I May Fall Asleep Half-Way Through This...

So. Yes. The liquidation process has begun at Borders and now we get to come in at 6 o'clock in the morning! Yay! Not. Really. You see, I do not normally function until 9 in the morning. That means my poor co-workers have to be around me for three hours while I stare blankly and refuse to speak with them. And then I work for 8-9 hours. By then I am sleep deprived and loopy. Yesterday I started throwing gift cards at one of my co-workers but instead of being mad he just asked if I could kill him so he didn't have to be on register anymore. Yeah. It's been a bit hard.

He should get this shirt. As long as he is merely

being metaphorical. I don't want him to really

die because he is tall and cool.

BUT. I get along with everyone I work with so we manage to keep each other afloat which is dreadfully needed. And so, I'll take advantage of these end times and post about my highlights.

1) After I'm done with every customer I shout out "I can help the next customer." but the one time I shouted "Have a Good Day!" instead. E, who was standing next to me, bent over in half she was laughing so hard.

Only she has red hair. And is a girl.

2) It is 3pm. I am supposed to be leaving. I wait for back up and am helping this lady. Her total is $15.57. She hands me a twenty and says, "I have the change so you can ring it up."

Uh. Yeah. No. I've had customers try this before. After I open the drawer they suddenly don't have the change and I have to try to figure out their change. I don't have math skills of any kind. So I say, "That's okay. I'll just wait."

She: "But why not? I have the change. It will save time." (she continues to dig in her purse for change and I try not to point out that she is actually wasting time by talking to me instead of just finding her change and moving on.)

Me: "It won't make a big difference so I'll just wait."

She: (pausing) "Why not?"

Me: (not really caring anymore) "Because I'm weird."

She: (stares) "Excuse me?"

Me: "I'm weird."

She: "Why are you weird?"

Me: "I have to do things in a specific way. Just let me do it."

Finally she hands me the change and I give her a five and she walks away clearly very confused.

this was her brain

OH. MY. GOODPOTATOES. People. Just let me be a cashier. You can be a customer. Don't tell me how to do my job. I've been a cashier for a few years now. I know what I'm doing. Just move on.

3) After the crazy change lady leaves I deal with an uber slow person who is so slow it makes my skin feel like it is burning (or maybe I feel that way since there is no air conditioning and it is close to 90 degrees up by the registers. So much fun!) but once the uber slow lady is gone I run away and grab my bag from the back. I also grab a marshmallow rice thing because it is filled with sugar.

love it!

Then I have to get a bag check so that the managers know we aren't stealing things. As my manager, JP, checks my bag a group of teens come in.

1st Teen: "I wonder if the chairs are for sale?"

Me: (in a singsong voice) "Yes, but not for you."

2nd Teen: "Uh. Okay then."

Me: (extremely embarrassed and calling after them) "I'm sorry! I've been awake since five! I'm really tired and I'm leaving."

I run out of the store as fast as I can while JP turns around and covers her face with her hands as she tries to muffle her laughter.

Yeah. This whole liquidation thing is going to be so much fun on my brain.

Have fun my peeps! I'm going to go spend the entire day doing absolutely nothing. it is going to be EPICally fun.

And Sometimes Life Isn't As Cool

As most of you probably know, Borders is dying. They call it - in official terms - liquidating. It is sadness.

Awwww... :(

It's not as bad for me because I'm leaving for school in the fall (more on that later) but I know in December I'm going to come back and it's going to hit me like a brick falling out of a speeding dumpster.

I'll probably cry. Just a little bit.

I'm kinda' hoping Barnes & Nobles will put in a bookstore after we leave. There are not many bookstores in our area. The closest one is close to forty-five minutes away from me. Not cool.

Annnnnnnd... You learn that there are two kinds of people in the world.

1) The kind that are sad for you, and wish you luck. They thank you for always helping you and make you love life. They share with you the books they love and encourage you to expand your interests and learn more, even if you end up losing your job. And it is amazing. And you love people. And you want to give customers hugs, except for the scary men that stare at you through windows...

And you know that it's going to be okay. Until...

2) The people who call as soon as they find out your closing and want to know what's on sale. The people who ask if they can buy it now and return it later for the sale price. And you say no. And you wonder if they're on drugs. And there is the one customer that snickers at you because you are losing your job. Or they scream at you across the store to ask when you're closing. And you want to hit everyone and scream at them and you wonder what on earth people are thinking. Maybe they all starting sniffing glue and just aren't in their right minds.

CRAZIEST THING IN THE WORLD

(according to Google)

This is what my customers were like, apparently.

But life will go on and God will provide and we'll find our way from here. So we just have to remember to hold onto the number one customers and disregard the others. (And here I would normally say, Shas La Na, but as it is in a language that does not exist I will instead just run away and leave now.)

Polaris!!!

So Rebecca - my lovely sis - and I went to Polaris. If you do not know what this means shame on you. Polaris involves Canadians and is a Sci-Fi Convention of awesomeness. And what could be better than a Canadian-infested Sci-Fi Convention? Well, other than pot pies, I just don't know.

Mmmmmm... Deliciousness.

Also on a completely random note, for some reason my google searches are all coming up in Czech. I'm sure you wanted to know that.

SO... We left early Thursday and Rebecca's car decided, air conditioning? Who needs air conditioning? And so it was a bit more warm... meaning super hot... then we really wished for it to be. But ah well. Ces le vie, or whatever. (Canadians speak French, and I think that's a butchered French phrase. We're being multi-cultural today.) We made it to Canada and passed through Vineland and I got excited about the Icelanders and Rebecca rolled her eyes at me. Then we made it to Toronto! And it was so greeeeeeen! And I have no pictures because they are on Rebecca's camera. So imagine something that combines trees and cities. It looked a little bit futuristic I do say.

Then we walked around Toronto and went to amazing libraries and found out that I really am a fascinating idiot sometimes. I brought three pairs of shoes. They were all high-heels. One should not walk around cities in high heels. I blame it entirely on one of my characters who is obsessed with high heels. Anyway. My feet didn't hurt too badly, fortunately, but still. Next year I will bring appropriate footwear.

Then came three days of amazing conventionness and Hopefully if I am not being a lazy bum I will post more because it was pretty amazing. And I was in the same building as Ben Browder (I waved in his general direction in honor of a few of my friends who love Farscape) and I got to see Jewel Staite (she is Adorable) and so much more! I am totes going next year, even if I am going to be mad poor, but whatever. Polaris is totally worth it. And you should totally come next year and that would be fun times.

And in conclusion, here is a cheesecake, because I am hungry and I'm going to go eat dinner:

Enjoy life, my friends, my dear LamNams, because life can be pretty pumpkins cool sometimes.

THREE is a Number

ONE: OHMYGOODNESS I WENT TO BEA AND IT WAS AMAZING. I will be posting about it Soonish, which you all know means it could be between now and the apocalypse.

TWO: I totes sent out a query letter and am now dying. I'm keeping track in my head: well, it got sent out this day, should arrive this day, could be read any day after this one... And then I start screaming and wondering what on earth I'm doing and trying to prepare myself for what I'm calling "The Inevitable No." I love this agent, so I'm hoping it's a yes... But if this agent is not going to lurve my book, then I want this agent to say no so I can find an agent who will lurve my book, even when I'm going insane and want to hate it. You know?? I know a certain Ms. Ahiers is going through a similar process and I must say: It's nice knowing I'm not alone in my agony. Unless she is not agonified, which would be magnificent as I do not wish anyone to be agonified.

THREE: Actually there is no three. I just like having three points instead of two. Only two points is lame. So now there are three.

A Quick Note

Laters this week I should have a post about Arbor Day, but until then I thought I should let you knows: I started a Spake Blog Here --> In this Secret Link <-- And I have been blogging there regularly. I don't know why, but I have ideas spilling out of my head and I just know I could blog until the wombats and alpacas come home with the cows... (So, if you see someone named Spakedom commented on your blog it's just me under a Secret Guise trying to confused the population of bloggers)

BUT over here I feel like I am floundering just the tiniest of bits. I was talking to a customer at work today and he mentioned that he was looking into self publishing and we started talking and along the way I mentioned I had a blog. He said, "Oh, what's it about?" And I kinda' gaped at him like a fish. Like this fish:

*goes to find picture of gaping fish*

*is disgusted and runs away*

Ugh. *shudders* I forgot that I am Utterly Detested of fish. Grossgrossgrossgrossgross....

You know what. Forget the gaping picture of mouths. I HATE mouths. I have just decided.

ANYWAYS...

So I thought to myself, "I don't know what it's about? Is that okay?"

And I wondered to myself: "Does it bother you?" I mean. It's all well in good to write for oneself, but if I were to write only for myself I would be writing in a journal. In a book. That you did not see. Cause that's the thing with a blog. A part of it is for me, sure, but it's also for You guys. Are you annoyed that there's no structure this way? That I come and go and wander around and dance into the fog while you're still boarded up inside? Or that I board myself up at home while you're dancing in the square?

So I suppose, if you want my Solid Responsible Consistent part of me you can visit Spakedom. If you want my Spastic Colon, Wombat Squealing, Hyper-Active Mocha-Coffee part of me you can visit me over here. Sometimes I think there is too much of me to stay in one place. Which is why I'm always accidentally sprinkling bits and pieces of me into my characters.

Maybe that's what all authors do. They have so much inside of them that they can't keep it all to themselves and they just end up spilling it out into words. Or artists do it through pictures. Or musicians through music.

It is said that creative people tend to have more connections between their different brain parts. Maybe we simply don't know what to do with all those connections. So we throw up our souls onto slips of paper and parade them around in the hopes that someone else can make sense of them. But in a good way. In a way where we're most happiest, most at peace, when we're writing, since that's what we were created to do at birth, what with our messed up brains. And stuff.

I think that makes sense. Either that or my one character, Philosophical Solomon, is just messing with my brain again.

Blogging

(In Honor of the A-Z Challenge going around I'm going to attempt to Alphabetize my posts this month. Yay to all A-Zers!)

I have been blogging for over a year with 114 posts (!) and 96 lovely followers. So I thought it would be fun to take a step back and see where this has brought me and what it has taught me.

But let's take a quick look back at the beginning and see what started it all... Blooooooop.

Ah, LOST. I am a firm believer that it's never the Big Choices that change your life. It's all the little choices before that big choice that changed your life.

Deciding to watch LOST was one of those. I shouldn't have even ended up loving the show. I saw one "Before on LOST" and was so confused. I decided I should Never Ever watch the show.

The same thing happened to my sis. But then she ended up watching it anyway.

I came in during one of the many Run-Through-The-Forest-To-Creepy-Music-And-Hope-You-Don't-Die scenes. I went to bed. And was haunted. I had to watch this show! Well. Then I followed Rebecca's lead and snooped around Nikki's blog. And started a blog.

And then started a second one. And then started a Twitter. And a second Twitter for my Spakes. And then I started a Tumblr. And I made Awesome Friends. And I learned that the world of Publishing is much more Vast than I had imagined and that Writers are way cool people to hang around and that there are lovely Random people out there who are weird like me.

I also learned that unlike these strange Western Thinkers I do not live linearly.

I don't know why, but this is what I think of when

I think of the word 'Linear'

I live in circles. Which is why for a few months I'm heavy on the internet, and then for a few months I'm not, and then for a few months I almost never turn on my computer.

And maybe that's okay. To be circular.

This is Chain Mail. This is what I think of

when I think of being 'Circular'

I have learned so much here in this blog-o-sphere. I have so much support over here. It is extremely Awesome. And I am super excited to get to know more of you, to re-aquaint myself with some of you, and just have a generally good time during this Second Year of my blog.

And here are a few things I learned:

1) I am not disciplined enough to do anything regular on a blog yet. Ha. Except be Regularly Irregularly Random

2) Closing my eyes and setting my hands atop GLOM does not magically transfer Blog info up into my brain. This may be lame, but it's true.

3) Some Blog people have super cool Book Recommendations. Even if it's not something I usually read, I should read it anyway, just to see if I like it.

4) Wombats will one day save the world

5) People can get published. It is happening all of the place in this bloggy world.

6) Um...

7) #otherstuffthatiforgot

I know some other lamnams blog birthdays are coming up or recently passed. (Like Wolfie402's)

Congratulations Everybodies! :D

Age & Nightshade

Recently I read Nightshade by Andrea Cramer. It was pretty good. The mythos was fascinating and not something I had read before. The characters were real and I could relate with them. And I was excited because the language was nice and clean.

However, this book did bring up something that I've noticed in YA books. If I had read this when I was actually a teen I would've been very, Very, VERY uncomfortable. There were at least three scenes that were heavy on the sensual and I had to question myself: Is this appropriate? I mean, the one bathroom scene was so disconcerting. Is this really happening in schools?? And if it is, why is this okay? When did the physical boundaries between guys and girls get chucked out the window?

Now, I understand that in the books situation the girl was preparing to get married and was being treated as an adult and all that. But still. This is not the only book that pushes the physical boundaries. My friend read the Halo books and said there was a scene in them where she was going "Holy Crow! She should not be doing that!"

I also am reminded of one of the panels I sat in on at Polaris where one of the YA authors said their agent was telling them to make their book Sexier. Omgoodness... WHY!? There is a large demographic out there that does NOT want it to be sexier, who are Tired of Sex permeating Everything, especially our used-to-be safe books. And they're pushing it younger and younger. Independent Readers/Middle Grade books are starting to get a little scary when it comes to the relationship aspects to life.

My question is: When did it become okay for teens to have sex with random people before they're married? When did it become okay for authors to TELL teens that this is okay behavior? Yes, yes. I understand that you want a world to be believable. Diana Peterfreund in her Killer Unicorn books has to deal with that temptation because if the girl's aren't virgins they ain't going to be Unicorn Hunters. But I think she does a pretty darn good job of not making it Way Too Awkward for me to read.

At first I thought one of the reasons for the Sultriness was because it seems like a whole lot of Romance novelists are writing for YA now, but that's not fair. Karen Armstrong wrote for YA and her books were very well written and tastefully done when it came to the romance. It was *gasp* Age Appropriate.

So I'm curious what you think? Are Teen books becoming Too Much Sexy? Are you okay with the sexified state of books? Also: On a slightly unrelated note, do you think it would help if a twenty-something age group of books were developed so you could have slightly sexier books without them being for teens?