23rd year picked me up like a whirlw....

Hi. Wow, it's been awhile, hasn't it?

Of my handful of dedicated readers, I'm sure at least one of you felt concerned about my absence and an explanation is deserved. I guess I felt rather concerned about the direction things one area of my life was going and wanted some time to just focus on that and let time pass. I was hoping that by now I'd be telling you: Hey! Guess who's getting 30 hours a week as a poker dealer now, whatwhat?!

Nope, I didn't quite correctly gauge the time it would take to master picking winning poker hands with no prior experience. However I do plan to seek employment at Lucky Bridge and hope to God they put me on somewhere so I can A. Continue to learn poker and be in that environment and B. ..Be with Travis, who you guys don't know about right now. . . will go into that later.

I'm putting on my makeup to meet Travis's boss at the Casino this afternoon. I plan to deliver two resumes: One for a server position and one as a cashier. Being a cashier paying out winnings would be totally awesome but I'd be great as a server as well and it earns tips.

I'm getting ready back and forth as I write this so I will post the transformation here.

Here's me with hair half blow dried and only liquid foundation. I look pasty and kinda greasy from the moisturizer I'd put on.

I'm of course more determined than ever to get the ball rolling with this because by this upcoming Friday I will technically be *un*employed again! (gasp!!) I know right?! It's okay, it was more than over for me at Little Caesers by now. I think the fact that I could no longer stand my job kept me from writing too, because oftentimes after shifts I'd come home, drink and.... might not have much nice to say on a blog at the moment.

When I turned 23 on the first of this month I almost couldn't believe it. I felt I'd done my best with my 22nd year but also thought about how much I am going to need to learn and strive for this year. I'm getting older. People around me that are my age are getting married or having children. I'm really only interested in making money and learning every God damn thing I can squeeze out of my classes at Central to prepare me for the real world that has a tendency to either kick people's ass or make it the greatest time of your life in early adulthood depending on your preparedness.

Makeup brushes out in the car. Oh well, get it later. Hair blow-dried, foundation matted but no color.... 

I started hating my job at Little C's for a number of reasons. One, I was constantly being reprimanded, about anything you can think of, by the female managers and a handful of people I worked with.. It put me on eggshells big time because I felt like I couldn't do anything right there. But at the same time I know a lot of the things they were critiquing me on were either extremely minor in regards to the final product (like stacking the sheet outs the "wrong direction" for the person next to me to stretch them, or not turning on the faucet a certain way while I was doing the dishes-- just an accumulation of stupid shit like that) or weren't even my fault in the first place (like someone made a stack of bad sheet-outs and I get blamed for not being able to stretch them right.

And no, I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes there. I made a pretty good amount of them, especially when I was trying my hardest at dressline because I rarely gave myself a chance to work there. Like I went to work thinking if I did just sheet outs and dishes it'd be cool, but it got super redundant and I started to hate it really quick. This last month I did make a little more effort to work at other stations but would always hate it because I would forget and screw up at little things on dressline like which cup to use for a certain meat on a certain pizza..... and get caught. And feel stupid because yes I've been working there for a few months now.

Anyway, my last straw there was my Friday shift. For me and the management (and the management with me, lol). I had driven from Travis's house to Benton City and back to get ready after dealing poker at the Tin hat the previous night. It was a good night but I was exhausted. I came into work about ten minutes late, and I can't say that was the first time in the last week considering how stretched I felt on time lately with accounting and trying to learn poker with Travis. Rita pulled me outside and gave me a 20 minute rant about how I'm too slow, have a "snarky" attitude, and that she had "people complaining" about me.

 I'm like wow, I'm shocked to hear that you think I have an attitude... I try to rarely talk to anyone and usually wore earplugs at work to avoid hearing other people's conversations because I found it annoying when 90% of it was in loud Spanish. Of course I did always say it was because of my anxiety which was also true. The "people complaining" was identified as "other management" so it no longer concerned me. I always knew my male manager thought I was cool so I knew my suspicions that my other manager didn't like me were then identified. Not surprising what-so-ever.


So here I am sitting with all this new insight and wondering whether or not to go back into work or fold my hand and get the hell out of there. Rita told me she was going to "put the ball in my court" and I agreed to try harder but was admittedly pretty shook by it. I was nervous of what the consequences would be, however, if I came home at 2:45 pm saying I quit my job on a Saturday when my Dad was home. I stuck it out.

My final decision to quit there was made the next day when I saw the schedule and noticed I was scheduled for a whopping 5 hours this week. Okay, you've successfully pushed me out the door, I was more than ready to go anyway. Thanks for the paychecks.

The face I made at work a lot because I was so bored I could rip my hair out by the end. 

So it's very nice to say I'm now out of that place and am feeling more determined than ever to facilitate a comfortable transition to employment elsewhere.

peace.

Today was a hard day.

You guys know me, I'm a perfectionist. When it takes longer than I want to get things up to the standard I expect, I get frustrated. Today was kind of one of those days. It was my third day receiving poker dealing training at the casino and I grew anxious and frustrated when I felt like I wasn't getting things at the speed I should be.

Alright I need to back up. . .

My friend Ed invited me in for an interview a few days ago for a dealer position. My parents and I both assumed it was Blackjack so I did a lot of research on that before the interview. Ed then informed me that I would actually be auditioning for a position dealing poker. I have never played poker in my life. Or dealt with cards, really.

So everything was (and still for the most part is...) totally new to me and I'm trying to process a ton of information at once as well as use these little tricks required to deal in this game. I'm really lucky though because Ed is like... the coolest guy ever. He's someone I went to school with at CBC (nostalgia moment: we actually briefly hung out after class at some neat park in Kennewick and smoked a couple times. . . Back in like Spring 2012. At the time I was taking math 96 with Professor Zhang. Shawn sat next to Ed and in front of us sat the *probably* autistic guy that used to stick his hands down his pants in broad daylight. On my left was Josh F., who I now work with at Little Caesers-- small world. That's where I -also- met Cory B.... who led me to meet Guy S. which led to a *very* interesting summer.)

Anyway like I was saying about Ed, he's like this 30-some year old guy that recently got married and has two daughters. He's worked for a lot of different management because he's really good at what he does. He's also a good teacher. He's been really good at teaching me the game itself. Technique on some things he's been really helpful on, like this neat card fanning trick for aesthetic purposes. It's way harder than it looks.

So challenge #1, aside from being able to quickly shuffle the cards, organize the cards, and understand how to play the game when I'm still get confused on the terminology...

MAKE THIS PRETTY RAINBOW

From what I've seen all of the poker dealers are men but Ed brought me and this other girl Maria in to train for awhile. Maria has been messing around with cards since she was 9 so she knows how to properly pitch them, shuffle quickly, knows how to play etc etc... She's pretty and seems really intelligent.

Anyway I'm gonna hit it. Today was a shitty day at Caesers because I had to stay for 6 hours and didn't have much food in me so I got really cranky and down on myself. Now that I've eaten and talked to my mom I feel better. This is just another one of those things that if I really work at it I can achieve. 

peace. 

1st day on the job (and check out this crazy cake)

Hey guys. It's 10:27 pm, Tuesday night.

I just worked out for about 20 minutes. Figure I'd try to make a dent in the amount of calories in 48 oz. of Bud light and Clamato and a BLT sandwich I enjoyed this evening after my first day at work. I'm all sweaty and slippery from putting on tanning lotion shortly before doing a couple workout videos which probably wasn't the best idea. Anyway.

My first day at Little Caesars was pretty good. Brianna M. was who trained me and did a pretty good job at it. I've known Brianna since we were kids which took a lot of the pressure off versus if it were a stranger. I really like my boss Rita too. I expected her to be really hard on me for some reason but she was actually quite friendly and told me I did a good job at the end of the day. Though I'm not yet as fast and effective at doing things as I'd like to be, I think I'll catch on pretty quickly. I just really want to do a good job and mess up as little as possible because I'm so happy to have gotten a job after this summer anyway.

But I will mess up occasionally, just part of the learning curve. What I like about this job is it's extremely task oriented. As a crew member you're either at one station flattening the dough or making breadsticks, or you're at the next station preparing pizzas to be held at the rack ready for baking, or you're boxing pizzas and getting it ready to go for the customer. The faster and more effective I can do these skills the better I'll do at this job-- period. And because today was my first day I was obviously slower and cautious but I'll be able to speed up in time.

Luckily today was just slow and steady.. Brianna told me it can get kind of crazy when they're busier and have to predict how many pizzas to have ready to go. Tomorrow I'm working from 4 pm-8 pm  with the woman that trained Brianna so I'm hoping she's cool. Thus far I like everyone I work with, including these other two Hispanic women I worked with but I'm drawing a blank on their names right now. One of the women didn't speak any English and I tried to friendly communicate in my crummy broken Spanish and we all laughed. The other woman that did of course speak English was really cool and also helped me out a lot today. She's got four kids.

Speaking of kids... 

My sister made this insane Elmo cake (pictured above) for this little girl's birthday. Her name is Lillie and she's been living with my sister's boyfriend's family for about a year now. It's really none of my business why but I know the baby's Dad is this guy named Lorenzo who still seems like a kid himself. 

Here's a picture of the cake from the front. The Elmo itself was actually shaped using rice crispy treats-- I thought that was really clever. Of course it took an ABSURD amount of food coloring to achieve those shades of red and blue so our kitchen was a complete disaster when I arrived home. I decided to go to the store and get a microwave dinner instead of bother cooking... My mom spent hours cleaning the mess this cake made.  

A bowl of rice crispies sounds pretty good right now.

Goodnight!

peace. 

Love is a tragedy. All that I have, all that I'll ever need ...

Is right here inside

Let the winds of freedom be my guide

(Jeff Loomis. Reminder to myself to start paying attention to incredible guitarists again)

Afternoon readers.

Lately I've had a lot of time to think (like that's something new), successfully returning my psyche to a productive equilibrium of not having my "heart" distract me and make me sad. That's the only way I can put the feeling I have when someone comes into my life seeming totally into me which gets my hopes up but then disappears for whatever reason. It's always a painful experience to go through that lingers with me a week or two after it happens.


This has happened to me twice this summer which has made things like being motivated to look for a job, practice guitar, etc... much harder than they've had to be because of underlying anger, confusion and depression. And at this point in my life the anger and confusion is not directed toward anyone else because it's so easy for me to read and understand why other people do what they do.

I get angry at myself for having any desire to be with another person and letting it make me sad what so ever. I get confused at why luck continues to be serially dreadful that this aspect of my life even if I know I'm very attractive, talented, funny, driven, intelligent, fun loving, adventurous, active... Which should be enough to make me happy!! There's no fucking reason for me to be "depressed" anymore. At 22 I've already accomplished sooo much of what I envisioned myself doing as a child/insecure teen and need to learn to be happy that my talents, intelligence and success will only skyrocket from here if I continue to be this self motivated trying to fill this hole in my life.


It's been two weeks since being let down by a guy who I'd been talking to who I thought was over his ex but apparently wasn't. When I realized that I didn't bother questioning it, especially when I know this particular girl went gone through nearly as much bullshit I did with Jack to get this guy. You know I'll admit I find this guy attractive too and when I found they'd been broken up for a year I thought what the Hell, but after a week of flirting and getting to know him suddenly it's obvious they're back together and in love and everyone's happy.

Good for them, you know. Good for every fucking girl I know that was once lonely and now their dreams have come true and everything's so perfect. I'm so happy for you all.

But more importantly I'm happy with myself and could give a shit about your happiness. I realize now I could die tomorrow and feel I've done all I could do at this point to make myself the best person I could be and that's all I can ask so I won't compare what I have to anyone else.

...I'm gonna go practice guitar for a few hours.... sorry for the language you guys. Had a lot to get off my chest but I truly am feeling content again. Having nobody on your mind does that to you. I'm also happy to say I got a job at Little Caesers and will start working there on the 28th.

peace. 

Looks only go so far, homie.

I've come to two realizations:

1. That it is not wise for me to consider dating someone younger than me and...

2. That I shouldn't bother dating guys that have not been in college long enough to have their hookups and partying over with. 

Okay I'll admit now that we're not talking anymore, what a cutie (ha ha ha)! The fact he was into me makes me flattered.

He's just in a different stage of maturity right now, even if he has gone to college for two years. I'm not saying Dalton's immature for a 20 year old, he's normal where his brain might be looking for hot girls with the simplest route to get laid and I'm too much of a challenge. Obviously girls are probably talking to him left and right so when we suddenly stopped talking around 4th of July I figure it's because he met someone else that's maybe a little.... easier. lol.

Alright moving on, probably the last time you'll hear me mention him.

Okay so I've got some exciting news..! 

Finally had the balls to add this girl on facebook. She's pretty damn cute and cool so I was nervous.

 It was funny actually meeting her at Brianna's party because having known Josh I'd wanted to meet her and had previously introduced myself when I worked at JCpenneys (I'd forgotten this and so had she). When we started talking she was like, "Hey did you work at JCPennies?" ..."Yup!!"  ... Ohh then I have met you! I thought it was weird I'd met two Emily's that talked to Josh in college and smoked before math with ... " Ha ha ha.

Tomorrow I'm going into Richland to meet Brianna's boss at Little Caeser's. Brianna is a head crew member there and is going to put in a good word to get me a job there. What's great about this job is that I know at least five of the employees-- Brianna's cousin Tawnee, Josh F., Josh's girlfriend Melanie, their friend Irina, and Josh's sister who unfortunately the name isn't coming up in my mind.. I hung out with all of them at Brianna's birthday recently and it was a great time. 

Alright well I'm gonna go take a run out in this heat. Try to get a little more color and get out of the house for awhile. Usually if I exercise I feel more motivated to practice guitar, too.

peace.