Talking Soup

"Whale" is a Las Vegas term for a big spender, basically.

This happened awhile ago, near when I was starting at Michael's. Apparently this woman comes in fairly regularly. She will consistently spend several hours in the store, and seems to want to clear us out of the little knick-knack things we sell like notepads and listpads and things like that. All of these things are usually on clearance--so she gathers all these things together over the course of several hours.

And loads not one.

Not usually two.

But three carts full of the most random shit you can think of.

The time she came in when I was there, she waited until about ten minuts before closing to come up to the register. She's also incredibly particular. She wants everything organized and bagged just right since, apparently, all that stuff is actually gifts for "her kids." The story apparently changes--sometimes the "kids" she's buying for are her "students". Other times it's her many, many nieces and nephews. She claims to be a teacher, but considering how much she spends, I highly doubt it.

So, I'm ringing things up (thank god I didn't screw anything up or have to void much of anything), with another sales person doing the bagging (because really now). There were three or four of us in the store. And there I am, ten minutes before closing, ringing up item after item after item.

We didn't finish the transaction until about 9:30, a half an hour after close, and also the time when we're all technically supposed to be heading home. The total was close to a thousand dollars. We then had to help her out to the car since there were THREE CARTS. And then after that there's of course all of the closing procedures.

Not the best of nights.

If she comes back for Christmas, I'm going to kill myself.

We have this woman who apparently comes into Michael's periodically. We call her the Bead Woman. What she does is she grabs a cart and fills it up with beads, then proceeds to steal quite a few of them, leaving the rest for us to "reshop" (that is, put them back where they're supposed to be.

Now, first of all, if you've never seen the bead section of a Michaels--let me tell you right now, it is EPIC. Two entire aisles of nothing but beads and beading tools--loose beads, beads in canisters, strings of beads. Glass, clay, semi-precious stones, metal. There's about ten different brands, and that's not including the ones that are just outside of the aisle. Never mind that a good portion of those are rather pricey. Finding everything is a chore in and of itself, and finding things quickly is virtually impossible unless you know the store well or have a scanner gun with you.

Second of all, SHOPLIFTING IS BAD. It means we get our hours cut, which essentially means our pay gets cut >(

So, this woman comes in the other day, and since we know she's a tricksy little thief, the manager sets someone to just sort of keep an eye on her--which tends to deter her from stealing quite as much. And who should be assigned to watch her but yours truly.

Monitoring a thief is more epic than it sounds! It was very spec ops. I would "recover" (clean up) in the next aisle over, and then she would suddenly disappear and I'd have to go find her again. I think at this point, this has happened often enough that it's become a battle of wills between her and the rest of us. I'm pretty sure she knew she was being watched, and so decided to make our lives a bit more delightful (read: difficult). She kept hopping around between beads, crystals, latch hook rugs and back, and I had to essentially spy on her each time.

And yeah, I know, profiling and all that--but this is different than sending someone to watch the OMG SCARY BLACK MAN, since we know for a fact that this woman has stolen from us several times in the past.

Anyway, I ended up ninja-ing back and forth to follow her (while, of course, trying to look inconspicuous). Finally she disappeared and I couldn't find her again, and it turned out she'd gone to check out. Pretty much all of us were in on the whole thing, so the girl on register got the manager out and, in the end, we managed to salvage most of what she tried to steal.

But, of course, there in the bead aisle, is a cart full of beads and crystals.

At seven.

Two hours before close.

So, of course, me being back-up register, me having to recover ALL THOSE BEADS, and the store being busier that night than usual, well. We didn't go home until about 9:45.

On the plus side, I'm pretty sure I now have the bead aisles memorized.

My Mommy's in town for two days!

She's actually sort of passing through on the way to my grandparents' place up in Maine. But we're hanging out--took her to Moosewood last night, and we're going to Sapsucker Woods and some of the waterfalls once the damn dryer actually does its job >:|

Been a few years since she was able to come out, and she's never been able to meet my roomies, so this is pretty awesome~

I hereby swear:

Next year, I am going to Comic-Con. Costs be damned >|

This is the week from the deepest reaches of hell. Four major papers due, three of them within the next few days, not to mention response-type papers sprinkled in there just for kicks. This one essay has bee absolutely fighting me for the past week. Usually essays are a breeze for me, but every once in awhile one like this will come along. It doesn't matter how motivated I am or how much research I've done or whether the topic is interesting--it just doesn't want to get written, and the end product is essentially a bunch of words vomited onto a sheet of paper. I went to bed at 6 in the morning last night, and I don't expect to get more than 7 hours between now and Friday.

I also don't have a job yet, and I really don't have time this week to even call the one place I've turned in an application to, never mind fill out the forty-fucking-minute applications for Borders and Barnes and Noble. Never mind that, unlike past years, I need a job in order to survive. Welcome to the world, right?

On top of it all, a kid is dead.

I didn't know him at all, but he was a Writing major, a freshman, and he was found on campus in the same pond that we released a goldfish into three years ago. Maybe it's because this is the first time a student has died on campus since I started coming here and he was found maybe 200 yards from the apartment, or maybe it's because we've been calling it Buster's Pond because of that stupid goldfish, but this just makes everything else seem so ridiculous and unimportant and weird. I just want to go walk in the woods and clear my head but I can't even do that. And to think, they've been searching for him all over for the past two days, with helicopters even, and all that time he was just waiting in that pond.

I feel stupid for caring so much and stupid for just wanting to work on my papers and stupid for acting like it means something that it was Buster's Pond. And I feel stupid for putting all of this here because I don't have time to actually talk to someone.

I'm starting to hate this campus. I don't even feel safe here anymore.

At least I'm getting a kitty on Friday.

There's an interesting little phenomenon that happens at Ithaca and probably at most other East coast colleges. We have this long long long winter and then, just when you think you're going to just die from all the freaking clouds and snow and cold...spring arrives!

However, spring doesn't present itself here the way it does everywhere else in the world. It's not the little green shoots you see in the dirt, or spotting the first robin, or even the increasing temperature.

It's the return of that strange little thing called a Frisbee.

They hibernate in basements and inside drawers and closets all winter, but once it gets warm enough they wake up and take flight and probably make little Frisbees when we're not looking, since you see more of them every year.

And that's how you know spring has come to a college campus.

In short, HOORAY, SPRING! FINALLY!

Wow, I haven't updated in forever, huh? At least not with anything important. Three weeks of school left, I've registered for classes next semester (it's looking ugly, but after this year I think I can handle anything), and I've got an incredible amount of work coming up. The past weekend was kind of nightmarish. Julie and I went to Tammy's place to generally hang out and say hello to the kitties (they caught one of the ferals, a pretty one named Butch), but I had a hell of a lot of work to do this weekend as well, so it wasn't as relaxing as it could have been. Did manage to see an intriguing episode of Torchwood.

Got back middle of Sunday, wrote an entire paper, then pulled an all nighter Monday night reading a book and doing work. /wrists

Still working on getting the money together for the apartment. We still need to pay off the last month's rent, and Kate's going to cover the security.

I'm going to adopt a kitty! He's eight (six?) months old and he's a gray tabby named Grigio, but I'm going to rename him Elwood. Need to fill out the application and gather $65. Julie's adopting one as well, a girl named Ace who she's going to rename Nephry.

Also need to fill out an application to work at Brotchen, since I'm going to need a job this summer, and working at Brotchen sounds awesome. Though I should also start searching for other work, just in case.

I have concluded that EVERYONE likes Journey. People who say they don't are just in denial.

Oh, and, in another example of how the muse desires my death, I've come up with yet another over-elaborate idea for a story, which I'll talk about in an up-coming friends-locked post. (Paranoid? Whut?)

Showed Julie all of Dennou Coil and she died a little over it. Showed her episode 26 of Darker than Black, and she also died a little over it. Also, Mushishi is as awesome as ever in ASIC, and Baccano! is beginning to make some more sense. Persona 3 has gotten intense, Julie and I have set aside Tales of the Abyss until summer, and the RP continues to be abso-fucking-lutely awesome. Julie's going to app Kirihara (fuck yeah!)

There are two characters in Persona 3--Akihiko and Shinjiro--who remind me of Boone and Scryes, which kind of kills my heart a little.

Life is generally okay :)

So, I'd been hearing about the content strike, but I didn't find out what it was until today--many hours after it had ended. If I'd known, I would have participated, methinks.

Essentially, this is hearkening back to the Strikethrough fiasco last summer. Except now they're taking it a step farther: click to find out what they think of their users

The strikethrough thing got blown way out of proportion, by both 6A and fandom. At least in that case there was a semi-legitimate reason behind it, which was to catch pedos. But this time--I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to me. Fanfiction isn't all about sex, and even if it is, who gives a shit? Are they trying to associate slash and yaoi with pedophilia? Because oh, the debates we could get into if that were the case.

Admittedly, the rearranging of interests is only part of the issue. One of the main reasons the strike happened was also because they got rid of Basic Accounts. Which in and of itself is a gigantic WUT.

Ah, the joys of corporatization.

So the other night, at 4 AM I finished Motley

Crew


XOMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!!!!


It's kind of like giving birth to septuplets because it


weighs in at 725 pages and a total of


388,087 words because I'm totally, completely and in all other ways


INSANE.


But! I've finished it. And oh my god it feels good.

And now I have ten million other things to do before I go down to Louisiana for a week and kill myself building houses and stuff~

You know, I would really, really like to be able to post some of my writing--none of the big stuff, but backstory stuff, drabbles, that kind of thing--on a place like DA. Not because I'm a whore for comments or what-the-fuck-ever, but because, I dunno, I want to know what people think. I love characters; I love my characters; I know other people like characters as much as I do. I love seeing people's original characters wandering around their galleries. I just think it would be nice to have that as well.

But dear God! I never knew places like DA were so fucking dramatic! DA used to be awesome and filled with awesome art and such, but now it's nothing but flame wars, personal attacks, fanart of the same damn shit over and over, and "OMG SRS BIZNIS!" When the hell did places like DA get this pathetic? People are leaving there in droves or going invisible because people are such assholes. If you post something that someone doesn't like, it's like a given that you'll be flamed.

I mean, at least if you write and publish a book, it's out there and you get people talking about it on forums, reviewing it on Amazon and such. Stuff like that is usually pretty easily avoided, to some degree, and of course you just learn to develop a thick skin over time. But posting something in a gallery? It's right there where you are, and when people like or dislike it, you hear about it immediately. It's the equivalent of writing a book and putting your home address and phone number on the cover.

I feel so bad for the poor artists and writers who post things on large sites like DA and then get run out of town with pitchforks shaped like lolcats or whatever! Whatever happened to "don't like it, don't read/view it?" Or was that ever the standard?

I feel like an old person for saying it, but whatever happened to common courtesy?

And don't even get me started on the art/writing theft. God! It's getting to the point where I'm almost afraid to post excerpts here under friends-lock for fear some little shit will find it and try to pass it off as their own or something. Admittedly, the only people who really know me online are RL friends, but I've been paranoid and self-conscious about my writing for my entire life. I would be devastated if I found Boone or Kaz or Violin or Kaiyss on someone else's site. That's a part of myself they'd be stealing!

And I do mean devastated. Like, "my boyfriend of 5 years broke up with me and I'm going to spend a month in bed now, kthxbye" devastated. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. How do you fight art/writing thieves, anyway? It's not like I understand copyright laws.

The theft thing was my main deterrent for posting anything online for the longest time (it's why anything that's writing related and specific to one of my projects goes under friend-lock). Now, recently, I'd been thinking I might give something like DA a try, but no! Everyone's too fucking immature and pathetic!

And on the flipside, dear god, what if I got the yaoi fanbrats slavering over E and Kail and being all "OMG BUTTSECKS KAWAII!"? What if I had people shipping characters who just shouldn't be shipped? Imagine the Kaz/Aidan shippers, since everyone's so into enemy!hate!sex these days. Christ!

If I ever get popular enough that kind of thing might happen anyway, but I just really don't want to see that kind of stuff when my babies are still learning to walk.

I'm not so arrogant to think if I did have a gallery or some shit that people would actually stop by to check it out. But still.

I love wank, don't get me wrong. Particularly fandom wank, because it's usually just so goddamn stupid that it's hilarious to watch. It's an entirely different matter when you've got personal attacks on someone's work going on. That's another beast entirely, one that should be put down.

So, thanks a lot, Internets. Way to completely discourage me from ever trusting people online with anything.