the 11th floor of my residence hall (do not call it a dorm. I will go all off on your ass if you do), so my elevator rides normally pick up a stranger or two. This is always fun for me because I can either talk to these people and be a normal, social person, or I can shy away in the corner admiring the luscious ringlets of Heaven flowing from their heads in secret. Sadly for me, I normally don't keep many of these admirations or thoughts to myself.

Me: *in elevator alone praying there aren't any pointless stops*
Elevator: *suddenly stops on a random floor*
My thoughts: Shit.
Stranger: *gets on the elevator equipped with tons of swag*
Me: *notices they have great hair/eyes/legs/shoes/etc*
Me: You have really beautiful eyes.
Stranger: Uh, thanks.
Me: *silent for the rest of the ride* 

Every. Single. Day. Of. My. Life

Back home, at a QuikTrip gas station, there is a guy who works at night, and, without fail, every single time I see him working, I always make a comment about his name tag. See, it says his first name and then his last initial, which is an "S." So, I always ask him if the "S" stands for sexy. I don't know why I do this. This guy isn't even that attractive. It's just an uncontrollable urge.

Sometimes I cross lines with my friends. We'll just be talking about something totally normal, and, like the freak of nature that I truly am all the damn time, I suddenly take the topic one step too far and it just becomes this huge awkward silence of disapproval. They'll just be staring at me like, "Angela, why did you just say that? That was totally uncalled for. ugh. You're ruining our lives."I just feel like a nuisance because I can't truly ever censor myself. Or, if I do censor myself, I just censor the completely wrong thing, so I still say something that I probably could have kept to myself. Or, even worse, I'll just stare at people. I like to observe things that seem so normal to everyone else. Like, people in lines at stores or fast food joints. I'll try not to make it too obvious, but, ya know, if they notice that I'm staring, that's cool.

I don't mean to be such a creep sometimes. It just happens. Like, I can't just change that. I'm a socially-challenged writer. How am I ever supposed to fully understand human interaction unless I standby in the shadows being awkward and saying highly inappropriate things to other people? Simply, I can't.

I'm just a psych evaluation waiting to happen.