This is my favorite story from this weekend.

My grandfather was an incredible businessman. He was so good that the Church asked him to carry the collection plate every Sunday at mass. The son of one of his friends tell me a story from one Sunday a pretty long while ago.

"My father is sitting in the pews next to his best friend Tommy. It comes to collection time and Frank (my grandfather) comes down the aisle with his basket, not the kind you pass up and down the aisles but one of those stuck to the end of a long stick. He holds it out in front of my dad and he puts a five dollar bill in. Keep in mind, that was a lot of money back then. Next Frank turns to Tommy. Tommy reaches around and pretends to search his back pockets for his wallet. Of course he doesn't have it, he never did, the guy didn't even have a license so what would he be doing with a wallet? Anyway, Franky starts to get impatient with Tommy so he pokes him with the basket a few times.

"Come on, cough it up."

But, of course, Tommy doesn't have anything to cough up so Frank turns back to my father and starts poking him with the basket.

"Cover him."

My father can't do anything else so he reaches back into his wallet and pulls out another five dollar bill."

This thing is getting silly.

I'm thinking of renaming my cat.

Goodbye Stuart Ransom Miller...

Hello Biggy Fries.

(Though Stripy is still in the running.)



Maybe I'll just get another fish. I do miss The Lyrical Assassin.

Sigh

Oh my.

Do you ever have one of those days that's just so good you feel like a jerk for complaining about all those other days?


Leah and I have perfected the oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookie.

It involves 2 parts chocolate to every one part raisin

and extra brown sugar (but Leah doesn't know I did that.)



"...what's clear is that you can do A work if you want to." From my English Lit teacher, at the end of my most recent paper. Thank God SOMEONE is looking out for my self-esteem is all I have to say.



I'm going to sleep in tomorrow because I did so much work these past two days.
No class until 2. I'm going to eat cookies for breakfast then sit around my house and play my music too loud

and sing

the wrong words.

Then I will go to class late and sit in the back looking unapproachable pretending that I haven't just been singing in my room with my cat and Steve.

It's that time of year again!

It's time for the annual COMPANY PICNIC.

Yes! The end of April has rolled around once again and with it comes your invitation to the company picnic.

Saturday April 30 at Reid Park. It starts at 11:00 and goes until 3. I know you know what company I'm talking about because I know you all got the exact same invitation that I did this past Friday.

So, I will see you there.

And maybe we will play tether ball

or volleyball with Glenn

and he will bring Peaches the dog.

Don't worry, I will remind you in person...

a few times.

<3

pity whore

I sense an impending ebb.




I think it's ok to have a bad day if your hair doesn't look good anymore

or if Dinese is getting transferred again

or if your teachers talk too much about things you aren't interested in

or if it's too hot

or if you miss your kitty because he is sick and living with you will only make him sicker

or if your house floods.



Today was a bad day.

There is a certain arrogance surrounding the coffee business. People have this idea that working in a coffee store is more respectable than working in any other form of food service. If you don't believe this ask any Canyon Cafe (coffee) employee if they would ever consider quitting and working at the Three Cheeses and a Noodle (Italian restaurant.) I guarantee they will laugh and then be disgusted by the idea. Coffee jerk is a 'better' job than any job at the noodle restaurant. In fact, the lowest position in a coffee store seems more respectable than higher positions in other restaurants.

Working in a coffee store gives people an odd perspective on their own importance. Cafes lack the concept of working your way up. There is no bottom. This is one of the reasons that it seems more respectable than other food jobs. Baristas were never dish washers. You can walk into any other place and kind of assume that at some point the person working there had their arms elbow deep in greasy water or walked around with stains on their shirt from busing tables. There is no bad or hard job in the coffee business that the employees can be embarrassed or humbled about having to do at some point.

This lack of job stratification also creates a lack of hierarchy. Nobody is above anyone else. Who would be taken seriously if they decided to take charge (even if they were technically in a higher paying position than their coworker) and demanded that someone else needed to put out more lids or a new box of straws? You can't dictate easy jobs to other people, it just doesn't work that way. So everyone feels like the top of the ladder right from the start because no one is telling them what to do.

There's also no hard jobs, nobody is any better at making coffee than anyone else to a degree of any significance. When was the last time someone requested a specific barista without everyone else rolling their eyes at her? Right, those people are crazy. But there are good waitresses and there are bad ones, same with cooks and even dish washers. Coffee people are safe from the possibility of someone else being better than they are. We are all the best at what we do.

I have forgotten why I started this and for that reason I am not sure what to conclude.

Proof I am a bad person

Excerpts from my most recent favorite fiction class stories:

"Believe me when I tell you that I was dying inside when I told you those horrible words, I was hurting too, however when you left I thought that maybe you would forget about me and have a better life, or so I thought."

"She tried desperately to erase all those ill feelings away, but it was impossible, the simple fact of being rejected and denied love was a consuming pain for her, and to be not loved back, it meant death. So instead she closed herself in her own shell, but now the same person who put her in it was trying to get her out."

"It was the kind of day where you could toast a piece of bread outside."

...

This is where I live

Last night Todd had a party at my house.

He invited the fifteen year old he broke up with last semester because she though she was pregnant

and many of her friends.


This morning our bathroom was torn up.

The backyard has turned into a trash heep with torn up magazines, beer cans, and the five pieces our kitchen table is in scattered about.


When I fed my cat this morning i found that someone had put a knife in his litter box.

If you want to change your name just remember

It doesn't matter what the first part is if your name is followed by "the Great."

I propose a law.

This is aimed at writers.

Namely the writers in my fiction class.

Here's the law:

From this day forward nobody will ever write a story that involves a mysterious stranger that disappears mysteriously.


With that said lets cut down on suicides, tragic breakups, and lesbians turning straight.

This is how I live

This is what I hear from my room this morning

Leah: "Oh, ewww!"
Todd: "HEY! Don't watch me pee!"
Leah: "Don't do it in the BACKYARD!"


sigh

Revenge is petty

I'm living with this guy named Todd. He is without a doubt the most despicable person I have ever met. When he first moved in he was seeing a fifteen year old girl. He broke up with her because she thought she might be pregnant. It turned out she wasn't but a few months later she called him up again. She told him that she had gotten drunk at a party and slept with some guy she didn't know. Again she thought she might be pregnant. Apparently she didn't have anyone else to call. After hanging up the phone Todd came into my room with a big smile on his face. He told me what she said on the phone. I told him that is so sad. He told me he was going to buy her a 'congratulations on the baby' card.

Over winter break he and his friend Nate the Rapist (who, I might add, is now dating the best friend of the girl who gave him his nickname)had a party in our house. He let his friends sleep on my room. The result is $475 dollars worth of damages. Which actually means his friends stole $475 dollars worth of DVDs from me.

(a shortened version)
"Todd, did you let people sleep in my room?"
"No."
"You're lying to me, I know they slept in there. And they stole my DVDs."
"I didn't let anyone into your room! I was in my room the whole time!"
(He actually tried to use this as a defense. Todd is an idiot.)
"Todd, this $475 is your problem."
"I'll pay you fifty dollars from each of my paychecks."

I haven't seen a cent, shockingly. Tonight he told me he is having another party, I have no plans of staying overnight in this house with this party. I have decided, however, that if I find out that Todd has let anyone into my room tonight I am going to do two things. The first being I will call his mother. I will tell her that he had a party and now he owes us almost $500 in damages. I will tell her this is her problem because Todd says he cannot afford to pay. If shes says no (which I'm secretly hoping) I am going to take Todd to court. I figure I can't lose.

So, there is a party in my house tonight. Please come. Please go into my room. I doubt you will be stopped. Please mess something up. Then leave because the party is going to be awful. Thank you.

aww

DaPuj: Whoa

Auto response from amycarina: I'm only half as interested as I act

DaPuj: You must be the most apathetic person ever then


Ha, we're both assholes.

Is it always like this?

I was having lunch with Leah at the Reddington Restaurant in the Union the other day. There was a new girl working, a new bus girl. She was very small and looked very young. I guessed was she was still in high school. About halfway through our meal I heard something break directly behind me. I turned around as the tiny bus girl was frantically scrambling to clean up the mess of the plate she dropped. One of the waiters came over, helped her quickly pick up, and shooed her away. I went back to my salad and delicious green marshmallow fluff stuff.

I didn't think anything of the broken plate because, well, it was just a broken plate. I didn't think anything of it until about ten minutes later when there was a bigger, louder, closer crash. I turned around again and there she was, standing behind a huge grey cart piled high with dirty plates. In front of it was a pile of broken plates and spilled leftovers. She stood frozen as her coworkers rushed over with their dirty rags and annoyed looks.

They scooped the mess back onto her cart and scattered back to their important jobs of asking people how they are and filling half full water glasses.

I looked up at her as she walked slowly by me. Her face was red and she was staring stiffly at the floor. Tears ran down her face. As she managed to round the final corner and disappear into the back of the restaurant I could hear her choke back a cry.

My waitress came by and apologized to me for all the commotion.

Nobody went after the tiny bus girl.

Call me vain

Wow.


Twenty-seven people looked at pictures of my cat on the internet last week.

http://community.webshots.com/user/amycarina

Maybe I'm obsessing

I'm on facebook. Embarrassing I know, but hey, you either have a live journal or obsessively read other people's live journals so I can safely assume you're lame too.

There's a way to send people messages through the program. It acts very much like email. There is also a feature called "poking." I have no idea what the point of poking is or why one would want to do this to someone else. Imagine my shock when I get my first poke from a complete stranger.

"You have been poked by XXX.

Poke XXX back. or Ignore poke."

The first thing I do,naturally, is panic. Well, shit, now what do I do? I don't know this guy but he poked me. Maybe I do know him and have forgotten him somehow. Facebook only gives me two options, poke back or ignore the poke. But what does poking someone back mean? What message do I send to him if I engage in this game of poke. Can I just throw a poke around even if I don't know this kid? How can I just ignore a poke? How can I be so rude? How can I risk the fact that an ignored poke will be the last I hear from this mystery boy? I poke him back.

About four seconds later I have a message.

"Do you want to get coffee sometime?"

Oh no. I check his profile. His picture is from a distance. It is him breathing a long plume of fire, obscuring his face. The only connection I can find is that he is in my film history class. There are 250 other people in that class. I sit in the very back and only talk to my thirty year old friend with long hair, a goatee, and gimp knee from rocking out too hard on stage with his heavy metal band. I have no idea who this kid could be or why he wants to have coffee with me.

I log off of facebook. Now what should I do? Do I send him a message saying no, I will not have coffee with you internet boy? Do I say yes and risk the fact that this is an internet boy. Or... do I break out my magnifying glass and pipe and crack this case?

It's been two weeks and here is everything I know so far:

1) His name is J. James Neff
2) He is Mar 100b but not in section 10
3) He breaths fire
4) He likes coffee
5) He is not the tall guy with a slight accent who gets three refills a day from my coffee store, this guy does not breath fire
6) He might be the blond guy who looks at me funny sometimes. My metal friend is going to find out his name next week...

If you know anything about this boy please come forward. I encourage you to look him up on facebook. I also encourage you to ask everyone you meet if they breath fire. If they say yes, take note.

I'll start my own blood bank

New life plan:

Step 1: Finish Creative Writing Major (because I can)

Step 2: Finish Business Minor (for a little respect)

Step 3: Finish BFA Media Arts program (an *expensive* gift to myself)

Step 4: Begin entry level position (surprisingly well paying)

Step 5: Go to grad school and recieve Master's in Business Administration (for free)

Step 6: Get high powered advertising executive position (be paid handsomely)

Step 7: Write my own Pulitzer Prize winning book

Step 8: Bleed money

Guess which one has already written a novel

I am taking an introduction to writing fiction class. This is the first step to becoming a professional writer. Here is a sampling from our first assignment:

"I was dying because of the one I loved who in return loved me not."

"Later that day Matt, DJ, and I went over to Boston Market to eat and when we got back interesting stuff happened."

"My mucus membrains in my nose would freeze as I sucked in air."

"Hot water drips through the corner crevice of my bloodshot sunken almonds."

"We curl into fetal position, a woven mass of skin pretzal."

"Marlin's white T-shirt was once white."

"It got to whenever she would come over Rufus would roll over on his back and get an erection." (Rufus is a dog. It took me two readings to figure this out.)

Keep in mind it's the desert

On the corner of second street and fourth ave. there's a house with daffodils in the front yard. You have to walk through two huge arbors covered in dead vines but if you make it to the other side you can expect a handsom rewarded of three fully blossomed daffodil flowers. Also, a few streets over there are chickens but I have forgotten the exact address.