Feliz Octobre!

I know, I know, it's been entirely too long since I've done this. Serena, I just saw your post from August 22 and I'm sorry! Soccer season started and was spending all my free time taking Sadie pee, napping or picking my nose at work.

October is one of my favorite months. The leaves are almost at the peak of color, it's getting to hoodie and puffy vest weather, soccer season is winding down and blaze orange becomes socially acceptable. Josh loves October, too. The first day of the month marks his two favorite events: his birthday and the start of bird season. (It should be noted that as I write this, the barrell of a shotgun is staring at me, resting on the deer-foot rack that's hanging on the wall, holding his Desert Cammies from deployment, his blaze-orange Fedora-esque hat and a couple of boonie hats...I asked him to turn the rifle around so it wasn't pointing in our direction but he sait that's how it goes. Period. Welcome to my world.)
Josh left the night before his birthday and headed for Wytopitlock with Fudgie to stay at camp and go hunting the next morning. I don't know why they call it bird season. They can only shoot partridge (I think), which I found out I've been mispronouncing all these years. Apparantly it's paaatridge. Not pah, but paa...like sheep says baa. Ruffled grouse- at least I pronounced that right. Oh but wait! There are two different types of grouse...one that has a purple chest and is retarded but we can't shoot that one. Whatever.
Anyway, the boys go bird hunting. But it's not really hunting. There's no trampling through the woods. They drive around in the truck and lean out the window to shoot them. And drink beer. Luckily, Mom bought 30 of them.
They came back around 3, right before I was going to leave for practice. They carry in the cooler of what's left of the beers, and a Bud Light, twelve-pack of long-necks box, full of feathers.
Sadie immediately went into great white hunter dog mode and had to go sniffing. She started just sniffing the box, then Josh decided to take them out so she could get up close and personal. She started licking (shocker there!) and I had to smack her head and squeal a little so Josh would take the feather out of her mouth! Shudderrrrr...
The best part of all of this: while Sadie was sniffing Josh grabbed the bird and shook it at her going, "GOBBLEGOBBLEGOBBLE!!!" Sadie would jump back and he would do the same thing again. I was LOSING it. Not because Sadie was scared, but because the birds head was flopping around and it reminded me of Gobbles the turkey on South Park Hellen Keller the Musical episode!!! (Go to here and watch Season 4, Episode 14!)

HAHAHAHA I'm still laughing about this.

PS Josh just called me to the kitchen and I had some paaatridge. Holy crap. That's a good bird. But I have to save room for the salmon he's making :)

Practice makes perfect!

I've been recalling quite a few things that traumatized me growing up- the time Dad told me if I swore that I'd go to hell, then I heard Mom cussing up a storm after I went to bed and I came running downstairs crying, "...buh buh buh buuut I don't want Mom to go to hell!!!" There was also the time when Zach and I started arguing and fighting in the backseat and Mom FLICKS down the rear-view mirror and says, "I was going to you two to a MOVIE, too!! Guess THAT'S not going to happen!" How about when she pinned me against the cupboard and force-fed me a black olive thinking it would work like when Grampa shoved mashed potatoes down my throat.
OH! Gosh!!! There was the time at the farm in Thorsby when Sasha had puppies! They were whiny and needy...well one day, Zach came on to the deck holding one up by its tail and goes, "Look! The puppies aren't wussy anymore" Mom didn't even have to say anything- WHACK right upside the back of his head!
Here's one that doesn't involve Mom- I was in third grade and Mrs. Leighton had us making really stupid iron-on t-shirts. It was my turn and we were waiting for the iron to heat up so I put my hand close to it to see if it was ready, "MEGHANN BURNETT!!!!! GET AWAY FROM THAT IRON!!!!" What?? I didn't understand...I did it all the time after Dad was done ironing his stuff for work? Cripes...

Most of my most traumatizing moments growing up, however, involved my trumpet. And my mother.
I started playing in fourth grade and evidently picked it up pretty quickly. I think my first solo was "Good King Wenceslas" but I can't really remember. I do remember sitting in my room practicing (which NEVER happened) and I was just noodling around and Mom thought I was ACTUALLY playing (GOSH I can see the music on the page...I just tried singing it to Josh...na na na na, na na naaa, lean your ear this waaaay...don't you tell a single soul what I'm going to saaaay...Of course he was useless and had no idea what I was talking about.) So from the kitchen she bellows something about how terrible I am and how I should practice more because she can't even recognize what I'm playing. I start to cry, obviously, then I try playing and I can't because I have that lump in my throat (buuhh I can still feel it!) so then she yells more. Thanks Mom!
For the spring concert that same year, Mom decides that I should play "Scarborough Fair" for my solo. It was in the BACK of the book!! That's where the hardest music is, and I had to play a D on the staff. It was the highest note I had ever played and I went to play it at the concert and it went a little something like this...ahem:
"Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, SaHONK...."
I sat down and started crying. I couldn't believe it. I was such a failure. My music teacher kept coaxing me to get back up and I kept shaking my head no. Finally, I got up, played it correctly and finished. I was mortified. Needless to say, I NEVER messed up a solo again.
In seventh grade I decided to play, "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. I LOVED THIS SONG for a number of reasons. It had a bunch of eighth runs that sounded hard but didn't have any weird accidentals so it was like playing a scale. But at 12-years-old it sounded pretty bad ass! Then in the middle it went into a double-time feel and had triplets, which again, sounded awesome. I remember getting back to my seat and Mike Phair was like, 'how do you do that?' But the best part about all of this- I was sitting in the living room getting ready to head to school the night of the concert. Of course, I was noodling around with all the eighth runs and Dad starts to get pissy.
"You are going to screw this up aren't you? You should have practiced more!"
Ironically, it was Mom who told him not to worry, I always pulled it off somehow (which is a re-occurring theme throughout my life!) Clearly, I didn't screw it up, but I was royally pissed that no one ever trusted me that I knew what I was doing (like the time Mom gave me Jessie Leavitt's FLUTE music to play!! I'm like, "MOM I don't know what these notes are!" She reminded me that notes are all the same and I should know how to play it. Yea, sure, maybe if it's written in the correct KEY and I turn it upside down!!! DAH! I guess the music gene missed a generation!)
Was it sixth or seventh grade, I can't remember, when I played "Silent Night" for the Christmas concert. I had been practicing with Brian Nadeau and his band was performing in downtown Bangor at Rebecca's. There was a big balcony overlooking the store and the band had set-up up there. Mom, Dad and I showed up as they were playing their last song before a break. Brian came down and gave me a big hug then said, "Do you want to play your solo?"
"When? Right now?" I asked him (kind of panicky.)
"Yea, sure why not!!"
I looked at Mom with the deer-in-headlights eyes, "Um I don't know, I don't have my music or anything...."
"Oh you have it memorized and you know it! I'll let you play my Flugelhorn..."
"OK!!!!!!!!!!" hahaha. I'm such a sucker. I loved playing his Flugelhorn.
So off I go, bopping up the stairs. Brian picks up the mic and introduces me as his student and says how proud he is of me and that I'm going to play Silent Night.
"Please don't leave me," I whispered.
"You'll be fine..." he was so reassuring.
So there I was. I knew what note it started on and plugged away, flawlessly if I remember correctly. I got to the "high note" in the middle and stopped, looking at him.
"It's a D right?"
He nodded. And I continued.
Like a champ, I finished. I couldn't tell if the look on Dad's face was because he was glad I was done or if he was just THAT nervous for me. Luckily, Brian didn't give me enough time to get nervous! My parents didn't tell me I sucked either! YES! Oh well, at least they CAME to my concerts, and if they hated it, they never told me :) They drove me all over hells half acre to toot my horn (thanks for the ride to Houlton and back to Bangor for the State Championship Dad! And all those times I had lessons in Pittsfield Mom!)
My senior year, they even drove all the way to Boston to see us perform at Berklee.
I'll never forget that :)

Portland Jetport

I promised Mom some stories, but it's 9:51 and I have to be up at 5:45 and I don't have the energy (it's been a bizarre night) to put together something thoughtful. I did, however, find some gems I wrote on my way to see Zachary last fall. The first part is clearly and expose, but then it goes into a story about a girl who has to write obituaries for the local paper to pay the bills, and covers basketball in her spare time because that's what she really wants to do with her life but it will probably never happen. Who one earth was I writing about? hahaha!
Enjoy!
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My real first piece of writing, or the first I can recall, was in second or third grade, maybe it was fourth, hard to say. I had stayed in from recess (probably for talking incessantly) and Dr. Martin Luther King was the topic of the day. I remember walking with a purpose down the old, brown-paneled hallway with a piece of horizontal gray, pseudo-wax paper in my right hand. I hated that paper- the kind with the blue solid lines with red dashes down the middle. I wasn’t patient enough to fill in the inch-and-a-half space with my perfect penmanship before I had an ADHD attack and went back to talking about kitties.

Whatever.

Summary in hand, I turned the corner and slowed down to a trot before stopping cold in front of the teacher’s room. I held out my masterpiece and waited for the magic phrase, “Alright, you can go outside now.”

I stared around the forbidden room, I’m sure it smelled like coffee, sweat, dust (since that’s what teachers smell like) and a hint of mold from the ceiling tiles (one of which collapsed on me in fifth grade while I was staring outside during a massive fall rainstorm. My ADHD attack quickly turned into OCD when I couldn’t stop digging itchy bits of tile and probably mice shit out of my mop of hair.)

My teacher started laughing and said the magic phrase.

“…but next time be a little more careful of how you end your summary.”

I shrugged and headed toward the playground.

I thought, “and then he was dead,” pretty much nailed it on the head.

That’s what you get for giving me stupid wax paper.

My now close companion ADHD hung around through my first few years of college. (Who am I kidding, he’s sitting right next to me- my closest friends as well as my worst enemies are men and seeing how my ADHD has been both at times, it seems only fitting that it be a man. I’ll call him Nate.)

When Nate and I transferred to the University of Maine, he was uncontrollable. We studied Biology for a semester, Math Education the next, toyed with the idea of Landscape Horticulture until our Creative Non-Fiction professor came up to us and said, “You’re not a bad, why not try English?”

We printed off some stories and went in to Nevelle Hall one mild spring afternoon. After about 15 minutes of sweating in a closet sized office, stuffed to the gills with shit (I still to this day curse her) it was evident that we weren’t what the English Department was looking for, so how about we head over to Dunn Hall and try Journalism?

Three years and an addiction to espresso (not coffee) and Allagash White later, I told Nate to piss off for a while and landed a job as an intern at the local newspaper as a sports peon.

---------------------------------

Somehow it now turns into a story.... I'm not sure how that happened but if I hadn't switched tenses, it really could have flowed nicely....

---------------------------------

“….and then he was dead.”

She laughed and aimed for the backspace button, her white fleece gloves making typing on her laptop an adventure. Sitting behind the press table with nothing more than slatted cardboard covering the ice rink below- making the arena a balmy 50 degrees- made the $5 investment necessary.

“No, leave it,” said a voice behind her.

She turned around, recognizing the deep rasp.

“I would, but ‘passed away peacefully with his family at his bedside,’ takes up more space and I get paid by the inch.” She pushed back her folding chair and moved to hug her friend standing on the other side of the boards. Like a walking furnace, Derek’s embrace gave her a split-second of heat, enough to make her shiver. “What’s the plan for tonight?”

“You’re going to go home and change out of your girl clothes and come over to Mantown,” he said, referring to the apartment he shared with his three roommates. “The Pats kick off at eight, so we’ll tap the keg when you get there.”

“Can I wear my sweaties? Brady threw for six TDs when I wore my lucky pair last Sunday.”

“Christ, go home and put on the same underwear. As long as you’re there I don’t care what you wear.”

She scrunched her nose and laughed. He gave her a high-five as the buzzer sounded and half-time came to a close. She settled back onto her metal ice-block, hit ‘save’ and shut the computer.

Obituary writing wasn’t exactly what she envisioned when she first accepted an internship at the Montville Messenger, but the dollar-an-inch it paid and the $10.50 an hour she got for sitting by the scanner and writing the police beat made it worth the experience, even if it only paid the utilities.

Covering college basketball was her bread and butter. Even though the pay from the college paper was lousy ($10 an article, well, $9.27 after taxes) and the 9 p.m. deadline came and went with post-game interviews, not to mention that Mason Arena was more like an igloo than an old school hockey-barn-turned-basketball-court, this is what she wanted and the only way to get any experience. Living in a city of just under 40,000, the odds of becoming a full-time beat writer on the sports desk for the Messenger were about as good as her knee repairing itself, making University of Montville’s Division I women’s basketball team and leading this group of Barbie dolls to the conference championship. Or someone had to die. Neither of which seemed to be on the radar.

Natalie unsnapped the wrist of her posh-looking glove and pulled it off with her teeth. Pen in hand, she went back to taking statistics and secretly hoping for a blow out- short interviews, a quick pace- and she could have the story done, aside from quotes of course, before the game even ended.

After all, the guys and Monday Night Football, were waiting.

-----------------------------------

What do you think?

:)

There's a tear in my beer.

When I was in sixth grade I had a tramp for a basketball coach. She just thought she was the most rad teacher around with her teased bangs, denim jacket and f.u.p.a. I guess I can't really judge because Mom had me in tights, big sweaters, and scrunchy leg warmer socks...but that's not my fault.
So we're at practice at Carmel Elementary and afterward, we're all talking about whether or not we'll have a game the next day. There was snow forecasted, but I heard on the radio that morning that it really wasn't going to be that bad.
"What station do you listen to?" she clucked to me.
"Um..I think it was on Q106.5..." I replied innocently.
"THE COUNTRY STATION?? Who listens to country!?" Laughing ensues.
"Well, I heard the weather on 104.7 Fox..." she managed to get out between heaves. The "COOL" station. Whore.
For the next few (formidable) years, I denied country music existed. Clearly I wasn't a loser because of my wardrobe or my bowl cut...no, I was lame because I listened to country music. There are videos of me singing Patsy Cline and Randy Travis. I remember driving back from the County with Dad my sophomore year of college. I laid across the bench seat in the big red pick-up, with a pillow on Dad's lap while he drove. He plugged in a Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits album and I started singing. I don't know how I knew the words (kind of like with ABBA), but I did. A year or so after that, I was in Keene, NH with Madison and company, and we went to the theater to see "Walk the Line" about Johnny Cash and June Carter. They hated the movie (they just didn't get it) and ran into the store to grab some Ben & Jerry's. On the verge of tears, I decided to sit in the car. Dad used to dance around the kitchen playing air guitar and for the longest time I didn't know why he played it that way...he looked so queer. Turns out, he was doing it just like Johnny Cash (and somehow I knew all the songs in the movie!) It broke my heart and I just sat there and cried. Whatever.
Anyway! It wasn't until I got to high school that I realized that my skank coach was actually just an insecure 30-something with acne trying to relive her middle school glory days and country music is AWESOME. To this day, I can't drive to Newport without cranking my beloved Q106.5. Joining the Army just solidified my country fan-dome. You either need to listen to country music or screaming angry hate music to be in the Army. (One of my favorite memories of this summer: sitting at Josh's house playing beer die the night before my birthday, everyone hammered, and "Great Day To Be Alive" comes up on the playlist. Watching Chris lean back in his chair with his Jack (no coke) wailing, "I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes.")
I flicked on the TV when I was cleaning earlier and found "Top 100 Country Videos" on CMT. I think it made me miss Josh, so I decided to watch it. (His favorite song this summer that plays anytime we head up north...I hated it the first 63 times I heard it...then on our way to Millinocket to go rafting I found myself rocking out driving his truck while he crawled into the bed to get a beer. Creep!)
Now, I know I'm a wee bit of a hypocrite. I carry around my reuseable grocery bags, yell at Josh everytime he throws a butt out the window ("Those damn things contaminate six gallons of ocean water....do you know how much sea life is in six gallons!?!?") and throws a bottle in the trash (it's finally getting to him...he opened up a piece of gum and went to toss the wrapper out the window when I whipped over and looked at him. He crumpled it up, put it in his door and goes, "there ya go babe...I'm saving the planet...one gum wrapper at a time..." hahahaha.) I chug Starbucks (the first sip of a latte lands somewhere up there between orgasm and crack on the awesome scale) and proudly sport Barack Obama paraphernalia at work. I cry tears of joy at every Welcome Home Ceremony for the troops, and I cry tears of empathy and frustration at every send off. Yet somehow I can appreciate almost every hooah army country song. When I watch the boot in your ass video (and Mom, you can't roll your eyes at the country hooah music, because I vividly remember you having me listen to this song my senior year), I get goosebumps watching the reaction of the soldiers and the old black and whites of G.I.s. I can go from that, to watching Jarhead and getting pissed off, to watching Band of Brothers and thinking, "how did people like that actually exist?" Then I hear about my friends getting deployed and plucked to go and part of me wants to be right there with them, and part of me can't stand the thought of watching my Mom cry if I ever got on a plane to go. And I get teased about being in the band and I want to go just so I can say I did, then I think, "why? what for? what do I have to prove?" Then I think about the panic that used to come over me thinking about Zachary being sent overseas as soon as he graduated from college and I can't help but get pissed off again.

Whew, that was quite the ADD rant.

But really, where does this conflicting lifestyle stem from? I grew up pretty much right down the middle (much to Dad's right-winged chagrin.) Is it because I grew up in Maine? Because Mom gave me an ugly haircut and made me listen to Enya, Patsy Cline, ABBA and Q106.5?? That can't be good for any child's mental stability!

Whatever. I hang out with guys (and girls) who cruise around with Veteran plates and drink Bud Light, I call a town of 1,300 in a state of a little over a million, home, and I vacation in London, wear skinny jeans, carry big bags, wear Jackie-O's, inject espresso and can't go more than a week without a Sushi.

Maybe I'm just lucky. Hooah!

Smachary

I've had my share of BFFs in my time. And with any BFF you eventually come up with roughly a bajillion inside jokes and moments that pretty much only you could find funny. While it annoys the CRAP out of me when girls feel the need to show off their BFF-ness by giggling and tee-heeing about inside jokes just because they know you'll be jealous, I have no problem bullshitting and laughing hysterically with Zach- not because I know it'll make people jealous, but because I know deep down that no one else on earth can appreciate what we are laughing about. (That was the longest sentence ever.)

There's nothing like having a brother- I would specify and say younger brother, but everyone thinks he's older than me even, probably because he's been shaving since he was 12 and has the Michelob Ultra to Kurt's Guiness eyebrows (chew on that analogy for a minute.)

Case in point- Zach and I are chatting while he is at work the other day and he randomly tells me that he has joined an Asian Basketball League.
"But Zachary...we don't like Asians..." I remind him.
Now, it's not that we are like Asian haters but....ok we are. They are kind of annoying en masse and have flat butts and are generally spastic when put in stressful situations. ("That is profiling...and profiling is WRONG.")
"Naw it's cool Meg, it's not all like THOSE Asians. A guy from work asked me to play on his team and said sure!"
Zach works for AT&T Wireless in some mall down there. The Brea Mall maybe? Not important. Anyway, he is the only white guy working with and for a bunch of dot-Indians. They tell him that he's the smartest guy around- like anyone is going to want to talk to a dot-Indian if a white guy is working there! And, of course, he works on commission! Genius! (One day they were discussing religion and one was like, "I'm Hindu" and the other is like "I'm Buddhist" and they look at Zach and say, "what are you?" he replies, "in college." MAN I love him....)
"You're only allowed two white guys on your team though," he continued, "and they have to be under six-feet tall..."
Whew. Ok. This is the part where I lost it.
"I'm the tallest nigga on the team! I play center!"
HAHAHAHA.
So I'm chatting to him today and he poses the question:
"Meg, if you could be any kind of chink what would you want to be?"
"I don't know....probably Thai...they don't really look like chinks."
"I think I'm going to say I'm Cambodian."
"Why!? No way!! Say you're Phillippino! They don't look Asian."
"Well, I think we're only allowed one white guy on our team so if they ask I have to tell them I'm some kind of chink and I didn't know which ones look the least chink....I think I'll stick with Cambodian. What should we name our team?"
"Ummmm...'Someting wong?'"
hahahahahahahahaha....
"'Cream of Some Young Guy?'"
hahahahahahahahaha....
"Meg you don't understand, I'm the biggest white guy down here. White guys here don't want to burp and fart and watch football. They want to go to coffee shops and catch shows. I'm like the enforcer."
"Pfffttttt.."
"I know that's what I said! I've never been the enforcer in my life! It's like that time I was in London with Jan and he took me out and used me as his big white American enforcer. I loved it when we were on the bus and he goes, 'so...what do you call your women? sluts? whores?' and I was like, 'Nah man, we call them bitches...'"
Whew. Dear God. HAHA!

Mom and Jo love playing games. Which is fine except for when it's Brits vs. Americans and the Americans have an unfair advantage because we're using American words and an American dictionary and waa waa effing waa cry me the River Thames. Well, one day, when Jo didn't have any Brits around to winge with, we decided we'd play a friendly game of Taboo- Mom and Jo vs. Meg and Zach. BOOYA. Even Mom was bitching that she was going to lose - not just because she had Jo on her team- but because Zach and I are UNSTOPPABLE.
Example:
Me: CARPET-BAGGING WENCH!!!!
Zach: HILLARY CLINTON! YEA!

Next round:
Zach: *Looks at his card* "OH! Ummm.."
Me: *Spits out the correct answer...no I can't remember what it was but everyone stopped because Zachary had said NO WORDS and I knew exactly what was on the card. Mom and Jo witnessed it.*

Needless to say, Mom and Jo got owned and decided it was time to switch teams and have a cool-off (they were pissed at each other) slash celebratory (because zach and I kicked ass) ice cream, and switch teams.

Here's another great story.
One of my Gorham roommates, Bill, worked with retards. (This is not PC story time...if you couldn't tell already.) It was right around March Madness time and so we were all filling out brackets. Bill decides it would be funny to let the retards fill out brackets too. So he says to a group of them, "Alright, I'm going to tell you the best team first so you can figure out who has a better chance of winning. Ready? Ohio State. Central Connecticut."
One of them yells, "SCHENTRAL CONNECTICUT!!!!!"
Bill is like, "Are you sure? I said Ohio State first?"
"YESCH!"
Zach, losing it at this point says, "I TOLD YOU VIRGINIA COMMONWELSCH ISH GOOD."

Now, I'm not sure how Zach and I developed this language. My theory still lies with Mom throwing us in the back seat, separating us with a cooler and driving all over hells half acre to visit family. After a while, we realized Mom was right, our family is generally nuts and we didn't need BFFs, we had each other (actually it was more like she told me I didn't need friends, that I was her best friend and not allowed to have any others. Hm. No wonder I'm a recluse.)

I'm not just saying that her side of the family is quirky because well, Dad's side aren't exactly the poster children of normalcy either. How many kids grow up eating mac and cheese and apple sauce off TV trays while watching either Batman or the Addams family on VHS while Grammie runs back and forth bringing us 87 folded papertowels and offering us yeast rolls? How pumped were we when Diane bought Titanic so we could watch that EVERYTIME we went over! I mean, it sure beat sitting around the table in the kitchen with the aunt who has birds as BFFs and can't sleep in a bed so sleeps on the couch in a trailer right across from her sister and husband who wanders around with a Dysarts 22oz travel mug of Allen's, milk and ice with his siblings whose names all start with the letter "G," and deaf cousin and his semi-psychotic wife who can't be parted from her mother, and yes, we even have a midget for a second cousin.

Hm.

Whatever. Our Muvver lovesh usch!!!

"Joseph Smith was called a prophet dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumbbbb..."

"It's not so much that I want her dead...it's that I want her not to be alive ANYMORE."

(God I hope he reads this so I don't look like an idiot...)

Dear Family....

When I took ENG205 (creative writing) I learned that there are actually names for different ways to start stories (note: I hated this class.) The most popular way is called "in media res" or "in the middle of things." You dive into the action and use a series of flashbacks to tell the reader what's going on- pretty much how every story is started...

I hated this class for a number of reasons- I don't like writing about made up ideas. If you are going to do that much research to make it sound like you know what you are talking about, why not write about someone, something, or some event? Plus I can't hold a thought for much more than 1000 words. I think it's the ADD. Speaking of ADD, I had blood drawn today. I was at the Lab the day before and got a Wile E. Coyote Band-Aid. I was like, "ooo this is fun!" and ripped it off within the hour. Well, today I got a bright, shiny silver one with sparkly stars. That was at 3:30...it's 8 and I still have it on and catch myself staring at it. Oh look, a kitty!
Another reason I hated the class: the kids who got the best grades were the gamers. Gamers are kids who sit around and play World of Warcraft for HOURS upon HOURS and if they do go to class, they bring their laptops and play whilest pretending to pay attention. My BFF Mike is like a gamer in rehab (he decided it was making him fat because he'd just smoke pot and eat and game) and we were sitting in CMJ100 one day and he saw the kid in front of us playing and goes, "that kid's a noob." Apparantly "noob" is a newbie...like a new gamer? Whatever. I guess he wasn't good. So it's these kids who sit around playing Metroid who get the best grades because they live their lives vicariously through these computer heroes and even remark as to how hott the girls are in the games. So really, it's like they're writing about reality, thus defeating the whole fiction writing purpose? I hated that class.

So I feel like when I posted my first story (I refuse to use the b-word), I just kind of jumped into my life and talked about people and events with no explanation, which was fun, but kind of confusing. I figured that maybe a little flashback will help make sense of what I was talking about and let you know what I've been doing since I graduated from college (Cliff's notes style!)

Hokay, so...I graduated May 12, 2007 from the University of Maine with my B.A. in Journalism - Newswriting. Whew. I quit my job at the Bangor Daily News where I worked on the Sports desk (it was really the best job EVER.) Well, I was going to quit, but I ended up getting laid off so it didn't really matter. Big cutbacks in print media- wish someone had told me before I graduated but whatever!
I lived in Orono for another week or so and moved down to Gorham with my then-boyfriend Clem. We had been together on and off for almost five years at that point and the only thing that really kept me sane the last few months of school was knowing that as soon as it was over, I could move to Southern Maine and be with him. It was fantastic- for about a day. Something happened (what, I'm not so sure) but it didn't work out. By the end of June I was miserable and he told me that if I wanted to move back to Bangor, then he wouldn't object. I didn't want to necessarily, but staying in Southern Maine just wasn't feasible. I had just started working at the L.L. Bean Outlet in Freeport and that really couldn't cover the cost of living in or around the Greater Portland Area. I ran home and stayed in Carmel, commuting back and forth to Freeport for two weeks before they realized that I was driving two hours everyday to get to work and transferred me to the store in Bangor. I found a place to live, found a roommate and even interviewed and got a job coaching high school girls soccer in Hermon.
Soccer, working and trying to make it through a fall without being in school (not to mention yet another breakup with Clem) really just kicked my ass. I fell in love with my soccer team though and no matter how badly my day was going, they always cheered me up (or I just took my frustration out on them bwahaha). We finished the season at .500 so I didn't tank completely!
As soon as the season and banquet were over, I bought a plane ticket and headed straight for Phoenix to spend a week with Zachary. It was exactly what I needed- sunshine, sunshine and sunshine! He still had classes, so I spent a lot of time relaxing by the pool, driving him to school and going to Starbucks. I told you it was perfect! Zach managed to get me into the ASU-Cal homecoming football game (which I proceeded to get sick at!) but he even had a friend of his make me a special t-shirt (can't sit in the student secion without a gold shirt on!) with Dustin Pedroia's college number on the back! Woot! We even watched the Red Sox win another World Series together! It felt so good to a. see it with him and b. be together outside the Northeast and walk around in our Red Sox stuff and know that we aren't bandwagon fans!
After getting back from Arizona (ugh), I worked my tail off until Christmas when Zach came home (wooooot!) and we had our first Christmas morning on our own. I picked out my very first tree (IT WAS PERFECT) and decorated it with ornaments that a co-worker from L.L. Bean gave to me (because she felt bad for me haha!) and lights from Mom. It turned out to be Red Sox themed, but I wouldn't have had it any other way!
Around that same time a job opened up working for my unit doing supply and administrative tasks. (Note: I'm in the 195th Army National Guard Band. In the Guard we do the whole "one weekend a month, two weeks a year" but have people who work full-time to keep the show running.) So when the job presented itself, I decided that I didn't really have anything to lose- the money was way better than what I was making in my lame retail job with L.L. Bean and I knew I'd be good at it.
In the middle of April I took off (with Mom!) to England for two weeks for Alice's wedding. While I was there, I took off for a weekend to go to Spain to see my friend Danielle play basketball for her semi-pro team. We stayed in Madrid and wandered the city and talked as much as we want about everyone around us because noone spoke any English! Booya! I had an amazing time and did NOT want to come home. But do I ever want to come home? No! Just before I left I started talking to Clem again. He was heading in for a major surgery to donate half of his liver to his father (long story.) I went crawling back to him and it didn't work out. Such is life.
In May, a job opened up at Troop Command, basically filling in for someone who is being deployed this January. Not only would it be guaranteed for the duration of the deployment (12-months at least) but I would make roughly $800 a month more and my health insurance would be covered. It's called ADSW- Active Duty Special Work- I get paid like I'm active duty, but I'm still National Guard and go to drill weekends with my unit.
Since I've started working full-time for the Guard, I've met and become pretty attached to some great friends. As my college friends started moving away I got more and more discouraged and lonely and pissy that all of my friends were gone. It made me want to leave, but I didn't really know what to do or where to go. When my best friend Amanda (AJ) moved to Hawaii, she told me to promise not to become a recluse. So I pretty much kept that in mind and started giving people a chance. Jessica, who I met on my first day of work, turned out to not be a stranger at all! We actually played basketball together when we were 13-years-old and she immediately recognized me (and then I remembered her and her long ponytail and Kobe Bryant purple basketball shoes!) Her boyfriend Kyle (who I refer to as Karl all the time because he hates it and calls me Turd) works with Josh, who took me white-water rafting. Jeb, who also works in the same building with Josh, Kyle and me, originally introduced me to Josh, Fudgie, and a ton of others. It's like the six-degrees of Kevin Bacon haha.
As of right now, I live in Bangor with Danielle. She's getting ready to head to Germany (hopefully!) to keep playing basketball, and I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to move into a house with Josh and preparing for the upcoming soccer season!

How's that for a flashback?

The 'Nob

I've heard stories about white-water rafting, but I didn't think it actually existed in Maine. It struck me as a completely West Coast thing- cruising down the rapids of the Colorado River, through the Rockies- and only for those who are, well, like Deanna. So when Josh came back from a Fourth of July, Bachelor Celebration in the sticks and declared that, "WE ARE GOING," I didn't argue (especially as my birthday present!)

We packed up the pick-up Saturday with meat, beer and....ice? (and a waterproof camera!), and headed for the Northern Outdoors Center, located about 100 yards from the entrance to Baxter State Park. Our group of 12 shared three framed, canvas covered campsites and Keith's grill (which he threw on the back of his pick-up and promptly fired up when we returned, before heading to the lodge for the movie. Did he bother taking it off the truck? Of course not- he's from Wytopitlock!) After stuffing our faces and playing a few rounds of beer die, we packed up and headed toward Baxter in hopes of finding a lake to cool off in, and after a dip, we were back to the beer (and by we I mean them. Deep down, Chris Cook's story of near drowning in the Cribworks was enough to scare me shitless and the last thing I needed was a hangover while I was thrashing down the upper Penobscot. Plus I'm a wuss and at age 24 have somehow turned into a three-beer queer. Whatever.)

Fortunately (or not) everyone (else) was hammered and ready for bed by 9:30, and knowing we had to be in the lodge at 7:00 was enough to kill the buzz. We managed to dodge the thunderstorms that were forecasted for the evening (thank goodness because we all just stripped and hung our bathing suits and towels in the trees to dry....) and managed to sleep pretty well (except for Fudgie's dutch ovens and Josh's conversations with James in his sleep...and the nine million trips they took to go tree-line.)

Things that happen at 0600 when camping with a bunch of Army friends:
1) Hearing James yell, "POST" when he comes foraging for Advil from my bag of tricks.
2) Having to "police the campsite..." Shoot me in the face.
3) Watching James pound four beers to kill his hangover ("It used to only take one...I don't know what happened.")

OK no. 3 might not be an Army thing. Whatever.

We got to the lodge, stared at our release forms (and the Weather Channel, which forecasted an inch of rain and thick clouds all day.... James: "I hate watching the Weather forecast in the summer. They are f-ing idiots. 'There will be some sun, clouds, and probably rain.' Well no shit asshole you pretty much just covered everything!") and pondered what to have for lunch (steak, chicken, salmon or veggie burger...."You guys don't look like the type to eat veggie burgers..." our guide, Paul, said to us...he didn't know what he was in for...)

*Rant: When filling out the emergency contact information, I suddenly realized that I have ZERO emergency contact people IN THE TIME ZONE LET ALONE THE COUNTRY *pant pant*. I guess I could have put Carol. But I didn't want to. I wanted to put, "Relation: MEEM." But no. I put: Name/Relation: Zachary/Brother, Address: *crickets*, Phone number: hahaha he still has a 207 area code, this will work!, checked: CHICKEN, and went on my merry way in hopes that I wouldn't need emergency-ing.

Anyway, we grab our gear at the lodge (helmet, paddle and PFD) and head for the school bus...First of all, I don't know how many times I wanted to (and so did everyone else) yell HOOAH everytime they gave us instructions or asked if we were excited (which I was until about five minutes into the bus ride and realized I had to pee with the force of a thousand Niagras...luckily I didn't have to use the Coke can the Fudgie de-topped to relieve myself...I also made the mistake of going straight to the back of the bus so we could all sit together....this will play into the story later on...) Finally, we pile off the bus (James, "FALL IN!"), have our "class" and jump into the boats. We split into two groups (couldn't really fit all 12 into one raft): extreme and not so extreme.

I was screwed from the get-go.

Josh, Fudgie, Rodeo (Sara), Scottie, James, and myself take off down the hill toward the river. We inherited a loner, Crystal, who was on her 15th rafting trip and first to Maine this season. We were skeptical at first, but she turned out to be fantastic! We ended up having to swap James for his sister Darcy because, well, the other boat sucked at...everything. Their Guide needed him more than we did anyway. We turned out to be a pretty stellar team (hooah) and were ready to tackle the first set of rapids (Class V right out of the gate!!!) called the X-TERMINATOR!!! Then to another set of Class V's, The Cribworks, down to Class IV, the Big A, and some lovely floating time.

I didn't bring my camera for the first half of our journey, which turned out to be for the best. The clouds were low and thick, visibility was crap, and I was afraid I'd bash myself in the face with it.

After lunch (nomnomnom), the clouds had burned off and we floated toward Lose Your Lunch Falls (which, ironically, are only Class IV rapids, but kicked our ass more than the Cribworks.) LYLF had some long Indian name but I can't remember it or pronounce it. We had the most adventures there (the other raft dumped completely and Josh decided to be an idiot and not hold on while we were surfing...I thought had drowned for a bit...). We did the falls THREE times. Dear God. On our third time down, our Guide was LAUNCHED into the third "row" of seats, I managed to pad Fudgie's fall (again) and since Josh still didn't have a paddle at this point (dead weight), he sat in front like some kind of cowboy and had a nice little drink of the river.

From there it was smooth-sailing to the natural waterslide (thanks, but no) and smooth water until the last two rapids. We saw quite a bit of wildlife, too! A moose on the bus ride to the starting point, an eagle fly-over during lunchtime, a fawn swimming across the river (between our raft and the one in front of us!) and a HERD of ducks! Along with hornets, mooseflies, mosquitoes, and every other awesome Maine bug.

Katahdin was stunning as always. I have only been up there one other time (fifth grade maybe??) and didn't realize just how pristine and perfect the whole area is. I floated along not wanting it to end and not wanting to go back home. I can't really explain the feeling- I was just trying to take it all in and appreciate that this is my home. But at the same time I felt like I had a blanket wrapped around me and I couldn't get out of it- like I was twisted and trapped and being held back. For now though, I just want to travel and raft in every state!

Here's our stunning raft :)

From left: Josh, Fudgie, Sara, Scottie, Me, Darcy and BFF Crystal

Not bad for crappy camera :)