so the little children in the building i live in and in the one next door have formed, like, this fan club for oscar. while oscar thinks this is extremely awesome, it's not so awesome for us. even though they're harmless kids, they freak out whenever oscar comes outside (IF he comes outside - if we are outside and he is not, we have to explain where he is and when he'll be around), which means he's usually getting attention from half a dozen kids, instead of pooping and/or peeing. they've also taken to chasing joey around, but joey easily eludes them by running into the bushes. this has only just now started to bother me, because i'd like to take oscar outside right now to go to the bathroom, but i know that there are kids outside...so oscar will just stand there and pant and sniff childface, instead of doing what he's supposed to do. i figured i'd just wait it out and go outside when i couldn't hear the children anymore, but it seems as though they feel that if they come knock on our door a bunch of times, it will eventually open and they will be allowed to come inside and play with oscar AND joey. and eat pizza (we are also in a constant state of being asked for our pizza).

i really like kids, but there is a reason i don't have any. there is a reason i don't babysit or work in a childcare center. there is a reason that i'm not and don't typically befriend the type of girl who is going to get married and pop out a kid or two by the time she's 25. this reason doesn't evaporate just because i'm forced to step over the toys that are left in front of my door and all over out trailor park-like apartment complex. i really don't want kids in my apartment, nor do i want them pounding on my door. the kids are nice, but i'm really tired of dealing with them every day, several times a day, and i really don't need them trying to invade my space. one of the kids asked if she could HAVE joey. how do you tell a group of kids to back the fuck up? i feel like a huge jerk 'cause i'm starting to get annoyed over this (i don't think anyone in this particular group is over 7 years old), but i'm also starting to feel like the parents around here need to be a little more present, and quit just relying on other tenants to take care of and/or entertain their kids.

so i woke up all early today and then realized that i can drive to work, so i'm just hanging around the apartment. awesome!

things that have made life easier lately.:
1. an automatic coffee maker, bitches! it's brand new, too! i can set the time so the robot inside makes me coffee while i sleep, to be ready for me in the morning. holla!
2. DTV. fuck yes.
3. acafool's hata' blockas. best. hip hop song. ever.

i woke up yesterday and couldn't really handle the idea of getting out of bed. i kind of had to, though, 'cause i had to walk to tukwila (the next town over) and then call work to find out if i needed to be at work. if i had work, i was to walk the rest of the way to the mall (it takes almost two hours to walk to the mall from our apartment and these particular shifts don't let me know if i'm going to actually be working until right before the shift), and if i didn't, i could just walk back home. the whole walk is a number of miles. the exercise was good for me and i felt a little better when i got home. i tried to go back to bed, but matt wouldn't let me (which is good) and we drove to seattle instead to look at places to live in september.

ps - our lease is up at the end of august. thank god.

it's frustrating because most of the houses in seattle are just out of our price range. we don't mind living in an apartment, but most of the apartments within the city limits don't allow dogs over 25 lbs., and definitely have breed restrictions. it's going to take a little bit of digging, but i firmly believe that our place is out there. we're going to look in west seattle and closer to alki this weekend, i think. ANYTHING is better than where we are now.

it was nice getting out of the apartment and spending time with matt, though, and i felt quite a bit better by the time we got home.

you know what's awesome? the game prototype for xbox live or 360 or something. i'm not up on these things, but we went to this guys aaron's apartment the other day and played ufc 2009 (kind of boring...made me want to play a wrestling game instead) and call of duty 4 (fun as always - we used to play this at andrew's when it first came out. i still like it WAY more than halo), and then he showed us prototype, which is like spider-man meets the incredible hulk meets x-men meets grand theft auto. it was crazy!

so rick texted me this joke about my dad and it actually made me laugh out loud. sorry if you don't get it, but i'm going to post it anyway!

q: what do you get when my dad forgets about breakfast?
a: craig's forgotten toast!

lolz!

matt and i went downtown yesterday evening, which was way fun. i've come to realize that even though it took me a minute to settle up here, that's because i'm in renton right now. seattle's a really good fit for me. we stopped at ross and matt got some awesome clothes on the cheap! we discovered that seattle's f.a.o. shwartz (as opposed to new york's, which you'll remember from the piano scene in big) is actually just a small room. a small room, which is literally half-full of plush-only toys. and standing awkwardly in the middle is a bald man and a young couple, half of which is pregnant. there's not even any music playing.

we wandered over to the space needle and discovered that there's a whole lot going on down there. aside from the sfm/emp (which is free after 8pm on the first thursday of every month), there's a little amusement park! with games and rides and laser tag and everything! there's even a little roller coaster! and the monorail stops there! the monorail! we also made the sad discovery that the monorail is not part of seattle's metro system, so you have to buy separate tickets for that. LAME.

we walked back toward the water and ended up eating dinner at the cyclops cafe, which had some of the best salsa i've ever had, uhm, ever. they also had caramelized onions and roasted red peppers in their quesadillas. holy shit!

we caught the bus back to renton and got home around midnight.

it's been really cool the past couple of days. it's weird to be wandering around in a hoodie in the middle of july. it's nice that it rarely gets above 85 here, though. awesome!

so it turns out that this girl i work with at BBW is a member of the WWE universe. i nearly pooped myself when she used the names "batista" and "john cena" back-to-back, and then marked out about HBK's triumphant return. it was definitely up there in the top 10 most glorious moments of my life. my only complaint is that she kept talking about how hot certain WWE superstars are (none of them are hot...except maybe CM punk, and he's really not that hot), and she's prefers john cena to randy orton. pshaw.

hello, livejournal!

i hope everyone had a fun and safe fourth. the bar bailed on me for the 3rd week in a row, but i finished my work at the mall at 4:00, so there was plenty of time to piece together some july 4th plans.

matt and i had planned on going to gas works park (yes THE gas works park...you might remember it from stephen colbert making fun of it) for the fireworks show there, but it's a little far from us to be taking the bus late at night. it seemed like we'd be able to get out there okay, but it didn't look like the buses run late enough on a holiday for us to get home. we were a little bummed because the show at gas works is supposed to be one of the best in the country, but there's always next year.

so instead we checked out our local fireworks display! they set up a big barge on lake washington and shot fireworks off of that. it was extremely cool because there were dozens of other fireworks displays visible all around the lake as it got dark outside. the olympic mountains were an awesome backdrop. we took the video camera. one day, i will make a super post of all videos, 'cause we have a lot.

my little brother sent me a link to where i could download all of GWPI's old stuff, including some live stuff and their full-length. it lead me to chris smith's youtube site, which had a GWPI video, as well as some other old stuff. i spent a while last night listening to GWPI and watching old videos of my friends, some of which aren't even alive anymore. it made my heart happy.

on an unrelated note, a lot of people laugh at me 'cause i like wrestling. i get a lot of "don't you know it's fake?!" my attitude is kind of "well...you either get the joke or you don't." from now on, however, i'm just going to show any nonbeliever this video. it was created by and stars john morrison (formally johnny nitro), and (using his own words) "pushes the line between reality and dreams, wrestling and life." amen! even if you don't like wrestling, please take a minute to watch this video (even if you get bored and only watch the first two minutes and then the last two minutes...omg do not skip the last two minutes) 'cause it's seriously the best thing ever. WRESTLING made this video, guys!


Halle Something Jeff & I Made for You - The best bloopers are a click away

so matt's job is in jeopardy because the new company that bought the hotel he works at drug tests. so even though matt likes his job and does it well and there have never been any problems, he got sent home today (and isn't supposed to come in tomorrow) because he tested positive for marijuana. not cocaine or pcp, marijuana. though, while flipping through the employee handbook, we discovered that you CAN be under the influence of LSD and/or alcohol while on the job. that's cool. as long as there's no weed involved 'cause marijuana's pretty evil and dangerous.

i've been feeling really weird lately. the past couple of days, i've been in a generally good mood, but i've had these periods of crushing depressing that completely zone me out. i felt awful yesterday morning and wandered around like a zombie until it was time to go to work, only to remember halfway there that i forgot to put on deodorant and makeup. i kept forgetting what i was doing yesterday at work while in the middle of any given task. i hate when i get like this 'cause it makes me feel really powerless.

bleh.

work time, i think. i hope everyone has a happy 4th. i have two jobs today. supposedly.

oscar has been having explosive diarrhea all over the floor since 4:00 this morning!

omg i am so glad that i have a cat with a litter pan, rather than a rottweiler with explosive diarrhea!

dear myspace,

thank you for bringing instant messaging back into my life.

love,
kristen (NOT kyrstan. omfg.)

ps - the shirt i am wearing today gives me extra cleavage powers!

pps - i found the cutest gift ever for my mom the other day, so i bought it! hurray!

some girl at the bus stop after work today mistook me for a teenager with money to pay her bus fare (it's very cheap to ride the bus if you're under 18). why do people always think i'm a teenager? i have tattoos, for godsake! also, when i was a teenager, i had very short hair all the time. my hair is always very LONG now! geez!

haha. i was looking at old pictures and it occured to me that i always look exactly the same. you really can't tell if that picture was taken yesterday or 3 years ago. hint: it was taken 3 years ago. that is matt's ass in my face, btw.

uhm so evidently, tomorrow's the day we're supposed to be pulling all combat troops out of iraq? does that mean willie's coming home? does anyone know? (probably not. i don't know anyone who reads my lj who actually knows that willie i'm talking about.) i find this idea to be very very exciting.

i should note here that there is a willie that i live with, and there is a willie who is on his second tour in iraq. in my livejournal, i don't distinguish between the two, like, ever...but rest assured that they are not that same person.

i'm bored. someone make me unbored. go!

wow. it's a pretty shitty week to be a celebrity...

so my schedule at goofy's has been cut and cut and cut to the point where i really need another job. goofy's isn't really worth quittign because it takes so little of my time, but they cut my tuesdays a while back and are now cutting my saturdays at least twice a month. for you math buffs, that means i work MAYBE 8 hours a MONTH at the bar. i was really relying on having some cash flow this weekend and it turns out that's not happening.

but that's not as bad as it could be. i might be a day or two without a phone, but i've figured out that in the 3 weeks it's been since i quit* smoking, i have saved over $100 in cigarettes. i went kind of crazy and bought a couple of new outfits and a new hoodie, but even that (because i'm so fucking thrifty) doesn't add up to $100 or even $50, so (for the first time, eh, EVER), i overspent, but i'm not sweating bullets over money.

i can't live forever on a part time mall job, though. it seems i should take this time to find a job i actually enjoy.

matt wants to go to chinatown. it's supposed to be, like, THE place to go for cheap kitchen supplies and other gifts and goodies. both of us have yet to explore chinatown, so that could be fun. new york's and boston's chinatowns both yielded exciting treasures and delicious foods, so bring it.







*i say i 'quit' smoking, but that really means i'm down to smoking, like, one a day. after 8pm. i'm really good at sticking to that, but not so much at cold turkeying cigarettes...

so i'm back!

anyway, matt and i took the water taxi across the bay and hung around downtown seattle for a bit. i love downtown seattle 'cause it has, like, so many people and every crazy transportation known to humankind. we have a streetcar, a subway, a fuckin' monorail (does YOUR town have a monorail?!), numerous ferries and water taxis, a hybrid bus system (which runs on electic rails above the street, as well as on the subway rails underground), and god knows what else, all running at once. downtown just seems to busy all the time, plus there are shipyards everywhere.

it was nice to be able to hang around seattle and feel kind of like a local. other than the margaritas, our whole day cost less than $5 a person!

i bought a new hoodie today! it's pretty exciting because i get a new hoodie once every couple years. and there's still enough cool weather around to be able to use it! it may be 100 degrees in the south, but i spent most of yesterday in a hoodie! and today, the lower-70s (with lots of sun) seems pretty warm...

matt and i went to alki beach yesterday! alki is officially my favorite seattle neighborhood, despite the old people. there are tons of kitchy little houses and the air smells like salt water. we ran around on dark-colored, pebbly sand and poked at weird sea life that we'd never seen before, including these little doodads that look like butt holes, that pucker and squirt water when you poke at them. it was way fun, even though it was cloudy and cool and windy and the water was WAY too cold for swimming. we kept seeing signs that warned us against fucking with the sea lions, but there were no sea lions. we also enjoyed a margarita and some chips and salsa at lunch time. we shot some footage with matt's camera, but i'm thinking i'll probably never post it 'cause our internet isn't that great.

afterwards, we took the water taxi across the bay(?) to downtown seattle. the water taxi costs $3 and is part if seattle's metro transit, so you can also use bus transfers. AND you GET a bus transfer when you get on! hurray! the ride takes 15 minutes or so, but there is a snack bar! it also offers up a badass view of the city.

ooooh! more later! i have to go to work, like, now!

we discovered a fun and easy new way to make hash from stems. i baked up some delicious brownies. hopefully, we can take those on a picnic to the beach when matt gets home from work. hurray!

oh man, so just in case you were doubting how awesome free tv has become recently, the obscure/weird 70s-and-before tv network is airing bachelor father, which i'm pretty sure is my new favorite show ever. it's about this never-married lawyer who takes on his niece a la inspector gadget. except this man is a dashingly handsome lawyer, instead of a marginally funny cartoon cyborg inspector. in this episode, bachelor father must solve the case of the missing will! ps, the show is from 1957.

once upon a time, i made matt watch the kids in the hall: brain candy, partially because it's a funny movie, but mostly because i make references to it a lot and nobody ever gets them. matt still does not get them, even though he has seen the movie. i guess you have to see it 34780398483539457349 times in order to get all my awesome and hilarious KITH references. also, you had to have watched the show, like, every single day after school for an extended period of time.

which matt has not. and you probably haven't either.

unless you're rick. or one of my brothers.

the end.

here! watch this! it has nothing to do with my entry at all, and has already been posted! but it was, like, 4 years ago!

so i've been trying to update for the past several days, but the internet at the apartment is shitty, and i've been trying to stay inside (see below). so here is my entry from, like, 2 days ago.:

so the big news of the day is that swine flu isn't just for children and old people anymore! after all that making fun of the panic, matt and i actually managed to come down with swine flu. it's pretty brutal. to make things worse, i can't afford to take a day off work. and i can't tell work that i have swine flu 'cause then they won't let me come in.

AWESOME THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY!
1. i noticed that the porta-potty has been removed from the parking lot. AWESOME.

2. when i asked some random lady at BBW today if she would like to add some antibacterial hand gel "for just a dollar more! teehee!", she totally went off and pointed out that antibacterial hand gel is what's wrong with america today. yep. not the economy, not crime, antibacterial hand gel. as i coughed into my sleeve and handed her her change, i wondered if she'd feel the same way if she knew i have swine flu. AWESOME.

3. while doing some stock in the front of the store, some other random lady asked if our products are made in china. they're not. the lady was way relieved when i told her this, and explained (COMPLETELY SERIOUS, mind you) that "the chinese are trying to kill us." FUCKING. AWESOME.

working at the mall is pretty much the weirdest thing ever. like, working at BBW is alright, but the mall itself is like this freak-magnet. there's this one guy that comes into our store a couple times a week and washes his face in the product-demo sink. it's badass.

i have a couple of exciting items of note to add to my list!

4. there was a shooting in my apartment complex the other night! it sucks because i'd just been talking to willie about how our apartment complex is pretty crappy, but it's still nicer than MOST of the neighborhoods i've lived in over the past 5 or 6 years. the whole thing was pretty crazy. i was dead asleep when the gunshots in the parking lot woke me up. there were cops everywhere and even a helicopter! it was pretty exciting. for us, anyway. nobody was killed (a fight at a party got out of hand, i guess), which leaves me to believe that somebody had REALLY bad aim, seeing as they fired 6 rounds at a really crowded party and only managed to hit someone in the hand and someone else in the leg.

5. i ended up deciding to let work know that i'm sick, because i felt really bad about going to my mall job and getting everyone sick. that's only awesome if you're a zombie.

so yesterday while at work, i ended up talking to a couple from houston. working at the mall is crappy because my conversations with people are usually so brief and strained, so it was a nice 45-second break from the mundane. evidently, they were visiting up here for some reason but are thinking about moving up here later. we chatted about how friendly everyone is up here.

you guys, seriously. everyone up here is friendly. it's kind of weird a lot of the time.

things of note:

1. today is rick's birthday. rick is a pretty rad dude. rick! you're a pretty rad dude! he always sends me presents and it makes me feel like a bad friend because i never send him presents. rick! my new years resolution is to send you more presents! happy birthday!

2. i always find myself living in close proximity to a porta-potty, it seems. i'm not really a fan of this new trend 'cause it seems pretty unsanitary what with all the poop and all. if that's not bad enough, i've noticed that the neighborhood kids like to play not just around, but in the porta-potty. since it was put in the parking lot a couple months ago, it's been tipped over a couple of times. more on this as the story develops.

3. so i'm sure that none of you noticed the digital transition on june 12, but rest assured that we were still using rabbit ears, so we had to get one of those futuretimes digy-tized converter boxes. tv has never been cooler. we have a bunch more channels, including one that plays only b movies 24 hours a day. we got another channel that plays only weird 70s shows like the a team. it's cool because saturday mornings can now consist of something more than weird cartoons and/or infomercials. like...yesterday morning, i was getting ready for work while switching back and forth between frogs and the incredible hulk.

so i ended up going to goofy's with matt on my birthday and getting drunk. it was pretty exciting, mostly because i don't get drunk very often.

you know what's not exciting? quitting smoking, that's what.

but you know what IS exciting? presents! my mom and jay sent me a package, which included this weird/awesome wind-up toy that bounces around until it falls over, a lunch box, some soap and lotion, and some stuff from south of the border (uhm let's just say that if you are mexican and you live in north or south carolina, you probably live at south of the border, just in case you've never been).

matt and i went to this party last night at the hotel he works at. there are all these russian guys that pretty much live there, and one of them was leaving, so all these russian dudes threw a party and matt got invited. it was kind of weird because everyone was speaking russian and there was this russian music playing in the background, except once i heard snoop dogg's sensual seduction. matt drank and smoked more than i did and ended up getting sick, which turned out to be pretty lame because i was sober. on the whole, though, i still think vomiting is pretty much the funniest thing ever.