Olympic Fever (Spoiler)

IOC

Who has two thumbs and is a huge nerd for the Olympics? This gurl.
You hear about people having "Olympic Fever" and what-not, and while I don't go super crazy during the season, I do get excited and have been known to occasionally act like I'm an expert on a sport when I am clearly not -I call this Olympic-douche-itis. We have all been guilty of exhibiting symptoms of this at one time or another. (Don't try to deny it!) I have always loved the Olympics. I get so excited about the games months before they happen, they are one of the few sporting events I get really into. My poor DVR has had trouble keeping up with the 12+ hours of events I record at a time. There are something like 67 hours of events on TV per day on 4 or 5 different channels. It's almost too overwhelming, my brain can't take it. It's like an addiction.  I totally overdid it yesterday, though. I spent at least 12 hours trying to cram 48 hours worth of Olympics into my day. I think it fried my brain a little bit because I felt exhausted when I got up this morning to go to work.  I wish I could program the DVR to only record those events I must watch, but since NBC has it listed as a single block of time on the TV guide, I end up having to record all of it, which is fine, I will watch it all. But, if the DVR runs out of room before I get to watch the events I love the most, I will Hulk out a little. Technology, I demand that you catch up to my needs! The events I get the most excited about are gymnastics and swimming. I was a pretty good swimmer as a kid considering I grew up in Colorado, a land-locked state. But, my hands-down favorite summer Olympic event to watch is gymnastics because that's what I really wanted to do as a kid, especially after my Olympic Fever outbreak of 1992.


Not this Olympic Fever.
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The first Olympics I remember avidly watching on TV was the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. I'm sure I watched them with my parents in the years before then, but that was the first time I remember being aware of what the Olympic games were, and their importance. That was the year they really stuck with me. I, like many an impressionable young American girl, looked up to Shannon Miller, one of the U.S gymnasts. My mom indulged my sister and I by enrolling us in dance and gymnastics classes. We went to classes off-and-on for several years, not quite understanding that we were probably too old and not trained enough to actually come close to becoming Olympians, but we didn't care. Whenever I got on the balance beam or practiced my cartwheels and bridges on the floor, I imagined myself in a stadium full of people, and the podium with my medals waiting for me in the corner. But, sadly, our Olympic dreams were not meant to be. My sister lost interest eventually and pursued cheerleading instead. I tried to get serious about gymnastics and dance again after the 1996 games, but we discovered I had Scoliosis, and gymnastics just became too painful and difficult. After healing completely from spinal surgery years later, it was all but impossible to seriously pursue gymnastics again, but by then theatre had become my new obsession.  I won't kid myself, I was never going to be an Olympian.  Had I been able to stick with gymnastics, I probably never would have advanced further than local/friendly competitions; I was too old, too tall, and had not trained nearly enough. The important thing now is I am relatively healthy, and I can live vicariously through our American Olympians every four years.

This was almost too much awesome for my wee brain.
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So, last night when (SPOILER) Jordyn Wieber didn't make the cut for the Women's Gymnastics All-Around competition, I teared up a little bit for her. To watch her realization that a major piece of her life-long dream had fallen apart in front of an international audience was heartbreaking. Unfortunately, though by the nature of the games, for some to win, many have to lose. That is part of what draws us to the games.  To watch the end result of a person or a team's years of grueling work to see if their dreams come true or if they are dashed at the last moment. The drama, and the fight, and the test of the human body and spirit are why we are so riveted with these events.

All that being said, has anyone played Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games for the 3DS? Wow. I played a demo of it recently in trying to get my Pre-Olympic Fever fix. What an awful game. Now, I'm a fan of both Mario and Sonic and if you had told 10-year-old-me that the two beloved icons would appear in a game together one day, I would have peed myself with glee. The unfortunate reality is, this game is so anticlimactic, I don't even have the desire to write a decent review of it. So, here is my antiquated and very abbreviated first impression:
-It's neat to have the Mario and Sonic universes together again, but that's about the only positive thing I have to say about this game.
-The mini games are too similar to each other and are often confusing.
-The touch pad doesn't always respond how you want it to.
-The overall game play/concept really falls short of expectations for the two franchises.
-As a whole, the game was lackluster and disappointing.

Nintendo

There are plenty of reviews out there from people who played more than just the demo, but I find most of them in agreement. I understand the initial appeal of video games based on the Olympics. The Olympics themselves are such exciting events, and I think it's natural to want to relive or prolong that excitement by playing a video game where you control the action.  But in reality, even playing a video can't compare to the excitement that comes along with the actual events, I ran into this letdown after the 2010 Winter Olympics and the unimpressive video game that came out that year. That's what makes the Olympics so special: it's a feeling, an event, an atmosphere that cannot be duplicated.  But what can I say? Olympic Fever can make people do some crazy things.

Really, London? Really?
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What's your favorite can't-miss Olympic event?
What's the most disappointing video game you've played?

My Shit-hole Apartment (Part 4)

So, aside from Roommate Jessica being rather passive-aggressive most of our junior year, I still loved living in the Awesome Apartment. Unfortunately, things were about to change again.

Living Away From Home Year 4

Death and Diamonds

(The Awesome Apartment Becomes the Awkward Apartment)

I've mentioned before that I was a somewhat-sheltered child. Other than touring our local justice center on a school field trip in high school, I had very little experience with crime/law growing up. I had been the driver in one car accident as a teen, and I was not at fault. I still had to go to traffic court, but the judge threw it out because the ticket I was written was dumb and the state trooper didn't even show up to court to argue with me. That was my big brush with the law. The most crime I ever witnessed as a youth was some high schoolers smoking a little pot in the parking lot or me and my friend Stef some punk kids in the neighborhood setting off illegal fireworks in the middle of the night. I may have known of some kids in school who shoplifted once or something, but I was blissfully detached from scandals and other wrong-doings. It was something that "happened to everybody else" and I was naive enough to believe that justice still prevailed all the time. Roommate Jessica was probably of similar mindset, because we were both thrown for a loop by what happened the summer before our senior year of college.

Hint: it did not go like this.
Disney

Sadly, our sweet old man landlord died after a long illness right around the end of our junior year. One evening someone came by our apartment to inform us of our landlord's passing, and to give us some letters and legal papers explaining the situation. We were both a little sad; we didn't know our landlord that personally (in fact I can't remember his name) but he seemed nice and kept a nice building, so we couldn't complain. Other than being a little sad, we were very confused and concerned. We had no idea what this meant. Would we have to move? We had basically no useful knowledge on renter's rights/laws, as I said, we were young and naive. 

The late landlord's daughter inherited his estate, including the building in which we lived. She lived a few hours' drive away, so I never met her in person, we only spoke a few times on the phone. On one of those occasions, she informed us that she would honor the rest of our lease (as she was legally required to do) before selling the building, and then she dropped a bomb on us: the superintendent had run off with everyone's rent deposit money and no one knew where he was, THUS she would not be paying us our deposits back (which is, in fact, illegal for her to do.)  Seeing as how Roommate Jessica and I were measly broke-ass college kids and our school did not even have a pre-law major, yet alone student legal services, we had no working knowledge of our rights or how renter's laws worked. My guess is this was exactly what Late Landlord's Daughter was banking on.  So, in short, we were screwed unless we wanted to take it to small claims court -something neither of us could afford nor wanted to do.

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Jessica was planning to go on another mission trip over the summer and would be in China for most of that time, so that left me to sort of help take care of things at the apartment, and see that the transfer of power went well. Needless to say, that summer kind of sucked. Roommate Jessica was in China, but we were able to communicate via e-mail about what needed to happen with our living situation, etc. I went to bartending college for a few weeks to "learn a trade" since clearly my Theatre Arts major wasn't gaining me any employment brownie points. At some point before Roommate Jessica left the country, she sent me a nasty e-mail complaining about a lot of things (like the landlord dying/our money being stolen) and then started accusing me of ridiculous things like cheating on my boyfriend-at-the-time and a lot of other crazy nonsense. First off, I had not cheated on my boyfriend-at-the-time, especially not in that apartment.  Secondly, if I had cheated on a boyfriend in that apartment, it would have been NONE of her business. Third, the e-mail all but accused me of being the reason the landlord kicked the bucket and the super stole our money, which is just plain ludicrous.  At the end of the e-mail she threatened to move out.  I was so angry after receiving this e-mail that I started writing a bunch of nasty shit to reply to her.  But I stopped myself.  I decided to not stoop to the level she was clearly perched smugly on and decided to not write an angry e-mail ripping her a new one (wise words, kids-learn from me!) I logged out and went to play my GameCube.

Everything seems better after angry gaming.
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A few days later, once I had drafted an intelligent, civil-yet-direct e-mail reply, Roommate Jessica had already left for her trip and I would not hear from her for weeks. I essentially told her that, yes, it super-sucked that our landlord died and his daughter is being a total douche-canoe and that our money was stolen, but those things were currently out of our control. As for the rest of the ludicrous accusations, I told her I would not dignify them with a response but that if she wanted to move out, that was her choice and I would not try to talk her out of it if she had made up her mind to leave. I did remind her that her name was still on the lease and that she would have to find a replacement roommate to take over her share.  Who has two thumbs and can be classy? This gurl.

Dude, I totally reek of class.
Photo courtesy of Jen Gelber

When Roommate Jessica returned and finally responded to my e-mail, she apologized.  She was just really angry about getting ripped off and took it out on me. (This is why we don't type angry, kids.) She didn't really want to move out and kind of just wanted to forget the whole thing. So, who has two thumbs and called Roommate Jessica's bluff? This gurl again. (Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter, kids.) I decided to try to let it all go (see how well that's been working so far...almost a decade later...) and just act like the e-mail exchange never happened between us. Roommate Jessica even brought me some fun peace-offering souvenirs from China. Things started to go back to normal until one fall afternoon I was at the grocery store and ran into a mutual friend of mine and Roommate Jessica's. We chit-chatted for a minute and then she said,

"Isn't so great that Jessica and "Roommate-Jessica's-boyfriend-with-a-girl-name-whom-I-really-don't-like" are engaged!?!?!?" 
"Um, they're what-now?"
"Yeah, they're getting married next summer." (At this point Mutual Friend is blissfully unaware how awkward this conversation is quickly becoming.)
"Oh. Well...I...didn't...know...that....Neat."
"Yeah! It's so exciting!" (It is slowly dawning on her that she just spilled the beans, and I am uncomfortable and possibly a little angry.)

Awkward.

I finished my shopping and went home pissed-off, to say the least. But, while putting away groceries, I decided to give Roommate Jessica and Girly-Named-Boyfriend Fiance the benefit of the doubt. I concluded that Roommate Jessica would tell me when she had a minute.  We really hadn't spent a lot of time in the apartment together with our crazy different school/work schedules. Maybe I just wasn't the first person to get to know the good news, maybe I'm further down that list of important people to tell when a big life even happens.  Cool.  I can live with that. I told myself to not get all butthurt until I was sure there was a reason to. Days passed. Then weeks. Roommate Jessica said nothing. She didn't even hint at it. The only clue I had that Mutual Friend wasn't just somehow confused and got the wrong "Jessica" (there are a million of us) was the brand new shiny diamond that suddenly appeared on Roommate Jessica's left hand.
Commence butthurt and awkward apartment atmosphere.



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 Up until three-quarters of the way through our senior year, spending time in the apartment with Roommate Jessica felt uncomfortable, distant, and like I was suffocating in a forced air of friendliness. I didn't trust having her as a confidant, and Girly-Name-Fiance was over ALL THE TIME. It sucked. Finally, one afternoon Roommate Jessica came into my room and surprised the shit out of me by asking me to be one of her bridesmaids.



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 She explained that she'd been engaged for a few months to Girly-Name-Fiance, but didn't tell anyone yet because they didn't want it somehow getting back to their parents before they were ready to tell them. She told me she was convinced I knew right away because of the ring but since I never said anything, she didn't say anything either. I fessed up that Mutual Friend had told me at the grocery store. Roommate Jessica sighed and looked embarrassed. Apparently she had run into Mutual Friend the day before I had, and Mutual Friend had seen the ring and guessed. Roommate Jessica told her not to tell anyone, but obviously Mutual Friend was kind of gossipy, and didn't know how to keep secrets all that well. Roommate Jessica is a terrible liar, so I knew she was telling the truth about that, because if Mutual Friend had said, "Oh my God are you guys getting married?!?!?!" Roommate Jessica would not have been able to lie her way out of that conversation to save her life. The whole thing seemed like a bad comedy of errors one might find in an episode of Three's Company, except no sexual innuendo and fewer pratfalls.

The 70's were rough, kids.
MPTV images

So, with things smoothed over with Roommate Jessica, the big questions started to loom over my head about the "F" word: my FUTURE. I had a boyfriend but we both had different plans for our respective future selves.  I had held several part-time jobs throughout college, but I had little savings, and what money I did have, I ended up spending on being a bridesmaid (did you know how expensive it is to be in a wedding?! I sure didn't.) So, with Roommate Jessica moving out of the Awesome-Sometimes-Awkward Apartment to get married and start her adult life, and me with no real plan other than to "someday" move to NY to dive into the entertainment industry, I had to make the terrifying decision at the tender age of 22, to move home with my parents.
Dum bum BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!



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(To be continued...) 

Embarassing Moments

I do so many ridiculous embarrassing things. Probably one of my favorite embarrassing stories to tell is the one time I fainted. I have since learned that I am hypoglycemic. In college I was part of a student theatre group called Cult Classics. We staged reenactments/tributes to cult films. In my time with the group, we did staged versions/tributes to The Princess Bride, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pump Up the Volume, The Breakfast Club, and Full Metal Jacket.  In our production of FMJ, I was cast as the Vietnamese Hooker.

Kubrick's words, not mine.
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Now before anyone cries racial insensitivity on me, the role was originally offered to one of the girls in our theatre department who actually was of Asian descent, but she turned it down. Since I could do the Saigon accent justice, I was cast instead.

So, since I'm white as sin, being Irish and all, we had to make me look darker without making me look like a caricature and without putting me in "black face." We decided that me getting a professional spray tan would look the best/least offensive. Now, professional spray tans were a fairly new thing at this time, the bottled junk was available but just made you look like an oompa-loompa. Since we went to college in a po' dunk cow town, our director had to drive me to the next town over because they were the only place within 100 miles that had a tan salon that did spray tan. It turned out to just be a lady in a dressing room with an airbrush, not a shower that mists it over your body for 30 seconds.

Yeah, this wasn't a thing yet.
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Let me set the scene for you: The morning of my spray tan was also the morning of our opening night. I guess I was nervous or something, because I did not eat anything. My director drove me and my boyfriend at the time (The Imp) in her car without air conditioning 30 minutes to the town with the tan salon. We get there, thinking it would not take that long. Since it was a lady with an airbrush gun, they estimated it would take 45 minutes to do my whole body at the shade of "tan" that we wanted.  Super. Well, my director and The Imp decided they didn't want to sit in the salon for that whole time, so they said they would go get lunch while I got tanned.

I stripped down and put on the weird paper underwear they had, and stood still in this hot dressing room/closet with no air ventilation while this strange lady airbrushed my entire body by hand. Again, there was no air ventilation in this room, and the lady is wearing a paper doctor mask, but I am not, since my face needed tanning too. The mixture of the hot not-ventilated room, the cold airbrush on my skin, the fumes from said airbrush and the fact that I had not eaten became too much for my poor little 18-year old body.  As the lady was spraying the back of my legs, I started to feel light-headed and told her so.  Suddenly, it was dark and the Yip Yips from Sesame Street were singing, but no sound was coming from their mouths.

Sesamestreet.org

The next thing I was conscious of was the spray tan lady slapping me in the face as I was lying on my back on the floor of the dressing room. Naked. Now, if you've never fainted before, it's not too bad, except for the waking up part, that sucks. It's like waking up with the worst hangover of your life. I felt nauseated, my head tingled and the light hurt my eyes. I thought I would throw up had there been anything in my stomach at the time. I asked for some water as I slowly sat up -my head felt like it weighed 1,000 pounds.  Only after sitting up did I realize I was almost completely naked aside from the paper under-roos that were now askew and tangled up practically inside my butt. Have you ever had a paper under-roo wedgie? It's quite unpleasant, to say the least.

I called my director and told her what happened and asked if they could bring me some food and water. The Imp showed up eventually and begrudgingly fed me some of his food as I sat shaking, still naked, on the floor of the dressing room. Eventually, the lady was able to finish up the spray tan and I apologized for fainting on top of her while I was naked. She just laughed at me. I'm sure she still tells people the story about the time the naked girl fainted on her.

Once I got back to my dorm, I ate some more and made sure to drink lots of water until the dining hall opened and I had a decent dinner. We made sure to regale the rest of the cast with my harrowing tale and we all had a great laugh.  Either in spite of or because of my nakedly fainting on top of a total stranger, opening night went well.

Totally worth it.

What do you mean I don't look even remotely Vietnamese?! 
I think I nailed it.

My Asian friends tell me this is laughable vs offensive.

Blankety Blank and Other Female Awesomeness

Remember that time I went to PAX East and we shot a lot of videos you never got to see? THIS is one of those videos! (You can watch the others we have posted on my YouTube Channel.)

There really is no excuse for not having posted this and other videos sooner. Laziness, life, depression. These things all get in the way of accomplishing stuff sometimes. Also, Boyfriend is not what I like to call, a planner of things. But, Boyfriend is my one-man production team, so I can't get too mad. He is my producer/director/editor/sound engineer/sound operator/camera operator/PA/etc and he is amazing at being supportive and helpful, I just fail at being a motivator. Like on the days when I go to my shitty 8-hour day job while he stays home all day doing what I'm assuming is editing, but then when I get home and he's actually been watching the complete first season of Downton Abbey for the THIRD time (yes it's an awesome show, but do something, please!!!) then I get all naggy. I hate to be naggy, so I just don't say anything...I just sit on the couch and sigh.
This is why I am not a life coach.

Anywho...without further ado, my interview with the awesome lady who is Susan Arendt, the managing editor of The Escapist!





P.S After reading this blog Boyfriend says (and I quote) "Downton Abbey is really good. Actually, I was just thinking about watching that again..."

Dammit.

Blogger 411: A Little Bit About Me

Tonight I will upload another PAX East video, (my favorite one) an interview with Susan Arendt of The Escapist. Until then, enjoy some random facts about me!



1. How long have you been blogging? And what got you started on blogging? Has your blog changed?

I've always been a journal-keeper, even before I could even write really well. My first journal/diary was one of those old diaries for little girls with the gold lock on it. It was salmon/pink and had a picture of a kitty on a window sill on the cover. I always lost the keys to that damn thing. Most of my entries consisted of single sentences scrawled illegibly diagonally across the pages. They usually said things like, "Andrew is my frend i lik him," and "i want a doggy samday," etc.

I first started blogging in college on my MySpace page. Mostly it was just a journal I kept that a few of my friends read and laughed at when I didn't have it set to private.  Mostly it was just a way to organize my thoughts and get them out. I started blogging here on Blogger in 2009 under Keep the Starving Out of Starving Artist and later under Gurl on Girl-Gaming.

My blogging in college was very superficial, mostly just me bitching about life and stuff. Now I write to attempt to entertain and inform and uplift. I still do it for me, but I try to produce content that I think other people will enjoy as well.

2. Did you go to college? If so where, and what did you study?

I studied Theatre Arts at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. I graduated with my B.A. in 2006

3. Where have you traveled?
I've been very fortunate to travel. I've met people here in NYC who have never even set foot outside of the five boroughs, yet alone travelled to other countries. Those people make me sad. As a kid I loved to fly. As an adult, I really dislike flying, but my affinity for new places and experiences outweighs my anxiety of the act of travel. I've been to Mexico, Canada, England, France, and 26 of the 50 U.S States.

4. If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you would buy?

Probably a nice bottle of champagne to celebrate.

5. What are your 3 biggest pet peeves?

Rudeness, injustice, poor spelling/grammar

6. What is your favorite movie?

There are so many movies that I love that it's hard to choose only one, but if I had to choose, I would say The Princess Bride.

Source

7. What is your drink of choice; wine, beer, or liquor. Or Water, Soda, Tea?
I prefer a good wheat beer, or water/coffee/tea.

8. What is something you enjoy doing when you have me time?
Sleeping, reading, playing video games, writing fiction

9. If you could have a $10,000 shopping spree to one store, which store would it be?
The World of Disney (not entirely practical, but I love Disney!)

10. Share with us an embarrassing moment of your past? Or present.
I have lots of embarrassing stories, but my favorite one deserves an entire blog post, because it's that epic.

11. What day would you love to relive again?

Any day at Disney World

12. If your life was turned into a movie... what actor would play you?
Either Ellen Page or Emma Stone

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People.com



13. What are the jobs you had in high school/college/the early years?

I worked at a golf club, Dairy Queen, and Pizza Hut during high school and College

Sexy DQ uniform

14. Show us a picture from high school/college.

Every high school senior picture ever.

15. If you could travel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go?
I would love to visit New Zealand or Australia

16. Show us the most current picture of you, or your family, or anything of meaning to you.



Me & my siblings (littlest sis not pictured)

 17. Where do you see your life 5 years from now?
I hope Boyfriend and I will be living in California and making our livings in the film/TV industry.

Dealing With Trolls

I've had a rough couple of days lately. I mostly blame The Hunger Games trilogy. I just finished Mockingjay last night. That book seriously screwed up my sleep patterns last week. I would stay awake reading it and then when I could finally settle down at night enough to sleep I would have Hunger Games nightmares. When my sleep patterns get thrown off, I get cranky and my depression threatens to take over in my brain. I feel so much better now that I finished the series, though. Whew. I got a great night's sleep last night, and now I feel like I can think clearly about real life now that I'm not obsessing and stressing over what's going to happen in the books. And yes, I realize I am late to that party, we have Barnes and Noble to thank for not having the box set delivered eons ago when I ordered it.

I think this all goes back to the wiring in my brain that makes me become stuck on an idea or a thought or a word or a song until I get some sort of closure or cleansing of it. So the lack of sleep, my obsession with The Hunger Games, and my depression that seemed as though it were bubbling just under the surface all have made me feel extra sensitive, especially when I received my first troll comment on a YouTube video I posted. However, last night after finishing the book and watching a VidCon video of Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton talking about trolls, I was able to just let it go. I feel even better today after I got a good night's sleep. It feels so free to just let it go! Breathe in the good air and let out the bad. I know that letting go of stuff can be so difficult sometimes, but I feel much better today now that I have.




Thanks Wil and Felicia. This is why I love you!

Wil Wheaton Tumblr Thread about GAB

Wil Wheaton Tumblr Thread about GAB

The best part about Wheaton's Law is that Mr. Wheaton walks the walk.
Thank you, Sir.

Bloggess.com

Writer's Block and the State of Gaming

I'm doing some writing today for my Frag Dolls casting call application and have become stuck.  This led to me just staring at Blogger trying to think of anything remotely nerdy/awesome to write about. I was unable to make it to SDCC this year, so I'm doing some pity-partying over that too.  Then, of course, to torture myself some more, I've been reading articles and blogs about the state of gaming and all the unfortunate harassment and backlash that seems ever present online especially among my female comrades.

Aren't we gamers/nerds/geeks/dweebs supposed to stick up for one another and not tear each other down? *sigh* I don't want to get all downtrodden about this, but I'm tired of ignoring it hoping it will get better. I constantly ride the fence between getting so furious that I go on a rambling tirade that will only make the situation worse, and just wanting to curl up into the fetal position and feel overwhelming hopelessness. It's time to find that rational middle ground and take baby steps for betterment.
So, let's at least try to make it better instead of turning into this:

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I guess I'm feeling some self-loathing today because I got my first troll comment on one of my YouTube interviews. So, yaaay??? I'm a real YouTuber now I guess. Instead of getting all purple Hulk on it, it just sort of made me blue. I realize that having an online presence means opening the door to trolls and assholes, and then it just started me thinking...What would Felicia Day do? And thus, a new mantra has been born.
Instead of getting tons of actual work done today, I've been trying to keep my spirits up by entertaining myself like so...



Thanks internet.

P.S If you missed the video I posted yesterday, go check it out. Also, there's an awesome interview I got to do with Susan Arendt of The Escapist coming up on Wednesday! I'm so excited!

Primal Carnage

New PAXEast 2012 video is up!

Our sound got a little iffy on this one, which is why it took so long to post. I hope you'll watch it here or on my YouTube Channel. (Like and subscribe if you wanna!)

My Shit-hole Apartment (Part 3)

If you've read parts one, two, and two and a half, you'll know that I've had my fair share of strange and/or undesirable living situations. During my junior year of college, all of that bad apartment mojo was about to change...sort of.

Living Away From Home Year 3

My First Real Apartment

(A Tale of an Awesome Apartment, and a Bad Place)

Towards the end of summer, I miraculously found a great newish two-bedroom apartment that was only 2 blocks from campus, had central air, had a parking lot, had laundry in the basement, and was a comfortable size. I don't know quite how I managed to pull it off, but I did, even with Roommate Jessica 2 time zones away on her mission trip. The owner of the 6-unit apartment building was kind of a kooky old gentleman, but sweet enough and never gave us a hard time -in fact, when I asked if he was ok with my ferrets living there, his exact words were "as long as it's not a mountain lion, I don't really care." The superintendent was what one might describe as "blue collar" or as others might describe as "white trash." But, I was not about to judge, since he was a competent handy-man. I put down our deposit, and through the miracle of fax machines got the lease signed by both myself and Roommate Jessica, and it was a done deal -we had an apartment.

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On the celebrated day of the move, after I had left Creepy Roommate Mary's place far behind and my mom left town to let me settle in, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had a two-bedroom apartment all to myself for almost 3 weeks, (until Roommate Jessica returned from her mission trip) I had my ferrets living with me again, and I still had almost a month until fall classes started! Unfortunately, for someone who has not-properly-treated clinical depression and an undiagnosed social anxiety disorder, alone-time is probably not the best medicine. Roommate Jessica had told me once that she saw how healing my ferrets were for me after The Imp ended his emotionally abusive hold on me, so I thought as long as I took my medication and spent time with my ferrets I would shake off whatever this strange cloud of doom was that plagued me. It was a stressful time in my life. It was that time in your life when you aren't really a kid anymore, but the world doesn't yet see you as an adult, and you're not quite sure where you fit in.

I continued to make poor dietary choices, and drink a lot more liquor, thus, I was gaining some weight and not feeling healthy. I had poor self-image and I withdrew so much, that my professors/directors jokingly nicknamed me "the phantom auditioner." I would sign my name on the audition sheets, but then I would fail to show up for my audition times because I was too depressed to leave my room, or because I would have a huge attack of poor self-esteem and tell myself that it wasn't worth auditioning because they wouldn't cast me anyway. Then, afterwards, I would feel guilty for not trying harder, and then that guilt would start a downward spiral of more guilt and self-esteem issues, topped with depression and anxiety. This would pressure me to give in to the temptation to eat poorly and drink more. I tried to tell myself I was fine.

I tried dating a lot of different guys. Most of them were nice, but were all wrong for me.  I can't even remember most of their names. I missed a lot of classes, and my grades started to suffer, which just perpetuated the guilt/depression cycle.  Roommate Jessica passive-aggressively tried to "help" by posting bible verses all over the apartment, which, even for someone who grew up in a Christian home, was not helpful. My skewed depression goggles viewed Roommate Jessica as judgmental and condescending -something I definitely didn't need. That too helped perpetuate the vicious guilt/depression cycle. I don't like to have regrets, but I do regret a lot of my junior year of college because I didn't seek out the help I needed when I needed it.  I almost let the depression beat me that year.

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I'm sure due in part to my behavior, but also due to Roommate Jessica's renewed spirituality/high-and-mightiness, we started drifting apart as roommates and friends. Living in the apartment with her started to feel cold and uncomfortable, much like living with Creepy Roommate Mary. But, it was an issue I didn't know how to fix seeing as how I could barely take care of myself and my inner demons. What friends I still managed to hang onto in that time jokingly called me "Beastmaster" or "Crazy Ferret Lady" because of how much time I invested in my furbabies. What most people don't know, though, is that my ferrets truly are the ones who saved me from myself at that time in my life. They gave me a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to try harder, a reason to be. So, for that, I will be ever grateful to them.



Gigit & Boomer



Dustifer "Dusty" Boots



(Afterthought: When Roommate Jessica and I moved into the Awesome Apartment, the first floor of the building contained a print shop. A year prior, the print shop had been a music store. Before Roommate Jessica and I decided on the House From Hell, we had talked about actually moving to the Awesome Apartment building instead, but The Imp talked me out of it saying we shouldn't live above a music shop. I sometimes wonder how my life may have been different if we had moved to the Awesome Apartment that year instead of the House From Hell.)

More Harvest Mooning, Ponies, and Childhood Trauma Or: More Train of Thought Derailments

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I wrote my original Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns review after having played for a little over one in-game year. The other day, I completed to main objective of the game around the halfway point of in-game-year 2. I completed the main objective -making the mayors of the two towns friends again, and opening the three sections of the caved-in tunnel- without having gotten married, expanded my farm or have had a child -tasks that are generally linked to the main objective in other HM games. So after having essentially "beaten the game" without completing the other life tasks within the game, it felt almost anti-climactic, and I felt sort of melancholy about it. I still really enjoy the game, and in reality, the game doesn't really have to end per se -it ends when you just decide to quit playing. In fact, so far the game is easier to continue playing now that the cave underneath the mountain is open, and there are still plenty of mini-objectives. But, now I'm torn between my enjoyment of playing the game on my own terms -making objectives for myself- and the nagging feeling that the major point of the game is completed, so why keep toiling away because the game may never actually end? Maybe I'm just cranky-pants emo today.
I blame the ponies.

The other night, Boyfriend and I went to see War Horse at the Lincoln Center. Boyfriend has been wanting to see it since they announced it was coming to Broadway from the West-End. I too wanted to see it, especially after it won so many Tony Awards last year. However, I was very hesitant to see it because I have sworn off animal movies/stories in recent years. War Horse dissolved me into a puddle of mess. It was beautiful and an amazing piece of art. It touched me very deeply the way few theatre pieces do anymore. I have always felt a special kinship with animals and nature, as well as a love of the performing arts, and have always been (what some consider overly sensitive) empathetic to other's pain. Especially animals' pain. You name a movie where an animal or anthropomorphized part of nature is distraught, I will burst into tears. Sobbing, torrential tears. (You know, the "ugly crying" kind.) This is a fact. Ask anyone who has ever watched a movie with me that has an animal in any part of it. I am a mess, not just immediately afterwards, but sometimes for weeks after. I can't shake the funk, the heartbreak, the feelings. Even if there is a happy/uplifting ending, I remember the emotions as a whole and carry them with me indefinitely.

No puppet will ever make you cry as hard as this one.
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My therapist tells me that strong emotional triggers affect me so deeply because it simply means that I'm a nurturing and passionate individual, hence the reason for my sometimes-crippling emotions. My mom probably thinks it's because she didn't take us to church enough when we were young and so that damaged me somehow. My dad probably wonders if he didn't hug me enough.  I think I'm just a little bit crazy, but one thing my parents will probably agree on is one incident in particular where this phenomenon seems to have spawned. My parents probably blame the Ninja Turtles. I think they have a misinterpretation of the situation and may not have asked the right questions at the time, but it's no one's fault really. It just is. The wiring in my brain works differently than most, and since diagnosing mental illness in children in the 80's was not really a thing, it was easy to blame outside sources for my peculiar behavior. So, here's the tale that has been an endless source of embarrassment for me when my parents bring it up:

I was five-going-on-six. I was obsessed with TMNT. I watched the cartoons all the time, I dressed up like them, I ran around the house pretending to be a ninja, and I was totally in love with Raphael -the king of attitude and snark. When The Movie came out in theaters, I was just shy of turning six years old and I begged and pleaded my parents to take me. My dad finally lamented and agreed to take me to see it. Now, my mom sheltered us pretty thoroughly when it came to violence, etc. TMNT cartoons of the 80's and 90's were probably the most violent thing I was allowed to watch.

Waaaay too violent for my innocent little mind.
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Seriously, there were lots of things "banned from TV" in our home. I could do an entire blog post on TV shows I was not allowed to watch and toys I was not allowed to play with, but I won't...yet. Instead, I will simply say my mom sheltered me and my sister more than most of our friends.  (Words like "crap," "butt," "fart," and "suck" were considered salty language in our household.) And maybe mom was right, maybe we couldn't handle anything darker than cartoons at the time, but there was nothing like trial by fire to test that, then, eh? So dad took me to see TMNT on the big screen.


In case you never saw it, or don't remember the live action movie, it was a lot grittier and darker than the cartoon (and yes, someone out there will argue that the original comic is darker and the 80's cartoon is watered down for kids, and blah blah blah -I am not denying this, but that's neither here-nor-there in relation to this story. My story.)
So, with the darker grittier live-action movie, I got a little perturbed. Shredder was real scary-looking angry man, not a silly cartoon with a scratchy voice like Uncle Phil. Splinter was kind of a grody-looking sewer rat, not a furry smiling cartoon. And the turtles were "real" and angsty in my soon-to-be-six year old eyes, not quite as toony and light-hearted. The movie had breathed life into these imaginary characters I loved to watch on TV in the safety of my home. The joy and awe this produced in child-me at first was indescribable, but then things got ugly. In the movie, Raphael is being a punk (as one does) and goes outside in a huff, but then is ambushed by the foot clan. Raph essentially gets the shit kicked out of him by the bad guys. Then he's in a coma in a bathtub for like 3 days! I will repeat this: my favorite turtle, the on-screen-puppeteered-interpretation of the animated being whom I credit with teaching me the basics of snark and sarcasm GOES INTO A COMA FOR 3 DAYS!!! I was six. Now, I was not a worldly child, but I was well-aware that being unconscious in a bathtub is not a good thing. Even for a turtle.

Sewer good.  Bathtub bad.
Wiki

 Short-story-long: it kind of fucked me up for a bit. I'd never experienced any real tragedy in my life up to that point. It made something snap in my wee brain. It suddenly occurred to me that the good guys don't always win. Bad shit does happen. And sometimes it happens close to home. These were very scary realizations to a rather sheltered child. Talk about your violent reality check for a child who already had undiagnosed mental health issues. To this day, I have almost PTSD-like symptoms when it comes to the idea of losing consciousness. I fainted once in my life (a story worthy of a post, I assure you -funny in retrospect) but I have an almost-paranoid fear of doing so again. And I absolutely panic if someone is unconscious near me. I've witnessed car accidents, watched a stranger breathe their last breath, been in morgues, and attended open-casket wakes, but none of these give me nightmares more than the 4 times someone has had a seizure/fainted next to me and lost consciousness. I go numb, completely numb with panic. It's a paralyzing fear, the kind that holds your heart in its icy claw, fills your chest with a red hot terror, and makes your lips tingle.
Wow. My therapist has her hands full.


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After the I got home from seeing the TMNT movie, I started acting "really weird" for several weeks (according to my parents.) They were apparently very concerned for me, but I honestly don't remember much of this. I remember being very distraught by my sudden realizations that the world was a lot darker than I had originally known it to be, and I felt quite numb and confused. What if Raph really was lying somewhere comatose in a bathtub? What little I do remember of those following weeks, I can say that knowing what I do now, I was exhibiting signs of some minor psychic trauma (again, not something that was really diagnosed in those days for children who were not subject to regular abuse.) Am I saying that my dad should not have taken me to the movie? No. The trauma, I don't think came from the movie. I was confused about how I was feeling, and didn't know how to express it.  But because of this, I think my parents became exasperated and didn't know what to do and I may have mis-read this and felt shame about my feelings. So I did what any burgeoning performer would do. I buried those little bastard feelings until I either needed them again, or until they festered into a poison-filled dangerous powder keg and I exploded. (But, I'm not afraid of exploding anymore, though because my tears will save me.)


So, War Horse was amazing and touching and beautiful, and the 90's may have partially scarred me for life, but what does this have to do with Harvest Moon? Honestly? I haven't a fucking clue. This post sort of ran away from me.
Welcome aboard my train of thought, if you wanna get off, remember to tuck and roll.


Dear God.