A Year of Change...

It is another gloomy day this morning with the added bonus of mass amounts of humidity. It feels nasty out there. It's the type of day where I begin to try to do something with my hair and I realize that the minute I walk out of the house, it'll fall flat so it's a ponytail day instead. The weatherman, having been wrong about the heavy and steady thunderstorms we were supposed to get yesterday looked slightly defeated this morning, almost like a puppy that has been scolded. He was far less bold with his predictions stating that while it was likely we'd get thunderstorms, we might not.

I have decided it might be quite nice to be a weatherwoman. Apparently, it's all about being vague. You can say things like, "There's a chance of rain," and "Parts of the area are seeing clouds." I mean, really, every day there's a 'chance' of rain: It might rain...it might not. It's a nice safe prediction to say that there are going to be clouds somewhere in the viewing area. It's a big viewing area.

But, as it stands, it's grey and nasty out there. It's definitely a stay-in-and-do-nothing-really-productive type of day. Unfortunately, since I'm at work, that might be a bit hard to do given that I am being paid to be productive.

Today actually marks the day when, a year ago, my friend and I packed up my little Toyota and left Los Angeles for the Great Midwest. Given everything that's happened in the past year, it seems much longer than that. In the time I've been gone from L.A., I've started this blog, learned to cook and bought a house. Depending on how you look at it, it may not seem like much but to me, they're components of my life that make up who I am.

It's amazing how much life changes in a short time. It seems like if you're born in L.A. you tend to stay there but if you move there later in life, you tend to enjoy it for a while and leave. When I first moved out, there was a steady wave of my college friends also slowly moving out. My only friend in the scary world of California was a former college roommate with whom I had been friendly but never known well. We had been joined as roommates by another friend. We had all been theatre majors. In the undergraduate school I attended, the theatre department was very small and very "exclusive.". I put the exclusive in quotes because, looking back, I realize it was exclusive in a fairly bad way. Overall, the atmosphere was arrogant and self-congratulatory. There have been some immensely talented people to come out of there but to survive and come out the way you went in...that was a feat. It was a place where if you tried to be slightly different, you would either be broken like a horse and tamed or you would be made miserable to the point in which you'd leave. I saw both happen in the three years I spent in the department. To this day, that phase of my life remains a muddled confusion. Doing theatre was what I loved but it was the only thing I was allowed to do. I felt as though I were sneaking away when I enrolled in other, non-theatre classes.

Needless to say, as a theatre major, you lived, breathed, slept and ate theatre. You also had little time for non-theatre activities. This meant that the only friends you really had time to socialize with were fellow theatre majors. It was a good thing and it was a bad thing. To this day, I regret some of the friendships that weakened because of this phase of my life. Ironically, while I keep in touch, mostly on Facebook, with some of my former theatre friends, without the bond of the stage, we really don't know each other any more. It's sad but we bonded over our 'craft', it was the tie that connected up. Most of my former close friends from my theatre days, like me, drifted away, having felt burned out from doing so much of it during college.

I digress. I do have a point, surprisingly. It is that when I did move to L.A., I was still fairly recently graduated from college and so reconnecting with former theatre friends, all in L.A. to try to break into movies or at least the theatre scene was easy. The problem that ended up happening was that we all 'came of age' at the same time. When I say that, it means we found the things in our lives that we truly loved. My former college roommate found love and a career and he ended up moving closer to his boyfriend. Another friend went back to the Midwest, still dabbling with theatre but still trying to figure out what she wanted. Then there was me; I'd found my writing. It was no longer screenwriting, it was novels. Over time, I realized there was no reason for me to be in L.A. I could write anywhere and then, slowly, the pull of home, of my family began to be stronger than the pull of L.A.

So, seven years after I'd moved out, I found myself coming back home. As I left, I was 'friended' on Facebook by two other former theatre friends who were just moving out to L.A. It's an interesting pattern; you leave and there's someone always waiting to fill in the gap. Los Angeles represents a city of dreams if you live far away. When I was in high school, I had a friend who was obsessed with moving to California. She was determined to go there and have a rock-and-roll-lifestyle. She had originally planned on marrying Bret Michael's from the band, Poison. Then she decided it was all Axl Rose from Guns n' Roses. Either way, the lure of L.A., the dream of California was all-encompassing.

As far as I know, she never did go out there. I think she actually lives in Cincinnati. Due to the fact that she went a little mental in high school and would talk about having me killed in notes to her friend, I'm really not that worried about where she is. I just hope she's happy and a little, um, less deranged.

I still find it ironic that I went there. For me, it was really just a question of me getting out of the Midwest, to see what else was there. It was between New York and L.A. I chose L.A. because it was cheaper. That's pretty much the only reason. I do wonder what path my life would have taken if I'd have gone the other direction. However, choice I made, to this day, feels like the right one. I'm just glad it led me back here. I had my years of seeing life from a different point of view, immersing myself in a city that's so diverse you can walk from one street to another and see a whole new culture spring up.

Yet...I'm glad I left. I love the peace of the Midwest, the fact that one day it can be stormy and humid and the next a crisp, Autumn day with the hint of frost on the wind. I love the fact that the trees are starting to change colour and that I can be one of those people to put a pumpkin out on my porch and welcome trick or treaters on Halloween night.

I'm not saying that there aren't days when I don't miss my former life. There are days when I miss it so much, it's hard to remember where I am in the world. That might be due to the fact that I stream KROQ, my beloved L.A. radio station, online. It's awfully disorientating to be working in Ohio but hear advertisements for restaurants, concerts and events in the L.A. area.

Whatever the reason, it's now officially been a year in which KROQ sent me off with Viva La Vida, one of the few Coldplay songs I can actually stand, as I drove out of the city and lost reception, moving away from L.A. on a new path. I'm still finding my way but I'm glad it brought me here.

Even if it did give me Nutley 2.0.

Happy Tuesday.

Kerplunk....Green Day, Work and the luck of Diablo Cody

It's rainy, gloomy and thunderstormy out there today. The morning waited to begin this gloom until after I was out of bed a fact for which I am actually quite grateful. It's much harder to get up when you hear the pelt of the rain against the window and the crack of the storm outside. When you're already up and deciding what to wear, it's not so bad. In fact, it's quite helpful.

I'm going to try not to let the gloom affect my mood. I'm not feeling gloomy today. I'm no more enamoured with my job than I was yesterday but somewhere between my attempt to attack my job with enthusiasm and gusto and today, I realized that sitting there whining about having nothing to do is actually not a very Monkeypants thing to do. I'm generally a self-starter. I don't need someone to give me projects. I'm usually quite good at making up my own. I think I've been tripping over the fact that even after nine months, I'm still the new Captain Monkeypants on the block and I've been afraid to overstep my bounderies.

I recognize this place. It's the time in my job where I stop worrying about getting in trouble for doing the wrong thing and I start making decisions on my own and standing by my decision. It's also the time where I start figuring out how to tell my boss what to do. I'm a bit of a bully sometimes but it works quite well. I'm not mean; I just know what I want. And, at the moment, what I want is to be respected and needed in my position, not to sit here any longer realizing that if I didn't show up for work, the only people who'd notice were my office-mates who'd notice it was nice and quiet.

So, armed with this attitude, I'm feeling better about things. The 'busy work' needs to get done and if I sit here waiting for my coworker to help, I'll be waiting forever. Someone has to do it and that someone is me. Don't you feel like there should be some triumphant anthem swelling behind my bravado?

I'm fed up of blogging about work anyway. I think it's time to talk about something else. I'm not sure what that will be there. Let's see...I could blog about Green Day. I happened to listen to an online webcast of KROQ's "Breakfast with Green Day." I confess, it made me sad. If I hadn't moved to Ohio, I would have found a way to be at that breakfast. I got to do it with Linkin Park a couple of times. Green Day would have been way better. Not to say that Linkin Park aren't good but they're my number two band. Green Day are number one.

One of the interesting things I discovered was that Green Day named one of their new songs on their 21st Century Breakdown album, "East Jesus Nowhere." It turns out that the band had another name for the song but they saw Diablo Cody, writer of the movie Juno wearing a Green Day Kerplunk t-shirt and renamed their song after a quote from Juno. I happen to think that is pretty cool. Lucky Diablo Cody. I have no idea if she really is a fan of Green Day or she's one of those people who liked the design: A punky looking girl holding a gun. I know Diablo likes New Kids on the Block and lots of bad reality TV because she writes a column for Entertainment Weekly every once in a while. Again, lucky Diablo Cody. I'd love to write for EW. At the very least, I'd like to have Lisa Schwartzbaum's job since she irritates me every week with her bizarrely overworded reviews that often forget to mention the movie itself much at all.

Either way, whether Diablo is a fan of Green Day or she liked the shirt, I think it's pretty cool that Green Day are still in touch with the world enough to do that. There are a lot of big bands and solo singers who see themselves as seperate from their audience, like because they're rock stars/pop stars/country stars, they're better than the people who pay to see them in concert. I don't get that from Green Day or Linkin Park. That's one of the reasons I enjoy their music so much: Because the people behind it are real people.

One of these days I'd love Green Day to name a song after something I wrote. That would be pretty fantastic. In the meantime, I'll just continue to listen to them and get inspired to write. That's one thing I love about music in general; one song can create a novel in my head. There's a lot to be said about that.

Happy Wednesday.

Sleepy in the Morning and Along Comes James...

I think I'm still half-asleep this morning. I slept a little too well last night, to the point where my alarm clock woke me up rather abruptly and I felt robbed of my comfortable slumbering bliss. I've been trying to wake up since I got out of bed. I took a different route to work to try to wake my mind up. That's the beauty of all the students being gone; I can drive through the middle of the campus without fear of accidentally hitting one of them. It's not easy to avoid sometimes. They dart in front of your car in the oddest places, thinking that they have enough time to get across the street. Of course, when I'm less than ten feet away when they start to cross, it's always a little scary.

However, this morning, I didn't even come close to hitting one. I was able to amble along my way, my Green Day blaring and taking in the fact that it is a beautiful, clean, crisp Spring morning. The sky is cornflower blue, the clouds little far-off white puffs, the green is the deep green of newness. It's a lovely day.

I'm still not awake however. I'm obviously awake enough to observe just not...to think. For example, our new HR manager was being very nice and making the office coffee this morning. Lately, that's my job. I don't mind but it's nice to have a break. She said she didn't think she could make it as good as my coffee and I responded, "I doubt it." Now, I actually didn't mean to say that because it wasn't at all what I meant to say, even in my subconscious. What I meant to say was "I doubt you could do worse," because, frankly, nothing can make the office coffee taste great. I'm not even sure why. We use a good brand. It just occasionally ends up tasting like dishwater and I'm not sure what causes that. So, I accidentally managed to sound horribly arrogant AND insult our poor HR manager. Needless to say, I had to backpeddle and explain about my non-working brain.

I think my lack of alertness in the mornings can be actually tied to the radio. I know that sounds a little...odd but I believe it to be true. When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to listen to KROQ which is my favourite radio of all time. Not only did they play my kind of music, they also have good DJ's. I loved Kevin and Bean, their sardonic, bitter and hilarious morning show made my commute to work so much more enjoyable. I'd listen to them while getting ready in the mornings, letting their snarky comments slowly wake me up because they made me think. Granted, they didn't always make me think in the most politically correct way but they'd often raise questions that would make me have to stop and pause to see how I'd answer.

I miss that. I have found a radio station here that plays pretty good music. It took me a while of listening to 96 Rock out of Cincinnati and wanting to brain the ignorant, misogynistic morning hosts Gamble and Finn every time they spoke before I was desperate enough to spend some time with my radio, trying to find something, anything better. Well, I found it...sort of. The station is WHSS, 98.5. It's a local channel actually out of a high school. They play good music, not too much new stuff but enough of the real rock/alternative stuff I used to get in L.A. to make me happy. The downside is that...it's a high school-run show. This means they haven't quite...got it together the way a commercial station does. They don't have any commercials which is a huge bonus. They don't have many DJ's. Mostly it's just music which is fine by me.

It's their morning "show" that simutaneously amuses me and...frustrates me. I say "show" because it's really just a news report. It's given by a nice boy named "James Ryan, the Sports Guy." It's supposed to start at 7 a.m. Sometimes it's on a 7 a.m. Mostly, it's not. There are days where there is no James Ryan at all and thus I don't get the weather report I was hoping to hear. When there is no James Ryan there is...no one else. I'm not sure but I can't help but think there has to be more than one nice high school student who'd like to do the news and weather. Perhaps there could be two 'James Ryans'. When James Ryan does come on the air well...that's interesting too. I always know when he's about to come on because I'm listening to a song and there's this moment of silence in the song, like someone puts their finger on the pause button. Then the song continues. A few moments later, James Ryan comes on, his rather-long intro also has a long pause before it so you end up having another 6-10 seconds of silence again before his jazzy little intro starts.

I'm not going to pick on the intro itself because, at least, he does have an intro. I'm going to pick on the fact that the sound engineers haven't quite learned the art of letting a song finish before playing the intro to James Ryan. This means you'll be listening to the Foo Fighters and then, suddenly, there's silence and along comes James. In the middle of the song. Again, I know it's a high school station but...well...it's the end of the school year so by now, I'd like to think the people working the station might have got the hang of working the controls. It's a music faux-pas to cut off an artist in the middle of song.

Because Mr. Ryan is usually late with his broadcast anyway (it usually starts closer to 7:05 a.m. than 7:00 a.m.), I can't help but think he might as well wait for the song to finish. Especially as after he's done with his sports reporting and the music starts back up again, the song that was interrupted is played again. This isn't so bad when the song was interrupted after about 30 seconds. This morning, however, the song was 98% finished before James Ryan interrupted it. So I got to hear the same song twice.

Anyway, I'm not actually picking on the radio station or James Ryan. I'm actually rather impressed that a radio station is being run out of a high school and that it does play such good music. More than anything, I'm rather fond of listening James Ryan in the mornings. He's part of my routine and, as noted yesterday, I'm a creature of habit. I think my irritation with the morning show also goes back to my need for consistency in my life; it's not consistent and while some people are ok with that, it drives me a little crazy because I'm a usually-on-time kind of Monkeypants who gets panicky if I'm going to be late.

So, while I'm relieved not to have to listen to Gamble and Finn in the mornings and I do enjoy the musical stylings of WHSS, I do miss my Kevin and Bean. I miss their snark. I miss their music. I miss their giveaways. I miss the fact that I was commuting with my roommate while listening to them and they slowly woke us both up and got us going into the day.

I'm guessing when I move, I'll have to start again with my quest for good radio since WHSS has a rather small bandwidth and their signal won't reach me in my new home. For now though, I do salute their efforts to provide this little corner of Ohio with some good music and a chance for the future DJ's of America to have a place to start.

Happy Tuesday!

Papercuts, Music and Pandas, oh my...

I learned something important already this morning, something I'm going to share with you. Here it is: If you have a paper cut between your fingers, using antibacterial hand sanitizer hurts a lot. In fact for about 20 seconds, it sort of feels like your fingers are going to fall off.

You're welcome.

So starts my Tuesday morning. It's a cold one again. Last week, our nights were somewhat mild- about 33 degrees. I had this enormous down comforter on my bed. It's the type that rustles when you move it, one you can wrap around you so that it moulds to your body. It's very warm. So warm that I ended up sleeping on top of it one night, using my fuzzy panda blanket instead. So, this weekend I changed my bedding and put some lighter covers on. Naturally, it got really cold again. My fuzzy panda blanket comes in rather useful as an extra layer of warmth.

Just for the record, the fuzzy panda blanket was a gift. It's one of those giant ones you see people selling at flea markets and things. There were no monkey blankets available otherwise I'm sure I'd have that instead. However, I do enjoy my pandas. It's misleadingly thin; you can snuggle up in it and it provides as much warmth as a real live panda.

Not that I've been that close to a real live panda. Though I do vaguely remember seeing them at the London Zoo as a child. I was so excited to be going to zoo the night before, I remember not sleeping. That was a mistake. London Zoo is very hilly and for a little kid like me, it's an awful lot of walking. I think by the time I got to the pandas, I was so tired that I did the equivalent of "yay, pandas" only, you know, the little kid version which was probably more like "great. Can we eat now?" However, I have seen the baby panda sneeze video on youtube.com a few times to which I have provided a handy link so you, too, can see the adorableness of a baby panda sneezing. Also, I have seen "Kung Fu Panda" which I thoroughly enjoyed because Jack Black as a tubby panda ninja is just funny.

So, you wonder, why am I rambling about pandas? Well, the answer is....I have no idea. As usual, I had no thoughts about what to blog about today so I'm just going with the rambly incontinence that is leaking from my brain. I did consider blogging about morning radio shows and why it's so hard to find a balance between dry humour and bathroom humour. I've only found one show that's ever done that, the Kevin and Bean show on KROQ (106.7) in Los Angeles. Oh, how I miss my Kevin and Bean. The local Cincinnati rock station is very subpar. The station is 96 Rock and the morning hosts are terrible. They think they're funny which I believe might be the problem. Whereas Kevin and Bean were a little sexist, Gamble and Fin in the mornings on 96Rock are downright misogynistic. They also think nothing is funnier than talking about the cracks in their bottom or how fat people should not be allowed to live. Of course, given that Tom Gamble admits to being overweight, this is slightly hypocritical, obviously. Now, Kevin and Bean also make fun of overweight people but somehow they manage not to sound cruel, just, rather that they're both complete jerks and they know it. There's a difference. They have no superiority complex the way so many morning radio show hosts do. They're willing to bash themselves and mock one another in a way that is familiar and comfortable.

I never did get why so many radio hosts are so mean. I once had an email war with a DJ from 98.9 The Bear in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Now I look back, it was a little ridiculous but it was fun and it proved to me that some people are just too ignorant to be allowed a public forum. He was supposed to give away Green Day tickets to a concert in Indianapolis. Rather than promoting the band as he was supposed to, he basically told anyone who won the tickets something along the lines that they were idiots and slightly unpatriotic. Now, if you've ever listened to the album "American Idiot" by Green Day, you would know that it has nothing to do with being unpatriotic. Yes, the title song was a dig at the former Bush administration but it was a political statement, not a command to burn the flag. So, I emailed him and told him that I thought he probably should read the lyrics before he made such an ignorant statement. He didn't like that and eventually resorted to calling me a California Tree Hugger. I have to admit, it was fun. I still can't listen to his show when I visit my parents in Fort Wayne because he's one of those sexist pigs who doesn't seem to understand that people with a brain find him offensive.

However, while I usually don't care for the DJ's, I do like to listen to new music on the radio. You never know when you'll find a song that changes your life just a little. I do think music can do that; the right song can mean so much, it can inspire you, add a soundtrack to your life. I haven't found a station here that suits me yet but I do have my iPod, the new one that works well, not the old one that started to have a mind of its own. I'm looking into satellite radio but I'm actually not sure how it works. If I put it in my car and subscribe, can I get it in my apartment too? I'm clueless about it. I'm sure a little research would be beneficial but if anyone knows, it'd save me a teensy bit of time.

However, I'm now officially rambling. I can tell this is going to be an odd day. Our company is officially sold as of midnight so though I will come into the same office, do almost the exact same job, I will be working for someone else. At this point in time, provided that the someone else gives me a paycheck, I say bring it on. I'm a simple creature, most of the time.

On that note, I shall stop my ramblings. I will tell you that as an addendum to the paper cut advice I gave you above, try not to get papercuts at all. They hurt. Just thought I'd share that information with you even if it is rather obvious. Sometimes a reminder doesn't hurt.

Happy Tuesday.

Monday mornings...

So it's Monday morning and it feels like a Monday morning. I always find it strange that Mondays have their own unique feel. Even when a Tuesday is a Monday, it never feels the same, probably because a long weekend manages to wring out the badness of a Monday by the sheer bliss of having an extra day to do whatever you like.

But there's something about Mondays. They loom over us on a Sunday evening, invading those last hours of freedom we have before we're back to the office or back to school. Even if we try to enjoy our Sunday night, there's a strange curfew on our freedom; we know we should go to bed earlier, not have that last glass of wine, not watch that episode of a TV show that we have on DVD that can really wait until the next day but is so tempting. I don't know about you but Sunday nights are the one evening where I stop myself from reading that extra chapter of book or watching that TV show episode because I know that when my alarm goes off on Monday morning, I will regret it. And why start off the week with regret?

It never matters though; the alarm still goes off too soon (when you actually remember to set the alarm: See below). It still is incredibly difficult to unbury yourself from the blankets and actually put your feet on the floor. I like it when there's good stuff on the radio that I can lie in bed and listen to for ten minutes. Unfortunately, here in Ohio, I haven't found a good radio show. I was spoiled by Kevin and Bean in L.A., two snarky, witty, smart men who have the same dry sense of humour as me and who never failed to make me gasp at some of their bluntness and snide remarks. They also often managed to tap into a part of my brain in which I agreed with them. They could be crude but they were usually funny and they played good music. Here, I'm stuck with "Two Angry Guys" from Cincinnati- which sounds mostly like 'One Angry Guy who really just likes the sound of his own voice and is NOT funny nor smart and really needs something other than sports and the election to babble about'. I keep flipping but there's no other channel that plays non-country music. I think Satellite Radio is in my future.

I digress. It's Monday morning...I'm allowed to digress. I'm already on my second cup of coffee.

So, here's my Monday so far....I forgot to set my alarm and though I was awake anyway, I didn't have the luxury of hitting the snooze button which, somehow, always makes me feel slightly better; it's like cheating the day or something, even for just nine more minutes. Then I discovered it had frosted overnight and though it meant the world outside my window was a glittery landscape of white and silver, it also meant my car was iced over. My car hasn't been iced over before. Ever. She's a car from Southern California and I feel a little guilty that she's been ripped from her nice balmy climate to one that can be slightly harsh. However, she's here and I'm here and that's that. I had to scrape. I might have an ice-scraper somewhere; I think I kept it for sentimental reasons when I moved to L.A. Now I need it again and I think it's in one of those boxes that I still haven't unpacked yet- one of those boxes with non-essential stuff in it that will get unpacked when I feel like it. So I used a piece of cardboard. It worked.

I made it to work and it definitely feels like a Monday. People are trickling in, sluggish, exchanging weekend stories when they run across another coworker. The coffee pot is already empty and I really want another cup. I really need my own coffee maker. The coffee in this office is a little vile. I drink it because, face it, when you need coffee, almost any coffee will do. But I quite fancy waking up to the smell of roasting coffee when the weather is cold outside and I know I'm going to have to throw my coat on, start my car, and then go back upstairs to get ready for work.

My coworkers are quietest on Mondays though- they have meetings to go to, projects to get moving because they didn't quite finish on Friday afternoon when the promise of two days of freedom loomed too brightly to finish up tidily. All things can wait until Monday...until Monday comes and you realize that you probably should have done it on Friday or, for the really ambitious, you probably should have done the work over the weekend like you promised yourself you would. I'm guilty. I like weekends...They're to get away from work, not take it with you.

I'm rambling...again. I blame it on the fact that it's a Monday morning. I don't know what the rest of the day holds but I do know that there's one nice thing about Mondays- they lead to Monday evenings...which means I can take a bath, make a nice dinner and watch some so-bad-it's-awesome TV in the form of "Prison Break" and know that there isn't another Monday morning for a week.

I can usually find the bright spot...unless it's hidden under a layer of frost. Then I just have to scrape to find it.

I need more coffee....Happy Monday.