Neighbors

As of Saturday, I moved into an apartment. My college doesn't have dorms so I had to get my own place. Having grown up in the middle of nowhere, it's interesting actually having neighbors. I'm a quiet person so being quiet isn't an issue for me. I wish I could say the same for my neighbors.

At five this morning, I woke up to the sound of someone banging. I got up and went to my peep hole where I saw an angry lady in a bathrobe banging on the door across the hall. I went back to bed and attempted to fall asleep again. I then realized the reason for the banging. Somebody was playing marriachi music incredibly loud.

I could've and would've fallen back to sleep had it only been the marriach music, but of course that couldn't be. The lady stopped banging, so I rolled over. I was almost asleep to the sound of mariachi when the banging resumed. Angry Bathrobe Lady was back. The stupid banging was more annoying than the damn music.

At 5:30am, (once again I was almost asleep) the police showed up. They banged on the door and for awhile the music stopped. I attempted to return to sleep. Soon after that the marriachi resumed.

At 5:55am, the police returned. It's quite the experience to watch (through a peep hole) police raid an apartment to the sounds of marriachi.

It is now 6:26am and I have given up on sleep. Guess I didn't need to worry about finding my alarm clock after all.

Organization

If a person accidentally messes something of mine up, I may not be happy, but I won't be pissed off at you (the exception may be artwork). If someone messes up my organizational system, (I don't care if it's accidental or not) you better start running. If I bother to organize something, I try to keep it that way and you will die a likely violent death for messing with it.

While I get the rep for being a slob, I'm not really that much of one. I do clean stuff up (regardless of what my mother thinks). I just don't put something away if I'm still using it or if I don't have a place to put it. Once I organize something, I keep it organized. Even the piles of junk that fill my floor on occasion, are organized to some degree. I can find anything I need, at any given time.

That being said, if you come along and mess with or borrow my stuff, I expect you to put it back exactly how you found it. I organize my DVDs and CDs alphabetically for a reason. V for Vendetta does not belong next to Jimmy Neutron. It's the alphabet. You went to kindergarten. I also have a very nice organizational system for my clothes. I have mastered a way to fold them so that the take up less space and have them organized so I can find what I want.

I've been packing up all my stuff getting ready to move. While I was in Wyoming, my younger sister helped pack up some of my stuff. I appreciate the help, but I can't help but see how to pack things better. She packed all my clothes in my trunk and for a few days I managed to avoid looking in it. Today I caved (mostly because I needed pants), refolded and organized the entire trunk. I spent a couple hours doing this. (Yeah, I know. I'm crazy.) But now my clothes are organized and folded so nicely that I have created extra space in the previously completely crammed trunk (using more clothes than were originally in there).

Even though you wouldn't guess it by looking at me or even talking to me, I am ridiculously picky when it comes to how my stuff is organized. If I can't find something of mine it, drives me insane (it drives a lot of people insane, but they never fix the problem). If you ask to borrow something, I can tell you exactly where it is. If you don't ask to borrow something and just take it anyways, I will find that it's missing. Even if you put it back without me having known you've taken it, I will still know (yeah, I'm that anal).

The bottom line is don't mess with my crap without asking and if you do, learn how to put it back. I'm a bit OCD. Disorganized things won't keep me up at night, but they will piss me off.

Pants

People generally wear pants on a day to day basis. I am no exception to this rule. I, however, am an exception to the commonly law of having your pants remained intact through out the day. I have destroyed more pants then I would care to admit.

I have somehow channeled the world of cartoon clichés and loose my pants obnoxiously often. (Anyone else thinking of Ron from Kim Possible?) I have had my pants rip so often and in such ways that they no longer count as pants. Let's begin the list.

1. On Christmas, in a room full of cousins, I flopped on the couch and my new pajama pants ripped across the crotch. It was ripped from waist band to the waist band on the other side. (That's what you get for shopping at Wal-mart.)

2. A day or so after the above mentioned incident, I was rock climbing with my cousin. While skidding down a rock, the seem got caught on a tiny notch and ripped about half the back off my pants. (More Wal-Mart crap)

3. While at my friends house for his birthday party, we were playing on his new wii. I was playing bowling or archery or something. I stood up for my turn and when swung for what ever game I was playing, my pants just obliterated. There was seriously nothing left of them other than the strip of fabric that was being held up by my belt.

4. I was at the neighbors house (the nieghbors for the ranch). I was playing with the two younger girls. They'd do something then ask me if I could do it. I'd show them that I could then they'd do something else. While I was doing one of these things, I flopped onto the ground and my plants split wide open at the crotch.

5. While entering the P.E. changing room the cuff of my pants got caught in the door and ripped all the way up the leg.

6. While coming back from Wyoming, I leapt into the truck and the leg of my pants ripped just perfectly that if I were to cut the leg entirely off where it ripped, I'd have a pair of short shorts.

7. While running water down the hill to the horses, I climbed a tree. The branch I stood on broke and I slid down the tree. One the nub of broken branch, I ripped through my pants and underwear and left a giant gash.

After about the second time, you stop caring who sees your knickers. It doesn't really matter any more. I've given up caring. Generally, I've found that other people care more than I do. It's spectacular how the flip out at the sight of someone's underwear, but a bathing suit (which generally has less material) is perfectly acceptable. The only difference is material.

Audible Levels

Over the years, I have learned a great deal about the use of different audible levels. I'm not just talking about indoor and outdoor voices either. I think there are about six different volume levels that I use.

1. The Backstage Whisper. This is the type of whisper that is so quiet your not quite sure your making noise. I have had entire converstions using this while waiting for cues. Interesting enough most of them were with the same person.

2. The Not Audible to My Dad Whisper
This is the whisper used among me and my sisters on car trips with my father or when he's in the same room with us. We usually wait 'til his back is turned, so he doesn't see us talking. To the average person it doesn't sound much quieter than a normal volume, but my dad, being mostly deaf (due to years of target practice), can't hear a thing.

3. Normal Volume
This is the volume at which you just talk. No worries about being heard or anything else.

4. Speaking Up So My Father Can Hear What I'm Saying
Anyone who's ever delt with partially deaf people knows what this volume level is.

5. The Angry Yell
I don't do this very often and when I do I loose my voice. I am not naturally a loud person.

6. Stage Voice
When it comes to acting on stage, there aren't microphones (unless it's a musical), so you have to be loud. All through out my life I've been told that I'm too quiet. When on stage, I had a nasty habit of still being too quiet. Me and fellow actors in my Drama II class remedied this by saying our lines across the performing arts hallway which happens to have horrible aucoustics.

Those are my levels of volume. An aunt of mine (commonly refered to as MAM) has a completely different volume scale compaired to mine. If you had to decide based on that you'd never figure out that we shared blood.

MAM's Volume Scale

1. Her Normal Talking Level
To anyone else in the area she is shouting, but to her she is just enjoying polite conversation.

2.Her Shouting
This is like listening to a cannon go off. If you get to close, your ears will be ringing for the next couple of days.

3. Her Whisper
This is an incredibly rare phenomena that I have only experienced once. (In fact, I might be the only person that every has.) When she whisper's, she actually whispers. Upon first discovering this, I was in shock for hours. I didn't think it was possible. I had the great fortune of accompanning MAM to the library. When she talked in a whisper, I had the urge to clean out my ears just to make sure I was hearing things correctly.

Homophobia

I get sick of the way people use words. They use offensive terms all the time without thinking twice about it. People just don't think about what they say. On occasion everyone says something stupid, but when you do it all the time it's no longer a mistake.

I cuss like a sailor, but there are terms that I won't say. The basic cuss words like damn, bitch, shit, and fuck are so over used they really don't have much meaning. While some people find these offensive, they aren't in reference to a specific group of people. Most people won't say the n-word, but they'll say, "that's gay", "faggot", or "dyke" without even shrugging.

In English class we were discussing different social groups. One kid in my group mentioned how scene kids are incredibly brightly colored. This led to a story from a girl in my group. I don't even remember what the story was, but I do remember she described a girl's weird haircut as, "super dykey." I don't get why short asymmetrical haircuts are associated with being gay, but I have heard more girls explain how they'd look like a dyke if they cut their hair short, than I'd care to admit.

A friend of mine who used the term dyke freely until people called her on it, said that she didn't find it offensive. She's not gay. She doesn't get to decide what's offensive. Another friend of mine who is actually very open minded and has several best friends who are gay, still uses the term, "that's gay" and gets annoyed when people ask her not to. A friend of mine who is gay uses, "that's gay" as well. If people who are gay and who have gay friends don't stop using the words, how do we expect anyone else to stop using them.

When I was fourteen, my dad started a reenacting Venture Crew. (I know, sounds exciting, right?) When I was fifteen, I went to a reenactment in Santa Fe with this Venture Crew. On the drive back, I got to sit and listen to the leader go on about the reasons gays and atheists couldn't join the venture crew.

Atheists couldn't join because they try to convince people to believe like they do. (Isn't that what religion in general does?) Gays couldn't join because they try to get in your head and make you gay. They also couldn't join because and I quote, "We don't want any boys being like 'I'm a girl' and we don't want any girls being like 'I'm a man.'" You should know, they had me cross dressing as a civil war soldier the entire time I participated. I sat in the car for a good while listening to this kind of bullshit and didn't say a thing. At the time it didn't seem worth it. (I had a good two hours left in the car with them and another hour in the car with my dad after that.) I must've looked sick because the leader's wife said, "If you have any questions your dad will explain them later."
Through gritted teeth I replied, "I understand perfectly fine."

My family, mostly on my dad's side, is quite homophobic. I have grown up hearing all sorts of homophobic slurs. When Brokeback Mountain won an academy award, my aunt came running into the room and started yelling about how that movie was a sin to make. When there was a documentary on about homosexuality and the research of it, my dad said, "it would be great if they could find a cure for that."

Out of my entire family, the one person I've heard say stuff like this the most is my dad. Once, while I was watching Ellen, he said, "you know she's a dyke right?" While watching Felicity, he made us turn it off because there was referance to Javier being gay. "What is he a faggot?" While watching Torchwood: Miracle Day, he made us turn it off because a character walked past two guys making out. While watching an episode of American Dad that involved murder and whatever else, the show was "stupid" until there was a lesbian kiss then it was "morally bankrupt." I'm not even sure how I managed to watch But I'm a Cheerleader, with him in the room for most of it, without him making me turn it off. (He was probably asleep.)

When I was little, all these statements were confusing. I couldn't see what was wrong with two girls or guys loving each other. I liked playing with monster trucks and bugs, why couldn't a boy like playing with Barbies and dresses. My best friend in kindergarten was a boy who had long hair and wanted to be a girl. I had short hair and wanted to be a boy. He came up with a girl name for himself and I came with a boy name for myself. We spent a lot of time playing as if I were a boy and he were a girl. He actually got in trouble once when he tried to explain this to another kid in our class. (My other best friend was a boy who's favorite color was pink.)

Back then I didn't get it and now, I still don't get it. If girls can wear pants guys should be able to wear dresses. People need to stop telling kids that it's wrong. They need to stop saying hateful things in front of their kids. People need to stop sitting idly by when people say offensive things. And above all else, even if they don't agree with it, they need to stop using offensive terms.

Beef

When I was in middle school, my dad bought two cows. They were steers and were intended for use as beef. My dad named them Beef Steak and T-Bone. (I know so funny right.)

Me and my siblings, of course, were the ones designated to feed them. My younger sister was convinced that they were going to stab her and kill her with their horns (which were so dull it would've been like being attacked with a round butter knife). My older sister just refused to do it, so I got stuck with the task. Everyday I would be the one to treck down the hill and feed them.

I got pretty attached to them. That is unless I was chasing them back into the pin in a rain storm because they plowed through the fence. (At those moments I could have cared less if they ended up as burgers.) When my dad finally had them butchered, I was a bit wary of beef, but I still ate it if I was sure it wasn't Beef Steak or T-Bone.

Well, I ate it until I discovered the heads. My dad, being the charming fellow he is, decided that he wanted to keep the skulls. This of course ment that the flesh had to rot off them. He decided that a good place to keep them while this was happening was on the fence below the horse pin. While far enough away that you couldn't see them from the house or even from the horses, they were nicely placed in the area that my siblings and I frequently hiked.

While he mentioned that he had them somewhere, he neglected to tell us where. So, during one of our many hiking excursions we discovered them. It was like Lord of the Flies (minus the talking). It was nasty. From then on, I no longer ate beef. This probably also led to my sisters becoming vegetarians.

Side Story: This isn't the only time I've encountered a dead animal without warning. Once I went out to the shed to get fresh bedding for the rat cage. Upon my opening the shed door, I discovered a dead and bloody raccoon lying on the floor. Startled, I bolted back inside where I informed my mom of this. She informed me that my dad, had killed it that morning. Everyone knew about it besides me. I was pissed (or ticked as my fifth grade self would say). They knew I was going out to the shed. A warning would have been nice.

Now back to cows, we now have three cows. Two are milk cows and ones the baby I had to help castrate (see Balls). There's Lucy, Rose, and Rose's baby which can't agree on a name for. We basically just call him whatever the heck we want.

My younger sister insists that he should be named Valentine because of a patch of white on his head. She claims it's shaped like a heart. I claim it's shaped like a blob (maybe a triangle). My mother calls him Little Britches or Junior. My dad calls him Little Britches. I personally refer to him as Grimer (because he was born in the muck), Junior, Baby, or most commonly Back The Hell Off.

Fly Swatting

You're laying there reading when a fly lands on your arm. Your eyes slowly move from the book and you stare the fly down. You move your other arm slowly and then BAM!!! You strike and miss. The fly casually flies aways and lands on a table.

You now satisfied return to your book. Then the fly returns with a friend. This can only be taken as an act of fly terrorism. You decide that it's time for war and get the fly swatter. You are determined to recapture your reading area.

With a determined look about your face you lay out your attack. SWAP! SWAP! SWAP! You've taken out one of your enemies. You scowl as you look around the room for other attackers. You know he's there, but can't locate him. You stand still in anticipation. The intense look on your face keeps him at bay. Then he goes in for a final attack. You raise your swatter. SWAP! The enemy has been defeated.

Triumphant, you return to your book. Your enjoying your journey through the world of the book, when you here that ominous buzzing sound. You slowly move your eyes from the book and frantically look about for signs of the next attack.

The Radio

For the past week, I've been at my family's ranch in Wyoming. There isn't a tv, so we watch cows, rabbits, frogs, and the occasional deer run about (or in my dad's case, watch the house we're building) while we listen to the radio.

We get two radio stations. One is an oldies station (this is the station I like) and the other is a from our nearest town and plays country, news, tradio, and Fox News (no Fox News doesn't qualify under the news category). Since my dad's in charge we mostly listen to the latter.

I must admit, I'm not the biggest fan of country. A lot of it sucks in my opinion (mostly the new stuff), but there are good songs every once in awhile (let me plug my ears for a minute while I listen to the arguments  of friends). These good songs are unfortunately not the most popular or they're old, so I don't hear them much. I have, however, heard a lot of others. I have heard the annoying and repetative ones which, like most modern music, happen to be about how hot someone is and how much they want in their pants. I've heard the sad songs which to me sound like listening to a little kid whine. (I'm sorry she took your truck. Go talk to her mommy and get it back.) And while I'm not sure, I think I might if heard a song about hunting down Santa Claus.

I have gotten to listen to the oldies some (mostly by convincing my dad that it's the only station we get in the truck). After hearing the same bad song enough times you can sing it, you have to change the channel. Or turn off the radio and listen to the wind (which blows strong enough to make the dogs ears flap).

On my dad's prefered radio station, they have this thing called tradio. It's about an hour of people calling in and listing off this they want to get rid of and who to contact if you want it. Some of the crap people think other people might want is astounding. I promise you that no one want's your pea soup colored recliners that you've had for decades.

The most annoying thing about my dad's radio station by far is the fact that he doesn't turn it off at night. I'll fall asleep listening to a bearable country song. Then at 11:00pm, I'll wake up to some ass hole bitching about gun control discussions, Obama, and my personal favorite (which is what I heard last night) him bitching about how some fisherman decided to return a 90 year old lobster to the sea rather than eat it. He kept on talking about how it was going to die anyways. (How is this worth debating anyways?) Then cited a video on youtube of an animal activist group releasing an otter into the ocean where it instantly got eaten by a killer whale. What the hell does that have to do with the lobster? Yes the people who released the otter were stupid (otters don't live in the ocean), but that has nothing to do with the freaking lobster. And I'm sorry, but not every liberal actually cared about the lobster, nor are they part of an animal activist group.

While I have quite the dislike for Fox News, I can usually just ignore it. But when I'm asleep in a one room building and I get woken up to a dude bitching because someone released a lobster, I will not be corgial. Fox News, could you tell me why the lobster was important enough to be bitched about for ten minutes or at least bitch about something worth discussing? I don't know. Maybe something like gun control or at least Obama. Those are actually relevant to everyday life, unlike your freaking lobster.

Outhouse Usage

"If going to the bathroom in the middle of the night involves shoes and a flashlight, you might be a redneck." ~Jeff Foxworthy

At our family ranch in Wyoming, there is no running water. This means an outhouse is the only form of toilet. It's not terrible, but it's not wonderful either. I must admit, that there are times when it is a giant pain in the ass in combination with the other features of the ranch.

Let's say it's 2:00am and you just woke up having to pee. This creates a few problems.
1. You need shoes
2. You need a flashlight
3. You can't turn on a light to locate these two items
It's not that there's no electricity because there is. The problem is that everyone is asleep in the one room cabin shed thing. If you turn on the light there will be a massives amount of groaning, grumbling, yelling, and death glares headed your way. So, what you do is lay there. You try to ignore it and go back to sleep. This inevitably will fail and you'll be forced to get up anyways.
You drag yourself up to a sitting possition and wiggle your way out of your sleeping bag. At this point it's decision making time.

Step 1.What do you currently have on your feet?
If it's socks, you can walk out to the outhouse quite comfortably. If it's barefeet your going to need shoes. With socks, you can pull them off before wiggling back into your sleeping bag, having no issue whatsoever. With bare feet, the dirt with find it's way into your sleeping bag matter how hard you try otherwise.

Step 2. How well can you see?
Is the moonlight bright enough that if you leave the door open you'll be able to see what your doing or do you need to find a light?

Once you've determined what you'll need, you get to find it.

Step 3. (Optional) (Only necessary if you can't see) You're shoes will likely be near your cot, so just kick around all the side until your foot collides with them. (Don't do this violently. Your foot is just as likely to collide with a table or chair.)

Step 4. If your lucky, you or someone else will have left a flashlight on the table next to your cot. If not, hopefully it's next to the door. If it's not either of those places, you might have to pee in the dark or risk waking everyone up with a lamp.

Once you come back from the outhouse, there's a fairly good chance your sleeping bag will have blown off your cot by the fan or just wind in general.

The Ranch

My family has a ranch up in Wyoming where my dad has been "building a house" for the past eighteen years and actually building one for the past ten. Him and my mom plan on moving up there when my younger sister graduates high school (more likely it will be when she graduates college).
I live in the middle of nowhere, but that middle of nowhere is nothing compaired to the ranch. The ranch is three miles from the nearest neighbor and a wopping fourty from the nearest town. It is litterally the middle of nowhere. It even looks a bit like the middle of nowhere in Courage the Cowardly Dog. (Not nearly as interesting though).

While the actual house is in progress, we stay in a little one room cabin that we call The Shed. The Shed has electricity, a radio, a stove, a fridge, a fan, and two or three cots for people to sleep on. (There's also six or seven chairs, a kitchen table, and two to three side tables per cot.) Oh, and there's also a bathtub.

While there's a bath tub, there isn't actually running water in the shed. For baths, we walk down the hill to the stock tank. (No, we don't bath in the stock tank.) We hook up the hose and run water into jugs, which we then poor into pans and heat up on the stove. (Things are old school out here.) Not having running water also poses the problem of drinking water. It is safe to drink the well water for the stock tank it just tastes a bit tinny. Even though we can drink the well water, my family insists on going into town and filling the water jugs at the park. (A park which is right next to railway tracks.) I have never gotten this. The town water tastes clourinated. As far as I'm concerned they taste equally discusting, so we should just drink the well water. It's less work. (I will warn you. Since bathing is such a pain, we tend to avoid baths until the flies start to get annoying.) I know the only things we're missing are a trailer, shot guns, and a lawn chair. Well we've got the shot guns and for the longest time we stayed in a trailer whenever we came up to the ranch. (We gave up on the lawn chairs when they fell apart.)

When you're at the ranch there's not a lot to do. There are no trees. (When my dad asked me to find a stick, I had to hold my breath to avoid being a smart ass.) There are some sandstone rocks around. (Which when I was little, were my sand cruisers and buildings on Tatooine.) Mostly though it's just dirt, dead grass, rabbits, and the occasional frog. (Maybe, if your lucky, you'll almost get bit by a rattlesnake.) Since there's not a lot to do, you read. If there is a tedious book you really want to read, but can't focus on this is the place to do it. There aren't any distractions if you go outside. (My favorite place to go is the roof.)

The one thing that amazes me the most of all is that I'm the only one to ever get injured. Not counting the time when my dad broke his arm falling off a ladder or the time my older sister dropped a saw on her foot. (I wasn't at the ranch during these times, so the cosmos was taking it out on someone else.)
With all the rusty barbed wire, jagged metal, cactus, and roofs to fall off of, I'm the only one that ever seems to do it. And most of the times it's not by ways described above. While at the ranch, I have:

I stepped off a platform while we were handing a board to my dad. (While not more that a foot off the ground, I fell in such a way to make it hurt like a bitch.)
While spinning around with friends I was the only to land on the thorn bush. (One of my friends came close, but I landed right on top of it and spent the next thirty minutes having my friends scrape thorns out of my back.)
While riding my bicycle down a dirt mound, I ran over a cactus popping both my tires and leading me to crash into the outhouse. (Not much of an injury from this, but I never did get the tires on my bike fixed.)
During one summer when I decided socks worked as well as shoes, I got a cactus stuck in my sock. (I decided shoes weren't so bad after all.)
There is a board that stretches out in front of the shed. It is used for a pathway when it rains so that you don't sink into the mud that builds up in front of the door. A couple days ago, I stepped off the steps onto this board. I stepped on it just right so that my food slid off and all my weight landed on it. I twisted up my ankle and foot and heard a lovely cracking or popping or crunching noise (maybe all three). I have since then been hobbling around of no use to anyone. (Other than the kitchen maid aparentlly.)

I'm fequently injured as is, but bring me to the ranch and I don't stand a chance. I always manage to get hurt when I'm there. If you think it's boring when you can walk try it when you can't.