KRISTA OVERBY BEST FRIEND

I haven’t been writing much.  The only answer I have for this is that I’m content and when I’m content I have nothing to write about…because I’m mostly drivin to write about negative things.  I like to write about crazy people and bad experiences and things that make me want to hit people.  I haven’t felt like hitting anyone lately…hence the quiet blog.  This can’t be a good thing.  I shouldn’t only feel like being creative when things are bad, but I don’t think I’m alone in this.  Just look at most artistic types…the batshit crazy, the alchoholics, the depressed.  You show me one positive, fully-functional creative adult and I’ll show you a person who can only write pop songs about sincere boyfriends and candy. 

That being said, I don’t want to give this up.  I also don’t want it to turn into some cheesy-ass diary about how awesome my life is.  Cause who wants to read that shit?

I don’t want to wish to go back to my old ways either.  Who wants to only ready about my insomnia and various temp jobs?  Ok, the temp jobs were sort of funny.  And I still sometimes miss my one temp boss who told me “make the files or else it gets the hose again”. 

My goal for 2008 is to get my finances back on track so it’s going to be a slim year of livng.  Although I’m sure it won’t hold me back from seeing my share of movies…it will however keep me from taking a trip across the ocean, or even across the country I’m afraid.  My very practical sister Celia has sent me a budget spreadsheet.  I’m pretty sure if I printed it out it would take up about 10 feet of carpeting.  Celia is a budget maniac!  I think she will get me on the right track though…if anyone can do it, she can.

OK, so I’m gonna go back to counting down the minutes before I can leave work and go watch Eagle vs. Shark on DVD. 

Alone.  I feel alone.  I miss having my own friends.  I’m living with some of my best friends, but I feel lonely because I’m fallen into their life and am desperately seeking to build one of my own.  I’m sitting here alone tonight and want to call someone so bad and say, hey what are you doing, want to hang out?  But I have no one.  I’ve chosen this, I know I have.  I just want to fast forward this part of the “Krista’s New Life” and stop on the point when I have a job and a place to live and some friends.  Ah shit, I’m just feeling sorry for myself.  I’m going to try to stop now.

I know, I’ll rate my temp job!  Yeah!

Of course, the temp ratings are as follows:

1 = Hellish
3 = Are they serious with this shit?
5 = Fine, if you have no expectations
7 = Niiiice
10 = Are there any job openings?

I grade the following perks: snacks and drinks, chair, other admins, boss man, location, and extras.

1.  Snacks and Drinks - (6) I knew when I moved to Denver the work scene would be a little different.  I don’t know why or in what way, it’ just something I thought…in my head.  So, basically I had low expectations.  Saying that I was pleasantly surprised when the company I’ve been temping for - I’ll call it, Doctors Can Be Pricks, offered free water and diet coke.  Nice work.  Sadly, they don’t offer coffee, although they do have a coffee maker…but no one ever makes the coffee.  Perhaps I should?  Nah…I’ll just complain about not having any.
2.  Chair - (5) - I haven’t really thought much about my chair, which can only mean it’s fully adequate.  In fact I couldn’t even tell you what color it is and I’ve worked there almost 3 weeks.

3.  Other Admins - (7) - it’s a really small office.  Only 3 other people.  They are very nice.   Of course, everyone seems to be nice in Denver.  Oh, everyone except the Doctors I have to work with.  Luckily, I only have to deal with them via email and the phone, but the majority of my interactions involve them being total dicks.  Today I got an email from a Doctor telling that, “in health care we use the title Doctor when addressing an email” I mistakenly thought she was a nurse and didn’t write, Dear Dr. when emailing her about something…it was a really patronizing email and I wish I could remember the whole thing.  Jeez, I know she was in school while I was spending my time smoking pot and reading crappy novels, but shit man, give a temp a break.  I would have figured it out eventually and seriously, do you think getting an email every now and again that doesn’t address you as Doctor would really be so bad?  Next time I write you I’m gonna address you as Doctor, but in my head all I’m going to be thinking about is bitch bitch bitch.

4.  Boss Man - (7) - He’s a strangely reticent individual.  He doesn’t speak much, but he seems fine.  I wish I could say more…he has a nice beard.

5.  Location - (6) - When I drive, it’s a dream.  It’s probably the shortest commute I’ve ever had.  Only about 15 minutes door-to-door.  And they have me a remote door opener to the underground parking lot…sweet.  However, I don’t get the car all the time…especially now that I’ve been told my driving days are over and now I move into the days of public transportation.  Today was my first day as a bus commuter.  The journey was short, but the wait for the bus was way long.  The buses only come about twice and hour, which sucks.  It took me over an hour to get home today…suckety suck suck.  The buses are nice here though.  They are rarely crowded and the seats are padded…lux!

6.  Extras - (7) - I got taken out to lunch the other day!  Whooo.  It was Mongolian barbecue…nice.  I love a good buffet o meat.  They also brought me back a water bottle from some conference.  Whoop.  The profits of tempdom are high.  Sure, you don’t get benefits and you know that tomorrow you could be told not to come in, but then again…you get the pleasure in knowing that tomorrow you might not have to come in.

You know how hard it is not to have the last Harry Potter book spoiled while working at a summer camp? Very hard. So hard in fact that we’ve had to have several announcements during camp explaining how we don’t talk about Harry Potter at camp. It’s turning into the book that shall not be named. Out of the 30 staff members here I would say about 20 of them are reading the book. I haven’t yet got a good number on the campers reading it, but I will tomorrow because I’m organizing a group photo of everyone here and their book. It’s gonna be pretty sweet. So far no one has spoiled anything. I’m about 1/4 of the way through the book. Wish me luck.

I had a crazy age moment the other day. I was speaking to a camper about music. She’s 14 and pretty music savvy for her age. I was speaking to her like I would any of my friends about music and shows she has been to. When all of a sudden age came up and another camper asked me how old I am. When I said, 32, the camper I was speaking to about music sat up straight and said, “My dad is 32!” I just about choked. Her dad is 32! Holy hell! Granted her parents had her young, but still it go me thinking. I could be most of these kid’s parent. I COULD BE THEIR PARENT! If I had kids when my parents did I would have 8 year old and a 2 year old looking up at me right now asking me to take them to Chuckie Cheese. Thank heavens that’s not the case, if not for me, for those damn kids who probably would be saving up already for future therapy sessions. Crazy thoughts. I do want to have kids one day…as I say that my eggs are laughing their asses off saying, “Krista in 3 more years you will be considered high risk and we are developing genetic issues as you write in your silly blog!” Ok, so yeah, I’m taking my good ole time and I’m sure my eggs and my mother is thinking I’ve waited too long, but I think I’ve probably made a good decision by not popping out a litter in my 20’s. I think my future kids agree with me.

One more thought before I go. This one is about underwear (and I will let you draw your own conclusions if this has anything to do with me not procreating yet or not). As most of my friends know, I like to wear big undies. Yes. Big Undies. Granny panties if you will. I like full coverage over my cheeks. Don’t get me wrong, I like to feel pretty, but my comfort always wins out over sexy. So all of my friends make fun of me, I probably get the worst of it from my little sister who always looks at me in horror when she gets a look at my giant underpants peaking out (ok, it’s more of a peak and more of a 4 inch stare). I also have some underwear that’s bigger than others. Like I have this pair of skin colored undies that are so big I can pull them out from my pants and pull them up over my breasts. Yeah. Those are really big…and stretchy. And one time I chased my friend Lu around my house with my big undies up over my chest yelling, “Big Undies!” until he screamed like a girl and passed out. Anyway, you get the picture. Big Undies, I wear them. So, I’m hear at camp and you know what I notice. There are a lot of big undie wearers here! Everywhere I look I see inches of stretchy cotton coming out of pants! Maybe I’ve finally found my people!

Or maybe I’ve finally found a place where adult woman don’t have anyone to impress, sweat a lot, run around after kids and realize that comfort is the way to go. Perhaps some of them will leave camp never to return to the bikini bottom? I doubt it, but while I’m here I feel like I’m home.

Here I am in D.C.! I am officially not a resident of NYC…unless having the Bet-meister (my cat) still living with Josh counts…and that I also am still getting my mail sent to Josh’s….and that I really don’t have a residence anywhere else yet and….ok, so I’m in a residence limbo.

Leaving NYC hurt so bad. Most of the hurt came when I fell down Josh’s stairs right before I left. Friends, I fell hard down those wooden stairs. Right on my ass. It’s funny what happens when get you hurt. The first thing I always do is take an inventory of the pain. Basically, just to make sure I haven’t hurt something that will hinder my ability to walk or type. Luckily, my pain was relegated mostly to my ass-region and my lower left leg. Nothing that would need medical attention. Phew. However, the pain was intense. My ankle ended up swelling and so did my butt cheek. Yes, when you can see your butt cheek has swollen you know you have problems. I’m still in pain, everywhere I go I am limping and holding my ass. It’s not a pretty sight. But I shall survive. It’s one of those things where I feel like Jebus was like, hmmm, you are emotional right now, lets give you some physical pain too! And it will be good.

I threw a goodbye party for myself on Friday night. I wasn’t going to, but all of my friends were like, You have to! And it has to be a Karaoke party! I think they just wanted an excuse to get drunk and sing, but I am a good friend, so I humor them. I have some awesome pictures, I need to post them. Josh and Tom were in rare form and they sang their little hearts out…God bless ‘em. Oh, and guess who showed up at my party, completely uninvited! Jay, from the first season of Project Runway. Ha, we are all such reality show bitches we were star struck. He and all of his friends were all completely dressed in black and showed their appreciation of performances by flipping us the bird…is that the cool way of telling us we are awesome, cause that’s how we took it. You can’t bring us down reality star and your posse! We built this city on rock and roll and we had the time of our lives!

Now excuse me while I put more ice on my ass.

I was thinking the other night about downloading music and what it means for the poor old cd.  I am a child of tapes and a teenager of cds - meaning, I guess, that when I was a child (excluding my first Kiss albums) my music came on tapes and when I turned about 14 I got my first cd player and from there on out it was all cds.  As a kid I would get actual tapes from the store or tape music directly from the radio…oh the good ole days.  It took a lot more patience back then to accomplish that sort of thing.  You would have to wait for the radio station to play the song you wanted and be ready with your tape recorder…and pray that your little sisters wouldn’t come in and yell something which would interfere with the recording….because remember for all of you born after 1980 - the tape recorder was taping from your speakers, not internally.

Anyway, where am I going with this…basically I’m thinking about why I love my cds so much and even now when I could easily download new music I still will go and buy a cd most of the time.  And I think it’s for the same reason I buy books and don’t go to the library.  Because there is a slight chance this book with be so good that I couldn’t part with it.  The book becomes the physical thing I can hold on to when I’m finished reading.  I can just glance at my bookcase and see it sitting on the shelf and it makes me happy - like getting a hug from a friend.  And I love my cds the same way, even when I’m not listening to the music I can see the cd cover in passing and think back on how the music makes me feel.  And going one step further, I love physical cds because they come, if I’m lucky, with lyrics and I’m a person who can’t help but sing along.  I also love liner and artist thank you notes.  It just takes me one more step closer to knowing, or feeling like I know, what the musician was thinking about when they created the music.  Because if I love the cd, like I love Chinatown by The Be Good Tanyas, for instance, I want to be able to cram every ounce of them into my brain…and I feel like I get that from buying actual cds.

NOW, I know what you are thinking - A, Krista you are making not one ounce of sense or B, Krista - um haven’t you heard of websites??  And my answer is this - I know I am not making sense, but this is my blog and I don’t always have to and B, but I can’t be on a website all the time.  Like, right now I can see my Chinatown cd…I can look at it and see the cover and smile about how awesome the album is…but I also can see behind it my Patty Griffin album that I was listening to along with it and my Wilco cd…all of it…visually and not virtually.  I suppose that is what I don’t like…I don’t want all of my stuff to be virtual…I don’t want them all to be stored somewhere that I can’t see.  I want them to be sitting in my apartment, next to my books, and my cat, and my shoes….does that make sense?

Can I get an amen?