Just close your eyes, and pretend that everything's fine

Just close your eyes, and pretend that everything's fine

Just close your eyes, I'll tell you when 

Best. F^%$ing. Line. in this Mastodon song "All the Heavy Lifting" that I absolutely love to listen to when I need an extra push during my runs around town. I joke that with all the pizza and beer I've consumed this summer I'm not even running to get in better shape, I'm running to stay in the same shape!! 

Anyway, what's up guys? It's Wednesday morning. I had the last two days off which I spent doing the usual, but did have a nice evening last night for my cousin Graham's going away party so I'll start out by telling you about that. 

This might look like any other picture of cousins taken over the years (Minus Rachel who's in Mexico for a mission) but there's more behind the fact that it's being taken. 

I feel like things have changed for the better  in our family because of the effort I've made to keep in touch with my grandmother regardless of the painful situation that occurred primarily between my Dad and Ty a few years ago that basically took my Dad out of the picture entirely. I know my Grandma didn't intend for it to go as far as it did. I just think it more or less has comes down to my Grandma not wanting to deal with life alone after my Grandpa died and when Ty was willing to come in and take over the finances she was all for it. 

For about a year after that last cherry harvest where Ty wanted to fire me for messing up our already inefficient ticket system, I had no contact with anyone on that side of the family. I remember passive-aggressively making a point to my aunt how much I didn't like them by posting a status a following Thanksgiving when my Mom's side was visiting that it was "The best Thanksgiving ever." My aunt Teri and I got in an argument over Facebook shortly after and I deleted and blocked everyone on that side of the family for about a year. 

It wasn't until about Winter of my second quarter at Central when I started dealing with some major anxiety that I started trying to patch things up with my family. I started calling my Grandma when I was trying to come down from major panic attacks and her talk of mundane, day to day life would kind of put me at ease. She loves to talk so that kind of helped rebuild our relationship after not talking for two years. Since then my relationship with the rest of my family has been pretty good. We just entirely
avoid talking about the kind of sad and obvious stalemate that has occurred between my Dad and his family and just hope there can be some kind of resolution someday. 

Graham's going away party was actually a send-off for bootcamp with the Navy. He's going to Illinois to get his ass kicked, basically. But we're all really proud of him and he seems more than ready. It's pretty incredible, Graham lost 90 lbs in the last year by keeping a food diary and exercising in order to suit his recruiters needs. Only someone who really wants something could do that because losing significant amounts of weight is so hard, especially when you've had kind of the same build your entire life. So yeah I have no doubt he'll do great. 

The party was at my aunt Teri's house and she was cooking a lot of Dominoes (here I am eating pizza again!! I swear to God this summer I've been on the pizza diet...!). Teri, Traci, Grandma, Tiffany, Avery and I were all standing around the table chatting. One thing that came up a couple of times that stood out to me was the sudden death of a young Benton City woman that suffocated sleeping on a memory foam mattress. My Grandma went to the funeral because the family of the woman that passed is LDS and she is actually the older sister of a guy I graduated with. Very sad. 

....I can't help wonder if they'll file a lawsuit against temperpedic. 

I think the biggest highlight of the evening was that my uncle John and I actually related on something-- and this is a family member I've honestly never talked more than small talk bullshit to in my life! He asked me if I was returning to Central in the Fall and I told him that I'd decided to stay back and work full time for a quarter instead. 

When I told him I'd be "returning to business school in the Winter..." he asked me "So are they going to raise or lower the prime rate soon?" He was trying to see if I knew my shit and I wanted to seize the opportunity. I paused for a second... my mind was like 'God, think, Prime rate, interest, Carbaugh's class..." and I responded "The interest rate the federal reserve charges to borrow money? I'm not quite sure what they're doing now." 8-) Ha ha ha, Hell yea. I could have just bullshit and said they were going to lower it to increase spending if I wanted to sound like a real hotshot but I honestly don't know the REAL answer to that question. 

I told him that someday I want to go into forecasting stocks and portfolio building and he said he wanted to be an analyst himself if he hadn't become an engineer. He's bought and sold stocks before so I could probably learn a lot talking to him about his experience with it. 

I'm just dying to start playing around with buying and selling stocks on E-trade but before that happens obviously I've gotta MAKE some money. As of right now I'm flat ass broke and have been for a couple days. I've got a paycheck waiting for me at Caesar's but it's not worth the drive to Pasco to get it when I can just pick it up today when I go to work. 

With my little 3 and 4 hour shifts my paycheck is going to be puny as all Hell. I'm probably just going to keep out $40 in cash, try and stretch that as long as possible and put the rest of it away. I really need to start applying for other jobs. Things have just been coming up so I haven't had a chance yet but I think seeing my first paycheck will *really* motivate me. 

peace. 

How my instrument protects me from the world.

7 more days.

This is the last week of my life I will live in Benton city. 

Well, I suppose there's no absolute guarantee that I won't move back in with my parents but you guys know how stubborn I am and how much I DON'T want that to happen after my 20 years of living with my parents. I've never moved out, I've waited until it was the RIGHT time to do this and now that it is I can't imagine I'll ever turn back. 

Clearly, there's a lot on my mind right now. 

Let's start with what's most important. I practiced 16 hours of guitar last week. That's not very good, that only averages out a couple hours a day versus my normal three. BUT it was a good week of practice because yesterday at lessons I was really able to keep up with Jacob on some of the technical stuff he has me doing. 

He recently gave me an entirely new warmup packet that contains all the exercises that HE does. That's a huge deal to me, I'm really proud of myself to have gotten to the level that I can practice the same warmups that he does. Well I can't *just* yet but I have the materials and patience to do so this week.

Before leaving Jacob tried giving me a stack of like 10 of his business cards telling me to "give them to my friends." I started laughing so hard, not because it wasn't a good idea but because there's no way I'll see 10 friends in the next week.

I really hope his business does well though. Guitar lessons is a great business. You don't have to hire anyone because you can teach the students yourself. Jacob did hire an accountant recently, though. I'll be doing my own bookkeeping, I'm excited to access the value of all of my small amount of equipment that I'll be using. I'll even use my rent expense as a contra-revenue account. 

The only big expense in teaching guitar is the printing expense. Ink is really expensive, about $40 a cartridge or more... And I'll be printing tabs and practice sheets for multiple students. I'll probably just have them print some of their own stuff but for the introductory lesson I'll have quite a few pages to give each student. 

Moving on...

Today I'm having lunch with my Grandma Fran. My Dad doesn't want me to make light of the situation if she asks how he's doing. My Dad's been really affected by this whole situation, he knew and worked on that farm for 42 years of his life (literally, I bet he probably started working out there when he was eight or nine) and he got kicked out with no warning or reasoning from his family. 

If peaches aren't picked quickly enough they fall on the ground. Because there's only 60 or so peaches in a 26 lb box, that's money falling every time. 

The farm is now almost completely destroyed. It's overgrown and unkempt, ripe peaches probably falling on the ground because there's not enough pickers getting them. 

I imagine myself as a person who gets things done. My Dad is someone who gets things done and my Dad's Dad was someone who got things done; Tyler however didn't get that hard work ethic. Up until a couple years ago he would spend the majority of the harvest in his room smoking pot all day, he would come out to boss people around occasionally and would drive around on the tractor. He was never the one that was interacting with the pickers, figuring out where we should drive to pick up boxes next, or even the one to get the ladders up at the end of the day. That was all my Dad, he orchestrated everything and did an incredible amount of work for next to nothing because it was something he believed in and he got bastardized. The farm was given to my uncle Ty, and continues to be his even if I doubt he wants it anymore.

Because of course my uncle Ty only works a few months out of the year. I remember being not only appalled but surprised that Ty wanted the farm so badly for that reason. He really had no idea what he was getting into when he fought so hard for it and now he's stuck with an immense amount of work that grows every day that it's not pruned, watered and tended. 

I'd never want to do it either but that's how my Dad would have wanted to spend the rest of his life if he could. He's probably going to want to retire in the next 10.. 15 years or so and once that happens he's not going to have anything except whatever projects he's got going on here at the house without the farm. It's really sad, and I'm afraid there's no turning back from the damage that has been done to my Dad psychologically. 

On the bright side, though, this last couple years has been the only time in my life that I've gotten to really know my Dad because he spent almost my entire childhood at the farm.

______________________________

The noodles pictured above are the same type of noodles that were in my pork noodle dish yesterday. So delicious. 

Yesterday I hung out with Katelynn and realized that we had never been to Saigon Market together. That was always something I did with Samantha and never got a chance to go with Katelynn for some reason. We went to Haong Saigon restaurant and as always it was really, really good. Those little old ladies make the best pho but I ordered a noodle dish instead so I could take it home more easily. Pho noodle broth probably has fish sauce and all sorts of things that would reek to high heaven if you spilt it in your car, but it really is delicious stuff so it was tempting to just order pho again. 

Note that "pho" really is pronounced "Pha." I pronounced it Pha when Stephanie's aunt asked me what I ordered and I told her that I'd considered getting it. Stephanie's aunt is really sweet, she owns Saigon market so I try to shop there whenever I'm in the area. Leyte and Saigon are tied for the best Asian stores that I like to shop at. I like Saigon's selection between but it's too far of a drive most of the time.

Thank God i'm getting paid tomorrow. I don't want to know what my balance is but after going out to eat with Katelynn, driving into town, etc etc... I'm probably down to my last $100 by now. This will be my last full paycheck with Rite Aid. 

That reminds me, my last Thursday shift is tomorrow so I should probably get some laundry done today and make sure my uniform is nice and clean. I can't wait to change my facebook to "Emily Wilson stopped working at Rite Aid," wheeee!!! 

I guess I'll mention as well that things've been sort of lonely for me. I've been thinking a little more about guys, sort of. Like yesterday I saw a pretty cute, long haired skater-looking guy staring at me at the DMV. At first glance I thought he might've been Josh F. because he was wearing a black hat like Josh always did and had the same skin/hair color but when he looked up I realized he was actually somewhat cuter than Josh is and I quickly looked away. 

This glance led to him staring at me, so I decided to look straight at him for about a second just to catch him in the act. Definitely, DEFINITELY cute, so again, I look down, almost giggling. I was really complimented that he was checking me out in the first place, but I have no reason to talk to guys right now so I didn't want to initiate conversation or anything.

I've never had a distinguished "Type" that I like, probably because I've never had a good enough relationship to say that I've REALLY liked anyone. I'm pretty afraid of men at this point. Going to Central I am very cautious of college guys that try hooking up with as many girls as possible. This makes me really afraid of getting manipulated into that, or being drugged and raped at parties. Guess this means I'll have to stay as far away from situations like this as possible. 

That's another thing that Jacob has sort of helped me with. He told me that a girl should NEVER pursue a guy, which is something I plan to live by now. I won't ever initiate talking to a guy because that's creepy, if a guy wants to talk to me he'll do it. 

I will NOT play into stupid "Yeah we'll go on dates.. but lets have sex first" bullshit lies that men try to tell girls to make us feel like something will come out of their empty sex. If a guy tries that I will immediately shut him down and make him feel very stupid for trying.

Actually I'm looking forward to seeing the first sap that tries. 

Because you see, because of my guitar my self esteem now is MUCH higher because I always have sense of purpose, something to fall back on. My center, my niche.  My guitar is something I will always have even if I don't have a man to talk to or hold my hand. It's helped to create an even thicker barrier between my sanity and happiness to the outside world that has raped my soul when it was unprotected. 

peace.