Well it’s not really a grind. I like my job. It’s just difficult to muster enthusiasm for being here after being away from it for a week. I had 114 messages in my inbox which was not as many as I thought and most of them were just my CNN and Google news alerts. Nobody needed me while I was gone 🙁

Kelly’s coming back to GI for a few days this week. I can’t wait to see her. I can wait to haul her ass to Omahahaha back and forth a few times while she’s here, but what are sisters for I guess. But other than that it will be good to talk to her again face to face. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now I’d like to bounce off her.

I guess lately I’ve been pondering what I want to do and where to go in my life. I think I’d said I had resigned myself to staying in Nebraska at least until my daughter graduates from high school. Now I’m not so sure I can or want to do that. I’m having a real problem in justifying my decisions. I cannot see a very bright future for me here in Nebraska, I hate living here, and staying will mean working in a job I love but for 1 tenth the pay I should be getting. This hospital’s never going to raise my pay to the level it should be at, they’re too cheap. And I can’t stand – I literally feel physically ill at the thought of living paycheck to paycheck like I do for the next 6 years.

The problem is that there is just no opportunity for me here. All Web jobs in this town are basically the same as what I have now. Low pay. I want to go back to school and add another field to my resume. I want to work for the film industry in some capacity. That’s been my dream for as long as I can remember. It feels silly to say it out loud – in a manner of speaking and I’ve never told anyone about it. I never thought I’d ever get to anyway so it was just some little pipe dream tucked away in my mind. But since I’ve been feeling this need to move away from here and try to further my career, I’m starting to think that maybe it’s not an impossible dream. But if I want to do anything about it, I can’t stay here. And that means making some big decisions. I need to get over my guilt at taking my daughter away from her grandparents – I need to be up front with her about what I’m thinking about doing so she’s not blindsided if I do happen to move. I need to begin actively looking for work elsewhere and not settle for the first thing that comes along. It has to be right, to allow me to save so I can go back to school without having to take out loans.

Anyway these are the things floating around in my mind right now. Who knows, I may not act on any of it. I’m not very good about motivating myself. I talk myself down from grandiose plans all the time. But then I think, if I don’t at least try to make things work for the better, then I will be in a rut until I die. My daughter will probably fall into the same traps. I have to sacrifice and take a plunge now and then if I want to get what I want and be happy. Yep.

That would be the ‘UK guy’ from my last entry. I’m thoroughly enjoying his 24 blog. Only 6 freaking days until Season three! I have mixed emotions about it really. I’m really looking forward to it, however when it’s on that means my vacation is over and I’m having a nice holiday atm.

I was starting to get a little bored actually, but last night I popped in one of my 24 DVDs and discovered that it’s kind of fun to make screencaps and capture little moments that you might miss in a film when you’re just watching it. Takes bloody ages though, but I decided to start a collection of caps, starting, of course, with every Kiefer DVD I can get my hands on. Eventually I hope to include caps from a lot of great films.

Anyway, it’s here if anyone’s interested. It’s just Kiefer for now. A bunch of 24 caps and about 6 other movies of his (including ‘Beat’ James – however I think Kiefer gets off moreso with the lads than he does with Ms. Love 🙂 ).

So apart from doing some capping, I did a little bit of shopping today. I shouldn’t have really, but I think it’s actually been over a year since I bought myself some new clothes. I’m such a fashion plate 😀 Anyway I found a gorgeous jumper and probably the most comfy pair of jeans ever and I feel really good. Best thing was they were on sale as well so that’s good.

Shit it’s after midnight… I told myself I’d quit staying up late just because I’m on holiday because I still have to get up at stupid o’clock to get the kidlet up and ready for school. And I am unable to go back to sleep when I return from dropping her off which kind of sucks.

I’m on vacation right now. Second day into it and I’m bored out of my skull. My eyeballs hurt from watching too many Kiefer movies, my house is spotless, and I’m nearly out of gas in the car. I don’t think I’m used to entertaining myself all day every day. Without a clear purpose to the day, I’m a little bit lost. I used to think I’d be in heaven if I didn’t have to do the nine-to-five thing every day and could devote my days to pretty much anything I wanted. Now I’m not so sure.

Maybe it’s the time of day, maybe I’m just overly tired. I haven’t had any coffee yet, maybe that’s it. I think somewhere earlier in this blog I said I’d give writing a shot again. I did start to form a hazy storline in my head earlier… Maybe I should get cracking on that. I’ve got six more days of uninterrupted time… Not that I could knock out a novel in six days, but I could at least teach myself how to develop a story beyond just a vague story arc. Hmmm… Well the kid’s due home soon so maybe I should make that my agenda tomorrow.

Anyway, I just discovered some UK guy’s blog about the show ’24’ so I’m going to go read that for a while 🙂

Have you ever been asked, or thought about what it would be like to have a chance for a chat with your younger self? What would you say to yourself – assuming you’re now older and allegedly wiser. Would you try and pass on any of that wisdom? Would you try to prevent yourself from making certain mistakes? Give a warning of some kind?

Forgetting about all of that time paradox crap and just thinking about a couple of things I would tell myself… I would tell my stupid ass to go to college – though if I had done that I might not have my daughter today… Oh wait that’s a time paradox. Okay, I would go back and tell myself that having good friends is a wonderful thing, but family is just as important so quit dicking around. I might tell myself to lighten up a little. That my parents did understand me more than I thought they did.

Here’s how I think the convo might go:

“Hey Steph.”

Gobsmacked silence at being confronted with an older version of myself.

“When did I stop wearing black all the time?”

“When you realised that being goth wasn’t a lifestyle, it was just a phase.”

“Oh. Do we still like decent music?”

“Oh that never changes. But your tastes do broaden.”

“Oh dear.”

“Listen I can’t stick around. I just wanted to do this:”

*thwap*

“Ow!”

And there you have it. I’d give myself a good thwap and be on my way. How very Hitchhiker’s 🙂

*sigh*

The kid (I’m going to have to come upwith a new nick for her since she’s not really a kid anymore 🙁 ) went to her first real dance last night. She’d been to one before but it was right after school and I think all the parents were there. Last night was a city-wide junior high Halloween dance from 7-10pm. I had mixed feelings about letting her go though.

Originally this dance was supposed to be actually on Halloween, and would have been after school etc. which is why she spent some of her allowance on a splashy costume of Arwen from LOTR. She wanted so much to stand out and had been talking about this dance for weeks. Then Thursday she came into my office in tears because she found out that it had been moved up to the following night, and knowing my penchant for saying no to things she brings me on short notice, she didn’t think I would let her go. But how could I look at her, with tears in her eyes and say no? I’m such a pushover 🙂 Of course I let her go.

We picked up her best friend, who chickened out of wearing a costume (I guess costumes were optional), and I dropped them off at the Senior High gym, sighed, and went home to wait until 10pm. Every time the phone rang I jumped in case it was the kid who wanted to come home early.. But it never was. So finally when I went to pick them up, I found them both beaming and excited. She had danced with a boy and what’s more – she actually asked him! I was gobsmacked! I guess I had thought if anyone would have danced with a boy, it would have been her friend who’s always been a bit more boy-crazy than my daughter has been. But apparently her friend was far too shy to even dance with the girls. Weird.

Anyway, my daughter danced with a boy and came home grinning ear to ear and had a lovely evening. Me, I think I’ve now got a grey hair or two..

Well while I wait for someone to send me some content for my little project I guess I’ll blog a little. I guess the big water cooler discussion right now is that poor Cubs fan who’s allegedly blown his team’s chances at going to the world series. I feel sorry for the guy. I mean, I can understand why people are upset, the Cubs haven’t been in the Series for 58 years and it would have been sweet if they’d have made it. But they lost their game faces when this guy went for the foul ball and allowed the Marlins to get all those runs in. They should have put it out of their minds until the game was over. Yes it was a moment of stupidity, but tell me, if you were a huge fan of a particular team, and you were in the foul ball area of the stands and saw a ball coming towards you, wouldn’t you reach for it too? Wouldn’t you be caught up in the moment of having a chance to grab a little bit of a semi-historic game for yourself? Of course you would. I don’t think this guy intended to deliberately sabotage his beloved team’s game. it was an accident and people need to let it go.

Besides, in the footage I saw of the incident, there were quite a few other fans going for that ball too. None of them looked like they were backing off when they saw the Cub running to grab it. This poor guy just happened to get to it first. Now his phone’s been disconnected, he’s actually in fear for his life. What is wrong with that picture? I understand the passion fans feel for a game they love. I know what it’s like to be caught up in something and of course you hate to see defeat – but come on, leave the poor guy alone. I’m sure none of the abuse he’s endured from irate fans can compare to what he must feel.

I also think it was pretty shite of Florida to offer him ‘asylum’. That’s almost like taunting him. How rude.

Anyway that’s my take on the Cubs incident. They played a good season but couldn’t quite pull it out in the end. That’s ok. Maybe next year they’ll be back with a vengeance. Who knows. Yeesh, and I’m not even a baseball fan.

So I’m still feeling stagnant. I shouldn’t have written about it last night right before bed because that ‘plain’ feeling is sticking with me. And really, now I’m blaming my boss for thinking I have a wild life because now I have to live up to that *grin*.

I was driving into work this morning and thinking about what it would be like to do something different. I have vacation next week and I was thinking of spending it going out and doing a bit of photography. Fall is a beautiful time of the year – even in Nebby and I think it would be cool to go out and capture a bit of it. I can’t use my good camera though as I don’t have any film, so it’ll have to be digital. I just want to be sure I don’t spend my entire vacation locked up in the house watching Kiefer movies. Not necessarily a bad thing mind you 🙂 I could watch him for hours. But I want to take advantage of the cooler weather and maybe nick my daughter’s bike for a few rides, take some snaps and just try and get into life here.

Or maybe I should use the time to finally start writing something substantial for a change. It’s been a dream of mine to write a book and become published but my problem is I can’t think of a good story to tell. I can’t even decide on a genre. I have a million beginnings of stories, but not real content. Maybe now’s the time to pick one and see where it leads.

I don’t know.. I write that a lot. I don’t know. Well, I really don’t know. I’m sure I’ll end up just doing whatever I feel like doing, but I don’t know if it will help me come to terms with having to stay here in Nebraska for the next six years. “Why don’t you move then?” I hear you say… Well for a variety of reasons. The main one being the fact that my daughter is settled and happy and absolutely flourishing in junior high here. She’s surrounded by her friends whom she’s known all her life. I never had that feeling growing up because we moved so much. I used to think she would benefit from moving to different places as she grew up because I felt that’s what gave me my love for travelling. But then again I’m such an introverted, quiet person – not outgoing at all and I wonder if having to make new friends whenever we moved has anything to do with that.

Anyway, I also can’t move because my grandparents are the only close family she and I have left apart from my sister. But Kelly’s young and lives in Cali whereas the G’s are getting up there in years and who knows how long we’ll have them in our lives. I can’t deny them or my daughter the chance to be close to each other right now.

So there are two very good reasons for staying here, at least for now. So I will continue to lose myself in the movies as a way to pass the time. I will watch my daughter grow up to be confident and sure of herself – smart and independent and beautiful… And then I will probably get the hell out of Dodge and who knows, maybe by then I’ll be published, doing book tours and interviews and hanging out with my idols.

For now though, I’d better get back to work… Oh and totally off-topic but I’ve added a link to my good friend Corey’s spanky new blog I built for him so check it out. And I’ve discovered someone I don’t even know has me linked on their blog – pretty nifty 🙂