For the approval of the midnight society... The Tale of the Treacherous Pumpkin

I don't like Halloween. I find it incredibly stressful. Trying to come up with an incredibly clever costume so you can parade around going "look at me, look at me" is so not my cup of tea. But in keeping with the turning over of a new leaf in my life... this year I tried to be festive.

I dressed up (sort of), I went to see Rocky Horror at the movies (not exactly what I expected but 6 down, 95 to go), and I carved a pumpkin. Well... I use the term "carved" loosely.

Awhile ago I Stumbled upon these really cool Martha Stewart celestial pumpkins. And I thought they were really pretty.


So I got rather excited. And lo and behold there was a punkin' carvin' soiree coming up which would provide an excellent time and location to create some Halloween wonderment.

I bought a pumpkin. I bought a carving kit.

Turns out my pumpkin had very little interest in being cut into. By the time I finally got a hole in mine, I had broken the saw from my carving kit and some people were already completely done with their newly lit jack o lanterns. I still had scraping and hole-punching and wiring to do. So I enlisted some help...

(Thank you, Grant. You are the best adopted little brother ever.)

And when the scraping was done, I was offered a screwdriver to help get the holes into the little pumpkin body. This also took some effort.

So Grant enlisted the help of Kate. And then just to make it a group effort...

Mark attacked the decidedly stubborn gourd as well.

Eventually it was ready to go. So I took my time and meticulously wired my little set of Christmas lights all throughout my soon-to-be amazing pumpkin. And nothing could have prepared me for the image that lay before me when we plugged the pumpkin in.

The lights didn't FREAKIN' work!

(Grumble grumble grumble)

Nevertheless, my disappointing pumpkin joined the ranks of all the other awesome ones on the porch.

And that evening I took it home swearing to fix it up right. I bought another set of Christmas lights. I rewired the stupid thing. I set it on my patio. And I plugged it in again. This time it lit up. Hurrah! It took hours of work and the efforts of 4 people to create...

something this lame.

You may have won this battle, Martha Stewart. But the war is far from over!

I Do This Thing...

It's a pretty bad habit, I suppose, or maybe just an overactive imagination. Every once in awhile, for no real reason at all, my mind jumps to this place of "what is the worst thing that could possibly happen right now?" And I guess that's not entirely abnormal but... I go to this place with such commitment and such detail that I nearly convince myself that this awful thing is real.

Example 1: (Real part) I am home from college. I have taken my mother to a Doctor's appointment. I've been sitting in the waiting room for quite awhile. (Imaginative part) This is taking way too long. Something must be wrong. I bet my mother has died. I don't have my father's work number memorized (this is the time before cell phones). I am going to have to drive over to the middle school and pick my sister up. The secretary who I talk to at the front counter will not allow me to take my sister out of school as I am not her legal guardian nor do I have a note from her legal guardian (my newly deceased mother). My rage and grief will burst forth from me as I tear into this woman and cause major commotion in the office. And then Mom walked back into the waiting room.

Example 2: (Real part) I am watching My Life Without Me, this movie where the main character finds out she has cancer and 2 months to live. (Imaginative part) I probably have cancer too. And a very short time to live. At what point do I tell my parents? Who do I tell first? Should I leave my job? Should I move back home? Should I blow what little money I have on some of the fun things I have always wanted to do? That seems wasteful. Who's going to take care of my cat? How will my family handle this? Do I tell them how much I love them or do I write it in letters? Do I write letters to everyone I love telling them how much I love them? And then do I write letters to people I think are jerks telling them I think they're jerks? This is going to take a long time. I should start now. Oh wait, I don't actually have cancer.

Example 3: (Real part) I'm out to dinner with the then-boyfriend. He has excused himself. (Imaginative part) Has he been gone a really long time? Maybe he's not coming back. What if he chose this moment to leave me? Maybe he couldn't stand to say it to my face so he just got in the car and drove away without saying goodbye. That sucks. How am I going to get home without a car. I should call one of my roommates. This is going to be an awkward conversation. And I don't even have any money on me. How am I going to pay for this meal? Maybe they will let me slide because of the sheer tragedy of this situation. Oh look, then-boyfriend is walking back to the table.

So anyway... we had an emergency meeting at work today and in between the time it was announced and the 5 minutes later that I was walking into the conference room I had so fully convinced myself that there was going to be an announcement of someone's death that I was nearly in tears. Thankfully I was able to pull myself together as no one was actually dead.

Is this normal or does it just mean that... I'm... creative?

On My Mind

Not really a project update but I suppose I should say something while I'm here.

Things are going well. Was at the gym at 7 this morning and it kicked my ass... but at this point I need my ass kicked so that's good. Hopefully I will be there again tomorrow morning for some upper body. Third time's a charm with me and personal trainers. This guy is incredibly helpful and nice and makes me laugh. (We had a somewhat awkward conversation about how nice his butt is the other day.)

And that kind of ties in to what I am thinking right now...

1 - I've always been a firm believer that things are only awkward if you make them awkward. If you acknowledge strange situations it doesn't make them more awkward... I think the opposite is true. I'm not a fan of ignoring elephants. I think it's easier to acknowledge it and say "hey, there's an elephant in the room. that's weird." But them I am a pretty socially awkward person myself. So what do I know.

2 - My big realization for the day. If you want to stop being frustrated by people and things... then stop allowing them to frustrate you. This seemed profound to me today, and I think it's a beautiful theory. We'll see how long it holds up in practice.