Tree Defenders

The Grinch lives in my house. Her name is Jessie. Jessie has decided, since the puppies came to be (less than 2 years ago) that Christmas is hers and hers alone. Humans are allowed near the Christmas tree because they can give her the treats and toys hidden within. The puppies are not allowed. If the puppies try to approach said tree, Jessie will growl and snarl ferociously. She sometimes throws in some impromptu face nibbling just to get the point across. I don’t know if she has realized that the puppies actually enjoy face nibbling. It would be quite hilarious to imagine that she thinks face nibbling is her way of enforcing her dominance, when it is actually an enjoyable face massage, according to the puppies. Roxie usually gets the message of “don’t come near my tree” very quickly and backs far away from the Christmas tree. Zoe, though, could not care less about what Jessie has to say. Consequently, Jessie sometimes loses her patience with the unruly pup and attacks. Of course, “attack” signifies little more than a lunge and some snarling and snapping. Rarely does Jessie make any harmful contact with Zoe. You could be convinced otherwise, though, by the yelps that issue forth from Zoe. Jessie’s scare tactics are understandably yip-inducing. So, if the consequences of tree exploration are so frightening for the little ones, why do they keep venturing forth?

We encourage them.

Yes, this is our wicked Christmastime amusement--egging on dogs. We get the puppies to come see the tree, and then Jessie will rush in once she realizes that they have breached the tree zone without her. I mean, the puppies should get a chance to see their tree, too, right? Granted, our entertainment consists of us causing some complex canine system of social order to go into full snarly enforcement mode and then giggling at the enactment. 
 

Surely we’re not the only ones who amuse themselves at the expense of their dogs (and their dogs’ dignity).

In other news, Manheim Steamroller really needs to go easy on that harpsichord. It feels like I'm on some Kingdom Hearts space journey. It also makes my dogs cry. Trans-Siberian Orchestra is how one should rock out to Christmas. Get excited--it's almost time!

Unsuccess and Successes

A FAIL

Atlanta obviously raised me to falsely believe in available parking. This belief is not shared by the rest of the cities in the world. In Columbus, unlike in Atlanta, the fact that people have cars that we need to park places that aren’t a mile away from our desired destination was not considered in the city planning. In Atlanta we have these things called parking lots. They are everywhere. If one ventures downtown, which is only if one wants to visit a fancy restaurant, the ghosts of what once used to be clubs before Atlanta decided they wanted to “clean up” downtown, or the High (which is an art museum), one parks in a convenient parking garage or paid lot. There are usually a number of parking garages from which one may pick the most convenient one. In downtown Columbus, there seems to be just one parking garage which is always full. Parking lots are nonexistent, and if you happen to see what you think is a parking lot, it is actually a tow-away zone. Street parking is usually scattered inexplicably, and I’m not sure how one is supposed to figure out WHERE it is unless one drives around aimlessly in what one’s GPS can only assume is complete idiocy or a blatant attempt to foil its mission of directing you to what may or may not be the location you requested. So, when one leaves 30 minutes before the time one wants to be somewhere in a downtown or otherwise city-like location 10 minutes away, expect to be about 40 minutes late. Thus, a fail. However, I must ask: is this a Columbus fail or a Kate fail?



SUCCESSES

I met a very helpful lady at Portfolio Creative, a job agency in Columbus, who is going to help me find a job! =) I also applied to a couple more job positions. I have had all my meetings (informational interviews, I suppose) with Columbus alumni from Kenyon involved in writing, publishing, editing. Because of these meetings, I have made lots of great networking contacts who have all been so nice and helpful. =) Since Kenyon was such a helpful resource for networking, I called up my high school and got a list of alumni living in Columbus. Also, I contacted the Kenyon Review, which I used to work for, and got some pieces to edit for this internship I’m applying to (to which I’m applying). In addition, I wrote a bunch of blog posts and got xmas shopping done for almost everyone!

Face Nibbling: The Most Awkward Thing in the World

MEGAPOST!! Okay, since I haven’t posted in awhile, I’m going to be posting a bunch in the next few days to assuage my guilt. I hope you like reading, because there’s a lot of that involved in the following post. There are pictures (some of which are my own art) and a video, too! I plan to update at least once a week from now on (not including the next few days in which there will be a profusion of postings). Life has been a little chaotic the past couple weeks but I’m getting back on track now.

I am currently on my second job-search-related visit to Columbus (first one October 24-November 19; this one December 5-12), staying with Z in his apartment. I will be back in Atlanta with the fam (and friends) for Mom’s birthday and Christmas. Maybe I can convince someone to give me a super cool (aka paid and experience-garnering) job in Columbus for a Christmas present?? PLEASE?!?!

Some Dogs

This little butthead dog keeps howling next door. He can’t even be bothered to sound like a proper dog. I think it’s some sort of little King Charles or other type of froo-froo nonsense. I saw it one time when it ran out on the neighbor’s balcony and barked at me. It was bigger than a King Charles but it had the same fur, face, and pattern. Maybe it’s a mutt. I greatly prefer medium or large breed dogs who are not ridiculous fuzzballs with smooshed faces and 15 billion health issues from inbreeding. When I get my own place, a job, and enough steady money to do so, I will get either a primitive breed (such as New Guinea Singing Dog), a wolfdog (or wolf-like if Columbus doesn’t like wolfdogs), or a German Shepherd.

Go be a weirdo like me and learn more about this New Guinea Singing Dog at the New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society's official website! Photo courtesy of RareBreed Network (notice my journalism skills at photo credits).

You could say I’m a dog enthusiast. I research dog breeds for fun. AMONG OTHER THINGS. I also play video games, read urban fantasy (it's a real genre, involving fantastical elements such as magic, werewolves, vampires, etc. in our contemporary world, though sometimes with some slight variations), hang out with my family and friends and have a pretty awesome boyfriend. My goals include: getting a job having to do with writing, editing, and me getting money and getting lots of that cool experience stuff that will help me level up to level 85 and complete all the main story quests. For all the people who were not raised with video games or had a brief college flirtation with WoW which had to end because it wasn’t good for that socialization thing (even though I still got all my school work done), this means that I aspire to garner experience sufficient to become the ultimate editor-in-chief or senior editor or managing editor or any translatable position which involves me being the supreme god of editing. Why do I want this? Because I love writing and reading and learning how to better myself so I can become a very useful human being that does great things in her life.


So. My family has always owned dogs. Currently, we have three females--two 1.5 year-old sister yellow labs with nearly white coats who could be called smart if they bothered to listen to commands and if they didn’t make a habit of coming up with new destructive habits to make us want to strangle them. Example: going into my room and peeing on the carpet, for no reason other than that no one is watching and it's a fun game they haven't tried yet. A second example: going outside and not coming when we say “come” and making us chase them down to the bushes where they have found feces of some sort or are eating poisonous mushrooms or toxic berries. Another example: the undiscriminating consumption of feces wherever they can find it, no matter the age or...form of the excrement. An additional example: running up and down the back stairs barking, barking out the window at people and dogs in their own backyards and not at all on our property, barking at other dogs barking, barking at dogs barking on tv, barking at me, barking at each other, barking at nothing, and generally becoming a crazed run-around-and-bark-together team which cannot be stopped unless I chase after them and yell threats at them until they decide it’s a good idea to go to their beds and be quiet for awhile and generally make me feel like a horrible dog owner with their slinking and pitiful looks. The third dog is Jessie, an eight-year-old black lab with a serious fetching obsession and a phobia of vaguely tight or strange-shaped places, air vents, vacuum cleaners, the laundry room, the behind-the-door area, hallways, sharp bends in hallways, etc.).

 Classic triangular composition, a la Raphael. Great job, dogs.

Roxie (front) and Zoe often enjoy lying in the same position, probably because "they share a brain" (Mom) (notice my awesome MLA parenthetical citation skills).

The Face Nibbling

Jessie began the face-nibbling phenomenon with the sisters when they were puppies. For those whose dogs aren’t freaks who make out all the time, face-nibbling is this thing dogs do to each others’ muzzles (or eyeballs, in Roxie’s case) where they do that quick nibbling known as flea-biting. Supposedly it is a display of dominance, or, at least that was how it was originally meant to be used. However, the puppies (as the sisters are called) have turned it into some sort of weird game in which they lick Jessie’s face until she begins the face-nibbling ritual, for which the puppies line up in anticipation. Sometimes the dogs try to include me in the face-nibbling by leaning against me. I see this as either Roxie doing the “I’m blocking you from my human, Jessie. You are now trying to assert your dominance and claim her by nibbling my face” or simply a tactile attempt to include me in play I really don’t want to be a part of. Thanks, dogs, I actually just feel really awkward now because you’re nibbling and slobbering against my leg. The puppies seem to enjoy face-nibbling, as if it is a luxurious face massage. Zoe, the quieter, less dominant one who darts around a bunch, closes her eyes in what seems like bliss as her face is nibbled by Jessie. When Roxie tries to mimic the face-nibbling on Zoe, she tends to nibble the eyeball region, resulting in not so much bliss. Roxie, (or Roxie “Left-Eye,” as we call her because her left eye has a permanent dark tear stain for no good reason), is the more dominant, pushy one who demands to be petted and demands attention and climbs all her 65 pounds up in my lap and tries to eat my face if she decides she really needs some attention NOW. She’s the one who barks and vocalizes a lot. When Jessie nibbles Roxie’s face, Roxie “sings,” or, in layman’s terms, makes a bunch of melodic doggie moaning sounds. God knows why. Often times, the face nibbling includes profuse face licking, often with all three dogs involved. It usually begins with both the puppies licking Jessie’s face, and ends up with the licking and nibbling of Zoe and Roxie’s faces by Jessie. Sometimes Zoe feels the need to insert herself in the nibbling by standing over Roxie and Jessie if they are ground-nibbling. It’s...almost as disturbing as it sounds. Of course, both times I tried to film the dogs during nibbling, Zoe decided to intervene. I'll try to upload a video sans Zoe making things more awkward than they already are.

Sometimes I think Zoe has some social issues. If she were a person, she would be the awkward one. Occasionally I will be downstairs on my mom’s computer either wasting my life or trying to apply to jobs and make perfect cover letters, and I will hear some desperate-sounding play-noises (ie whining, yipping, generally sounds of a body rolling around on fabric and the eternally-fur-coated stone floors). I will walk over to the dog-bed area by the tv and see Zoe rolling around yipping and trying to entice the other two dogs to play. The other two dogs are typically either ignoring her or watching her with expressions, that, if they were as judgemental as I am, would say “What the hell are you doing you freak.”


I feel a little bad for Zoe. Her antics, which could also be referred to as desperate attempts to incite play, sometimes remind me of my childhood as the child who pretended to be a wolf and thought it was normal to watch lion documentaries with your friends and pretend to be fantastical creatures (or wolves) with them. Apparently this kind of play was frowned upon by the other children. Somehow I still ended up with friends, though. Great job!

At least I can draw really cool werewolves now! Thanks, childhood fixations! COOL ART (c) ME!!

Z presented me with a post-it that said "Kate sux" (his version of a playful flirtation). I made it better with a scary grinning werewolf.

 So, when I get a dog with Z, it has to be super smart and not do dumb things like eat its own poop or try to kill itself by confronting snakes or running up and barking at bears or deer or something. It should also be able to learn how roads and cars are bad. The puppies still think that cars are something to run up and bark at while in motion because they make big scary machine sounds and also contain those super cool people that are supposedly part of the “pack”...though I don’t know how I could ever truly be a part of said pack without participating in the complex ritual of face nibbling.

Also, if you want to read a truly hilarious post about dogs, check out Hyperbole and a Half.

First Blog Post Ever?

I have never written a blog post before. My family and friends finally convinced me/planted the idea firmly enough in my head that I have become convinced that blogging might be a good idea. I have decided to start writing a blog partly to become a part of this whole fancy internet thing everyone seems to like so much, and partly to put some stuff out there that maybe someone somewhere will like and respond to (you know, that whole communication thing people do). This is not a depressing emo rant, despite the title. I'll try to make this blog as fun (yet sensible) as possible. And with as little bathroom humor as possible, which could be hard for me.

I'm at a certain point in my life, having graduated this past May 2010 (English major from Kenyon College, which is a pretty difficult school even if you're a smart person), and still painstakingly searching for a job in this horrible market, where I am sort of stuck in an in-between state. This part in movies usually only lasts a minute, if you're lucky, but shows you everything that occurred to make you reach that certain point which is not necessarily where you want to be, but where you can get enough footing to confidently claim that you are on your way to achieving your goal. Hence, "Tedious Montage." 

[This is me! Summer 2010. Vacant stare courtesy of jet lag and not knowing Dad was taking a picture. Hat courtesy of my brother-in-law. What up, Bro.]

Since I graduated six months ago, I've been flailing about, slipping and sliding and trudging through an endless list of things-to-do-that-might-get-me-a-job. Browsing job search engines, harassing poor defenseless employers and the unfortunate HR ladies who answer the phone and are actually willing to give me the time of day..that sort of thing. I'm exaggerating a little. I'm actually a bit introverted. Until this past month, I had not gotten the hang of what it was, exactly, that I should be doing towards this job search (I spent this past month in Columbus with Z, the as-of-yet-unnamed boyfriend contacting and meeting with people who might get me a job. And assing around. I did some of that too until I figured out who to contact. Good for me!). Before this past month, I mostly switched between two methods: Panicked internet job searching, cover letter sending, hesitant checkups to HR departments.......and the less productive method of waiting around reading wonderful urban fantasy books, reading comics and playing video games in an attempt to distract myself enough to deny that I was wasting my adult life with every hour spent not being that super-motivated, know-it-all, success-story kid who got a job right out of college because they had a well-thought-out plan and did enough networking and meaningful internships to get them places and stuff. 

[I hear that blogs are supposed to have pictures and stuff because people don't like reading that much, so here's a pic of me assing around Summer of 2009 working at a vet instead of planning 9 billion months ahead of time and getting another good writery-type internship like I did the summer before that. At least the vet PAID me, though. That's one of my three labs, Roxie, when she was a puppy. I like how we have the same expression. I call this picture "Partners in Crime."]

Anyway, what the f**k was I doing in college? Oh..right, I was working my ass off on papers and excessive amounts of reading all the time, and when I wasn't, I took the precious free hours I had to try and remain sane--which is hard to do if you're a) female b) not yet too good at coping with massive amounts of stress with no respite, or c) a normal human being. Because of the above (except "female," though it is quite possible that hormones are in league with Satan and that they are there only to ruin your life), college was sort of a "happy and relaxed" or "anxious and dying" sort of experience, with "anxious and dying" always lurking in the background waiting for the next all-too-often barrage of too many papers and tests all due within a few days of each other, crazy loud party-happy neighbors and needless social drama. 

So to sum up, I misused my time in college because I spent too much time working and trying to stay sane, when I should have used that time in which I was trying to stay sane to plan out and execute said plan of how I was going to get a good job after school. I agree that I got a really great education etc. at Kenyon, and that said really great education at Kenyon should make employers go "Oh, hey! You went to a super great school! Here's your job, Miss. Sorry for the wait." But then the economy had to be all dumb and now it probably doesn't matter as much that I went to a middle-of-nowhere highly-ranked private college. In this economy, would my time have been better spent at a state school where the workload may have been more tolerable, thus giving me more time to plan ahead? Or would I have used said time to play video games, socialize, have life experiences and do other such things that might result in me being a better-adjusted human being? I would probably be better-adjusted and just as jobless, to be honest.

Musings aside, I believe that, in addition to increasing my desirability as an employable writer/editor (blogging, apparently, is becoming a desirable "experience" for someone entering the present job market for writers, editors, etc.), I can use this blog to chronicle my Tedious Montage, tell you about my crazy-ass vivid, epic dreams, and maybe publish some comics I'm drawing based on all these story lines I have with my superbly awesome fictional supernatural characters. So I suppose this blog will be about:

1) My day-to-day life en route to the all-powerful, Most Holy JOB, which will be in Columbus, OH with Z, my as-of-yet-unnamed boyfriend who I'm trying to live with even though I'm stuck in Atlanta with my parents now =( (not so bad, they're pretty cool except my dad keeps coming up with silly plans to convince me to stay home permanently so we can be best friends forever)

2) The dreams I have which I feel like you might enjoy (they can be really mega-cool, I promise--Apocalypses, epic battles with cool swords and guns and monsters, werewolves, demons, angels, cool fantastical creatures, super spy/detective missions, superpowers, magic, questionable symbolism, and more! I also sometimes tend to dream in the format of a video game. Hit points, turn-based battles, bosses, levels, etc. Sometimes those video game dreams are so cool, I consider video game design as a potential future job. Woo, excitement!)

3) Super awesome comics based on my stories--these comics are supposed to one day be my professional side-job, so hopefully I'll become really good at writing/drawing them and everyone will love me and my comics.

4) Other cool stuff I read/hear/think about

Side note: I pretty much posted the only pictures I really have besides the ones other people have taken on Facebook, so future pictures might be dramatic MS Paint renditions of actual events. Or non-actual events. I may be tempted to browse through dumb Facebook pics only if someone is really, really desperate to see more of me or something. And then I might not be tempted because why would someone be that desperate if they're not a psycho rapist serial killer.

Side side note: A psycho rapist serial killer (who is not yet confirmed to be a rapist but who probably is) kidnapped and murdered a family a few miles from my college--horrible tragedy. His car was found abandoned (or parked, because "how can you really tell the difference?" as Z pointed out) on Kenyon's campus, where some of our younger friends are still enrolled. Read some articles here--(especially the first because one of my job contacts wrote it):

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h6U2BrMotDw2StsJDBE1r8oHcyFQ?docId=ed6e7941069d4f0c9a2a1abd1c7f1eb2

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/20/ohio.family.autopsy/?hpt=T1

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jR74J1Mkr9USf95XYoO3bBIZJaIQ?docId=4c1f1beb82d14a34a0b01f8ff01c2be9

http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-ohio-family-prompts-college-lockdown-search/story?id=12139637&page=1