My Mumbling Thoughts

Every afternoon I sit in traffic with the exact same people.

Every. Single. Goddamned. Day.

We've become very close, the other drivers and I.

Since we do have a close relationship I believe that they wouldn't mind so much that I sit and daydream stories up about them. It's one of the things that I do to pass the time.

Of course I see many different characters each and every day but there are a couple who I see more than others.

First being the classic workaholic. These folks don't seem to understand that it's after 5pm and they can switch their cell phones off if they want to. They could think about the plans that they want to do on the weekend (that is if they aren't already working) or just unwind from the long day but they haven't even loosened their tie. I can tell that some of them are even in the middle of closing a major deal just because of all the extreme hand gestures that they do with such passion.

No afternoon would be complete without seeing the soccer moms who rule the roads with their mini vans and toting their chaps around who really like staring at me while we're stopped at a red light. They normally have a movie playing for the youngster(s) in the back while they're mentally making more lists of things to do for the next month or so. I can't seem to figure out how they stay so focused on the road while all of that madness is going on in their heads.

I also see a lot of construction workers who have tossed their hard hats in the back of their pick-up trucks and call it a day. Typically they have country tunes playing on their speakers and I can see the permanent dirt stains underneath their fingernails while they have one hand draped over the side of the window smoking their afternoon cigarette.

It's all very interesting to witness.

I know that there's probably more to them and a multitude of other layers than just the stereotypical image that I see, but I do see it.

And I wondered, what do people think of when they see me sitting here?

I'm sure they can quickly tell that I'm young and listening to my music loud, but that's a given. What I want to know is what they think beyond that.

Just by looking at me they wouldn't know that I'm a girl who is addicted to shopping (particularly buying shoes), who is controlled by my emotions and has a never ending list of bad habits. They wouldn't know that I'm the kind of girl who sticks my fingers directly into the peanut butter jar, who gets easily distracted by what's happening above in the sky or that I work all day in a mediocre job just to keep my head above water in the rat race.

They don't know that I'm scattered, live in constant organized chaos or that I'm the girl who let go of a wonderful man and questions every day whether or not it was the right decision. I'm the kind of girl who hates it when other people judge me but I quickly judge them without thinking twice about it. I'm the girl who loves to laugh, wishes on stars and who is trying to weave through all of the twists and turns that life keeps on surprising me with.

And from time to time I am the girl who is just really tired and sometimes wishes that somebody else would drive for a change.

Posted by Sam at 01:34 PM | Permalink

As we were getting ready this morning...

Me: "Momma, it's St. Patrick's Day and you're not wearing green. You're supposed to celebrate properly so where's your green?"

Momma: "It's in my pocketbook."

Me: "Haha, very funny."

**

Happy St. Patrick's Day y'all!

Posted by Sam at 01:35 PM | Permalink

Here's a little secret about me that I'll share with you.

At work, whenever I'm in the elevator alone or in the bathroom alone, I dance.

Oh yeah, you read that correctly.

It's SO much fun, I can't even tell you. The elevator doors close and then I can let loose for two floors and then as soon as the doors open up again, I've composed myself and nobody knows that only a couple of seconds ago I was shaking my tush in between floors.

In the bathroom we have a full length mirror. Occasionally when I'm wearing my high heels I'll do a "model walk" (damn that Project Runway) and then once I'm in front of the mirror I'll break dance like the girls in rap videos.

My god is it ever hilarious. I laugh and laugh and laugh so hard at myself until I'm crying and can't breathe.

Really. I wish I had the courage to record it and share it on my blog (actually I wish I even knew how to put video up on my blog).

Yesterday, however, I was interrupted during one of my dance offs.

Imagine you're in the bathroom, singing Pink's Stupid Girl song and doing the most crazy and insane dances (i.e. the running man, cabbage patch dance, and the chicken dance) just to make yourself laugh and someone walks in on you.

It's kind of embarrassing. Then again, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I mean, it isn't my own private bathroom with a lock on the door. The possibility of other people walking in is very likely.

So I pretended like I was looking at the back of my outfit in the mirror and humming to myself while red flames shot up from my neck to the top of my head.

You would think that I would be nervous from now on whenever I felt the need to randomly break dance in the elevators or the bathroom but I'm afraid that I'm not. One little incident isn't going stop me from backing my junk up in the mirror or shaking my hips from side to side in the elevator. Sometimes you've just got to get it out of your system.

Posted by Sam at 01:35 PM | Permalink

So here it is. My post updating you on the status of how things are looking for my future with college.

I know, its been a while. Do forgive me.

I'm sure you've all been sitting on the edge of your seat checking every day to see if I've posted anything about what I've been doing, what I've been researching and how things are in general on the university front.

And of course every day I post something random about work or the weather and you begin to scream at your computer screen hoping that your words will somehow be connected and I'll be able to hear your cries asking for updates.

"Come on, Sam! What the fuck is this bullshit you're talking about? I want to know about how things are going with college! What. Is. Going. On. REALLY! Are you even still going? Have you just quit everything? I need to know!"

Right. I'm sure you're all thinking that. At least you are in my warped mind.

Moving along...

Things are making slow progress. I still haven't submitted for my financial aid yet. That's not saying that I haven't tried, I've just run into a couple of hurdles and it's taking extra time to gather the needed information.

Apparently unless both of my parents have died, I've joined the military, or I'm Little Orphan Annie, then I have to put down Momma's tax information.

Let me just make it clear that this is NOT GOOD. According to the government Momma is considered "rich." Nevermind the fact that we still have a mortgage to pay every month, a whole crap load of utilities, food, and other general maintenance needs around the house. We also drive a lot so we're constantly filling up with gas, making any needed repairs on the car, updating our tags, stickers, and whatever else that the county feels we must do in order to live in our county, and did I mention that we have bills? Yeah, 'cos there's a lot of them.

This makes it a lot tougher for me to get any of that nice green stuff from the government. I guess they assume if your folks are loaded then they'll be assisting with your college needs which is so not even the case for me.

Now I'm playing around with the numbers off of her taxes to see if I can make it appear like we're not as rich as the government thinks and then cross my fingers in hopes that they'll give me a little more money. How sad is that?

And quite possibly illegal, but I don't really think about that.

Anyway, aside from the financial aid bit I have secured myself my own little room with my own little bathroom. Oh yeah and my own little room has my own little internet connection too. I've still got to find out if we have a laundromat (with dryers; I must have a dryer) and how soon we can begin sending things over, because I want most of my stuff to already be there for when I arrive.

I'm sure it's probably extremely premature to be thinking about how I want to set things up and the major cleaning that I'm already planning on doing but I won't lie - I'm excited. I'm already thinking about what clothes I want to bring and what I can leave behind or the things that I really need and what I can do without. I'm making lists and already going through the black hole that is my room and cleaning out junk that has been hiding in dark corners ever since we moved in.

There have been a couple of frightening discoveries but I got Momma to quickly dispose of them.

My mind has also been running away (that crazy little imagination of mine) and from time to time I find myself thinking of far off situations that may never happen but could happen. I try to shove them away and distract myself with other things because it's too early to be thinking about potential scenarios and having the What If's circulating around me.

Quite frankly, I just can't handle it.

And so that's it. I've pretty much got all of my bases covered other than the cash. As soon as that's taken care of a whole load of other worries will be relieved and maybe I'll be able to relax a bit before it's time for me to go.

Posted by Sam at 01:36 PM | Permalink

I guess I should just get it out of the way right now before I go any further.

I don't like doctors. I'm not a fan of any kind of doctor.

None. Zero.

If you have any kind of Phd attached to the end of your name, you can be gauranteed that I'll be a little wary of you and keeping a close eye on where your hands are.

Yesterday I had to visit the dentist. The doctor of the mouth.

Great.

The only reason why I even considered going and having my teeth checked was because I need new retainers. The ones that I have right now are pretty old and gross me out. Of course I still wear them almost every night so I can keep my teeth all straight and looking picture perfect. I just leave them sitting in listerine for most of the day.

Now I know what you're thinking. The dentist? Dentists don't make retainers, Sam. Orthodontists do.

I know this, however, the insurance that I got with my company doesn't cover any kind of orthodontic treatment for me. I didn't think I had to pick that option since I've already gone through the braces phase and what's the point in paying extra money every single month when I'm not going to ever visit an orthodontist again? All I needed were retainers so we specifically picked a dentist who does specialize in making those handy dandy retainers that I need.

So I set myself up an appointment to have my teeth cleaned and make another appointment to have my retainers made.

I went a couple of weeks ago. The hygenist said that I had beautiful teeth.

"Do you get your teeth bleached?" she asked me.

"Um, no."

"Wow, they're really white. Do you use those whitening strips?"

"Nope."

"Well what is your secret because they're amazing?"

"Um, I smoke."

*Awkward silence*

After my visit with the hygenist, there didn't appear to be anything wrong. She said that my teeth were gorgeous but I should set up another appointment with the dentist so he could do a complete oral exam (gosh, to me that just sounds so dirrty) since it had been so long since my last proper dentist appointment.

I complied and had my second dentist appointment scheduled. I wasn't sure about this whole "complete oral exam" she was talking about. It sounded kind of scary. What the hell were they going to do to me? I just needed molds to be made for my new retainers and then I would be out the door. I could really care less if I had any cavities or gingivitis. Those require treatment, and more treatment means more appointments, which means more excess pain, which means more money that has to be spent, which means, which means, which means...

All I wanted was my stupid retainers.

So yesterday was my "complete oral exam" with Dr. Cook and his assistant, Kitty.

Seriously.

I was so close from getting out of the chair and saying, "you know what? I change my mind. Thanks."

It didn't start off too badly. He did the usual feel around stuff and I laid there trying to find a spot on the ceiling that I could concentrate on. It all seemed pretty routine to me.

Then he brought out this long, shiny, sharp looking thing.

That definitely caught my attention and made my eyes get a little wide.

I shut my mouth and mumbled through pursed lips, "what's that for?"

"I'm just going to run this over your gums and check for gingivitis."

"Is it painful?"

"Nah, not so much. Go ahead and open wide for me please."

I frowned, took a deep breath, and reluctantly opened my mouth yet again.

I braced myself and decided it would probably be best if I just shut my eyes.

The next thing I knew he was jabbing my gums and calling out random numbers to Kitty.

"One, two, two, one, two, two, one, one, two."

I didn't understand what the numbers were about and didn't exactly care. All I knew was that he was probably doing something wrong because that metal thing that he was running along my gums hurt really bad.

Of course my mind went into serious over drive and I began to mentally cuss him out.

Oh you motherfucking asshole! What the fuck are you doing?! That shit hurts. Take that out of my mouth. Right. Now. Ouch! Oh, you cunt. You motherfucking cunt. I hate you. I hate you and your stupid assistant Kitty. I hate your momma. That's right. I talked about your momma. Oh fuck, that hurt! Okay, I was only kidding. I don't hate your momma. I'm sure she's a very nice lady. She's nice and she told you to stop hurting the nice girl with that sharp object. Ow. Oh good god make him stop."

After he finished I quickly closed my mouth and ran my tongue over my teeth to check for bleeding. There wasn't any, thank goodness. If there was he and I were going to have to take our conversation outside.
"Okay, Samantha. That's the end of your oral exam. Things seem to look fairly well. I only have one concern though which is the back molar on the bottom right hand side of your mouth. It appears to have grown in slightly crooked and it doesn't join your top molar when you bite down. I'm afraid I would be too worried about giving you new retainers before you consult an orthodontists."

"Are you serious?"

"Yep. Don't worry, we can refer you to one of our orthodontists if you don't already have one and - "

"No, you don't understand. I can't go to an orthodontist. My insurance won't cover it. I don't have the money either to pay for it myself. My only option is you guys."

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we won't be able to make retainers for you unless that back molar is corrected. We simply don't provide those kind of services here."

"Great."

They gave me all of the information for the orthodontist anyway in case I changed my mind or magically stumbled upon a couple of million dollars.

So I left the office with a sore mouth, one fucked up tooth, and an orthodontist number that I couldn't afford. To make myself and my mouth feel better I went to Baskin Robins and bought a hot fudge brownie sundae. They didn't tell me that I had any cavities so I figured it couldn't hurt anything.

Posted by Sam at 01:39 PM | Permalink

This was one of the best weekends that I've had in a long while. It was both a combination of lying around and doing absolutely nothing, but I also got a lot of things done that have been crying out for my attention for a couple of weeks.

It started on Friday when I did one of the nicest good deeds for no reason other than to be nice.

Really. Occasionally I get a wild hair and like spreading joy around. I'm not always a moody, whiny, bitch. I do good things from time to time just to make others happy. And, okay, I do it a little bit to make myself feel good too, but mostly it's for the other person.

There's a guy at work named, Ron. We all feel bad for Ron. We also love Ron a whole bunch. Right now he has one of the hardest jobs on the contract and everybody knows that he's a very busy man who puts in long hours and really wants this certain thing that he's working on to function properly.

This thing just doesn't feel like cooperating with him though and as a result, Ron gets yelled at a lot by a lot of different people for different reasons.

Bless his heart.

Lately when I see him upstairs I can tell that he's just having One Of Those Days. He seems really worn down and you can clearly see on his face that he needs a vacation. He's in desperate need of a beach with white sand and a drink with a tiny umbrella.

I couldn't give him a beach with the sand and a tiny umbrella in his drink but to cheer him up and put that lovely smile back on his face I decided that he needed some words of encouragement. I got him one of those You're A Great Boss cards (with sparkles of course) and had all of the people on his team sign it with a little note, and then I would get him a quirky gift that he could use at the office. It was brilliant.

So I did, and a lot of people signed his card, and I bought him a Barrel of Monkeys and a magic 8 ball, and then we sat it in his chair when he got up to get his lunch, and he was totally surprised, and then he came down to Momma's office where I was eating my lunch, and he said that it made his day and that they should do more good deeds like that around our office, and he really appreciated me doing that.

Mission. Accomplished.

I was feeling pretty good after I had cheered Ron up and that nice floaty feeling had stuck with me for the rest of the day.

I also talked to Mendy and she had bought The Strokes tickets. She actually got a little too happy with clicking away and bought eight of them. We had two choices between sitting down in the orchestra seats or up in our own private box that was slightly above the crowd. We chose the box seats. They're a lot farther away then we would have liked (being on stage would be perfect, obviously) but out of the two choices, those were the best seats in the house. She's selling the four extra ones on eBay if you want to see them in Washington DC. You know you want to. Go on.

Now it is official: We will definitely be seeing The Strokes on April 26th. Of course I'll let you all know how it is.

Mel also bought her own digital camera (affectionately named, Lola) that I have already confiscated as my own. It's this pretty Sony camera with...a certain number of pixels that I don't remember. All I know is that it's fancy and I like how the pictures turn up. Oh yeah, and that also means I can take random pictures and post them on here!

*The crowd goes wild*

Alright, maybe it's not that exciting, but for me this is a huge technological jump. This is our first real digital camera that isn't the size of a telephone and for me it's kind of a big thing. Let me roll around and properly revel in this new addition of our digital family.

I was going to get the pictures from the the Flogging Molly concert but Mendy and I were unable to get together at her house. She had to work on Sunday, and Saturday I was bogged down by a million errands that had to be taken care of. I did pay off my concert debts though and no longer owe her money for purchasing my tickets. I love not owing money.

Instead I guess I'll show you some of my pictures that I took with Lola on Sunday down by the pier in Alexandria. Check out the fabulous blue skies and the sparkling water. It was a little windy but one of the most gorgeous days that we've had in a long time. An exceptional feel good day.

Posted by Sam at 01:40 PM | Permalink

Ah, families. Aren't they great? I mean, there are just some things that I would never, ever, in a million years do in front of other people, but I'm perfectly comfortable doing in front of Mel and Momma. All of us fart, pick our noses, walk around in our underwear, and say some incredibly offensive things that we would never say outside of the safety of our own house for fear of being gunned down in the street. We're just really gross and plain rude if you want to get down to it.

But the one thing that I love the most is the fact that each of us can break out in song or start dancing, and eventually we'll all be singing and dancing around the house making absolute fools out of ourselves.

It feels good. You should try it sometime.

Last night as Momma was on the computer working on her homework (she's back in college y'all, three cheers for Momma), Mel and I were sitting on the couch reading and waiting for Gilmore Girls to come on. Suddenly out of the blue I started singing the words to All that jazz, and tried to mimic the way Catherine Zeta-Jones sang it in Chicago.

I'll admit, it wasn't my best rendition but I gave it a go and started at the end where it all gets big and dramatic because those are the best places to start.

"Noooo, I'm no one's wife but OH! I love my life! And alllllll thaaaaat JAAAZZZZZ!! That jazz. Uh."

Nobody looked up or asked me what I was doing, only because it's such a normal thing for us all. Random singing does not warrant any kind of attention.

Mel started singing at the beginning (where I should have started) until we were both eventually singing together in perfect harmony. At least our weird version of "harmony." Sure, we probably sounded a little off tune, but who cares? It's always fun to get up, sing Chicago songs and run around the house kicking our legs up high and working out our Jazz Hands moves. Just a typical evening for our family.

Well if I'm honest, singing All that jazz was simply a warm-up to what we sing every single Tuesday when we watch a new Gilmore Girls episode; Where you lead, by Carol King.

Oh, come on. I know you've heard the song. If I have to, I'll sing it for you. Maybe after I get Mel to sing with me though. We do sound really good together.

For us, singing Where you lead is almost like tradition. We've been doing the same thing for years. Years. It doesn't matter whether it's a new episode or an old episode, as soon as the song starts, we pick our lines and sing our little hearts out as if we were professionals who took our show on the road. There used to be a time when we would always eat a Mounds bar too while we watched, but I'm not sure why. Completely random thought, I know.

Anyhoo, there really isn't much of a point to this post other than we're a singing kind of family. In-the-shower-at-the-top-of-our-lungs-until-we're-blue-in-the-face kind of singing too.

Posted by Sam at 01:41 PM | Permalink