Work is stressful, as usual. By the grace of god and the power of my large intestine and liver, I successfully managed to evade firing this week. They were reviewing my charts, but didn't really say anything negative to me. My supervisor sat in on a few of my sessions, but all she could say was, "Excellent session. You seem to know your patients well and you effectively address their needs." I still don't know how secure my job is...I guess I feel somewhat better about it...but I still think that I want out. I applied this Wednesday for a Counselor position at Pressley Ridge schools for "behavior-disordered" children. We'll see.

In other news, Steve has finally accepted that we're not getting back together. I spoke with him about it a couple of weekends ago and told him that I wanted him to start seeing other people. He took some chick named Leigh out this past weekend and I'm glad for him. He hasn't drank in about two weeks and I'm really proud of him. I want to continue to be his friend...because he really honestly doesn't have any other friends that actually care about his well being. I truly hope he gets his shit together. I also truly hope he pays me back the $114 he still owes me from our Cedar Point trip. *sigh* When will I ever learn not to trust men when they say that they'll pay me back?

I had the pleasure of babysitting my godchildren for the first time alone on Thursday night. Matt was in Parkersburg working and Cyndi was going to play volleyball with her church. Kiki watched cartoons while I tried to get Anthony to lay down. He kept fighting off sleep, talking to himself softly while I was rocking him. I laid him down for a bit to see if he would go on his own and went in to check on Kiki. She had conked out on the couch, so I scooped her up and tucked her in her bed. I went back to Anthony's room to find him sitting up in hed bed playing with his stuffed animals. I filled his sippy cup, picked him up and rocked him for an hour an a half. He just cuddled me and talked to himself, "goo la la door da da ya ya. Uh-oh!" It got a bit chilly so I covered us both with a blanket and continued to rock him in his dimly lit room decorated with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too. Eventually I nodded off and when I woke I looked down to see him snoring away and drooling all over my sweater. Adorable. :) I laid him down and that was that.

I hung out with my parents and my brother and his family today. Megan was a cutie-pie, as usual. It really amazed me how much she understands now. I really think she gets smarter and smarter every time I see her. She's spoiled, and bossy, and extremely strong-willed, but I love her anyway. Today she threw a little tantrum because she didn't want to leave the mall and Cheryl asked mom to take her hat off of her head. Just to spite Cheryl, Megan pulled it down hard on her head and held on to it while continuing to wail. It was pretty funny. :) We watched Finding Nemo for about the 15th time again today. Every now and then she would poke me on the arm and make little comments to me: "The blue fish is Nemo's daddy's fwiend, Aunt Chis. Nemo is scared! Nemo has a wittle fin...he was born like 'dat! The sharks won't eat 'dem, don't worry!" She was so cute!

If I keep surrounding myself with children, this desire to be a mother bull-shit is going to get worse. Mother fucking shit!

Rough N' Rowdy Rednecks

Friday evening Kelly called and invited me to the Rough N' Rowdy Brawl, an amateur boxing contest in which the areas finest hilljacks and rednecks beat the hell out of each other in hopes of winning the grand prize of $5000. Having never been to an event of this nature and having nothing better to do, I agreed to go and enjoy a night of violence, beer drinking, and mullet counting with my friend.

I lost count of the mullets I saw that night...and I think I counted some of them twice because of the Miller Lite I was sucking down like water. Kelly and I were surrounded by a sea of people (mostly males) who were jeering at the fighters in the ring, yelling, standing up and shaking their fists, and bursting out into fits of laughter. Oh yes. I was there...I had finally made it to redneck heaven.

The fights that night were many, in the ring and in the stands. As I should have guessed, the majority of the competitors were from Boone County, WV, home of countless dumbass hilljacks, including the most famous of these Jesco White, the Dancing Outlaw. My friend Kelly is also from Boone County, and though she's not a dumbass, she is quite the country girl.

Anyway, whenever a new boxer stepped into the ring, the announcer would state that boxer's name and home county. Every time he intoduced anyone from Boone County, Kelly would echo him with a raucous shout of "Boone County!" After my second beer, I too joined my voice to hers to cheer on those representing that most infamous southern county of West Virginia. I proudly bore that redneck mantle for a few hours. Damn, it was fun! :)

The most memorable fight that night was a fight between two women, one weighing in at 200 lbs and the other at 175 lbs. It seemed that the larger of the two was talking a little smack to the smaller one before the fight started...the smaller woman just shook her head from side to side...and then the bell rang and fists flew. The big woman didn't even have a chance to get a punch in before the littler one started repeatedly punching her in the face. Bam, bam, bam! And with every punch the big gal's head snapped back and she staggered, eventually falling on her big fat ass. It was fucking hilarious!

Aside from the boxing competition there was also a ring girl competition. There were about 8 different girls, each bikini clad, who would alternate between walking around the ring and shaking their asses as the crowd in between rounds. From a distance they all seemed attractive enough, and none were too plump, however there were a few that were simply too skinny to be attractive ring girls. Think about it. The majority of the audience is sitting far away, so a ring girl needs to have some visible assests (such as large breasts and a big ass) so that those in the cheap seats can get their thrill as well. :) What I found a little ridiculous about the ring girl thing was the fact that the announcer stated the likes and dislikes of each girl as she pranced around the ring holding her sign high over her head. Skittles liked the color purple and also enjoyed camping and hiking. Skittles, taste the rainbow.

Captain Random Strikes Again: The Case of the Missing Cell Phone or A Drunk, Two Girls, and a Cell Phone

After finishing my third beer, I decided I wanted another one and a pretzel, so I stumbled out to the concession area. Whle walking and counting my money, I literally ran straight into my former co-worker, Eric, also known as Captain Random. From the moment he opened his mouth, even having a slight buzz, I realized that he was totally out of his mind drunk. He was like: "Hey! What's up Chris G.! What the fuck ar' you doin' here? Hey everybody! Look it's Tits G.! Hey Titsy! Titser! Tits G.!" I told him that I was there with Kelly and he got drunkenly excited and wanted me to take him back with me to our seats so he could say hello.

He walked with me toward the section and eventually grabbed hold of my arm to steady himself and keep from running into people. He greeted Kelly, (Hey! What's up Kellster?) we sat down, and then some sort of inebriated craze came over him. He alternated between yelling like a maniac at the fighters in the ring (Beat the fuck out of him! Rip his fucking head off!), standing up and shaking his fist at the ring, and turning to me and Kelly, punching us on the arm and saying, "Did you see that shit? Holy shit!!" Kelly and I kept making him sit down and couldn't help but laugh our asses off at him. He finally noticed that were were laughing at him (What the fuck? You making fun of me? You want a piece of me, bitches?) and then began to taunt us. He looked at Kelly and said, "I hate you, Kelly! I'm gonna knock your tits off!" and then began mock punching her in the tits. I was giggling hysterically and he turned to me and said, "Shut up Tits G.! You're next! I'm gonna' black both your eyes with your own tits!" and began to mock uppercut my tits.

About that time another guy from work, Joey, spotted us and stopped to say hi. I somehow managed to greet him while simultaneously laughing and drooling all over myself. Eric gave him a big bear hug and kissed him on the temple. The look of amused revulsion on Joey's face was priceless. I can't wait to see him at work tomorrow. In spite of Eric's kiss, he invited us to go play pool at the Athletic Club and we agreed to meet him there. Eric decided that he needed to go back and get his jacket and join up with his friends. I helped him find the section he had been sitting in and his jacket, however his friends were nowhere in sight. He called them and they told him they left, thinking that he was walking home as he lives close to the Civic Center on the West side. There was no way he was in any state to walk alone at night in the freezing cold on the West side of Charleston, so Kelly and I agreed that we were driving him home.

We all walked outside and the first thing Eric did was lean over the steps and puke. Well...it wasn't really puking as much as dribbling beer out of his mouth and nose. He started leaning forward a bit more and Kelly and I rushed up and grabbed him to keep him from falling head first down the Civic Center steps and possibly breaking neck. A security guard came up to me and suggested that we get him out of there before the cops saw him, as he would promptly be taken to the drunk tank for the night. We started walking down the steps, Kelly on one side and me on the other. He kept rambling on, one moment saying how he really loved us and we were such cool chicks and the next saying that he hated us and wanted to punch our tits off until we stopped laughing at him. He stopped halfway down the steps, scooped us some snow in both hands, and threw it in his face. He had little bits of snow all over his hair, eyebrows and lashes, and beard. A few seconds later he exclaimed, sounding a little surprised, "Oh my god! It's fucking freezing out here!" We made it down the steps, across the street, through the mall, and to Sears parking lot somehow. Kelly and I didn't know whether to scream at him or laugh...we mostly just laughed and talked to him like someone would a misbehaving child or mentally challenged individual: "Come on Eric. This way. No! No! Don't do that! No! Don't sit down! Keep walking, that's right. No! Here, take my arm. There ya go. Watch out! Eric, stop! Eric, no. Come on, walk forward. Like this. That's right, very good. No! No! Eric!"

Finally we got him to the car. Just after sitting down, Eric's cell phone rang and he hopped out to answer the call in private. He had that drunken paranoia thing going on and didn't want us to listen to his phone conversation. He got back in the car and he said that he wanted to go to the Athletic Club too. We didn't think it was such a good idea and didn't really feel very keen on babysitting him for the rest of the night, but he was determined to go. He said he would call his wife to let her know and it was then that he realized that his phone was missing. I had him check under his seat and when it wasn't found we began looking outside in the snowy parking lot where he had been walking around.

I broke out the flash lights and began searching through the snow, all the while the urge to urinate becoming stronger and stronger. Eric was very stressed and kept repeating, "Oh my god! My phone! My phone! I've gotta find my phone!" A guy came and helped us look for it and even let Eric use his phone to call it, but we found nothing. After thanking the kind stranger and handing him back his phone, Captain Random stumbled over to a double parking meter, leaned on it hard and began dribbling beer all over the snow and his shoes. The meter leaned under his weight and I was sure that they were both going to fall and land in the newly puke-yellowed snow. After about an hour of searching to no avail with my bladder about to explode, I called the cell phone lost and commanded Eric to get in the car. We got in and started to drive away, but he began raving wildly about how he had to find his phone or his wife would kill him. I agreed to look one more time and we got out and searched for about 10 more minutes. Very tired, frustrated, with a painful desire to urinate all over myself, I made my intoxicated friend admit that the phone was most likely lost. We got in the car and started driving toward his home. We drove by a closed gas station and he screamed out for me to stop the car, he had to make a phone call. He wouldn't shut up, so I pulled over and he called his wife. After confessing his sin of drinking too much, losing his original ride home, and losing his phone, he came back and told us that she was on her way to pick him up. "Oh my god! She's so pissed right now! Tits G., what the fuck am I gonna do?"

She pulled up and was visibly angry, her lips pressed tightly together and her eyes glaring at us all hard. She ordered him in the car and I explained how we stumbled upon him, how his friends left him, and lastly the cell phone losing fiasco. As I talked, I could see her anger slowly lessen. We then said goodnight and I began my quest for a restroom at half past midnight. I finally ended up going and peeing at the Ramada. God, what a relief that was! While stopped at the Ramada, I searched under the passenger seat with one of the flashlights to make sure Eric hadn't missed anything. Sure enough, there was the missing cell phone in search of which I had frozen my ass off and nearly pissed myself.
I called Eric and told him the good news on Saturday and took the cell phone too him later that evening. And so ended my adventure with the drunken Captain Random. And they all lived happily, happily ever after.

The beginning of this new year finds me a bit melancholy...yup, same old, same old. :)

I haven't written in a bit so here's a quick synopsis:

The long awaited sequel to LOTR: Episode II - Frodo Strikes Back
All of my friends and I went to see LOTR: Return of the King and it was excellent! I was so captivated while watching it that I didn't even notice that I was sitting in the theater for 4 hours!

By the way, has anyone ever noticed any similarity in the title of this third LOTR movie and the third of the original Star Wars movies, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi? Hmmm...very interesting.

Anyway, since this was the more emotionally charged of the three movies, there was alot of crying. On screen and off. I think I burst into tears at least 8 times...likely more. :) Ben said I reminded him of the hobbits, crying all over the place like that. Then we agreed that I'm too big and non-hairy for me to be a hobbit...so we decided that I'm the Anti-hobbit! :) I plan on seeing it again soon, so I'll rave about what parts I like the best and all after that viewing.

Christmas
Christmas was wonderful as always. My brother and dad had a bit of a tiff the week or so before and it looked like we were going to be doing Christmas Eve at my parent's house and then doing Christmas day with my brother. They both can be such damned stubborn jackasses sometimes! Anyway it was resolved and we all spent it together at my parent's home per Garris family tradition. Ben also stayed with us. It was nice to spend time with him. I especially enjoyed singing christmas carols on the drive to Beckley! And he was the giver of the most thoughtful of all Christmas presents: guitar lessons! I cried, a little. Thank you, Ben! :)

This Christmas was made even more enjoyable by my niece. She's 2 and 1/2 and is just now learning about Santa Claus. It was really cute watching her throw reindeer food (bird seed and glitter) out for the reindeer so that they would have something to eat while Santa was busy inside. She kept saying, "I wanna feed the weindeer!"

The next morning she was so cute opening her gifts. She'd open one and forget about everything else and just want to play with that one gift. She was giving orders for other people to open presents too because she didn't want anyone to feel left out. "Open you pwesent, Aunt Chis!" It was really adorable and made me feel so good about life...and so happy for her and her innocent joy. :) She makes me excited to know that I will be a mother in the future!

New Years Eve
I had a little gathering at my place with Chris, Shawn, Sean, Ken, Leslie, Scott, & Kelly Ballard in attendance. We drank a little, joked, toasted the new year with some top of the line champagne *wink, wink*, and then later played cards. Chris only had a glass of wine and a bit of the nasty champagne to drink that night and I'm very proud of him. :) I drank enough to make me sleepy...which isn't much. Chris' sister, Amy, rolled by with a friend and told us a very entertaining story about how she had gotten into a drunken fight the night before with some jealous chick outside of The Number Eight in downtown Charleston. Apparently the girl was dating Amy's ex and wanted revenge for something. Poor Amy! May the boot marks on her face heal with no scarring!

The next day "the gang" all went to see Paycheck starring Ben and Uma. Don't see it! It was pure unadulterated shite!
The following evening Shawn, Chris, Sean, and I went to Applebee's, spent some time with Roger B., and then rented and watched...no...wait...slept through The Order starring Heith Ledger. From what I could tell when I took a break from drooling on Shawn's shoulder as he was drooling on Chris, it was a lame movie. Don't see it either. Shawn and Chris left on Saturday after we all went to Bennigan's in celebration of Shawn's 27th birthday. Happy Birthday, you cocked jackal, you!

I parted from them at the mall and went to Cyndi and Matt's adoption party that their church threw for them since they're adopting Kiki and Anthony. I'm the godmother so I went and did godmotherish things, like writing down the names of all the people who sent gifts, mocking the parents, sucking helium from the balloons and making a general ass of myself for the entertainment of others, and playing with the children. Little Anthony is 1 and 1/2 and he's a non-stop playing machine, man. He'll throw ball till he falls asleep standing! Eventually he wore himself out and fell asleep while I was holding him. God, he was so cute!

After the shower, I helped the new parents pack up their gifts and kids and transport them home. I hung out all evening and entertained the new little McClures so that the big McClures could sort through and put things away. I fed Anthony Cherrios while reading Kiki stories from her Winnie the Pooh book. Very cute kids. Very smart.

Here and Now
So after such a lovely holiday why would anyone be feeling melancholy? Well at work I'm under an attack of sorts. Because I was sent to Parkersburg I fell behind at work and my Director reviewed my charts. Now I'm faced with a write up if everything isn't corrected in all 53 charts by Friday. So I'm definately getting written up, because try as I might, I've not been able to see all of my patients and update all of their files. I have no will to do it. I can't concentrate because I'm so upset and pissed at management and the whole situation! Who knows at that place? Maybe they'll fucking fire me!

So my job sucks. I've been missing my friends a little since they've been gone. I'm pissed off that I'm fat. And spending all of this time with my niece and godchildren has made that thing in me that wants to be a mother even more aware that I want a family. Then I think about how far away it seems that I am from actually acheiving that.

*sigh*I want to fall in love...with someone healthy, rational, responsible, and who doesn't have a substance abuse problem! I want to fall in love, get married, have kids... Be a faithful and doting wife...be a loving and giving mother!
If I were in a relationship with someone I love and respect, I'd get married tomorrow and start working on building a family whenever we were ready.

But I think that I am in love with the idea of love. I'm beginning to believe that I might not find that someone who I'm nutz about and who is nutz about me too with whom I can have my little dream family. I think I'll probably end up marrying a good, good friend and just procreating. Or worse...I'll find myself a lonely old spinster.

Too much thinking.

On another note...
I started my guitar lessons this Monday past. My task for this week is to work on building calluses on the fingertips of my left hand so that it won't hurt when I finger the strings. I practiced my little scales for over 30 minutes yesterday and an hour today. I also played the little one line fingering exercises...and I was so proud of myself! I called Ben to let him hear my ridiculous monotonous picking of the scales. I'm so retarded sometimes. :)

These lessons are actually the bright spot in my life right now. Thanks, Ben!