a day late and dollar short

I meant to mention this a while ago, but I moved my blog from this site to http://www.myimperfectlife.net – so, if you were wondering, which you probably weren’t, that’s why I haven’t posted a blog here in nearly two months. Whoops.

photos to bolster the imagination

My friend K finally got the chance to take pictures of the damage from the shootings with her jazzed up digital camera (ah, to own a Nikon, I might be persuaded to sell my soul). So, without further ado, I give you:

This is the office window that I usually sit directly in front of, and, without fail…I was perched in the way of that bullet on the morning of the 28th.

That’s a close-up of the same shot. Eee!

And lastly, those are the two holes in the other street-facing window, a little bit east of where I was (at that point, cowering on the floor, preparing to suck my thumb and beg for mercy simultaneously).

So. I’ve been doing my best to be light-hearted – and in severe denial – about the entire event, but the cops keep reminding me about writing witness statements and the near-certainty that I’ll end up testifying in court, and to be honest it’s all been wearing on me. I’m trying to be brave, and I’ve gotten more than one comment that I did well under pressure, but I’ve been losing a lot of sleep, and my appetite (formerly of the burgers/fries/shakes/candy/OH PLEASE variety) has dwindled to pretty much nothing. I have to force myself to eat, and go to work, and even get up in the morning. And my biggest fear right now is testifying.

(Deep breath here). As a little girl, I was raped by an uncle, and forced to ‘testify’ in court, which entailed repeating every horrifying detail to the people listening – I don’t remember who was there anymore. But I was tight-lipped and ashamed, and so they kept prodding me, and the entire experience led to my being severely shy for most of my childhood. Of course, I assumed that I’d gotten past it, until I had to testify about a car accident I’d been in with a friend a few years ago. I got on the stand and burbled and shook and became instantly covered in a sheen of sweat, and I ended up not recalling a single word I’d uttered, except that K and T were there to tell me I sounded incredibly sick with nerves and incredibly GUILTY. So much for my testimony being helpful.

Which leads me to my current phobia of getting on a stand in front of a room full of strangers and being questioned and cross-examined and ultimately BADGERED for pertinent information. What good can possibly come of it? Granted, it’ll likely be months before any kind of trial is scheduled, but that’s even worse, because it’s delaying my desperation to GET ON WITH MY LIFE.

But, all bitching aside, I’m lucky to be alive, and very grateful to have supportive friends and family who will bodily drag me to the courtroom and force me to do my civic duty.

bullseye butler

I may have mentioned this before, but I’m a dispatcher at the local sheriff’s office, which means I’m in charge of fielding 911 calls and making sure ambulances and firetrucks get to the right places at the right times. Except in our tiny, picturesque town (it’s more of a village, really) the need for emergency services is pretty erratic. So ninety percent of the time, I’m a well-paid secretary.

But Wednesday, in the early hours of the morning, I earned my paycheck. In fact, I don’t think hazard pay is entirely out of the question. I was at the desk in front of the window, reading a hokey romance novel, when I heard a popping noise, and then felt something sail by my throat.

So I immediately looked in the direction of the window, and saw: a BULLET hole. A round, very distinct bullet hole with cracks webbing out around it. And while I was throwing myself onto the filthy, bug-infested office floor like it was my dearest lover, more shots were exploding and more glass was flying.

I stayed on the floor, cowering like a little girl and struggling not to pee all over myself in fright, until everything got quiet, and by quiet I mean deathly silent. It was like a tomb in the office. After that, I started using common sense, and crab-walked around the desk to lock the front door, then hustled to the back room (where there are no street-facing windows) to use the phone to call the deputy (who had gone home not EIGHT minutes earlier) and tell him to get his ass BACK to the office, ASAP. Okay, so truthfully, I’ve no idea what actually came out of my mouth. For all I know, it could’ve been a terrified squeak. But it was enough to start a full-scale investigation.

And, in starting the investigation, we realized that almost every business on the main highway had been hit, too. Someone went on a shooting spree, and I was the only idiot unlucky enough to be up at 3:00 A.M., sitting in front of a window, making myself a brightly lit target. Hence the name ‘bullseye butler’, which a deputy thought would be a smart-ass joke, because my surname used to be ‘Butler’ before I was adopted.

Anyway, I could have been hit, or even killed. So I’ve spent the last two days counting my blessings, and marveling at the oddity of someone losing their mind and treating my hometown like a shooting gallery. Of course, the bigger news networks in the area caught wind of the story and insisted that we would ‘never’ find the culprit, but I am happy (and proud) to say that our deputies did a bang-up job, and less than forty-eight hours later they arrested the guilty party. And on a personal level, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

lonely musings

I blame the following confessions on the fact that I’ve spent the past week engrossed in a series of romantic novels. And, also, ate more than my share of chocolate – which they say is an aphrodisiac.

I believe, in my hopeful, girlish heart that love CAN happen the way it does in fairy tales. Those long, hungry glances. The quick flutters and the slow, dizzying slide into bliss. The need to hold that person against your mouth and heart. Shared laughter, and the security that comes with knowing you can also share tears. Perfection, not through actions or words – never that – but with feelings.

I don’t consider myself a ‘hopeless’ romantic. I have hope and faith, and that’s why I believe in love. I believe that someday, my mate will walk into my life – or I’ll walk into his. It just seems as if the wait is getting longer and longer. I’m twenty-five now, and I’ve always wanted a family, complete with children and a big, obnoxious dog that I’ll have to scold for digging in my bright, cheerful flowers.

I’m getting carried away. The point is, I may be eager, but I’m also determined. And if I hate to wait until I’m forty to find what I’m looking for, I will. I won’t be so afraid of loneliness that I sell out, or give in to any man who strikes my fancy. Love, my idea of love, is worth waiting for. No matter how long it takes.

Move Along

In the midst of preparations for my little sister’s baby shower this weekend, there was an incident involving some drama (completely normal, in my family) that led to a discussion about my possibly moving to Havre, which is sixty-some miles east.

Of course, I didn’t plan to live here – and by ‘here’ I mean a very small, sparsely populated place that could be considered a retirement community, given the average age – forever. But I have been dallying, putting things off, and basically keeping my life on hold for the past two years. It’s time to change things up again, I think.

Today I started looking for available jobs in the paper, and although I don’t own a car yet, one of my brothers offered to help me finance one properly so that I’m not up to my eyeballs in debt, or considering jaywalking as a respectable hobby. And since most of the college kids have gone home for the summer, now is the perfect time to find an apartment. There’s no time like the present, they say (although at this particular present, job options in the area seemed pretty dismal).

So I’ll probably be moving before the end of the summer, to a bigger and brighter location where I can actually date – oh, the excitement and bated breath – and where I may get to do something interesting with my life. Because neither option is likely to happen, not where I am now.

assorted complaints: including sparkle wrapping

I’m adopted. My need to start with a disclaimer is a fitting introduction for this piece, I believe. I love my relatives as much as one can love one’s family, but cripes. Sometimes. Which times, you ask? Oh, well, if you INSIST.

My sister(my biological sister – she’s also adopted) tried to play matchmaker, using myself and one of her best friends from college as pawns. It was a nice gesture, a sort of subtle nod to the fact that I haven’t dated in months and I have NO social life. So we went out a few times, first double-dating with my sister and her fiance, and then on our own.

After the fifth date, I called it quits. I told him I just want to be friends. To be fair, I sort of knew what was coming. I went on a few dates with a different guy in October, and he met my Grandma, and she loved him…and when I broke up with him, she acted as if I’d torn the heart right from her chest and spit on it before grinding it into hamburger.

I’m twenty-five, not forty, but my entire family acts as if I should MARRY and become IMPREGNATED by the FIRST nice guy to come along, no matter how obvious it is that we don’t belong together. Because I’m TWENTY-FIVE and god, I’m on the verge of becoming infertile and owning a cat instead of a husband and living out my life as a WITHERED OLD MAID.

Which of course makes me want to date about as much as I want to get a brazilian bikini wax. For crying out loud. My Grams, of course, got married at eighteen and started immediately having kids. And my youngest sister is six months pregnant, with plans to get married eventually (to her LOSER boyfriend) and my other sister just got engaged to a terrific guy, and they are so MIND-NUMBINGLY happy I want to drown myself in my coffee cup whenever I’m around them for lengthy periods of time.

So I, obviously, am not living up to expectations. By god, I actually break up with people who don’t do anything for me. And yes, I think five dates is MORE than enough time to decide whether or not I have a future with someone. And then there’s the deeper issue of life being about much, much more than settling down and populating the planet. Of course, if I met the right guy and fell in love and he asked me to marry him, I’d do it. But I’m not in any huge hurry, and I’m not intending to be in any huge hurry ten years from now, either, if that’s the case.

However, rather than seeing my point of view, my family has chosen to label me as having “issues” and being “commitment-phobic.” They’ve also doomed me to die alone. And they said they never want to hear anything about my future boyfriends, and to be honest…I am more than okay with that.

quirky doesn’t even begin to cover it

Some of my more unexplainable idiosyncrasies:

I have an unbelievable amount of wild, curly hair. When I get out the shower to slather lotion on, sometimes a stray hair sheds itself and I accidentally start rubbing it in with the lotion – and then immediately stop and freak out, because this grosses me out to no end. Uck.

I’m not fat, but I have my days just like everyone else. When this happens, and the struggle to get into my sexy jeans seems like too much to handle, I will: Put jeans on, but only pull them up to about mid-thigh – then I will waddle to the top of my stairs and jump down them one at a time, hiking my jeans up inch by inch as I go until they are around my hips and buttoned.

When cooking, I clean as I go. I can’t wait until the food is ready – what if that splatter of spaghetti sauce dries? So the dishcloth is in one hand, the flipper in the other. I find this also helps me stay focused on the cooking (as opposed to wandering away and then, an hour later, remembering that I started to boil water).

I have been known to break into mad fits of laughter for no apparent reason, except that SOMETHING is so funny I might just pee in my pants.

I don’t really like going to the ladies. So sometimes, I’ll hold it…just because I can. They say this is bad for the bladder. Heh.

I’ll be talking to someone, and then they’ll give me a blank look, and I realize I have no idea what the hell just came out of my mouth. Yeah, I’ve never been much of a listener.

I can spend $200 on makeup at Sephora without batting an eyelash, but if I spend more than fifty bucks a month on groceries I start experiencing extreme guilt. I start second-guessing my purchases. For example, do I really NEED that butter? I mean, there’s no question that I can’t live without the electric blue mascara and the forty dollar blush brush, but butter is getting so expensive…

I flirt like I’m in the fourth grade. When I like someone, I fire off one clever insult after another, usually until there’s no chance in hell he thinks of me as anything but a henious bitch.

When I’m really upset – especially when I’m so beyond pissed off that pissed off looks like a happy place – I have a tendency to speak in very perfect, very precise English. And also, to bite the inside of my bottom lip. I’m told this is strange.

From Your Valentine

In honor of one of my favourite holidays, the story of how it all began:

In 269 A.D. Claudius II was fighting a war for territory in Rome. He needed soldiers to fight, and no men were signing up. Claudius blamed the shortage on the families of the men, thinking they just didn’t want to leave their wives and children alone. His solution was to make marriage illegal. Valentine was a minister, one who conducted marriage ceremonies in secret, so that couples could still wed and make families. Eventually Claudius discovered him, had him arrested, and sentenced to death. While Valentine was in prison waiting to be killed, the daughter of one of the guards (one of his frequent visitors) fell in love with him, and they passed love letters back and forth. On the day he died, Valentine signed his last letter to her, “From your Valentine.”

So we celebrate Valentine’s Day in honor of the minister who believed in love so much that he died for it. That is so completely romantic, and I hear it’s also true. It’s enough to make me wish I actually had someone to spend the holiday with.

go to the mattresses!

Please forgive the “Godfather” reference…I can’t help myself sometimes.

For a while now, I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and back pain – which is uncharacteristic for me. So I started putting two and two together, naturally, and realized that not only is my current mattress in need of replacement…it’s a complete and total piece of crap. There are coils poking out of the box spring, and so much sagging go on in the middle of the paper-thin mattress itself, that…it could probably go on Jerry Springer and keep the audience highly entertained with it’s horrific life story.

So yesterday we (me and my accomplice, K) drove sixty miles to a neighboring town and the nearest furniture store to shop for a new one. K works the graveyard shift, but she roused herself earlier in the day because…”There is no way I can decide on a new mattress in under an hour…I need time to compare!” Ahem.

And of course, the “Sleep Center” in the store was a very small, tiny corner of space with about eight or ten options to choose from (because we live in the middle of nowhere and even in the nearest, larger town there isn’t much to look at). I’m also not rich, and when I considered only the mattresses in my limited price range, I had about five options. After sitting/bouncing/tentatively lying on the “Sunnyvale Full Size Plush” variety for about 3.2 seconds, I was in crazy love and ready to hand over my Visa. Which I then did. We were in the store for less than a half hour, from start to finish. My mattress will be delivered right to my bedroom in two weeks, and they even agreed to haul the ancient, withered mattress I have away for no additional charge. I can wait two weeks. Really, I can.

Because I’m shacking up in K’s spare bedroom, on her much-nicer mattress. Trust me, so would you. It’s that ucky.