Word Vomit.

Music Monday: Hey Boxelder...

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 07:39:00 PDT

So, Motion City Soundtrack's new album came out last Tuesday, and I'm digging it. I also have less than two weeks until I get to see them again - and in New York, so go me. Fingers are crossed that they play "Hangman", although that never seems to be on any of the setlists - which the band is pretty good about posting to Tumblr. I feel like my only chance of seeing it played live is when they play entire albums in their entirety in shows, like they have in the past. I was too broke to go last fall when they did it in New York. I have essentially vowed to not stop seeing them in concert until I hear that song live..so I may be chasing them for a while. This upcoming concert will be the fourth time I've seen them.

I feel like this whole new album has taken a slightly emo direction - Justin Pierre writes some of his best stuff when less than happy. This song, "Boxelder", is probably my favorite (although that's entirely subject to change on a whim) on "Go".

Enjoy :)

Greetings from BDL Gate 4

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Fri, 25 May 2012 12:16:21 PDT

South Carolina bound, as discussed earlier this week. Got 2 hours to kill as security here takes a grand total of 5 minutes.

Smell ya later Connecticut.

That nagging feeling.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:00:12 PDT

Friday night I'm heading to South Carolina for a week-ish to see my parents and little sister.

While I'm free of the "ZOMGZ I'M GONNA HAVE TO PEE AND MISS MY PLANE" nightmares from the last time I did this...seriously, it was my first time flying alone...I still feel a sense of dread about how this is going to go. As we know, peace with my parents is a very fragile thing and I just have a nagging feeling something is going to go amiss and part of the time I'm there I'll be miserable.

Then again, last time I went for 2 weeks and a week was the timeframe where my dad and I started getting on each other's nerves, so maybe this will be the perfect length of time.

Regardless, I can't wait to see my sister, who's gonna be 13 (holy shit, that makes me feel ancient).

Fingers crossed for no drama and hopefully I'm just driving myself nuts for nothing.

Music Monday: Guardian

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:00:03 PDT

It's about time we get some new Alanis Morissette. Seriously. Apparently she's coming out with a new album this summer.

In a world where we have people singing "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" and make an obscene amounts of money off of it, I'm glad to have Ms. Overlarge Vocabulary back :)

Perspective, Courtesy of Shit My Dad Says.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:00:09 PDT

Heh. Truth?

Once upon a time, it was actually my job to help people shit. Among other things - like cleaning it up, being peed, puked on, slapped around by the dementiaed (is that a word? it sounds nicer than demented at any rate) elderly.

But now, I indirectly help people shit when I enter all fifteen laxatives the doctor wants them on because their narcotic cocktail binds them up -.so they print on a medication kardex so the nurse knows how much and when to give it to them.

I guess I should feel better about staring at a computer all day when I have those days when I wish I was back at the nursing home running my ass off because it seems more productive :)

That said, I do miss patient care - however I make way more doing what I do now, and I really couldn't go back to being a nurse's aide for the paltry pay (Thanks Medicare and Medicaid - reimburse homes more so they can afford to pay people what they deserve for what they do) unless I could get into a hospital - which all want you to have phlebotomy experience and EKG experience. /endrant.

But really. Thanks Justin Halpern's Dad. Thank you for providing perspective that my job is actually important.

1Q84: The Mount Everest of Books.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:30:00 PDT

For the past 2 weeks I had been reading a book called 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. To say this book is a hulking beast is an understatement. The hardcover is 900+ pages, and the eBook clocks in at 1024.

I checked the hardcover out at the library back in November, and ended up giving up because it just sucked to lug around. I did vow to get a copy for my Nook and finish though. Because I'm cheap - and thanks to Apple, eBook prices are grossly overinflated - I really didn't feel like dropping $15 on the Nook book from B&N, so I was lucky enough to find that my library had an eBook copy, which I finally got around to borrowing two weeks ago.

It's hard to say what originally interested me about this book. The hardcover is a nice, thick, imposing tome - and the print is pretty damn tiny, so it's much more dense, than say the longest Harry Potter, which was, what, 800something pages. (Was that Order of the Phoenix or Goblet of Fire? I don't remember. I think it was OOtP...because looking back after reading it, I was astonished that I knocked that sucker out in 2 days.) Whereas JK Rowling can keep an action story flowing, this book didn't have much "action" per se, and I actually found it kind of hard to get going with it. Once I hit the 2nd book (Yes, this is really 3 books in one - they were released separately in Japan, but all together here) things started picking up a bit, and the last 250 pages I plowed through - however it still took me two solid weeks to read this thing. The cover, which you can see above, is an interesting image, and I am one of those idiots who can get sucked into a book based on a really cool looking cover. I've read some real steaming piles of crap with that method.

I normally don't go for dystopian or sci-fi things. I like light and funny, of which this book was neither. As I read it, I got the feeling that had it been in print when I was in high school, my AP English teacher, who I had in junior and senior year, would have made us read this. (This is a man who assigned us about 10 books to read over the summer between 11th and 12th grade - because he's effing nuts. Still one of the best teachers I've had, but yeah...) The language used was very overdescriptive, and he was a fan of assigning those types of books.

Without giving a whole lot away, the book follows the lives of two people, Tengo and Aomame, who have been deeply connected to each other since the fifth grade, but haven't seen each other since. Tengo is recruited to ghostwrite a book called Air Chrysalis for his shady editor. The book was written by a 17 year old girl named Fuka Eri, and Tengo's shady editor wants to enter it into a contest, but thinks it needs to be strengthened in order to win. Aomame is a personal trainer who is sort of a hitwoman of sorts for a rich old woman. Both Tengo and Aomame end up being transported into the world discussed in Air Chrysalis for the express purpose of finding one another, and the book follows their winding path of fate to run into each other again.

Being that the book is not normally what I would read, I'm pretty surprised that I liked it as much as I did. Like I said above, I'm not a fan of books that get overdescriptive, and this is one thing that annoyed me. I really don't give two shits about the intricacies of the meals the characters are eating. I also didn't like how the chapters switched points of view, although they were marked as to whose point of view it was in, so that did decrease confusion a bit. It was just annoying to read something in one chapter, and then in the next chapter have it be rehashed from the perspective of the other character.

Bottom line: It was an enjoyable epic, and I'm glad I read it. Do I think I'll be spectacularly affected like some people on Goodreads who reviewed? No. However, I would not be opposed to reading more of this guy's work. Apparently he's quite the big deal in Japan.

You can get it for Nook here, Kindle here, and Google here if you are so inclined.

LOL Oh, Connecticut.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:45:00 PDT

In the last week or two we've made some good choices in this state, and some piss poor ones. Right now, in my opinion we're about 50-50 on good decisions.

The Capital in Fartford.

The Bad:
The assinine New Britain-Fartford busway has yet to have its funding pulled. - This is one of the few things I can agree with a Republican on. It's a complete effing waste of money. Yes, Hartford traffic sucks, and I-84 is a headache 95% of the time, but seriously...why don't we properly fund Metro-North and upgrade the rolling stock to something newer than the 80's (and that's being generous, there are M2's from the 70's hanging around) faster than the snail's pace that the M8's are being launched. Or here's a concept: You want to improve commutes to Hartford? Why don't you stop being cheapskates and set up a real Springfield to New Haven commuter train service - one that will make the Amtrak Springfield-New Haven shuttle look like a joke. The path of the Amtrak line now is comparable to the stupid busway - and the existing infastructure is there. We have a surplus of Mafersa passenger coaches we bought from a commuter line in Virginia sitting in New Haven with some capable, albeit old diesel engines to pull them. They were bought for Shoreline East service - but there's enough of a reserve to use them. Yes, people may have to drive to Berlin, but really - they were gonna have to drive to New Britain too. Run some CT Transit buses to the Berlin from New Britain if people don't have cars. Rail is grossly underutilized in this state away from the immediate shoreline - threats to close Metro-North branches in budget crunches anyone? Anyway - I feel myself going off on a railfan biased tangent, so I'll just stop here. Bottom line, it's a waste of money.

Repealing the Death Penalty - This one's a contentious one, yes it saves money, but if the death penalty process in Connecticut was a little more expeditious, like Texas, then it might be more cost-effective. I'm not saying we have to execute the volume of people that Texas does - but a little expedience would be nice. There is no reason why thirty years need to pass between sentencing and execution. Personally, I think that the process needed to be reformed, perhaps a limit to appeals, but I do still think that the option should still remain for people who commit especially heinous crimes if they get caught red handed. However, my opinion, as well as that of the majority of the state, which still supports the death penalty obviously don't matter, so that's all I have to say about that.

The Good:
Legalization of Medicinal Marijuana - Regardless of your stance on people using the drug recreationally, medicinal marijuana has legitimate merit. It hasn't totally been legalized yet...the state legislature has passed it, so it's only a matter of time until the governor signs it, which he has said he will. Honestly, we have synthetic THC in pill form - just let people use it naturally. A month's supply of Marinol at QID (4x/daily) dosing has a pretty obscene out of pocket price - an ounce of weed on the street is about 1/3 of the price. (No, I don't partake, I just know these things...and people who do. Okay? As for the price of Marinol, I work at a pharmacy - plus the mail order pharmacy employees use has a price quote generator, which is where gathered that information.) Obviously if we went through the effort of developing a synthetic THC pill, there are medicinal qualities. Simple as that. It should be no different than a script for any opiate. Yes, people are going to abuse it - how many pill poppers do you know? Arguably an addiction to Vicodin, Xanax, Oxycodone, Percocet, or anything else of that ilk is more dangerous than abusing weed. Society will not crumble. Plain and simple.

Sunday Liquor Sales - Honestly, you would be astonished how many people were unaware that you can't buy a 6 pack of your favorite brew on Sunday in Connecticut. I have never understood the reasoning behind the antiquated law in today's world. At most, it's a minor annoyance - say you're having a football party or something and forgot to buy the booze Saturday before 9pm. You're SOL unless you want to drive to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or New York. Obviously, a little advanced thought and planning would save the aggravation, but it just doesn't make sense. Bars are allowed to be open Sunday, why not package stores? Honestly, I'd rather see someone go to the liquor store, pick up their libation of choice, and go home and get trashed in front of their TV than the same person going to a bar, getting trashed and attempting to drive home. Now we're out of the dark ages. The bill has been signed, and now sales are allowed between 10am and 5pm Sunday. I'm not sure if this is immediate or if there's a certain start date though. I realize that way back when, blue laws had a place, but not now. I'm glad we're out of the dark ages. Also, I know it's probably going to amount to a piddly amount of additional tax revenue, but anything will help in this state.

/endrant

Music Monday - Y'all Just Need To Relax ;)

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 07 May 2012 09:15:00 PDT

I have absolutely no idea how the BF discovered Wax, but it seems to be all he listens to lately. I normally don't like rap, but I do like him.

This song is called "Relax" - and 90's kids ought to appreciate it - yes, the background sample is from Doug - which was one of my favorite shows as a little kid.

I actually came very close to getting the BF tickets to see him for his birthday - but I couldn't get the time off work to go, because it was a New York show during the week =(

Another amusing song of his is called "Fail" - which heavily samples the loser music from The Price is Right. On its own the song is great - and the video I linked to is basically a glorified Failblog video, so it's good for a lol or two.

If you're interested, you can download both of his mixtapes here for free. No, I'm not directing you to some sketchball piracy site either, he links to it on his own website! Relax is on "Eviction Notice", Fail is on "Scrublife Mixtape".

Enjoy one of the few rap/hip-hop Music Mondays I will ever do.

Make Your Own Passion Tea Lemonade.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:09:13 PDT

So this whole kick started last week. The BF sent me to get him a Frapuccino from Starbucks, and the only Starbucks we have around here is the one in Target. I was jonesin' for a Passion Tea Lemonade pretty badly.

I make my way through Target picking up the miscellaneous crap I need...pay...and then go to the Starbucks counter. The barista chick is messing with something and says in a snotty voice "We're closed."

SERIOUSLY, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU CLOSE A STARBUCKS IN THE MIDDLE OF A TARGET ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON?!

I turned around and walked back to the tea aisle and got a box of passion tea bags made specially for making iced tea (they probably are double strength - they're bigger than normal though, each one makes 2 quarts.

On the back there's a recipe for the passion tea lemonade. While this doesn't taste 100% exactly like the real deal It's fairly close. I hear if you use Simply Lemonade, it tastes closer. However, I have a perfectly good can of Country Time pink lemonade mix rotting on the kitchen counter, so I used that.

Your Ingredients - Tazo Passion Iced Tea Bags and Lemonade Mix

So what you do is boil a quart (4 cups) of water. Place tea bag in a sauce pan or similar type container and pour the boiling water in. Allow to steep for 5 minutes.

Steeping away. PS: Passion Tea smells awesome when it's brewing.

While your tea is steeping, make a quart of lemonade in a pitcher per the directions on the mix. If you're using already made lemonade, like the above discussed Simply Lemonade, pour a quart of it into a pitcher. Add some ice. When the tea is done steeping, pour it into the pitcher with the icy lemonade. Mix and add some sugar if you like - especially if you normally order your passion tea lemonades sweetened. I don't, and I found that the lemonade makes it sweet enough. Add more ice if you plan on serving immediately, otherwise stick it in the fridge at let it chill until you're ready to enjoy. If you're like my aunt and have the reusable cold cups they sell at Starbucks, feel free to add to the illusion that this is a real passion tea lemonade.

When the tea is sufficiently cold, do your best to refrain from drinking the entire pitcher in an hour ;)

I don't have a reusable cold cup, so a plain old glass for me, mmkay?

Voila, this is not by any means some super secret recipe. It's on the box of tea bags :)

Dear Facebook, nice try, but you're not going to save the world. Sorry.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:13:20 PDT

Today Facebook announced that you can enter your desire to be an organ donor as a "life event" in your timeline. After taunting that they were introducing a "life saving" feature, I was a little disappointed with today's revelation.

This is all well and good for promotional value. If even one self-absorbed airhead decides they want to be an organ donor because of Facebook, then that's one more chance at life for several people if said airhead ends up in the position to be donating organs, which is fabulous. Believe me, as someone who works in healthcare, I kind of have to applaud this measure. However, I hope the attention that this brings to organ donation actually spurs people to discuss their choice with relatives who would be in the position of relaying their wishes to the doctors if the situation arises. I'm pretty sure that it won't become acceptable medical practice to consult one's Facebook page to ascertain whether or not they want to donate organs if that time comes. It's pretty useless for someone to decide to donate their organs and then to keep the information to themselves. Facebook will allow you to hide the event from your timeline, which renders the benefit of doing this pretty useless.

If Facebook thinks they can revolutionize organ donor status, they're wrong. Merely posting one's wishes won't do a damn thing. Yeah, you can go into detail about how and why you decided to become a donor, but really? How much crap do you ignore in your newsfeed? I don't know about you, but I've hidden a lot of people. I can't deal with their incessant whining of "woe is me" or bragging that their life is just so friggin picture perfect - but I feel obligated to keep them around for appearances' sake and to avoid hurt feelings.

My point is, this new thing will only be effective if people are inspired to have this discussion with the people who matter - not the 500 people you kinda sorta know online. If Facebook thinks they're going to make a measurable difference by making this a "life event", then they're sorely mistaken. If only they could figure out a way to make the conversation happen - offline...then they would be onto something.

That said, I do think it's nice that Mark Zuckerberg is inspired to do this because he was friends with Steve Jobs - who, in case you didn't know, was the recipient of a liver transplant, which ended up prolonging his life.

Here's video of a Good Morning America segment where he discusses this new feature.

What do you think about this? Do you think it will help or make absolutely no difference at all? Have you decided to become an organ donor because of Facebook?

Music Monday - All Alright

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:15:00 PDT

Honestly, when I was watching some back episodes of Grey's Anatomy I knew the voice in this song was familiar.

I didn't realize it was Fun. of "We Are Young" fame. I also didn't realize they're of the Fueled by Ramen persuasion - which means label-wise, they're in the company of some of my favorites, like Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy, and Paramore.

At any rate, I love the message in this song - of course some of that might be attributed to the fact that the moment in the Grey's episode it was featured in was the culmination of one of the most emotionally draining episodes in the history of the show...that said, I still found myself humming the chorus for the next three days - and I bet now you will be too.

Yesterday I downloaded the entire "Some Nights" album and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:15:00 PDT

I guarantee none of you will find this as amusing as I do, however today is the day of the monthly staff meeting for our department, so it fits :)

Music Monday - True Romance

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:05:29 PDT

As threatened last week, this week's installment of Music Monday features "True Romance" by Motion City Soundtrack.

Sounds like they're kind of going back to the "Even If It Kills Me" sound, which is okay by me...I loved that album.

I can't wait until June 12th when the new album comes out. I also can't wait until they decide when they're going to announce their June 29 tour date - which as their Tumblr says is TBA - and is between their Boston and Philly dates - so the logical locale would be New York or Connecticut. It's been 2 years since this, which is just far too long.

Me and Justin Pierre from Motion City Soundtrack

Music Monday - Steve Miller Band

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:21:00 PDT

I've been in an old school mood lately - and it started with this coming across my iPod on shuffle the other day.

I've pretty much always loved Steve Miller Band - my mom liked playing The Joker on her guitar quite frequently when I was a little kid.

Enjoy. And seeing as Motion City Soundtrack is releasing a new song on iTunes tomorrow, I would expect that to be next week's Music Monday installment, just sayin ;)

Yeah. That.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:00:19 PDT

Book Review: Socialpunk

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:35:31 PDT

Disclaimer: I was recruited to write this review, however I'm not actually getting paid for it, and honestly, my feelings about the book would be exactly the same if I had happened to stumble across it. Sure, the author is running a contest for all sorts of stuff, but really - the only conpensation I got was a free copy of the book :)

Socialpunk by Monica Leonelle

The book I'm reviewing is Socialpunk by Monica Leonelle. It's a short read, it clocked in at 180 pages on my Nook. If I had actually sat and read it on continous days, it would have taken me absolutely no time at all to read, but life is distracting.

Anyway, this story to me is a cross between sci-fi and fantasy. The description on the page for the Nook book reads:

Ima would give anything to escape The Dome and learn what’s beyond its barriers, but the Chicago government has kept all its citizens on lockdown ever since the Scorched Years left most of the world a desert wasteland. When a mysterious group of hooded figures enters the city unexpectedly, Ima uncovers a plot to destroy The Dome and is given the choice between escaping to a new, dangerous city or staying behind and fighting a battle she can never win.

Ima is actually an experiment - almost like the Sims. Except this experiment has gone horribly wrong. Ima, or E, as she is sometimes called, has a terribly abusive father, and is in love with a guy who will never reciprocate her feelings...all as a result of this botched experiment.

I'm not a huge fan of writing really detailed reviews, because I'm really bad at keeping from spoilers. I will say that the ending of the book made me think "WTF!?". Leonelle definitely sets the reader up for the next installment, which is apparently due come summertime with that ending. The story kept a nice pace, although about halfway through I couldn't concentrate on it...but that's more of an external issue than the book in and of itself. Like I mentioned above, the ending was kind of a cliffhanger and head scratcher all in one. My one complaint with the book is that it did end rather abruptly.

I'm also not a huge fan of sci-fi, but I did like this story, and I'm excited to read the next installment when it's released :)

You can buy Socialpunk for the Nook here, and if you're of the Kindle persuasion, here.

PS: this is the widget for the contest I mentioned above.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Earworm - Carly Rae Jepsen

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:13:02 PDT

Let's ignore the fact that Justin Bieber's manager signed her or whatever.

This song has exploded in popularity on the robot Top 40 stations in Connecticut, both of which comprise 2/3 of the stations one can actually get to come in at work...so my coworkers who choose to listen to that nonsense have been beating me over the head with it, because they repeat songs once every hour and a half - Hello iPod? This is why I hate the fact that we can't wear headphones whilst we drone away anymore. I try to keep my iPod turned down reasonably...and this drowns out my stuff - although the fact that two people sitting next to each other tune their radios to the same station probably has something to do with it :)

I'll be damned if this song hasn't grown on me in the last 2 days. Even if it is really generic and autotuned. Surprisingly the chick is like 26 or something too.

Canada, I'll make you a deal - we'll keep Ms. Carly Rae, you can take Justin Bieber back. K?

I couldn't resist.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 08:51:30 PDT

Hunger Games Coffee? I saw this at Target Starbucks yesterday and I couldn't resist :)

Saw The Hunger Games last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was one of the few book-based movies in recent memory where I didn't walk out disappointed about omissions. I could have done without the punky little 12 year olds behind us talking - or the stink eye from their mom when we told them to shut the hell up - CONTROL YOUR DAMN CHILDREN IN A MOVIE THEATRE YOU MORON. But after we threatened to get the usher they finally got the hint.

Did you read the Hunger Games? Have you seen the movie yet?

I'm a Quitter, but Watch this Video :)

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:58:03 PDT

I've given up on the whole blogging challenge thing - once a day is tough, once a week would be easier.

Anyhoo, this video is really cool. I came across it on Second Ave Sagas. It's video of the sounds of the subway. Surprisingly it's not all squealing train brakes either ;)

Normally this would appear over at I Haz a Choo Choo Train Problem, which it does - but it's too good to just post there, therefore, I'm posting it here too :) Watch it with headphones. If you've never been to New York or in their subways it gives you a good feel for the atmosphere - except the stations are grungier than the slick editing let you see...and you don't have the smell that is uniquely a New York City subway station. Although if any of them smell like the bowels of Borough Hall Station in Brooklyn on a Saturday afternoon in October with some fungus footed crackhead lady eating a Subway (heh heh) foot long, you're probably better off. That stench is one I won't forget for a while, and in my work in patient care I've seen some nasty wounds that have quite the odor to go with them, so it's not like my nose hasn't had to deal with similar putrid-ness before. At any rate, sit back, plug in some headphones and max this video to full screen :)

BENDING SOUNDS - NYC SUBWAY from Tim Sessler on Vimeo.

Day 8: What are 5 Passions that You Have?

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:28:28 PDT

Hot damn. I've survived 8 days of this. I'm pretty proud of myself.

1. Trains - I would think that's pretty obvious. I never shut up about them - and still manage to broach the topic here several times a month in spite of the fact I made a separate blog for that sort of thing. (If you ignored the link at the beginning of the paragraph, it's here.)

2. Reading - be it on my Nook or the old fashioned way, I love to read, and always have. Even though a lot of why I used to continuously devour books stemmed from escapism and wanting to tune out all the verbal and psychological abuse I dealt with as a kid...some habits still stick. When people say they "hate reading", it's completely unfathomable for me.

3. Food. Yep I'm a fatty. Just have a looksie at the foodspotting widget, which is somewhere over on the right hand side of the page.

4. Helping people - another pretty self-explanatory passion, I want to be a nurse.

5. Shopping - I'm a girl, of course I like to shop. Except for pants. That's just impossibly annoying because no 2 brands fit the same way so one brand's 12 is a 14 in another which is depressing at times.

I think that about sums up today's prompt, considering "passions" are a pretty vague topic of discussion. Or maybe I'm just overthinking it cuz I'm crazy like that.

Music Monday - Gold, Guns, Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:38:36 PDT

I wasn't even going to bother posting a music Monday this week, but this song was stuck in my head all damn day after catching the tail end of it on the radio this morning.

Enjoy yourself some Metric goodness :)

Day 7: What is Your Dream Job & Why?

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:37:28 PDT

Easy peasy. This answer hasn't changed in about 10 years.

I want to be a nurse...probably labor and delivery, but my Grey's Anatomy addiction and very limited (but very awesome) shadowing experiences in Operating Rooms my senior year of high school make me want to be an OR scrub nurse as well. During high school I went into these shadowing experiences convinced any sighting of copious amounts of blood would make me hurl. I actually found my OR shadowing to be pretty fun...and the blood didn't make me sick.

I still doubt I could handle being an ER or Trauma nurse - this is why I never bothered getting certified as an EMT my senior year - but then again, if I did that, I'd have missed out on the shadowing. But then again, who knows...when I finally do get the money to go to nursing school and get to the clinical/extern parts that my friends are in now and make me jealous of all the cool things they see, maybe I'll be in the ER when a massive trauma rolls in and be cured of that notion too. Or maybe some other facet of nursing will catch my interest more than L&D or working in the OR. Who knows.

I also harbor a small desire to be a Metro-North conductor, but I have a very low tolerance for stupid people, so the drunk/druggie/annoying passengers would probably piss me off pretty quickly. On Twitter I follow someone who's a conductor for PATH and he's told me quite a few stories about drunks kicking out train windows, puking all over, ect...so on and so forth. I cleaned pee, poo and vomit for the elderly and infirm for 3 years, if you're going to puke all over my train because you're completely hammered, that's another story entirely. So yeah...probably not a good career choice, no matter how much I like trains.

I also wouldn't mind being a pharmacist either, but it would have to be at a place like I work at now - long term care, supplying drugs to nursing homes, group homes, and the like. I've heard way too many horror stories about retail pharmacy to EVER want to be a pharmacist some place like Walgreens. Too bad that takes even LONGER to do than nursing and requires more money that I don't have...unless work finally gets a tuition reimbursement program.

Day 6: What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:12:49 PDT

~~September 4-7, 2011~~ (Wait, never mind)

Honestly, I would have to say the hardest thing I've ever experienced is being blindsided and fired from a job I held for two years...never getting a straight answer as to why they reached the conclusion of their investigation. (Seriously, it was a dementia patient's word against mine. She routinely hallucinated about cooking and seeing her husband...and I had a witness who stuck up for me and they still fired me.)

I have my own conclusions as to why this happened, namely money, as the patient who complained about me had other mistreatment at the hands of agency staff that came in to work at the nursing home I worked at - and this home did not accept medicaid, so unless you were paying via medicare, they were getting the full $350+/day private pay rate from these patients. The patient's daughter was married to a man whose family is well known in these parts as half of a construction conglomerate. I'm fairly sure the conversation between the patient's daughter and the nursing home administration went as follows: "Terminate who was responsible, or we're going to move Mom somewhere else".

Let me tell you - to have state nursing home inspectors and the state police call you for "your side" and then have them tell you that they have no reason to believe that you're lying...that's pretty fucked up. In spite of that, the economy was at the height of being in the shitter (this was summer 2009) and jobs were in short supply so I still felt like an asshole having to skirt around the inevitable interrogations about why I left my previous job.

In retrospect, I survived - my credit rating took a sound beating because my credit cards were the last thing I was worried about paying when I had a brand new car to keep and gas to put in it to go to job interviews - and I still managed to keep a roof over my head. At the time, that month of "summer vacation" as I now look at it, were stressful and sucked.

Day 5: 5 Things That Make You Happy Right Now.

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:44:05 PDT

1. Nibbler. Don't lie. He's adorable.

2. Pinterest - Time suck extrabrdinaire.

3. The Boyfriend.

4. Free time - work is stressful and annoying. It's nice to not have to think about work and all the BS that entails.

5. Train videos. My YouTube subscriptions are full of them, and I like taking them.

Day 5 - easy peasy :)

Day 4: 10 Things You'd Like to Tell Your 16 Year Old Self

noreply@blogger.com (Heather Cheney) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:30:02 PDT

Once upon a time, I did a post like this. As much as I don't want to, I'm going to recycle it...The original, however, is here

Dear Me (Circa 2005), Peel yourself from MySpace and your music and read this.

1. 5 years from now, Fall Out Boy will be on hiatus. Its not a horrific tragedy. Really.

2. Price Rite is not the worst job in the world. Minus that dick of a manager.

3. That creepy freshman on the bus your junior year? He's gonna become your first boyfriend a week after graduation. He's also going to be a completely socially inept reject who you want to dump every three weeks, and after 5 and a half months of dealing with his stupidity, you will. He'll call you a whore and a slut because you didn't give it up to him...but he'll get the fuck over it eventually after you're out with friends and one of them grabs your phone when he calls and tells him that his face will be ground into the pavement if he calls you again. However, dealing with his shit will make you realize when you're 19 and find the most amazing guy ever...well, he'll find you...that he's your knight in shining armor and you'd do well to hang on to him.

4. That said, you are not a piteous freak, as you like to call yourself on your blog.

5. Don't waste your money on Academy of Driving. They sucked and you won't get your license until you're 18 bee tee dubs.

6. That kid you're pining over in math class? About 4 years from now he's gonna tell you he has feelings for you and its going to be super awkward because you've got a boyfriend who's amazing and you have no intention of leaving. You will end up not talking after becoming decent friends, which sucks. You will be there when he's puking his brains out on his 21st birthday and end up sitting on a gross ass bar bathroom floor with him because nobody else will. You'll also step in his puke and not really care either.

7. You will not be blogging on ebloggy anymore.

8. You will still be in contact with Brian Birdi via Twitter and Badmonkey via Facebook.

9. Going back to #6, based on conversations had with said individual you'd do best to grow a pair and do something about your infatuation.

10. Your dad is full of shit, you won't be going to WestConn because your parents aren't going to give you a dime for college, in fact they're going to up and leave CT for SC in December 2007.

11. You will kick ass on the SAT's even though that means nothing because you won't have enough money to go to college.

12. Your parents are pretty awful, but things will get better. Ish.

13. Tonay WHOAmack will still be a relevant part of your life in 2012.

14. Mike Mussina will retire the year before the Yankees win the World Series again.

15. When you're 19 and some kid from Harwinton messages you on Facebook, agree to go out with him sooner than like 2 weeks after initial contact...you will not regret this

16. When you're going to lose your V-Card, don't contemplate it for so long...the guy is not an asshole, trust :)

17. You're not going to miss your plane when you go see your parents in June 2008.

18. Cherish the bullshittery in Bishop's class junior year....senior year it will double in size and you won't be able to get away with shit!

19. The OC will end. You will not feel shattered.

20. You will get a boyfriend in due time.

21. Don't talk to the Incest Whore, she will jeopardize one of your best friendships...if you do, it will survive...but it will suck monkey balls in the meantime.

22. Stop embracing your antisocialness so much.

23. That other kid you liked...yeah...he doesn't like you. Get over it.

24. Don't introduce Jess to Will. Your life will have so much less drama.

25. Kayci and Doug will break up for good.

26. Mariza will never get the stick out of her ass..until she starts dating Seth...it will be much smaller then, but still there.

27. Tell Jamie to go fuck himself when being an asshole to you.

28. You won't go to the senior England, Ireland, and Wales trip: fixate on something else.

29. You won't be shunned by half the people you hang around with now for speaking the truth with Liz.

30. April will stop pining over the good guys, and date a string of douchebags, ending with her being knocked up.

31. Prom will still be fun, even though you didn't have a date. And finally...

32. Whatever seems like a tragedy now, won't be in 5 years

Love <3,
Yourself (Circa 2012)

Okay, after yesterday's doozy of an emotional rant, this one is a lot lighter - but actually fitting because you can kind of see a snapshot into my mind at that time, which was in the thick of the crap described.