My niece and nephew at my niece's first birthday party.

New Song

I'm gonna write a new song.

It will be called "I Spend Too Much Time On the Internet Because I Don't Have a Job and I'm Avoiding My Parents".

The Dream Cycle

I go through a cycle with my dreams. I'll go for two or three months and not remember having a single dream. Then I'll go for two or three weeks remembering a dream or two or three every night. Last night I had a dream/nightmare about having an arranged marriage with a guy I knew like 10 years ago. The delimma was that I was of course not inlove with him. Then a guy I used to work with proposed to me with a butter knife instead of a ring. New dilemma: I didn't love either of the guys. I liked guy #2 better, but somehow thought that marrying guy #1 was "the right thing to do". So I show up for my wedding with guy #1 and guy #2 gets pissed at me and is out of the picture. But then guy #1 never shows up, and I don't have to marry anybody. Don't you just love a happy ending:)
The truly scary part: reality tv has poisoned my mind so much that I am dreaming it.

Really Weird

1. I think my nephew called me "Aunt Dad" today.

2. Last night I had a dream. There were no particularly outlandish events in the dream. Just me walking around in a city that I did not recognize as being anyplace I have ever actually been. The weird part was that the entire dream was in Arabic. And I am not fluent in arabic, so I could not understand what people were saying. I just caught a word or two every now and again that I knew. Weird, weird, weird.

Slow Start is Better Than No Start

I got my first paycheck from my part-time tutoring job. It is for the amount of $24.00. Not much to start with and I don't get paid again until the end of October. But on the upside, I love what I'm doing and I just got my second student today (so that will be a guaranteed $192 at the end of next month and more if I get more students between now and then). Holy crap, I am definitely qualifying for poverty status here. I need a full-time job, but I am not gonna freak out about this. It is going to come together. It is going to be ok.
Oh! And I did get on the substitute teacher list for Augusta Christian. We'll see how that goes.

And the next step is. . .

In just 9 months I will be leaving Augusta again. See Rodger's blog for more info. I'll be a little sad to leave family and friends, of course. But I am going to be moving up there with a group, so that will help. Despite having to leave loved ones (yet again), I am mostly really excited about the whole thing.

The House

I previously mentioned this house that me and my little sis will be moving into. So this is the post where I talk about the house.

The house is old as the hills. The house is big. The house has four bedrooms. The house has a huge kitchen. The house has no stove (much to my dismay). The house has a big backyard. The house has bugs and spiders and God knows what else currently living in it (soon to be evicted!). The house needs some new windows. The house needs lots of painting. The house needs floor work done in at least three of the rooms. The house used to be occupied by druggies (I am convinced). The house needs to be disinfected from top to bottom. The house is more than me and Mary know what to do with. Wish us luck!

Yeah sure

Your Reputation Is: Mystery Girl

You're the girl that everyone is trying to figure out. Men are attracted to your intriguing persona - and women want to copy it!

What's Your Reputation?

Fear Factor

Today I faced rodents, roaches, spiders, various insects I don't know the names of and porn. Yes you heard me/read me right. . . porn. I went to clean this house that my sister is about to move into and eventually I will move into also. The place needs a lot, a lot of work. But I'm not gonna get into that right now. So anyways, we are working and listening to music via her dvd plaver and tv since we didn't have a cd player at the house yet. While we were cleaning we ran across a cd left behind from the last residents of this house. It was a burned cd that had "Black Reign" written on it in marker. Out of curiousity we popped it in the dvd player to see what kind of music it was, only to discover that it was a dvd and not just any dvd. Porn. Shocking. I threw it away. Mary's friends think I'm a tight wad, but I don't care.

All this to say that I think I should earn an award for all the stuff I went through today or at least that medicinal glass of wine. Too bad I still have no money.

Sweet Jesus

I am officially not ok.

I was cleaning the kitchen this morning and a mouse/rat/whatever fell from the light fixture/fan to the floor, convulsed for five minutes and died in front of me. Then I freaked out and cried. Then I swept it into a bag for my dad to deal with when he gets home.

It could be worse. The rodent could have ran up the stairs and up into my room. That would be worse.

So. . .

I'm feeling a little down tonight and I dont' know why. Wish I had a bottle of wine for medicinal purposes, but I am too broke to spend money on wine.
I played at R. Gabriel's tonight and it went ok. Not bad. Not great. But ok. It was good for me to play there becuase it forced me to come up with two hours worth of music and I haven't had to do that for quite awhile. The down side of that is I had to pull together so much music that I couldn't thoroughly practice every song, which led to a mediocre performance. And honestly I wasn't really happy with it. But it's still good for me.
After I played I went downtown to see the Avett Brothers, only to discover that the show was $15 and, as I mentioned earlier, I am too broke for that s#@t.
I've also been feeling a little stressed this week for a number of reasons. (1)My little sis. There is always some drama going on with her and this week it was about 5 or 6 mini-series of dramas. (2) I started my tutoring job this week and it's going really good actually, but there is always that anxiousness that goes along with just starting ajob and wanting to everything right. (3)My room is in a state of chaos (still) from all the jank I got out of storage. (4)My parents are starting to drive me crazy a little bit. I am actually proud of the fact that we've made it this far without getting on each others nerves up until yesterday. That's like a month and a half. That's really good. (5)I'm running out of money and, although I do have this tutoring, I am making very little money thus far and I am starting to freak out. (6)Honestly, I am feeling lonely.
So this wasn't a very fun post, but it's where I'm at right now.

My Space

I finally got my myspace to be something worth looking at.

The Next Reminder

I'll be playing at R. Gabriel's this Friday from 7-9pm. It's free! It's kid-friendly! There's no excuse. Come and see me!

As a side note. . . I'll be going to see Blue collar blue Heart play at the Soul Bar this Thursday, if anyone would like to join me just give me a call or send me an email or something. Also, after I play at R. Gabriel's on Friday I will be going down to the Mission to hear the Avett Brothers. If you haven't heard these guys you are missing out. They are great. Let me know if you want to join me for either of these two outings.

The Nutshell (Part II)

Yesterday in a nutshell. . .
I spent most of the day going through our storage unit and dragging out all my shiznit. When I was in college I shared an entire house with one other girl and later moved into a good sized apartment with the same girl and two others. When I moved home after college I had lots of stuff. Stuff that I had no place to put in my old room at my parent's house. So we got a storage unit and all my stuff and all my parent's Christmas stuff went in there. Then I moved in with my sis. Then I moved in with Will and Sarah. And in all of these places I basically just rented a room. So my stuff stayed in storage. Then I made an unexpected move to Egypt when I got a job there while on vacation. So my family and Will and Sarah graciously packed up all my stuff and put it into storage. A year and a half comes and goes and I can't remember what I used to have and don't have now (except my cds). But I do know one thing. . . the time has come for me to go through all that stuff in storage and see what is trash, what is yardsale/goodwill worthy and what I can reclaim for myself. But I made a vow that none of it is to go back into storage.
So yesterday I got this unbelievable load(s) of stuff and drug it all into my parent's living room. It took me, my dad and Julie two trips with my dad's Saturn and my mom's Matrix to get it all. I could not believe the amount of stuff I had. Unbelievable. So I sorted out a lot of trash and a lot of yardsale stuff. The rest I hauled up to my room. This is all stuff that I would ideally like to keep. But it is still going to be way to much stuff. I know that on a closer look more of it will go in the trash or to goodwill. All I know is I have a lot of sorting through and sifting out ahead of me. However, I must say that opening these boxes is a little bit like seeing old friends again (especially my cds, books and coffee mugs). It's kind of fun rediscovering my old belongings. It just sucks that I can't keep it all.
Last night I went to a show at the Blue Horse Music Hall. It was like so freakin' good. I wish I had a financial income because I wanted to seriously buy some cds. It was Meagan Coffee (from Atlanta) and Jay Clifford (from Charleston). I had never heard either of them before. . . well not that I distinctly remembered anyhow. It turns out that Meagan is a part of one of the Atlanta Vineyards and I actually had heard her on their worship team. And what's more is that she and I used to go on youth retreats together. It is such a small world. Then it gets even better. She does this one impromptu song in her set. The lyrics were all about Augusta, GA. They went something like this:
Augusta, Georgia
I've only been here three times before
Augusta, Georgia
I confess I got lost on the way here
blah, blah, blah
irrelevant lyrics that I don't really remember very well. . .
I had my heart broken here once
(spoken) Shawn Meece
blah, blah, blah
more lyrics I don't remember

All this to say that I know Shawn Meece. He used to date one of my best friends in high school and I thought he was such a player. And of course I was right. So anyways I had a good time talking with Meagan after the show and reminiscing over the old days of Shawn Meece and youth retreats. Good stuff.

The Nutshell

So this week in a nutshell. . .
I began training for my new job and I really think I am going to love this job. It's basically doing mental activities with kids. These activities are supposed to teach the kids how to focus, recognize spelling patterns, memorize, reason, use logic and all that good stuff. So it is basically like I am doing things of the same nature as crossword puzzles, logicproblems, acrostics, cryptics, etc. AKA Things I like to do in my spare time anyway. So getting paid to do these activities with kids is fine by me. I can't wait to really get started.
I played at the Blue Horse Music Hall's open mic this week. It went well. Here again the booking guy wasn't there that night (seems to be the story of my life), but one of the other guys that works there took my info and said they might want to have me come back and be an opener for somebody else. We shall see. Anyhow, this is a really good place to play. They have a studio in the same building and they record everything, so at the end of the night I gave them $10 and they gave me a cd with my two songs on it. Pretty spiffy if you ask me.
Last night I went back to the Fox's Lair so that the lady that does the booking could hear me. I don't think she liked me. I played about 8 songs and when it was over I went to the bar. She told me I had a nice voice and asked me if I wanted a drink. I got a miller lite and that was the end of our conversation. It was a little discouraging, but whatever. I'm going to still keep showing up at their open mics from time to time. I know my guitar playing needs to improve before I can really be good. So maybe if I keep practicing like a crazy person it will eventually get there and they will all be like "Oh my gosh Dottie you have to play here every night and we have to pay you lots of money!" Just kidding, but I do have alot to learn and get better at.
The really nice thing about the two places I played this week was not the music, but the people. At the Blue Horse I hade a small group of friends that came out to hear me and hang out. It was good. And at Fox's Lair my friend Pat was the only one that came with me. He got up and played too and it was wonderful (despite whatever he might say). He played one of my favorite Counting Crows songs and that made me smile. Also at the Fox's Lair, I made friends with this cute little borderline old guy. When he first started talking to me I was a little hesitant. It would not have been the first time an old man hit on me. But this dude was openly talking about his "life partner" so I knew I had nothing to fear (but fear itself). I sat there and just let him talk. It was great. I got like his whole story about struggling with owning a business in Augusta and fighting cancer and losing his parent's and how great his son is and everything. I love this guy. I hope to see him again sometime.
So that was a big nutshell, but that was my week.

The Conference, the Reminders

I don't have much new to write about. I went to a conference in Marietta over the weekend and it was great. I could talk forever about this conference and the things that happened, but I would sound a little crazy and it might not make sense to anyone but me. . . so I'm not going there. But I will say that I got to stay with a very old buddy of mine, April, and her husband, Conrad. She used to be my youth pastor way back when and she now lives in Marietta. It was so great to catch up with her and so many others that I hadn't seen for years.
Tonight I went to a songwriters guild that my church is doing. It is very cool. A great idea.
Later this week I will be playing a little here and there. On Wednesday, I am playing at the Blue Horse Music Hall for their open mic (and I'm a little nervous). Then on Thursday night I will be going back to the Fox's Lair to play at their open mic so that their booking person can hear me play. Wednesday's event starts at 8:00pm and costs $5 to get in. The down side of this is that I only play two songs. The upside of this is that you get to hear lots of other people from the area play a bit and you might hear somebody you really like. Thursday's event starts at 7:30 (I think) and is free. This upside of this is that (1)it's free and (2)I get to play however many songs I feel like playing. The downside of this is that I won't be able to get down there until around 10:00pm because I have training for my job until 9:30pm. So if you go to work in the early morning you probably won't really want to wait around for me. But if you want to and can make it to one or both of these, I appreciate the moral support.

Fox's Lair, Part 2

So I played a few songs at open mic last night at the Fox's Lair. It was fun. It was the first time I've played anywhere besides church in quite awhile (since I last played at Dorothee's apartment, I think that was last spring). They want me to come back and play for the girl who does their booking, with the hope of either opening for some of the musicians they already have booked for Fridays and Saturdays or hosting their open mic every Thursday night. Yay! I hope it all works out well!
p.s. I am out of town for the weekend at a conference. Talk to you all when I get back!

Don't know what to say

Today my pastor at my home church in Cairo died. It was such a shock to everyone. He was not old or sick. But life isn't always predictable and none of us are promised tomorrow.

Fox's Lair

On Wenesday night I am going down to the Fox's Lair on Telfair Street to play at their open mic. I might have a buddy to go with me (Pat??? Rodger is bailing this week. Are you gonna bail too??) or I might be going solo. So anyone who has nothing better to do. . . I'd love to have someone to enjoy a nice, cold beer with. Any takers?

Watch Out for Those Sting Rays, They'll Getcha Everytime

Let us all take a moment of silence as we remember the late, great Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter). May he rest in peace.

I never thought. . .

I never thought I would be half-way to drunk off three glasses of wine and looking up Jesus on Myspace.com.

Reverse Culture Shock. . . But Not Really

Since I came back to the States about three or so weeks ago, I have not really had any problem adjusting back to the culture. I was warned and worried that this would be an issue, but it really hasn't been that big of a deal. But yesterday I have to admit I experienced something a little bit weird. It wasn't really reverse culture shock. It was more like in my mind I had superimposed my Egypt culture shock on Americans. Let me explain.
While in Egypt it became instinctive for me to tense up anytime I was walking down the street and a guy I don't know was walking towards me. You see the guys there could be so openly sleazy that you never knew what you were going to get. Would they make some horrible, gross comment? Would they grab you? Would they expose themselves to you? Or were they just going to continue staring at you like they have never seen a white girl before? So I would automatically brace myself for whatever may or may not transpire.
Last night I was at First Friday in downtown Augusta. For the first time, I noticed that I was tensing up whenever a guy I didn't know was walking towards me. It became really obvious because there were tons of people down there and I was getting rediculously tense. A bit of a system overload. By the end of it I just so badly wanted to go home. Weird, weird, weird.

I'm slack

Which Ninja Turtle Are You?

You are Michelangelo...You are fun-loving and free-spirited, and you always know how to bring a smile to your friends' faces when they are feeling down. You are also a bit of a slacker.
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Quote of the day and FYI

"I can't exercise in the morning. It takes three cups of coffee before I can even believe in God." -Dan Wager

FYI #1
Julie is hanging her work up at R.Gabriel's tonight and it will be up there for the month of September. Come check out my incredibly beautiful and talented sister's work!

FYI #2
Julie is pregnant again!!!! But it's very early in the pregnancy, so pray that things go well and all that.