Campfyre Stories

Apparently, the second time is the charm.  I suppose it could have gone better, but I never would have asked for more.

I got there very early and almost immediately saw several people I know (and have known for years).  I signed up as soon as the sheet went down and wound up being the second person on.  I would have prefered being somewhere in the 4-6 range, but, hey, no worries.

The hostess was actually there this time and she runs things so smoothly.  It just makes the whole thing that much better.  The quality of the performers was higher this time, too.  I think there must have been some bizarre fluke last time with all the crazy things going on.

I got a ton of compliments from random strangers about how my voice is so "high and pretty".  It really hits me when people I don’t know make a point to tell me they like what I do.  I also have kind of a weakness for the word "pretty", so I was pretty pleased with the end result.

As I performed, the boom on the mic stand slowly drifted downward.  About halfway through my first song, I had to stop playing, adjust the mic stand and pick up where I left off.  I skipped a verse in the song, but since it’s one I wrote, no one noticed.  In between the songs, the host (m) came and actually fixed the mic, which really kind of threw me off a little.  I didn’t reposition myself well, so I struggled a bit, but held it together.

I met a really cool guy who plays a 6-string banjo like a guitar and also writes songs.  There’s a possibility of collaboration with him in the future.  We’ll have to see what happens, but I’m totally up for working with other musicians for sure.

I also have a Plan in the works, but a lot of it is dependent on timing and specific dates.  I still have to flesh it out, but I am absolutely feeling better about the whole music thing. 

Also?  So.  Very.  Tired.  Even though I got home around midnight, I was so amped that I didn’t get to sleep until 2am.  I think I can do this every other week, but there’s no way I could go back to doing it every week, mid-week.  It’ll work out, though.  Time will tell how, but I know it will.

I’ve been taking inventory and trying to pick up the things that I need to get through.  I’ve got the sunblock and a couple of out-of-town trips planned.  I’ve got everything in order for rental cars.  I still need to buy a new bathing suit, but I think that’s just about it, really.

I bought a water bottle the other day.  I asked the store worker "where can I find water bottles?"  His reply?  "What do you mean by water bottles?  I don’t think we have any."

"Um…  you know, bottles that…  hold water?  Like for when you’re walking…  outside…  in a heat wave?"

Turned out they did, actually, have them.  Quite a variety even, he just didn’t really understand what "water bottle" meant.  I blame the heat.  Even if it was air conditioned inside, his brain probably melted on his walk in from the parking lot.  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt…

My weekends are just filling up like crazy.  This makes me happy, but I’m going to have to make a point to schedule in some me-time.  I think I have one free non-Spawn weekend left (not counting this upcoming one) until some time in August when we ship him off to spend a few weeks in Michigan with his grandparents.  I can’t even begin to *think* about August at this point, since I have so much to get through before then.  Also, that will mark the beginning of birthday month and I’m just not prepared for that yet.

The heat finally broke, and perfect timing, too.  Trying to practice my guitar last night, it wouldn’t stay in tune because of the heat and humidity.  Blah.  I’ll be fine tonight, though.  After last time, it HAS to get better.

Of course, summer isn’t even really officially here yet.  Not for another 10 days, and I’ll be ringing in the summer with my mom’s annual blowout.  Combination Summer Party, half-birthday for my niece and graduation party for my little brother.  I am really looking forward to it, but with all the things I have to look forward to, I’m trying not to get overwhelmed.

I woke up this morning to panicked cat screams and a strange thumping noise outside my bedroom window.

MRAOW!  *thump*  BRRAOOO!  *thud* MEEEEEER!  *thwack*

What the hell?  "Dracula?"  I called, recognizing the voice, but that just made the yelling louder.  I went to the bathroom window to take a look outside and saw Dracula wandering around screaming while Star tried to jump the 8 feet up back into the window the two had apparently fallen out of.

*sigh*  I lifted the screen in the bathroom window (only about 3-4 feet off the ground) and called "Here kitties.  C’mere kitties."  Drac came over to yell at me closer, but wouldn’t jump through this window.  Star, meanwhile, was single-minded and undistractable from his task of slamming himself into the side of the house and not making it in the window.

6am is way to early for this shit.

"Come HERE, you stupid cats.  C’mon… heeeeeere kitty kitty."

"MRRRRAOOOOOW!!  BRRRRAAAAAOOOOWW!!"  *thunk*  *thud*  *WHAM*

I’m not dressed yet, I have to get my stuff together for work and now, I’m realizing, that I’m going to have to go out the front door, around to the backyard and try to shove these two stupid cats in through the bathroom window.

Just about when I decide to go out and GET them (about 10 minutes in), Star makes it into the window.  Dracula immediately follows suit, with no difficulty whatsoever.  Apparently the fucking cat had followed the little cat to make sure he was okay.  Or something.  Anyway, the big cat had no problem getting in the damned window.  He was just screaming so I would help Star.

Shaman, meanwhile, didn’t care.  Clearly, he is the smartest of all the cats, having not fallen out of the goddamned window at 5-something in the morning.  I’m pretty sure he was laughing at them, as they fully deserved.

But they are inside now, and the offending windows are closed, because I don’t know how to stop them from leaning on the screens and falling out the window.  Stupid cats.

Mid-90’s here all weekend.  Spent Saturday outside in the heat of the day celebrating the birthday of my favorite baby.  I scored with a singing card ("Girls Just Wanna Have Fun").

I found myself hanging out with women who I’ve always considered my mother’s friends, even though I’ve known them for just as long and they’ve always been friends of mine, too.  I realized later that it probably has something to do with the fact that they’re my mom’s peers and so, in my head, they become her friends.  It was a really nice validation to be seen and treated as a peer by these women who have known me since I was a kid.  Makes me feel like an adult, in a really good way.

Sleeping is impossible.  I think I got maybe 3 hours last night.  Spawn asked me if he could take a shower around 1am or so.  I’m not even sure why he asked, but if that boy needs a shower to fall asleep, you know there’s something going on heat-wise.

The worst thing about lying in bed not sleeping is where my thoughts take me.  These are roads I don’t want to walk down because sometimes I wind up believing that my fantasies could come true.  Maybe I should make more of an effort to make them that much more fantastic.  Most of them are realistic and attainable enough to convince me…

There’s something soothing about playing guitar naked in the dark.  I couldn’t see my fingers or the fretboard, but I hit all the chords accurately.  I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that I was playing songs that I had written…  also whether or not it has anything to do with not needing to hit single strings for those songs.  Probably the latter more than the former.

They say if you fall off a horse you should get back on.  I think they say that about bicycles, too, but I’m turning it into the open mic.  Last time I fell flat on my face.  This time needs to be better.  Mother Judge will actually be there and hosting, so I think I’ll have a greater level of comfort and the whole thing will come off that much better.  *crosses fingers*  I’ve pretty much decided which songs I’ll perform, but one of them is kind of up in the air.  It’s ok, though, I don’t feel like I need to plan things out to the degree I usually do.  I’m trying to be more zen about these things and let them be what they will be.

I found out about another open mic not too far away from me (far enough to have to bus, though).  I’m trying to decide if I want to check it out, but I think it might mean skipping this one to do it.  I have to go back there this week or I’ll let my humiliation get the best of me…  maybe next time, or, perhaps, after my vacation.  I just don’t want my music to become stressful.

I am very much looking forward to Falcon Ridge this year.  Spawn has finally gotten the message that, since we volunteer, he has to invite a friend BEFORE the volunteer submission time frame closes.  He’s done that, I’ve confirmed with his mom and it’s all set up.  At 14, I think I don’t have to worry about the boys this year.  They’ll be off finding music circles for probably the entire time they’re not working.  As far as I’m concerned, it can’t come soon enough.

Another thing that can’t come soon enough?  Reassignment.  I’m in this waiting period, while I try to finish up all the projects that are open for me, and fulfill my obligations to my manager, but there’s not much for me to *actually* do.  Don’t get me wrong, I like what I’m doing, there’s just not much of it and I am actually wrapping things up.  I’ll probably stay long enough to cover my manager’s vacation and then (almost immediately afterward) go on my vacation, but in the meantime, I’m not getting new work and it’s about killing me.

Yeah, I could totally use a break.  But at this point, I also need to specify that it needs to be a break NOT during 90+ degree weather, because seriously?  I’m about melting here.

But, you know, here’s the thing I just don’t get…

I understand that people don’t want to be pawns in the Pay Per Post game.  I understand the sense of "My coming here to read this is what makes you money, you’re using me."  I understand that ads on a personal blog are often considered tacky for similar reasons as PPP.  I get that there are a lot of people out there who don’t think that someone should profit from their personal journal entries any more than they would charge people to listen to them complain out loud.

But I don’t understand why there’s an unspoken rule against promoting businesses in a personal blog, with no reward to the writer.

Not that I’ve gotten any actual flak from my past two days of saying "Hey, here’s a company that’s really cool and this is why," but I have had this sinking feeling that by making those two posts (or at least making them so close together) I’m doing something, if not wrong, then taboo and I don’t want to feel that way.

Here’s the thing.  Rarely do I say anything on my blog that I don’t also say out loud.  There are always some stories that I’m not allowed to post to the internet, but there aren’t many (if any at all) that go on the blog, but don’t get told.  I have to keep a mental list of those who I know read the blog so I can avoid repeating a story they’ve already read, or, at least, fill in the missing pieces and expand the story a bit.

The Sprint thing?  Totally told everyone who would listen about that.  They took $100 off my bill!  Of COURSE I’m telling people and saying to them "and this is why I have no plans to change my cell provider".  I mean, let’s be honest, we ALL ask our friends who their provider is, right?  If nothing else, we need to know who is actually in our network and, therefore, free to call whenever.  In those conversations, I’m not trying to convince them to switch, I just want to hear what they do and don’t like about their current carrier.  If they ask my opinion because they’re thinking about switching already, I will offer as full an opinion as I can about the range of providers I am familiar with.

Plurk, less so, only because it’s much more of a niche thing.  People who read my blog (and/or blog themselves) are more likely to be interested in an internet toy than people who don’t spend much time on the internet, but I’m sure that it will come up at some point in time and I won’t have any reason to not say "I’ve tried those other services and they don’t work on my Treo.  The one that does, though, is…"  I would do this for any cool service that I thought someone I was talking to would be interested in.

I really liked the concept of Pay Per Post when it first came out, only because I thought that I could selectively pick out the topics that interested me, or the services that I had a real opinion on and were of interest to me, but the backlash (for the service, not against me specifically) came fast.  Getting paid to post was a Bad Thing, in part, I think, because people were writing about things that didn’t fit the nature of their blog and the postings were forced.  I never used it like that, but there was such a negative reaction across the blogosphere that I felt I would be judged poorly for participating, no matter how I went about it.

But the fact remains that we talk amongst ourselves about products and services and businesses and we all relate our experiences with them.  The negative experiences are most often conveyed, but when we get exceptional service, I like to think that most of us share that as well.  The problem is that it’s so much more acceptable when it’s not actually written down.  Somehow my ongoing war with UPS makes people supportively outraged, but talking about why I love my cell provider and am a loyal (6 years?) customer makes people question my motives.

But my motives are the same as always.  I like to share stories, experiences and cool things I find.  I have to just make the decision that, as long as I stick to my own personal code of ethics, which basically say that the blog is a journal and should be used as such, then it doesn’t matter whether or not people think that I’m trying to sell them something.

Heh.  If I were, I’d be a lot more successful at it and businesses would want to give me free stuff.  That’s just not the case and I don’t expect it ever to be.

I always really liked the concept of Twitter and was an early sign-up for the service, but I think I’ve posted maybe twice to it.  Why?  Because I can’t make it work with the browser on my Treo.  Same thing happened when Kevin Rose came out with Pownce.  I figured, well, I can’t get Digg to work for me, but maybe the lifestreaming thing will be lighter and my phone will handle it.  Not so much.

See, the thing is that my phone really is pretty smart, but the websites I want to access simply do not achieve the same level of intelligence as my Daisy does (*preen*).  As a result, I’m pretty limited, and since I keep my plan with a limited (but sufficient) number of text messages a month, I don’t want to be forced to blog-lite via text.  Also, I HAVE the internet service, right?

So I was playing around on Digg and one of my "friends" shouted me a story about a new lifestreaming toy site.  This one actually works on my phone and I quite like it.  I’m also drawn to the just-finished-beta, nowhere near done aspect of it.  I like getting in on the ground floor of things that work for me, and this does, so far anyway.

The service is called Plurk and it’s just enough different from Twitter and Pownce (which are not really all that different from each other) to warrant taking a peek at it.  The timeline feature is pretty damn nifty.  I figure I want to share this because I’ve been trying and trying to find something like this that works for me and it’s pretty refreshing to think maybe this one will do it.

(I get nothing for this, I just believe in promoting positive, as well as negative, experiences with companies.)

So I switched my plan last month to a family plan so that Spawn could have reliable phone service and save my wallet from the pre-paid BS. I got a pretty good deal and we moved on.

When the bill came, it was a little higher than I expected, but, eh, new plan… I didn’t stress it until I saw that I no longer had MY text messaging on my phone (though Spawn did on his line). So I called and they fixed it for this biling cycle, but I didn’t find out about the previous month until a few days later when I checked the billing details.

Called again, was totally pleasant and friendly “just want to figure out what happened.” Not only did she fix my bill and remove the $30 worth of non-plan texts messages, we started a new contract and, DUDE, she gave me a $70 credit.

I tell Spawn regularly, always call if you have a problem with any business. I did not expect them to take a total of $100 off my $70ish/month bill.

Score! <3 Sprint so much. I don’t mind signing new contracts at all because they always treat me really well and in unexpected ways.

Recently I got back in touch with an old friend who had drifted away.  She reads my blog and emails from time to time and if I ever have enough time to just sit down and write an actually update letter, I’ll do that.  (It’s actually looking like a sit-down, pen and paper letter might be the way to make this happen…  I digress.)

She asked me for my mailing address a few weeks back and I went ahead and gave it to her.  Yesterday when I came home, there was a package from her waiting for me.  Spawn had been eying it all day wondering what was in it, so I opened the box.

Inside was a card that read "Happy early birthday".  This is odd because I know that she knows when my birthday is (August 31) because her birthday is a week before.  Not only early birthday, but REALLY early birthday.  Inside the card was a letter.

The letter said that she was enjoying reading my blog and had gotten this great idea for something she wanted to give me.  After searching the internet and not finding it, she eventually found a place where you can make custom "items" (she said items, so I’m still kind of wondering…)  She hoped I would get a laugh out of it, but remember "you asked for it."

And I opened the package and laughed so hard I almost fell over.  Inside was a t-shirt reading:

I’M THE EX-WIFE

Dear, dear, Buddy…  thank you so much for that.  Not only did it give me a huge laugh and a blog post, it gave me an enduring story that will be amusing for (I have a feeling) years to come.

Ok, so here are the answers to the questions that I know will be (or already have been) asked.

The back of the shirt has nothing on it.  This is good, because all the slogans I came up with would render the shirt unwearable.

I haven’t decided if I will wear it around Dragonmaker or not.  Spawn said that he doesn’t want me to wear it around him, so, we’ll have to see what happens.

Of all the people who threatened to buy me that shirt, it came from a completely unexpected source and, ironically, the friend who sent it to me I met through Dragonmaker.

And, yes, I will wear it.

Part of me wants to write a message to my baby brother as he graduates from High School, but since he doesn’t really read my blog, it wouldn’t really be for him.  I think I’ll save it and put it in a card.

Part of me wants to write as a proud mama and talk about how Spawn played in his school’s talent show, but I wasn’t there and he doesn’t really like my telling his stories when I don’t have the full information.

Part of me wants to complain about the bad stuff, but there’s not an overwhelming amount of it.  People I haven’t seen in a while ask me how I’ve been and I answer "Really good and really bad…  at the same time."  There’s not really an average in the middle ground, it’s just a combination of good and bad and they are keeping separate.

Part of me wants to write about party season and how busy *everyone* is.  How people are amazed when I start telling them all the stuff I’ve been up to and all the stuff I have planned, but then they say "Huh.  You know, I’ve been going to a lot of parties and events, too…" and realize that I’m not all that much busier than they are right now, they just hadn’t really thought of it.  But that would turn into something else entirely, I already know it.

Part of me wants to just not post today, but there’s no good reason fot that.

So I’ll just list off all the things I’m not blogging about and the reasons why and leave it at that.