Beanee Weenees in a Four Star Hotel

Dear Blog,

I am so sorry I have neglected you. Please forgive me and accept this gentle caressing I'm about to lay upon your bloggy body. Mmm. You like that, don't you? I'll keep hitting keys and typing. Don't worry. Keys keys keys. Oh baby oh baby.

...My bad.

So not too much has been going on. Ha, I just lied. I suppose I'll start with the bad, but I'm going to make it short.

Two of the pits at work had to get put to sleep in the past two-three weeks. The pits are my babies. I've been pretty sad about it, but they both started showing signs of human aggression. I don't have the formal training needed to break human aggression. I don't want to risk getting torn up to hell and back in the process, either.

I was going to go to a Theravada Buddhist meditation retreat from Dec. 9 - 13, but I backed out of it for various reasons.

And I think that's all of the bad, so here's some good.

My favorite (shh, don't tell anyone) pit, Lady, finally got adopted after spending ten months at the shelter. I don't let them go to just anyone. If you want a pit bull, you have to fill out an application and let me follow you home and inspect your yard and premises first. It's a scary job sometimes because I can't legally carry any weapons and you never know what kind of home you're going to. Fortunately every home I've inspected has been fine and I haven't been shot or anything. Two of the people actually let me inside their homes because they wanted me to know they had nothing to hide. I'm pretty hesitant about doing that...but I'm on the clock and I can pass a drug test, so any injury I may get will be covered by Worker's Comp.

Because I backed out of the Buddhist retreat, I decided that the past year has been pretty rough for me. I kept thinking "Man, I need to reward myself somehow" so about twenty minutes ago I charged nearly $300 to my credit card (ouch!) and booked a four star condo on the beach for December 8 - 12. The Origin at Seahaven in Panama City Beach, Florida.

Ok, so I'm not "big ballin' outta control" for real, but when I have a little money I like to have fun with it. Working at a non-profit organization is a little scary. Everything can be taken away from you at any moment, so you have to enjoy what you have. I also figure that I should do these fun and spontaneous things now while my folks are "postin' up my white ass" and I don't have many bills to pay.

You may exclaim, "You're going by yourself? You loser!" or "That's weird" but it really isn't and I'm not really a loser. I'm totally content with being alone, just as I'm content with being around my friends. I need to get away from everything for a minute and just chill by myself.

I've always been tied down at the beach and I haven't stayed in a condo since I was little (I've camped out at the beach many times in the past several years because we were too poor to book any shelter), so I figure it'll be hella fun to stay in a room with a heated whirlpool tub, Flatscreen TV, wireless internet, and all those cool amenities my Wal-Mart pup tent, my '06 Chevy Cobalt, or, one time, my dad's Jeep before he became car-less, don't have.

Plus if a hurricane blows through I'll be dry and alone instead of drenched and alone.

The thought of staying in a place that nice on the beach has been conjuring up images of Scarface in my head. I feel like, once I get settled in the condo, I'm going to constantly feel the need to deal and snort cocaine, and lots of it. ...When in reality I'm going to giggle to myself as I do silly things like go to the bathroom with the door open, walk around in my skivvies, and pass gas, and do stuff like watch TV, text people at random moments, take pictures of myself in various locations throughout the hotel as if I'm rich/famous, blog on my laptop, write, sit on the balcony and read, watch the ocean, walk on the beach, go to head shops, chill in the whirlpool tub, frequent the hot tub, and love the hell out of some complimentary breakfast.

I will probably be the only pierced and tattooed individual amongst the many snowbirds I know will be there. I'm anticipating many questions and comments, especially the "that ring in your nose looks like a damn bull" and "you'd be much prettier without all that stuff in your face" comments.

I will also have you all know that, in this Four Star highrise condo with included kitchenette and cookware, I'll be eating some of my favorite dishes:

• Cold Beanee Weenee's straight from the can
• Gas station hot dogs
• Ramen
• Spaghetti O's with meatballs
• and those little Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits

So this whole trip is sort of random. I'm off of work until the 14th and my last day in the hotel is on the 12th. If I'm still enjoying myself, I'm going to camp out until the 14th, probably at St. Andrew's State Park or that one campground across the street from Club La Vela (I went there a few years ago and passed out on one of the futons they have by the pool).

Originally I thought about just taking the Amtrak somewhere but if I went anywhere it would be back to NYC where I would have gotten off at Penn Station and taken the A, C, or E to West 4th Street, gone up all those steps, passed the basketball court and the diner on the corner, made my way to Washington Square, and never turned back. That would have been a good idea to me, but a bad idea to my job and my friends.

So I guess that about does it. Stay tuned for more. I'll definitely be updating when I go on my little excursion.

ImmaCATulate Conception

Ok, so I'm really not 100% sure how to pronounce that one, but you'll see what I'm talking about soon.

So I'm at work today, like I am every single day almost, and I'm just going about my business. I think I was pulling food for the 30+ dogs we have on the adoption floor. Anyway, my co-worker comes running into the dish room and the following conversation commences:

"Amber, do you know anything about that kitten in the condos?"

"Uh, what do you mean? There's lots of kittens there."

"No, I mean the baby kitten."

"Haha, baby kitten. That's like saying baby infant. Or kid child. ...Wait. How in the f&*k? Show me."

So she leads me to the cat condos where, no lie, there is an adult cat and a two day old kitten, eyes shut, umbilical cord still roughly in tact. This is EXTREMELY bizarre. All of the cats at the shelter are spayed before they're put on to the adoption floor. There is no possible way for a cat to have kittens if it's spayed. So the next conversation commences:

"See Amber, I told you!"

"Well damn. So wait, how'd it get in there?"

"I have no idea!"

"Haha, maybe they left it in there [inside the mom] for a little longer. It's warm in there. I wouldn't wanna leave either."

So we toyed around with the idea that maybe a community service worker got irked with us for not taking in a newborn kitten and took it upon themselves to take it in and stick it in poor Daphne's condo. I still thought they may have left the kitty in the womb for a little longer, just to chill out you know. But my ideas never fly. ...Or Daphne was really Mother Mary and the kitten was a feline Jesus. I liked that idea a whole lot, too.

A little research was done and we found out that somehow one of the techs got some paperwork mixed up along the way neglected to spay this cat who was pregnant upon her intake, thus baby Jesus cat was born in the adoption condo sometime Sunday after everyone had left for the day. No signs of afterbirth, nothing out of place.

I'm guessing that this is a hint at the Second Coming. Jesus is a shorthaired grey tabby with black stripes. His eyes aren't open yet, so you're safe for now. But watch your back.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, mainly on the subjects of spirituality, enlightenment, and being without a partner.

I need to get back into deep, higher level thinking again. I used to write a lot of short philosophies and read Plato's works. I also read the Tao te Ching front to back as well as some of the works of Confucious and other Eastern philosophers. A lot of stuff has happened to me since those days, which were only about three or so years ago.

I guess I can blog about the past few years.

I was in an off and on relationship from the time I was sixteen until I was about twenty, almost twenty-one. The guy I was with wasn't exactly the greatest individual. We always fought, always bickered, and had next to nothing in common with one another. He taught me to shy away from the world around me. And I did. I'm still encased within my shell most of the time because he also convinced me that I was unintelligent and that no one liked me or took me seriously. I was actually engaged, with a ring, to this guy for seven months.

Thinking back it's sad at how blind I was. Because I was trapped in this relationship, it is extremely hard for me to show or tell someone that I like them now. I'm deathly afraid of rejection and most of the time it seems way better to stay friends with someone and never tell them how I feel because I think I'll just get rejected anyway. That's sad. Sometimes those thoughts lead me to think that I'll be alone forever. I know in my heart that I won't, though.

Near the end of our relationship, I would estimate for about three months prior to and six months afterwards, there was a stint where I was going to a shrink and a psychiatrist. I was extremely down and I would sleep for sixteen hours some days. They helped me out a lot but they also convinced me that I was crazy. In those few months I was prescribed to Celexa and Wellbutrin for severe depression, Klonopin for panic attacks associated with general and social anxiety disorder, Geodon and Abilify for manic depression, and Paxil for severe depression and to combat panic attacks.

Sometimes I'd be on three of these anti-depression/anti-psychotic drugs at once, plus the extracirriculars I was doing at the time. The casserole of stuff I blinded myself with caused me to oversleep a lot and do some really outlandish stuff. I still think my brain is messed up sometimes.

So those months are really nothing but a haze to me. I've gotten off of everything since then and I'm trying to rebuild everything I crushed. I have also cut ties with a few people and hope to keep it that way.

That's it, really. It was a wild ride and I'm glad to finally be off of it. I'm still getting used to not feeling like a zombie all of the time, though. Depression wise I haven't cried since July when my then boyfriend broke up with me over the phone. I've reestablished my social circle and I'm always looking for new people to talk to.

I suppose that's it for tonight. I picked up a copy of Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements at the bookstore last night and I aim to read it within a few days. I'll let you know how it is.

Skipper

So today I'm skipping my oh-so-fun and interesting Political Science course to wait on a friend of mine to come to my work. He's fallen in love with a basset hound up here and I'd really like for him to adopt the poor guy.

A lot of freaky noises go on up here when you're by yourself.

So I was thinking that it's about time to upgrade my phone. I've got a Samsung Gravity with a scratched up screen, no internets, and a sticky "n" key. I type words like "goinng" all the time and it makes me sound like a trendy teenage gurrl. At least I don't do the double ampersand thing ("&&"). That's annoying. But nonetheless I would really like an upgrade of some sort. That'd be teh dookie for sure! What I really need to do first is pay off the loan on my broken moped, but that won't be anytime soon.

I think I'm going to sit up here at the front desk and stare out the windows some more. Maybe Buford will have a home in a few minutes.

Double Entendre

Dirty dirty. That's what that means...

Yeah, so I took this picture in hopes that I would look as scene as possible. No, not really. I did get really bored in the woods with my tripod, though. I suppose boredom turns one into a narcissistic prick. I do tend to snap a lot of photos of myself when I'm bored. ...I honestly don't know where I was going with this paragraph.

Ok, so this is my first post. Hai internets! My birth name is Amber but I was dubbed "Hammie" by my parents when I was a youngin'. I'm not sure why, really. I know my pops, Gawd bless him, used to call me Ham Sandwich when we'd go fishin' at my Oma and Opa's house. He was an interesting guy. In fact, there were a lot of "ham" references when it came to my name. "Hammie" was really the only one that stuck and now everyone knows me by it.

I'm a random individual and I thrive off of spontenaity. I come off as shy at first but I get progressively louder. I can't really spell but I'm a professional writing minor. I work full time at PAWS Humane as a dog adoptions counselor. Pooper scooper, urine mopper. But I adore my job. How was that for six choppy sentences?

I must say, blogging has really changed since I last partook in the sport. I had a LiveJournal back in '02. I had a lot of friends at first and then they started trickling off. I kept it updated until recently, actually, and then MySpace "blogging" sucked me in all together. But this -- this is awesome. You can UPLOAD pictures and the layout isn't all hokey (pokey smokey artichokey). I tried Xanga once, too, but I couldn't get into it at all. LameXcore. LameSauce. Lame.

Mein Kampfy Chair. Yes, I went there. Published by Penguin Booksellers, Mein Kampfy Chair is an in-depth look into Adolf Hitler's 1930's era La-Z-Boy recliner. Inside you will find pocket lint, ashes (cigarette), 26 or so Pfennings, Schindler's List, bread crumbs, syphallis, a small child, and the other half of his moustache.

Now I'm just being silly. But isn't that the point?

So more about me I guess, since the first date is supposed to be introductory and all. I love, love, love to stay in touch. This doesn't necessarily mean I'm nosey I don't guess. I just like to know what's going on out there. I always have my phone on me, I have had a countless number of social networking accounts over the years, and I try to never burn my bridges. Through getting to know me, you will learn that I get the "hook-up" everywhere because of the not burning my bridges thing.

...Seriously. I can name a few examples. I get piercings and tattoos on the cheap cheap at about three different shops, I get discounted alcohol at the liquor store, if certain bands are playing at bars a cover charge doesn't apply to me, if I'm tired of walking after a shopping spree at the strip mall there are two people that will give me a ride in that green cart thingy, I get all the stamps on my frequent buyer card at a couple places for only buying one item, anything at the automotive store is at least half off -- there are probably a few more examples but I can't think of them at the moment. I'm too busy halfway watching my dog dream about running.

Needless to say, never burn your bridges and help people out whenever and however you can. It makes you a cooler person and you get the hook up. Plus Karma always comes back around.

I think I'm going to leave you guys with that. This. That. Whatever. That. Anyway. Take care internets. I'll see you tomorrow. Well, today. But it's more like tomorrow. Whatever.