radiumgirl: (spin)
I totally forgot that Stacy's bridal shower is next week. The actual wedding invitation arrived in the mail today and I was completely touched by the fact that it was addressed to "MaryAnn and Owen."

Idk. I was expecting a "MaryAnn + 1," you know? This silly little card makes me so stupidly happy just because it has our names in fancy print, like it's official that we are "Mary and Owen" and "Owen and Mary" and it's a package deal and not only does everyone know it, but they think it too.

I mean, they could have very easily sent us each our own invitation. It's an Adventureland wedding, so we know the bride and the groom equally well and vice versa. Owen used to work at the same ride as the groom, and I just kinda knew them both from being a pseudo-lifer, having worked in the park long enough to know pretty much everyone at least a little bit, and then the groom was my supervisor for a little while (no, it's not Gabe, but he's the best man) and the bride and I were both managers at the same time and tended to sit next to each other during manager meetings to talk smack on the Splash Zone and the Kiddieland teams because everyone hates them...except guests. So, every meeting was an endless parade of "GOLD STAR FOR THE RACCOON RACE TEAM" while the rest of us are like, "Fuck-off-and-die-violently."

Man, good times.

I'm really stoked for this wedding. An Adventureland wedding! It would have been more adorable if they were getting married at the park, but I mentioned it to the groom once in jest and he said he'd rather stab himself in the eye. But still, the wedding party, most of the guests...there's actually some concern that so many employees are going to need the day off that it's going to turn into Park Drama.

I love Park Drama. Especially when it's not my fault for once.

But aw, this invite, I keep looking at it and smiling and running my fingers over the ink. I sent Owen a picture and he said I was a dork.

Dahn at the Brahn

Sunday, March 27th, 2011 10:11 am
radiumgirl: (gate love)
 Xander, my old roommate, the one who was awesome because he would marathon Supernatural with me but sucked because in every other sense, he was a whiny, lazy, annoying-as-shit roommate, visited my brother for the weekend. I drove up to IUP for the night on Friday because I don't hate Xander...I just hate the idea of living with him.

So, we went to the Brown and it was a lovely time. Really. Xander came, and my brother, and Scrawny!Jared, who is named as such because he holds a startling resemblance to our dear Mr. Padalecki, except, well, he's probably a good foot shorter, and alot alot alot skinnier. In fact, I'm pretty certain that our Jared could probably bench press Scrawny!Jared without much effort.

But still, Scrawny!Jared is fun. He plays the cello. I used to openly lust for him, and he would, in turn, play it up so hard. On my twenty-third birthday, he walked around the party in his underwear and said it was his present to me.

It was a good gang, good music, good crowd. Don-the-Bouncer came and tossed a quarter at my cleavage for old times.

Scrawny!Jared and I actually had a nice conversation about long-distance relationships. I mentioned how I'm moving to Michigan at the end of the summer and he was like, "OMG I'm moving to Ireland this summer!"

"Ireland? Ireland beats Michigan every time, dude. What's in Ireland?" Except, I was pretty drunk at this point, so it probably came out more like, "Was'n Irlan?"

"You remember Joy? My girlfriend?"

"Irish Joy? We called her Irish Joy."

"I know. She thought it was funny. But yeah, her."

"She went back to the old country, eh?"

"Yeah. She lives outside of Belfast, but I'm going with her. After school."

"NO SHIT! That's awesome!" And I gave him a big stupid sloppy hug and bought us both a bottle of Duquesne which was on special, and we toasted to "Long distance relationships and the shit we do for the people we love."

Xander pointed out that we had gone the entire evening without trying to feel one another up and it was unnerving and he didn't like it. Scrawny!Jared and I spared a moment to glare at him, before going back to our Big Dreams and beer.

"D'you love Irish Joy?" I asked.

Scrawny!Jared grinned and nodded and his hair flopped in his eyes. I pushed it away, "Good. I love Owen. We're going to get married. You should come. Bring Irish Joy."

We left a little bit after one, hit up Sheetz for sandwiches and Gatorade. It was quiet and I remember the entire night with no blackouts or anything. So, I was sorely disappointed to wake up yesterday morning with the mother of all hangovers.

Suck Zone

Thursday, March 24th, 2011 06:56 am
radiumgirl: (Elphie)





So uh...I'm just gonna sit this here.

Katrina's mom took it yesterday.
radiumgirl: (chuck bartowski)
 After work, I got pizza with Rooney. Sure, Western PA had been under a tornado warning since the middle of the afternoon, but hey, the pizza place is (kinda) close to home and we never actually get any tornadoes anyway. It's all hype. Yup. Hype.




I'll sit down now.

That picture is actually about ten or fifteen miles north of me. I have a friend whose parents live about a block up from this street. They're okay. Their yard is a mess, but this street appears to have gotten the brunt of it.



I didn't take this picture either. I'm stalking the local news websites. When this picture was taken, I was actually about six blocks up the street, sitting in my car going "Shit shit shit shit shit" as I watched the sky turn green and all the fire-whistles downtown went off at the same time. Rooney and I had just parted ways at the pizza place. We had ridden out the first wave of storms with beer and pizza and tv, and when the weatherman said there was a second wave coming, we realized that we were out of pizza and if we left right now maybe we'd make it to our destinations before Suck Zone II.

That's right. We ventured out of the relative safety of the squat, brick, pizza parlor and into our cars, which we then drove in known tornado-like conditions...because we were out of pizza and slightly bored.

We both hold MAs from accredited universities. America's best and brightest, right here.

I got about five minutes up the road when I looked at the sky, all green and dark and crazy like that and decided, "This might have been a bad idea." I was sitting at a red-light downtown when all the sirens went off and every traffic light instantaneously turned yellow. It could very well have been some electrical glitch...but I took this as a sign: shit's about to get real and you should probably take cover, traffic laws be damned.

I decided on Shop n'Save: brick building, one-level, wide-open parking lot. The wind and the hail was beating poor Lucy the Staypuft Marshmallow Car so badly. I kept wincing and waiting for my windshield to shatter. There are three stop signs on Lincoln Avenue, and I only remember stopping for one. Very very very briefly.

I flew into the parking lot and Shop n' Save's lights flickered, but didn't go out. There were people lined up along the front windows, and some were standing outside beneath the overhang right outside the door. I slammed the car into park, slammed my palm down on the lock button, and stood outside in the freezing wind, rain, and hail trying to open my umbrella like a dunce because, and I remember having this thought exactly, "I don't want to get a concussion from the hail."

Yeah. Your umbrella's totally gonna shield you from golf ball sized hail. Moron.

Needless to say, the umbrella blew away as soon as I ran around the back of the car. I flailed futilely after it, then watched a thick bolt of purple lightening flash across the sky. To my left, the last remnants of pitiful light were consumed by green swirls. To my right, the direction I had driven from, was a wall of black.

The sky roared.

My eyes went O.O

Fuck the umbrella.

I ran forward, watching the gawkers who had been outside quickly fall all over each other in an attempt to get inside. I slid on a puddle and hit the sidewalk with my arms stretched out in front of me and an old guy in a red hat and younger woman in yoga pants grabbed me and yanked me inside.

The Shop n' Save seemed eerily quiet in comparison to the insanity outside. The manager asked us to step away from the windows. I sat on the floor next to a candy rack. The old guy in the red hat said he saw a funnel. I didn't, but it got hard to see after a bit. We couldn't see the cars parked thirty feet away through the hail and the sideways rain. The lights flickered again, but didn't go out.

And then it cleared up, just like that.

I bought a can of coffee, went home, and took a shower because I was soaked through and freezing. There are trees down everywhere, but aside from the occasional siren going off, the world still seems overly quiet in the aftermath of it all.

Oh, hey, and my umbrella was saved from a storm drain at the end of the parking lot. Score!
radiumgirl: (all-star)
So, I'm still going to stalk priceline and orbitz and all the other websites, but I've tried Amtrak and Megabus, had a brief flirtation with Greyhound, and even given the scary discount air carriers a shot and it looks like I'm going to drive. 

Megabus would have actually been sweet, but you can't go west from Pittsburgh. Why? Megabus, I think this is a pretty severe flaw in your network. Please to be fixing it? Because once I move to Kzoo, it would be really awesome to know that I can come home for the weekend for about fifteen bucks and totally spend that time vegetating on the internet on one of your sweet sweet double-decker buses. Just sayin'. 

Anyway, as soon as I mentioned to Owen, "I think I'm just going to drive," he says, "Ok. Oh. I should probably tell you that between taking the Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan turnpikes...your tolls are going to be around sixty dollars."

Great. So, sixty dollars on top of the one-hundred-and-sixty for gas (assuming gas isn't $4/gallon by then) and suddenly that air fare looks more reasonable. 

Except I can work around tolls. I mean, I have a sad love affair with the Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpikes (I am quite the rest-stop connoisseur and no, I don't like the new shiny visitor centers, I liked the shitty old truck-stops with the rape!bathrooms because I felt like a badass every time I made a tinkle), and they are easily the most convenient ways to travel, but the tolls are pretty ridiculous. 

So, my new mission, is to plot out a toll-free route and my inner-fangirl wonders if this is what SAM 'N DEAN do. 

I could hear Owen facepalming through the phone. 

Googlemaps and I are BFFs right now. I pay alot of attention to my mile counter, the estimated travel-time, and, of course, the potential for sweet scenery. I decided I want to look at pretty things, so I'm following the coastline of Lake Erie pretty much the whole way across Ohio. 

This is Port Clinton, Ohio. It is on a peninsula in northwestern Ohio and as soon as I saw it's location on the map, I was like, "OHHHH I BET IT'S REALLY PRETTY THERE."

I wonder if Sam ever gives Dean longer-than-necessary directions just to look at cool shit?

*facepalm*

 
radiumgirl: (brothers)
Title: Ghost in the Machine
Spoilers: None
Genre: AU, For Keeps 'verse
Summary: A few years after the events of Thursday, Castiel drops in for a friendly visit interrogation.
Warnings: damaged!Sam, life-after-the-wall
Disclaimer: Not my sandbox.
Author’s Note: This takes place after A Lullaby for the Boys We Used to Be. but it's not essential that you read it first as long as you have a basic understanding of how this 'verse works. If nothing else, I would at least read Thursday first.

Sometimes it just takes a few minutes for the words to sink in... )
radiumgirl: (kobra kid)
Five hours. That's how long I spent looking for decent air fare to see Owen. We decided on a June date because the school year would be over, and with it, the bulk of his job-duties. I decided on June 2-6...because, like we've established, I'm impatient.

When Owen first got the job in Kalamazoo, I jumped on the chance to fly for a visit. This was back in February, and I geeked out and stalked priceline.com for every combination of tickets, and I remember, back in February, finding round-trip fares in the $150-175 range depending on which airport I flew into. Assuming that gas prices don't leap (which is a pretty big and faulty assumption) it would take about $160 to fuel Lucy the Staypuft Marshmallow Car for a round trip roadtrip to Kalamazoo and back. So I didn't feel bad about splurging on air fare.

Back to those five hours of my life that are gone and missing and never to be seen again.

Fares have jumped in the month since I last looked. The cheapest I can find is $225 if I fly into Chicago at six in the morning. I called Owen and whined because at this point, it'll be cheaper to drive. But I don't want to drive. Not for this first time out. I'm going to have to drive every other time I visit because I won't have the (small) surplus of cash that my tax return afforded me and I'll be moving my stuff into his our apartment.

I just really enjoy flying, okay? Airline stewardess is actually one of my back-up career plans if the get-PhD-and-be-awesome track doesn't work out . I check job postings regularly.

The other day at the lunch table, the big topic of the day was air travel and how horrible it is. I brought it on myself by mentioning the upcoming visit with Owen, but I wasn't dumb enough to wax poetic in front of my co-workers, especially when the conversation turned into a massive bitch-fest. I just kinda smiled and nodded and played the "I'm-a-silly-noob-who-has-no-concept-of-what-air-travel-really-is." And okay, I don't. In all of my 24 years on Earth (as opposed to Mars) I've flown a handful of times. When I was 15, the marching band went to Disney World and we flew from Pittsburgh to Tampa. When I was a junior in college, I presented at a conference in Minneapolis, and last year I presented at a conference in St. Louis, so I'm fully aware that my mindset is still probably stuck in the "OOOH SHINY" mentality when it comes to flying.

There are also probably some unresolved daddy issues in there too. My dad was a pilot in the air force, then a mechanic when he got discharged. One of my most prized possessions is a model of a Lockheed C-141 in air force livery that his squadron gave me at his funeral. He loved flying. We lived close to the base that he worked at when I was a kid, close enough to watch the air shows from our front yard whenever they were held. On 9/11, we stood in the yard in the middle of the night watching planes and helicopters land. They flew low to avoid radar, and we could read the numbers off of their bellies, and my dad would tell me what kind of plane it was, what (or who) it was probably carrying. I feel like a slightly fucked up person to have a fond memory of 9/11, but he was dead three months later, so that was one of the last of the good ones. It's unfortunate that it was brought about by something so horrible, but it is what it is.

ANYWAY. I'm one of those irritating people that stares out the window the entire flight, wondering what all those little people downstairs are doing. I wonder if my dad did that. I take notes on what planes I like and what ones I don't and I wonder if he had a favorite. I have a mad love affair with United Airlines and their in-flight Starbucks. I wonder how he felt about United. I remember that he liked Pan Am.

So. I don't know what I'm going to do about booking a flight. I've tied myself up in so many mental knots in a vain attempt to find sweet fares, but they just aren't there anymore. Owen is willing to drive two-hours in any direction to pick me up. Flying directly into Kalamazoo was nixed from the beginning because the airport is being renovated, so fares are appalling from the get-go. We decided on a two-hour radius because anything further than that, we feel defeats the purpose of flying. I've looked at landing at Chicago, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Lansing, South Bend, and Manistee. I've tried leaving in the middle of the week. I've even looked into the scary discount carriers.

$225. I can't get any lower. And yeah, with my tax return, I can afford it, but I feel like, at that point, I'm being wasteful and stubborn and indulgent.

I can fly to San Diego and back for $120 and that's on the other side of the fucking country. I'm a little bitter over that, actually. Michigan needs more love, people.









TL:DR Air fare is stupidly expensive, so Radium Girl is probably going to drive. She is displeased by this.

Minor Characters

Saturday, March 19th, 2011 08:29 pm
radiumgirl: (Elphie)
Owen is supposed to call me later so that I can figure out when I'm visiting him and buy my plane ticket. It's either going to be April or June because we have a wedding to go to in May, so he'll be coming back to the 'burgh. I'm pulling for April, just because I'm impatient. 

Today, I frolicked at The Waterfront with Chrissy and my brother. We had lunch at PF Changs, which was awesome...but pricier than I thought it would be. I also didn't realize that PF Changs is a moderately classy establishment. I was totally rocking yoga pants and a Homecoming 2007 t-shirt with a half-naked chick bent over a beer keg on it. No wonder the hostess sat us in the back. Heh. 

I was going to get a GRE test prep book at Barnes & Noble because I need to start getting on my PhD application, and before I do that, I have to take the GREs, and my math skills are so not okay. I skimmed a few books and the math was just...humbling, humbling in a bad way. I haven't taken a math class in seven years. Yeah. I can barely get through my multiplication tables. 

I ended up not getting a book at B&N because the cheapest one was $20 and I didn't really like it. I feel bad running to Amazon for everything, but it's cheaper and I'm poor. I considered just getting a math workbook because when I skimmed the language and writing sections, I did alright, but I told myself not to get cocky, and went for the full overview. I only spent $8 on the GRE book, but I love free shipping, so ultimately ended up spending $26, totally defeating the purpose of rejecting Barnes & Noble's offerings, right? 

Yeah, kinda, except that I got three books for that price, two of which are awesome. Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson and I Am No One You Know by Joyce Carol Oates. Minor Characters is a memoir about being a woman among the great figures of Beat literature in the 50s. I love the Beats and I'm fascinated by the lives of the women who walked among them, who largely ended up on the fringes of the movement. I mean, the bulk of womens Beat writing, and certainly the most well-known stuff, is memoir about the men. I'm both intrigued and saddened by this fact. I even wrote a poem about it (a huge feat since I pretty much refuse to write poetry ever) that actually won the 2009 departmental writing contest. The professor who announced the selection and introduced me at the awards dinner actually cried when she read it and I was like *BLUSH BLUSH CRAWL UNDER THE TABLE BLUSH*. I'd really like to study the lady Beats more, possibly do something about them for my dissertation (assuming I get into a PhD program ever) because I really feel like they get overlooked by...everyone. The other Beats, the feminists, anyone who you'd think would give a crap. I was completely shocked when I discovered that female Beat writers even existed.

/tangent

So uh, yeah, that was my Saturday. Now I'm going to try and finish an installment for the For Keeps 'verse. I started it last month, got stuck, came back to it on Friday and it completely ran away in an awesome way...and then company came over, and we went to the Googlie, then we frolicked today, and it was a blast and it was nice to get away for a little bit and see Chrissy and eat coconut curry tofu, but I've been sitting here for two hours trying to get back that same momentum that I had yesterday and I got nada. I don't want to sit on this story for another month, dammit!

Good Omens

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 06:45 pm
radiumgirl: (spin)
 I generally fear my mailbox. I rarely get fun mail. The coupon bundle is the highlight of my week.  Seriously.

Today's mail? Today's mail was awesome.

Two things have been causing me angst lately: the impending verdict of my application for an income-based payment plan for my student loans and news of whether or not I was rehired by Adventureland for the 2011 season.

The student loan wait was reaching ulcer-levels of panic because I applied for the revised payment plan in January and my first payment was due at the end of this month and I wasn't going to have it. Or, rather, I would have the payment, but I'd find myself evicted from my apartment and facing repossession of my car.

But guess what? I was approved. \o/

The Adventureland dilemma wasn't as nauseating because it's not like I don't have a job, and I'm not quitting my temping gig to go back to the park full-time anyway because I practically double my hourly wage over at the Evil Empire, but it would have been nice to have the extra cash, right? Right.

I tend to bite my nails every year before the rehire letters go out because I've come to realize that I'm a rather divisive figure in park mythology. The people who love me love me and the people who hate me really fucking hate me and there are very few people who simply whatever me. And last year, in particular, I may have gotten a little cheeky towards the end of the season, under the impression that I would score a "real" job right out of college and have no need for summer work.

I mean, I didn't tell my boss to fuck off to his face and I didn't kill anyone (you laugh but you haven't met my charges from my last season as a ride manager...none of them were fit to tie their shoes, let alone operate heavy machinery) but I'd show up to work with a shorter-than-regulation skirt, or I'd prank call the switchboard operator and everyone does these things, but I tend to get caught, and flaunt it, because I'm a rockstar immature.

I even called Gabe because I was worried and he hangs out with the hiring manager and I wanted him to do some spywork for me. Gabe was like, "Of course you'll be hired back. You're one of the most experienced workers in the park and your teams love you every year."

"They love me because I don't enforce time limits on breaks and they think it's funny when I come to work hungover."

"Well...you never killed anyone."

Thanks, Gabe. You're a pal. And you have nice abs.

Whatever. I got hired back. Guest Services, bitches.



















Hey switchboard, is your refrigerator running?
radiumgirl: (awkward teddy)
 Well, I've been completely useless today. I was going to go downtown with Chrissy for the St. Paddy's Day parade. It was on my Yinzer Bucket List of things I need to do before I move to Kalamazoo, but I feel like death. I've consumed half a carton of orange juice, one English muffin, and an obnoxious assortment of Day-quil, Alka-seltzer, and Tylenol. 

I think I might actually be a little bit high.

Awesome. 

Maybe my luck will find me in Kalamazoo and I'll get a really sweet job and I can make a special trip next year and have my green beer e'nat, yes? YES?

Yeah, I won't count on it. 

Owen says, "Jesus, they probably have green beer on St. Paddy's day in Kalamazoo. It's not another planet."

"You don't know that for suuuuuuuure. And it's not the saaaaaaaaaaame."

I'm totally sitting here in my four-leaf clover beads from last year, pouting, shoving Vicks up my nose, and wondering if Chrissy will drunk dial me. Probably not. She's always been the classier drunk between the two of us. 
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