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On baseball and revisiting past haunts

by on March 22, 2012, in but in our house we never get bored, jump aboard the crazy train, life etc., past lives, photography

On baseball and revisiting past haunts

Years ago, before Ian and I started dating, we took a trip to Atlanta together to see the Braves play. We had been friends for years, but it was the first out-of-town trip we’d taken together. When we got to the hotel, I fretted a bit over the single bed they assigned us, as I had a boyfriend at the time. I didn’t fret too much, though. It was the first of several trips Ian and I would take as friends, all of which I look back on fondly. Trips that eventually bled the lines between friendship and more. That led me to see who we really were to each other.

This Atlanta trip was not my first to the city, but it was my first Braves game. His dad had gotten us pretty good seats, I recall, and afterward we took the MARTA to Underground Atlanta and hung out in this dirty, dingy Irish bar called Irish Bred. There was nothing Irish about it, but it was filled with other 20-somethings pouring cheap beer down their gullets. We found a table on their patio and made friends with some people from the University of Florida. Or maybe it was Florida State.

Eventually we paid our tab and headed to the MARTA station—on the way to which we were accompanied by a homeless man who professed to know where the best party in town was, and would we follow him there? Ian had a bit too much to drink and thought this was a great idea, but luckily he took my advice and followed me to the train station instead (where he proceeded to inform me that the way to avoid potentially dangerous situations was to “make everyone aware that you are crazier than they are,” and then he began singing L.A. Woman, specifically that he was Chief Mojo Risin’).

We visited Atlanta again in 2003, and went back several times while we were dating, but we haven’t been there since we got married in 2008. But with the news of Chipper Jones retiring, this is going to change—this summer.

I don’t think our Irish bar exists anymore, and I’m not sure Underground Atlanta has fared well over the years, but it will be fun to go back and spend some time in one of our favorite southern cities, seeing what kind of mischief we can get into. That’s the thing about being married to someone you’ve known for 15 years—you have plenty of memories to call on, but it’s effortless to make new ones, too.

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Beta-testing Diablo III: My history with the Diablo series

by on February 9, 2012, in jump aboard the crazy train, past lives, video games

Beta testing Diablo III: My history with the Diablo series

I have been a Mac user (and Apple user before the first Macintosh was released) since I was five years old. If you read this blog often, you are probably already aware of this. Now, back in the olden days that we call the 80s, everyone used an Apple computer. I remember being allotted time in elementary school to play games like Oregon Trail, and later whatever that game was that taught you how to use a mouse back when mice were first introduced.

(Ok, time out: Typing that just made me feel really ancient.)

When I was in middle school, my parents bought our family’s first computer, and it was a Mac. One of those crappy mid-90s ones, but it was still a Mac. And even though we didn’t have it connected to the Internet (the only person I knew who had the Internet was my friend Sarah, whose dad worked for a telcom company), I played various games on it. Myst was my favorite, and then there was the Lemmings game. God, I wasted so many hours on trying to save those little assholes.

But by the time I got to college, the Internet was becoming more and more available. I bought my first Internet-ready computer in July 2000, an iMac DVSE, and I went out in search of more advanced computer games to play.

And then I realized that nobody gave a shit about the Mac OS. There were literally NO games that I wanted to play that were available for the Mac. I had a Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64, but I was kind of over those (they weren’t old enough to be considered vintage, they were just kind of old). The guy I was dating at the time was a gamer, and every time I would go to video game stores with him I would get super-depressed about the lack of cool games that I could play on my Mac (I would also get depressed that I was dating that asshole, but that’s another story).

But then one day I was in Game Stop (or I guess it was still called Babbages back then) rifling through the computer games in the sales bin and noticed a game called Diablo. It looked interesting enough, but most importantly it was Mac-compatible. And, since it had come out in 1996, it was like $20. I bought it, brought it home and played the shit out of it.

My Earthlink dial-up Internet meant the multiplayer games barely worked, but I didn’t care. I looooved that game. It was as creepy and bloody as the box led me to believe it would be. The storyline was simple: Good vs. evil, bad things coming up from the ground to destroy a town and world. It was a classic click-click-grab-loot game and it was perfect.

Once I beat it, I went back and bought its sequel, Diablo II. And it was even more awesome than its predecessor. The graphics hadn’t really been updated much, but I remember the loot and quests seeming epically improved. The game featured a secret cow level (that Blizzard maintains to this day doesn’t exist) that has got to be the best Easter egg ever created for a video game.

After I beat Diablo II, my aforementioned asshole boyfriend bought me the expansion, Lord of Destruction. (Side note: You know that World of Warcraft commercial where Aubrey Plaza talks about her boyfriend buying her the game for her birthday, and he eventually accuses her of liking it more than him and she realizes he’s right and dumps him? I can sort of relate to that. Because the Lord of Destruction expansion was the best thing I got out of that relationship, no joke.)

Anyway, Lord of Destruction added even more epicness to the game. More classes, items, some revamped gameplay, etc. I played that game for YEARS. In fact, I was still playing it off and on until just a few years ago. (Sadly the most recent computer I bought is too new to play Diablo II now.)

But the truth is, for my entire gaming life I have been more of a console gamer. I suppose this might have been different had I grown up a Windows user, but I just could never do that to myself. Over the years I’ve owned an NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, XBox, Playstation, XBox 360 and Playstation 3 (Actually we do still have an NES, N64, XBox 360 and Playstation 3—plus a Wii), but I never really got too much into computer games.

Except for Diablo. It started out as a game I picked up on clearance out of desperation and ended up becoming one of my two favorite video game series ever (it rivals The Elder Scrolls games that I’m obsessed with). Diablo 1 and 2 will always hold nostalgic value for me, as I played them during some years that were both exciting and tumultuous. But they were mine: My years, my games, my memories. I have a habit of attaching people to certain things, like music or places, and when the people are no longer around the pain of the past sticks to these things, weighing them down with so much baggage that I can no longer enjoy them. But Diablo was always just mine—a constitution for which I’m grateful.

And now, more than 10 years later, here I am. Older, wiser, happier, but still a gamer. And Diablo III is coming out, and I was selected to beta-test it.

And it’s going to be amazing.

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Tear down what is old when it’s not pretty anymore

by on August 19, 2011, in around town, past lives, photography

Tear down what is old when its not pretty anymore

Destruction of any sort, whether it’s planned or not, always leaves me feeling a bit unsettled. So when I went to the doctor the other day and saw that the building(s) that housed Middle Tennessee Medical Center from 1927 until October 2010 is being demolished, I was jarred.

I worked in this hospital from Sept. 2003 until Dec. 2005, both on the clinical side (pharmacy tech) and the administrative side (marketing coordinator). I have a lot of great memories of this place—it was a really good job and the people were awesome. Very community-oriented, warm and friendly. I learned so much from both of my jobs there, and I know that if it weren’t for all that I got to do in my marketing gig there I wouldn’t have moved on to the other great jobs I’ve held (and continue to hold) since then.

This picture is showing the part of the hospital just to the left of the ER entrance. I believe the second floor that you see there is part of 2C. I could see a sign hanging in the hallway but because my eyesight sucks couldn’t tell what it said. I believe it said 2C, but I’m not sure. After so many years of cobbled-on additions to make room for more and more patients, it was certain that a new building was needed. This one was kind of a Franken-hospital, and even after spending years running through the halls and back-ways to deliver meds or give tours to visitors, I’d still get lost any time I had to go back.

But this place had character, especially the original wing. When I worked in marketing my office was in that original wing, in a revamped patient room. It was a little creepy knowing that people had undoubtedly died in my office at one time or another, but the room was HUGE and I had a giant closet. It was superb. The largest office I probably will ever have.

It’s sad to see it being dismantled like this. Not even dismantled—destroyed. Looking bombed-out. For some reason I thought the original building was on the historic register and didn’t think the city (or the hospital itself) could tear it down, but I guess not. A friend of mine says that they’re going to build a park here, so at least they’re not putting in another shitty apartment complex.

I wonder what will happen to this area now that the hospital is gone, though. Most of the doctors’ offices and other medical establishments are all moving over to Medical Center Parkway where the new hospital is. I wonder if there will be incentive to keep this part of town clean and vibrant?

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Internet killed the video star

by on August 14, 2011, in around town, past lives, video

The other day Ian and I got a text from a friend letting us know that Video Culture, a local independent video store, was closing this weekend. Now, the fact that a video store—especially a locally owned, non-chain one—was closing wasn’t a surprise. But for anyone who went to MTSU, at least in the mid- to late-90s and early 2000s, Video Culture was an integral part of the college experience.

The store they were closing down this weekend is the newer location, over off E. Main Street at Rutherford, but when I was at MTSU they were over by the Package Shop (later renamed the University Package Shop) on Tennessee Blvd. (now called Middle Tennessee Blvd—Jesus Christ, Murfreesboro, does anything stay the same?). When I lived on campus my freshman year of college, my roommate and I would walk over and rent movies, and when we moved to Nottingham Apartments our freshman year, we were there a lot (as well as the Package Shop, whenever we had someone with an ID to get us a handle or two of shitty booze).

When I was in grad school, I had to rent Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi and Video Culture was the only place locally that had multiple copies of all three. Like an asshole, I waited until the last minute each time I needed to rent each movie to complete my assignments. This was before Netflix, and Blockbuster and Hollywood Video sure as hell weren’t carrying anything that independent or interesting. Video Culture saved my ass each time.

They were the go-to place for cult classics, anime, funky stickers and movie posters. Oh, and porn. If you were of age, you could quietly turn the handle of the backroom door and find yourself in a small, non-ventilated room filled to the brim with skin flicks. (Or so I’ve heard, ahem.) When they were over on Tennessee Blvd, a women owned a store upstairs that she called a “gift thrift store,” but that I pretty clearly remember as a head shop. (A guy we talked to this weekend claims she didn’t sell pipes, though, so maybe she had all of the other accoutrements of a head shop except for the pipes, who knows).

A few years ago they moved out to the most recent location, the location that Ian and I visited on Saturday after drinking our lunch at Old Chicago, the location that’s taking the store to its grave. All of their inventory was severely discounted, including naughty titles that I could not stop laughing at. I mean, Womb Raider? The Witches of Breastwick? How do you get the job making up porn titles? Wait, I don’t want to know.

We picked over the shop’s remains, not really finding anything interesting until I noticed a pile of huge movie posters laying on the ground. We were about to leave when I off-handedly asked the guy at the counter if he had any X-Files posters. Remarkably, he remembered seeing one the day before and invited me to look through the pile. Ian and I rummaged for about five minutes when I noticed something that looked familiar.

It was the poster for The X-Files: I Want to Believe.

Holy shit. I had found it.

The poster was $1 or free with any movie purchase, and since we didn’t have any cash on us we gave the shop another run-through and came up with The Crying Game and all three Shafts. For $16. Definitely an awesome score, although I’m way more excited about finding the X-Files movie poster than the DVDs.

And despite not having set foot in Video Culture even once in the past five years, I’m pretty sad to see them go. It’s definitely the end of an era. “Progress,” the guy at the counter said.

I wonder what will come next. Can anything out there kill the internet?

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I get knocked down, but I get up again

by on July 5, 2011, in around town, music is like air, but for my ears, past lives


They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba

This is amazing. If you don’t want to watch, it’s They Might Be Giants covering Chumbawamba’s iconic song Tubthumping (hat tip to Morgan). I say iconic, but what I really mean is “the song that defined my freshman year in college and therefore holds a special place in my heart.” Which is why, in the video above, when I heard TMBG say that they didn’t know “how the song goes” I got really confused. How could you not know Tubthumping if you were alive, under 50 and had access to a radio in the United States in 1997?

And if you were in college in 1997 at MTSU, like I was, you heard this song everywhere. At every party, in every bar, blaring out of every random car driving down the road, playing over the loudspeakers in Hastings—this song was there. Despite its political undertones and the band’s anarchist leanings, it’s a silly little party song, and I have a strong feeling that if it weren’t for the righteous chorus that invites you to scream it and the line “pissing the night away,” it never would have amounted to anything.

But the song will always remind me of how I felt my freshman year in college: My painstakingly made plans to move to Tennessee were finally realized, and I was there—on my own, responsible for myself, living with my decisions, good or bad. As cheesy as it sounds, over the course of that year I had been knocked down—a lot—but I kept getting up again. And so every time I heard this song playing in and around Murfreesboro, it was a tiny reminder that as long as I kept getting back up, I would be OK.

And I was. 1997 to 1998 was a banner time.

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The summer

by on July 15, 2010, in i wish my lawn were emo so it would cut itself, past lives

I looked at a calendar today and realized that it’s July 15. Summer is halfway over, but you could have fooled me.

When did I stop being one of those people who has summer adventures? One of those who knows inherently when the season begins and ends, and ticks off the weekends covered in sweat and smelling like the trees? Who throws and attends parties and drives down Memorial Blvd. with the windows open, screaming the lyrics to whatever dumb pop song is in the top 10 that week?

Oh, right. Sometimes I forget that I’m a grownup, with real responsibilities outside finishing up homework and rolling into work with just enough sleep to get me through the day without passing out in the cinderblocked breakroom.

I wouldn’t trade my life now for my life 10 years ago for anything. I love my husband, my job, my house and the self-assurance and satisfaction that comes with it all. It’s a different kind of happy now, one that I’ve worked hard for.

But it sure would be nice to feel the summer again.

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The past will always invade the present

by on April 6, 2010, in around town, past lives

Several years ago when I worked at CVS as a pharmacy tech, we got a new assistant store manager. He was a big dude, a bodybuilder type, and he was gruff. He was nice enough, though, and once or twice our group of work friends invited him out with us.

He would confide in us about the divorce he was going through, how he was afraid he wasn’t going to be able to see his daughter anymore, how his wife killed his pitbull by kicking it with her stiletto heel, how he started taking home new women he picked up at bars. His behavior got more and more erratic, and it was awkward to witness.

One day I was standing in the stairwell that led up to the store office, a small, tight stairwell for even one person, when he entered the doorway. He looked at me sideways for a minute and then, standing very close to me, asked me how closely we “watched the Xanax in the back” (“back” meaning the pharmacy).

I am tall but he was large, and I felt dwarfed. I wasn’t necessarily afraid of him, but I knew he had a short fuse and was a bit… unpredictable.

I remember my body immediately wanted to run out of there, but somehow my mind convinced it that wasn’t necessarily the best response. Or it was convinced I wouldn’t make it past him.

Instead I told him something like we kept a good eye on it… that we were mindful of our stock (which we were). We didn’t account for every single pill as we did class two narcotics (like Ritalin, Oxycontin, etc.), but I didn’t tell him that. He started to say something like, “So you couldn’t…” but I cut him off, not wanting to hear what he was asking, telling him no, that I couldn’t. Whatever it was he wanted, I couldn’t do it.

He said OK sheepishly and shrugged, and then told me not to tell anyone.

So of course I told my closest work friend, begging her not to say anything but wanting someone to know just in case. Because in the back of my mind, I was freaking out a little.

And she told the store manager.

Several months later he left CVS, I think because of a workmans’ comp injury. And a few months after that, I was summoned to give a deposition about the incident.

Then I got scared.

I would have to sit in a small, private room across a table from a 250-pound bodybuilder with erratic behavior and rage issues and explain to his lawyer what happened that day. Something that he was denying, but my manager, the district manager and CVS’ lawyers were saying was the truth.

And I had to prove it.

The way the district manager kissed my ass that day when I arrived told me they needed my help and knew why I wouldn’t want to speak up. He was a fucking scary dude, and they needed me to sit in a room across from him and explain in detail—detail that his lawyers would pick apart—how he asked me to steal drugs from the pharmacy for him.

But for some reason or another, he didn’t show up. I gave my testimony, which was scary enough without him in the room. His lawyer tried to confuse me, asking me to answer questions like “Exactly how many days had you worked at CVS before this incident occurred?” and “How long had you worked with [assistant manager] before this happened?” Very specific questions I would not know off the top of my head, and so I was told to estimate. (I mean honestly, how the fuck was I supposed to remember when he started there, down to the very day?) Yet when I would answer another question, my estimations were treated as fact and then I was called a liar. I finally started answering every question that did not involve the specific incident itself with “I. Don’t. Know.”

And then it was over. I never heard what happened, and I would say I don’t care, except that when Ian and I moved into our neighborhood almost six years ago, we realized that he managed the Food Lion a block from our house.

At first, I refused to shop there. I wouldn’t go in the store. But it’s a block from our house. So my plan of attack became go in, scope out the place, find him and avoid the aisle he’s on. After a while we noticed we weren’t seeing him at all, so we quietly asked a cashier if he was still working there. We were told he was out on a workmans’ comp claim.

But he’s back now, so my old plan of attack is back on. Sneak in, be wary of who’s around me, grab what I need and GTFO.

However, months of no sightings must have left me complacent, because last night Ian and I walked down to Food Lion and, in the middle of a conversation as we made our way down the dairy aisle, we ran into him. Literally, almost. I almost walked right the fuck into him.

I didn’t know what to do except brush past him and pretend the cheese selection was the Most Important Thing at that moment. That left Ian in my dust to face him, but come on: He’s just guilty by association with me. He isn’t actually The One Who Ratted Him Out.

I heard Ian greet him and get greeted back, and I think I mumbled some sort of hello, although I was balls-deep in the cheese selection and not actually facing any human being, so I’m sure the people next to me thought I was afflicted with some kind of mental condition.

And then it was over. We walked out, and I didn’t really think about it until just now. It wasn’t dramatic, really, and I can’t even say my heart started racing. I’ve had small encounters like that in the past, where I’ve been in an aisle and he’s walked by, and I’m sure there will be more.

I know that years ago he was wrong to ask me what he asked, or what he tried to ask. It was wrong on several levels. But despite not actually choosing to let CVS know what had happened, I don’t like being a rat.

Especially to a ‘roid-rager who works at the grocery store down the block from my house.

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I support healthcare reform because I have fallen through the cracks

by on March 22, 2010, in health, or something like it, life etc., news/politics, past lives

Seven years ago I was a college senior who was working 80 hours a week, Monday through Friday at two different jobs, so that I could save enough money to complete my final semester in a study abroad program in Spain (I was a double major: Journalism and Spanish). I worked from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at CVS, left there and went home to change, eat a quick bite and make it over to CMOP to work 3 p.m. to midnight or 3 p.m. to 1 a.m., depending on the day of the week.

I did this from December 2002 to June 2003 so that I would have enough money to pay for my tuition for the study abroad program (student loans wouldn’t cover it because technically it was through Murray State with the KIIS program; MTSU just transferred my credits when I completed the semester) as well as all of my bills during the time I was in Spain and therefore without income.

Before I was scheduled to leave, the manager at the CVS and I discussed the fact that I was not going to be working there for two months and what that would mean for my employment status. I had enough vacation time to last me almost two weeks, but that wasn’t enough to keep me on the payroll. They were going to have to let me go and then rehire me when I came back, because for some reason CVS does not allow leaves of absences to be taken for anything education-related. (Nice, right?)

When I got back, all of the tenure and benefits I had earned, including vacation time and health insurance, were reset as though I had never worked there before—despite actually having put in six years of time.

The vacation time wasn’t too big of a deal, but the health insurance was. I wouldn’t be able to sign up for CVS’ health insurance for another YEAR, and I needed health insurance. I wasn’t eligible to be added on to my mom’s insurance because I was too old (I was 24) and soon to be a college graduate. At the time I had a condition that, while not life-threatening, required me to have a battery of tests run every 3-6 months. I needed insurance to help me cover the cost of the tests and, in the event I did develop cancer (or more pre-cancerous cells that would require surgery, as I had before), help me with treatment.

I applied for insurance through various private companies, including Blue Cross Blue Shield, but was denied each time because of the pre-existing condition. A few weeks later I received COBRA paperwork from CVS, but the monthly premium would have been nearly $1,100—way more than I could afford. I made an appointment with the local TennCare office because I figured hey, TennCare is for people who are uninsurable, right? Wrong. I was called before my appointment and told not to bother coming in because I wasn’t a single mother and therefore would not be approved. I protested, saying that I was unable to secure private health insurance and I couldn’t afford the COBRA payments, and was basically laughed at.

Within two months I had found another job — and while it was a good job and actually a bit of a pay bump (working in the MTMC pharmacy), I took it primarily because I would be eligible for health insurance Day One.

Now, my situation was not that dire. I didn’t have a debilitating disease that required hundreds or thousands of dollars of medication a month. I could have gotten by without insurance for a year or two, probably, and just hoped really really hard things didn’t get bad. I did eventually have to have another more invasive surgery, but luckily I had insurance (And I still had to pay nearly $3,000).

I can’t imagine people in far worse situations falling through the cracks of our current healthcare system, unable to get insurance or afford the bullshit option that is available. But guess what? It happens. And I support this bill because it will help people like that. This bill would have helped me.

And honestly, I’d rather see us spend billions of dollars helping keep people in our country alive than billions of dollars killing people in other countries.

Anyway, I just want to make the point that before you start screaming that healthcare reform is only going to help hoodrats who are looking for another handout or that helping our citizens get access to healthcare is a waste of money, maybe you should step back and consider the actual good it will do.

Or, if you want a less-personal take on the healthcare bill, go check out The Washington Post.

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New Year's Eve 10 Years Ago

by on December 31, 2009, in but in our house we never get bored, past lives, photography

New Year's Eve 10 Years Ago

Ian and I were celebrating at our friend Katie’s house with the regular crew.

10 years later we’re celebrating with champagne in bed watching TV because we’re sore as hell from installing laminate flooring.

Yeah, we’re old. But there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Happy New Year!

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A catalyst

by on September 10, 2009, in i wish my lawn were emo so it would cut itself, jump aboard the crazy train, life etc., music is like air, but for my ears, past lives

As I sat on the couch tonight watching “Biography: Reba McEntire,” it reminded me of how much of an influence she was in my decision to move to Nashville 12 years ago. I mean, I left home to get away from my abusive father, but I would not have chosen Nashville had I not heard Reba’s music.

I discovered Reba my sophomore year of high school and was hooked immediately. Never having even listened to country music before, she opened my eyes to a whole new culture. Country music back then was different than it is now, and I immersed myself in all it had to offer, and all that it meant.

When it became clear that I had to get out, Nashville became an obvious choice.

Every time I was hit, yelled at, called stupid or ugly or worthless, Reba’s music kept me going. I can still feel the softness of my old blue comforter as I wrapped myself in it and cried myself to sleep to “Read My Mind,” and the song “Is There Life out There” took on a whole new meaning for a teenage girl ready to start living her life without constant fear and sadness.

And while nobody at my school listened to country (I got made fun of occasionally for not hiding my “weird” obsession), it helped my mom and I stay close. Despite my dad’s ridicule and bitching, my mom took me to several country music concerts, and I’ll never forget her waiting in line with me for hours at Blockbuster on my seventeenth birthday to get tickets for my first Reba McEntire concert. I still have that ticket stub—and the pictures from the concert, I think.

I stopped listening to country music soon after I arrived in Nashville, ironically, a change I attribute to over-saturation, not needing an escape anymore and the fact that country music started to head toward the shitter become indecipherable from pop.

But I will always love Reba. She is what led me here, to a life where I am happy and safe and able to love and be loved back without conditions or dread. And as melodramatic as it sounds, when I think back to a few extraordinarily dark moments, she saved my life.

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