New Things and Huey Lewis

I now own a pair of Black Vietnam Jump Combat Boots. I'm wearing them mostly every day. I also ordered a new backpack. (the first new backpack in 3-ish years) This is the backpack I will put my patches on... so it didn't matter what was on the front of the bag.

There's my small flashlight at the end of the tunnel. I'm now putting my mom's quilts and crafting crap on Esty.com.. wish me luck that someone will buy some quilts.

Also... I have the song "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News playing nonstop in my head.. .
This song was in a great film, American Psyco, and it was played and explained in the scene where Paul Allen is murdered with a delightful axe wielding Patrick Bateman.

"Is that a raincoat?" "Yes, it is!"


Laurel

Shit

This has been the past two weeks. Shit.

Why, do you ask?

Here's the break down list:

My uncle is still not ready to go to CO
My mother and I literally do not have any money for anything
I crashed my car into a tree (brakes went out)
I got a concussion because of that crash
My car's back door behind the driver's seat won't open due to the crash
I am having severe depression issues
One of my friends has refused to talk to me for the last 3 months for reasons they has not disclosed
I was pulled over by the police for an illegal turn and got a "serious warning"
All my friends in IA are just too busy to just talk to me
My mom thinks she can sell all her crap on Ebay, and I know that most of it just WON'T
I broke a few toes recently
I have a cold
Everything in my mother's house all broke in the last month (water heater, AC, lawn mower, her car's tires, etc...)
I have a TERRIBLE case of insomnia now, I only sleep like 1 hour for every 5 hours I'm awake

And yes... there's MORE.. but I just wanted to give you the highlights as to why I haven't ran or blogged or anything recently.

There you go. I will return to blogging when I have something pleasant or semi fun/funny to talk about, until then.. I am as I just stated above...

Laurel

To run or not to run

I could make a whole bunch of excuses for not running for the past 6 days like: I pulled a nasty groin muscle, my back has been killing me, migraines all the time, had some serious heat exhaustion, or maybe forgetting my "running gear" when I slept over at my uncle's.. but the real truth is that even though all that happened... I didn't run because I didn't want to.
I know it seems extreme to need your tunes as badly as I do, but when I run with no tunes I'm focusing all on the pain, hurt, the difficult time I'm having breathing, and burning thighs and shins. When I have the music, I can get into it, I can sing along with it in my head, I can do whatever with my music, but I'm usually focusing mostly on the music and not the pain.
That's why I'm not running. But I will run today. With no music?

Yes.

Why? Because I should.

Let's hope it doesn't end here, and that I get at least mile done.



Laurel

Frightening Discovery

I have made a frightening discovery..

The rust around the front left wheel and along the left side of the car is worse than I thought... far worse...

I'm going to have to do some serious body work.. patching jobs.. argh!

The Phoenix

This is what I (with my uncle's assistance on occasion) have fixed on my car so far.

Replaced the windshield wiper motor.
Re-wired the windshield wipers
Re-wired the windshield wipers fluid cleaners (I don't know the technical name)
Replace 2 window rollers
Replaced vacuum hoses
Replaced alternator belt
Sanded and grinded of all body rust, cleaned, primed and paint,
Took apart all the doors excluding the driver's door to:
Tightened rear view mirror and
Oiled mechanical parts

Total in Costs: about $50.00

Not too bad. :)

Here's some pictures of it I took yesterday.



I know it doesn't look the best right now... and I'm not quite finished with the rust repair and body work, I have to take of some of the chrome rims to get to all the rest of the rust. I will do that as soon as I have some body putty to fill in the small holes.

Laurel

Pella, IA Revisited

Yes, I returned.

To find many pleasant surprises I might add.

My day today began at 7 am. I know, shocking, I never get up before 9 anymore.

Anyway, my Uncle had ordered a new brake hose for my car from a parts store in Pella (of all places) and I had to go get it early in the morning so we could fix it before he had to go to his appointment.

Here's where I insert the necessary information that you need for this story to make sense.

Iowa has been having serious flooding issues this summer, and it rains (correction, pours buckets) every single night. Naturally, many fields and roads are either washed out or complete submerged in water.

This cause me to have problems. Which are things that I don't care to have. :(

I attempted to go the normal way.
Washed out and closed.

I tried the short way around.
Covered in a minimum of 2 feet of water.

I tried a different way.
You couldn't see any road for 6 miles or more.

By this time, it was 8:30 am. So I headed back to my uncle's to go the other other way. My car sputtered to a stop about 12 miles from his house.

Out of gas.

Luckily I am prepared and I brought a gallon and a half with me for this exact issue. But it wastes more time.

I get back to my uncle's and decide to get the part and just go back to my mother's house without fixing it. It's okay, because it's just the right side brake, I can manage. :)

The other other route took me through roads that weren't unsurvivable, but they looked like this:

I made it to Pella. I got the part and I got gas.

Here's the cool part.

I need a set of new strings for my guitar. I had broken the E string. There was one shop in about a 150 mile radius that sold decent guitar strings.
This place:

It was supposed to open at 10:30 am, but I waited and hour, and at 11:30 it finally opened. The owner of the store was simply amazing. "Rob" was so into his drum solo he was writing that he forgot to open his store. It's a guitar/drum store that has it's own recording studio.

When I started talking to him, -from the heat and my severe exhaustion from the strenuous morning- (I'm guessing) I got a horrible bloody nose, and didn't have any tissues. He got me some. :) Nice guy.

Continuing on:

The strings set was only $5.00 and that's amazing for starters because they're usually $7.00-$10.00. (I always get D'Addario strings)(for future reference)

We got to talking at length, and he let me play any guitar I wanted to in the store for as long as I wanted. Awesome.

He just gave me a free E string (the one I broke) so I could save the set for later, and he fixed my guitar output jack for free. AWESOME-SAUCE.

I met his best friend (who lived next door) Animal, who apparently is twice as good on the guitar as the owner was (and I shredded on my guitar for a good 5 minutes after he fixed it and sounded closed to as good as Van Halen!) AMAZING!

Animal talked to me for like 30 minutes about guitars and playing them. He designs pick guards out of aluminum an plastic as well as drumsticks and they are just awesome!
Here's a link to his web site. http://animalsalumiums.vpweb.com/about_us.html

The site itself is underdeveloped and you can't see any of the actual items, but it gives you his info in case you have questions. Animal also gave me a free aluminum pick he made so I could try it out and keep it. (I picked for a while with it on my guitar and some of the store's and liked it so much I bought 2 more!)

Rob (the owner) has played in many different bands and has opened for CCR and met them. WICKED!

This was a very friendly, helpful, awesome store and if you're ever randomly in the area, go there. It was pretty awesome.

I also past this rather phallic looking grain factory tower..

Laurel

It's from Concentrate!!

Wake up at 10:00. Jethro Tull on the Radio. Grab the Orange Juice out of the fridge. Drink the Orange Juice out of the carton. Stand in the basement of Mom's house in underwear. Spills OJ down the front of self.

Dignity? Gone for now.

Enthusiasm for Life? Questionable.

I've been so "out of it" lately and for so long, I'm not ever just what being "in it" is. I officially have not a single can of Mt. Dew left in the house, so I must emerge from my pathetic cave of shelter. I honestly haven't been looking forward to this event.

Yesterday, from the drought of Dew, I drank (literally) a half GALLON of Minute Maid Premium Low Acid Orange Juice.

Good choice?

I think not.


Laurel

Another One Bites the Dust

I've owned 3 Sansa Mp3 Players, two of which were Fuzes... all of them broke within a year. I think I'm going to try a new kind of Mp3 player!

They can take about 4 harsh dropping/failings, and then they just break. And it's always the screen!!! You put a case on it, and the screen still somehow manages to break!

I am broke. I have no money. I HAVE to have my music with me when I'm doing things! I go insane without music! Insane I tell you! What will I do?

I'll tell you what I'll do for short term.. my phone is an mp3 player as well. I will transfer the info onto the card in my Sansa Fuse and slip the card into my phone. Of course my phone (the second one of that model) has been dropped in the toliet,and doesn't always have a very long lasting battery.... :(

Not to mention it has one of those TINY headphone jacks, so I'll have to try and find a converter for cheap.. which might be hard. :(

Maybe when I have enough money, I'll get a Zune 80..

I WILL NOT, however, get an Apple Ipod! NEVER! I hate Apple with a passion!

I will be after you Zune!! I'll be waiting to strike until Black Friday! The chase is on!!!!

Laurel

From Here to Right Over There

I play the electric guitar. I've been teaching myself how to play for a few years now, but I've only really got into it for the last year.. I'm attempting to teach myself all the good Tenacious D songs. So far I have Dio, Karate, and Tribute.
Yay.

I've been wanting to get an Ibanez Tube Screamer Pedal as well as a Cry Baby Wah Pedal. :) Then I can really rock out. All I have now is a cheapo FAB distortion pedal which does the trick, but isn't exactly what I want for intense rockage.

I can also play the intro to Thunderstruck by ACDC.

I write songs as well, my first official song was titled "Bike Cop", which was about a police officer I saw riding a bicycle. It's played and sung like a classic Dio song would be. I love classic rock and heavy metal and I'm overjoyed that I can mimic that awesome voice of rock. Maybe I'll put a video of me singing it or something for my follower. My single follower. Hi, follower! I guess you're not really a leader, eh? lol

I must be overly tired for that type of humor to surface.. And we progress..

I wrote another song called "The Ballad of Robin", which encompasses the short story of Robin and the horrifying portrayal (shudders) of the character by Chris O'Donnell. I haven't fully written the whole thing down yet.. I need to do that soon and finish the tabs for it as well.

I'm still trying to finish yet another song called "A Memorial to Porkins." A tribute song to that (not-so- memorable to non-Star Wars geeks) now deceased X-Wing pilot from the end of A New Hope.
Ahh Porkins, I wept for thee... not really, but I hope I sounded poetic.

By the way, for anyone out there who isn't as much of a Star Wars geek as I am, he wasn't actually holding a bucket of KFC in his cockpit in the movie... although I wish he was. :)


Laurel

Field of Dreams

I decided to take a different route of driving on my way back to my mother's house through some back roads. I ended up driving a 30 mile loop around to the same place I had started, and then in the end finding my way back to the house.

On these back roads I found many interesting things such as this baseball field. Now abandoned, it is literally many miles away from any town at all and is surrounded by corn and soybean fields.


I couldn't help but look around for Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. Needless to say, I couldn't find them. But it was amusing to whisper to myself as I continued driving ahead, "If you build it, he will come."

The one thing that truly vexes me is how anyone could mistake Heaven for Iowa.. it's just plain silly. I like to hope Heaven isn't so infested with bugs that you can't move without at least 4 landing on you. Not to mention the horrific humidity! It's August, the worst time of the year to be in Iowa.. you can cut the air with a knife!

Another interesting thing I saw in the ditches next to the road was wild marijuana. I shit you not. Here's one now!


As my friend Dusty described this plant.. it's GARGANTUAN! Yes, yes it is. I saw a few others along the side of the road as well, the farmers just (supposedly) spray weed killer on it because it effects their crop growth... It's just a weed they say. And people pay out the nose to get half a sandwich bag of this stuff? Crazy how different states are to one another...

Laurel

Pella, IA

Pella, IA

Known for its yearly Tulip Time festival, Dutch townspeople, fake windmills and wooden shoes.

This town has over 5 hair salons, 7 antiques shops, and 5 knick-knack shops.... population? 9832.

Wow.

My friend Becca and I had a day to just hang out and we decided that this small-ish town was nearby, had a movie theater, and we had never really been there. We walked around the square and looked into all the little shoppes. It was pretty boring actually, but there were a few memorable items inside the shoppes.

I was in this one shop that had this flute from a foreign country... interesting place to blow into....



I also saw this picture in one of the knick-knack shoppes and was tempted to buy it.



Strange town, strange shoes, strange people... new experience.

Laurel

Too Pooped to Pop

Song by Chuck Berry.

I am indeed tired. My car renovations have been ongoing for almost 3 weeks now.

The only problems left are:

The Brakes don't work so well
The Horn doesn't work period
The Left Turn Signal only flashes on occasion
There is no Air Conditioning
The Fuel Gauge is broken

Other than that short list, everything seems to be in order. Yay.

I've been awake for two and a half days now, (excluding a 3 hour-ish nap) and I'm so tired I can barely move. Soo tired.

I want to start my running, but I just can't get around to it. When I do have time, I'm just so tired that I can't run it. Sooner or later I will begin!



Laurel

Introduction

18.

A number.

A small number.

This is the number of years I have been among the living.

This number, the numbers before it and below it have caused me grief, frustration, exasperation, and the persistent questioning of others.

Why does age seem to define a person in their acquaintances' eyes?

Some say age is just a number.

Some place it on a pedestal, the higher the number the more respect is granted.

The amount of years you are alive does not necessarily make you any more knowledgeable that anyone lower on the ladder of life.

I am tired of attempting to explain myself, my actions, my thoughts.

I make mistakes. I do. I could have said everyone makes mistakes, but I can only be accountable for my own.

I have many sides. I am a tetrahedron. Please stop questioning me. All of you.

I just want to live. I can't tell you what's going on in my head, I know what is, and that's all that matters to me.

I just wanted to say this to all of you. Know it. I don't need to waste what little time I have on this rock explaining myself.

I've always said that I was a 48 yr old stuck in a teen's body. Nobody wants or cares to hear that. It's stupid.

I know myself. Me and only me knows myself. I can tell you things about myself, but you won't ever know me like I do.

That's it.
You might be saying something like, "Ohh, Laurel, you're such a teenager."

I've stopped responding to that. You people push my buttons far to much. You can think whatever you want to about me and my so called, "teenager ways." Just know that I don't care to hear about it. Kindly keep it to yourself.

Whatever I do or say is "teenager". And when I'm 40 everyone will think that everything I do is "middle-aged". Does it even matter?

Why does this matter? Why do all the stupid small mildly negative things matter?

You break a glass. In your entire life, will you always remember that glass breaking? Highly doubtful. It's nothing to be upset about. It's just a glass.

Just remember that it's just a glass.


Laurel