Unemployment.

by Camille Posted on May 20, 2010

This post marks the first dusty old draft I’ve finally revived in my attempt to clear my Drafts folder out once and for all. One down, seven to go. (Coming up: the worst date of my life, my thoughts on life pre-marriage, reflections on my hometown, and more.)

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(Originally penned September 23, 2009)

Poor Kyle left me today.  Packed his bags, brushed his teeth, and gave me only a slightly passing glance as he turned and walked away from me.  He left.

Just in time for September 25th {my 23rd birthday}.

Oh, I make it sound much more dramatic than it really is (they don’t call me a drama queen for nothing). We aren’t breaking up; he just has to work. I never expected to be the wife of a man who travels a lot for work, but then, I also never expected to be married by 21 and still not graduated from college by 23. Life has certainly thrown me for some interesting loops, that’s all.

Anyway, when he leaves, he’s gone for a few days at a time. Every time he leaves is harder than the trip before. He feels bad when I feel bad, and I don’t mean to guilt trip him, but that’s the way it usually turns out: with both of us competing to see who can feel worse about the situation. I try to tell him that my sappiness is a good thing, that there may come a time when his absence doesn’t affect me at all, and wouldn’t that be worse? Better to be fiercely loved than casually tolerated. Right?

But I won’t complain—how can I complain? Lots of people don’t have jobs right now, and a great portion of the ones who do probably don’t love theirs half as much as Poor Kyle loves his. I’m so glad he’s in a position that he really does enjoy.

That’s the thing about a job, you know?  When we have one, we hate it, or maybe we just hate what it does to our lives; but when we don’t have one, we really wish we did.  We spend hours selling ourselves to every company, corporation, or business that is even thinking about hiring. We drive down city streets, nearly causing 10-car pileups because our eyes are constantly darting from storefronts to billboards for the hope of being rewarded with the ever-elusive “Help Wanted” sign.  It’s dangerous, being unemployed. We are constantly on our guard, anxious to whore out our souls to anyone with a fat pocketbook.

It’s hard having a job, certainly.  Waking up.  Maintaining the drudgery.  Paying taxes.  None of it is fun. It’s all really hard.

But I submit that it’s even harder being unemployed.

And that’s why I can’t complain about Poor Kyle’s job that frequently takes him to far-away places.  We’re lucky he has the job at all, let alone that he truly loves it and thrives on it.  If only everyone could be so blessed.  I can’t complain.  I won’t.  I won’t pray for him to be home more, because I’ve heard the old sentiment, “Be careful what you wish for,” and my friends? I believe.

Still, it won’t stop me from drowning my lonely soul in a vat of Diet Dr. Pepper. Why anyone would want to drown their sorrows in any other beverage is beyond my comprehension.

I’ll quit once this next 12 pack runs dry.

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Just a reminder to be thinking about this weekend’s Saturday Steals (which will last from Friday night through Sunday night) extravaganza. Steal, write, link, enjoy. That’s the way we play the SS game.

Posted in change, Married Life, Poor Kyle, sad things | 5 Comments

It’s a little drafty in here.

by Camille Posted on May 18, 2010

As it stands, I have 25 posts in my Drafts folder right now.

They are only drafts because most of them did not have the brevity to carry an entire post on themselves, so they were discarded into the Drafts folder until I could expound on them later.

Right; like that would ever happen. Me, with the attention span of a tuna. No way.

So they’ve been bugging me, and this week I’ve decided to weed them out of my life once and for all. I have a dream, my friends. I have a dream that someday I will wake up without the shadow of drafts hanging over my head. That someday I will finally live in a draft-free world, where I can open WordPress™ and not be burdened by guilt and shame at the sight of my numerous extensive failures.

It’s a great dream, and it begins today.

For the drafts that won’t ever amount to much of anything, I am either going to copy out worthwhile snippets and paste them into this post, or simply delete them altogether. Then, I will take the remainder of the drafts—posts that I really do need to finish—and finish them.

A novel idea.

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Snippets of Drafts:

• “I’m turning 23.  Who even cares about turning twenty-three?  Twenty-three brings neither the excitement of 21, nor the sophistication and divisibility of 25.  It’s easily the lousiest odd number between twenty and thirty.” (From Sept. 9, 2009)

• “Some of my life’s most valuable lessons have revolved around SH!T.” (From August 19, 2009)

• “I’m sure if I was the type of person to drink, I would drink Mike’s Hard Lemonade. It’s beautiful, and just the sort of drink a chic person like myself would carry. I mean, just look at it:” (From March 8, 2009)

*Photo from here*
• “Poor Kyle has big shoes to fill: I read a lot of blogs, you know, and either the rest of the world is lying, or every other blogger’s husband is REALLY that romantic.  (Personally, I like to think you all are lying for the internet, but I guess that’s just the pettiness in me.)” (From Feb 19, 2009)
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That’s all that could be salvaged. My Drafts folder is now whittled down to 9, and you can expect to see them posted within the next week or so.
It should be very cleansing.
Posted in mediocrity, thisandthat | Tagged | 8 Comments

PH Towers Hotel Room Tour (Las Vegas)

by Camille Posted on May 17, 2010

As I reported yesterday, Poor Kyle and I had an illicit weekend affair in the ever-sultry city of Las Vegas last week. It was all very dramatic, except for the part where it wasn’t, and can anyone say Prima Donna?

Prima Donna.

As is common with weekend rendezvous with one’s lover (as if I know what’s common for a rendezvous with a lover), it was not easy arranging for a perfect meet-up. Kyle’s schedule is constantly changing, and no matter how I tried to time my arrival, I just couldn’t get there right when he was arriving. Instead, I rolled in a few hours early and was left to my own devices to navigate the strip on a Friday-night (scary as hell), check in to the hotel without getting raped while walking through the parking garage (also scary as hell), and occupy my time until the appointed hour (not scary, just kind of lonely).

Vegas is not a city for the single and faint of heart, that’s for dadgum sure.

As I wandered through the shops connected to our hotel, I found myself reflecting on my life. What was I doing in Vegas alone on a Friday night? How had I reached that point? Was it really where I wanted to be, the secret mistress of a much-beloved husband?

It was a confusing time for me. Epic, really.

Finally, I decided to go back to my hotel room where I belonged, and as I sank into the most delicious bed I have ever experienced, I slept deeply, accompanied by the self-doubt I’d been entertaining for the better part of the evening.

Then, at 10:00 p.m., I was startled awake by a familiar sound: Kyle’s personalised ring on my cell phone.

“Hello?” I answered, groggy.

“Hey, Babe. Can you come get me?”

I shook the lonely sleep from my head, traipsed back through the parking garage without getting raped (second great success of the day), and typed in his location to the GPS. When I got there, I weaved in and out of the rows of semi trucks, and finally, at long last, I found my husband.

It had been a long and troublesome journey, but as soon as I set my sights on that man I met nearly five years ago, all my woes melted away and everything was okay again.

It’s a big cliche to swallow, I know—but it was true. My second trip through the streets of Vegas was a complete one-eighty compared to the first. Where before I had felt out-of-place and kind of depressed, once I had hooked up with Kyle, all was right in the world. I was with my buddy, my bodyguard, my best friend. And everything was better.

The experience was a great reminder to me exactly why I married my husband in the first place. He is my go-to guy. He always has been. And I sort of feel like the stress of the past four months have blurred that perspective of him. Not that we were getting divorced or anything. But we’d each been really intently focused on different priorities—he with his job, and me with my school. Both were good priorities, but it still remains that being focused on different priorities for too long can have a bit of an alienating effect on a couple.

But this weekend, we were finally able to regroup. Now that the immediate crises of schoolwork and job changes are behind us, we were able to get back together and remember what we liked about each other so many years ago. It was like renewing vows, only after five years instead of fifty.

So I’d say the trip was a success.

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And now, just because you can only take so much of my sappy sundries, I will lighten things up with a tour of our hotel room. Just ’cause who doesn’t like a good tour?

We stayed in PH Towers by Westgate, a sister hotel to Planet Hollywood. The room had some awesome amenities, but what we liked best about it was its location: it was right on the strip, and the lobby actually opened right up into the Miracle Mile shops, where we spent a great portion of our time. We like just walking and window shopping, and the mall was a bit safer for the eyes than the strip (though we did venture out there a bit).

A caveat for my parental readers: I probably wouldn’t recommend PH Towers as a hotel for families with young travelers. It seemed to cater more to the 20s-30s single scene. Lots of parties going on all night. I was awoken both nights at 2 a.m. by rowdy groups storming the hall outside our room. It was annoying, but not nearly as earth-shattering as it would’ve been if it had woken up my sleeping kids. You understand.

Hotel Tour:

Posted in introspection, Married Life, on the road again, Poor Kyle, Travel | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Repentant

by Camille Posted on May 16, 2010

Oh, hello. Long time no see.

You know how sometimes it’s awkward when you’ve lost touch with someone who used to be a really good friend, and then when at last you bump into him or her again it’s all like, oh, yeah, we’ve failed this friendship?

That’s how I feel after a week of not writing on my blog; like I’ve neglected you and now I can hardly stand to look you in the eye.

Oops.

Anyway, things in Mesa have been going well. I have successfully avoided any terribly traumatic bumping-intos, except a few days ago at Home Depot when I randomly saw the first guy whose hand I held in ninth grade (we even hugged one time on the Disneyland trip that spring—promiscuous little hussy, I know). I hate bumping into people I used to know.

But other than that, I’ve done well for myself in keeping out of awkward situations. Kind of like how I’ve been avoiding this blog. You know me: when in doubt, scratch a hole in the sand with your talons and bury your head until the awkwardness subsides.

I have issues.

Another thing keeping me from this blog is the fact that, despite having just driven 24 hours from Canada to Mesa last week, I got back into George Jettson and drove back the way I came, this time stopping in Vegas where Poor Kyle was delayed for the weekend.

We had a conjugal visit.

Ho, ho!

Judge me for my frivolity if you want, and you probably will, but it was fun and impulsive, and a much-needed two-day holiday for my husband and me. There will come a day when such excursions will be impossible—or at least tenfold more complicated—by the presence of our offspring, so I figure we should enjoy this time while we can. In fact, while walking through the Miracle Mile shops soaking in all the worldliness around me, one hand clinging to Poor Kyle’s and the other grubby fist tightly clutching my Auntie Anne’s pretzel (Poor Kyle and A.A. pretzels—the two great loves of my life), it occurred to me that someday I would look back on that moment and weep for days gone by. It was kind of depressing, to tell you the truth. But also a bit clarifying.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about the awesome hotel we got, and yes, a video tour is included; even on my most romantic of weekend getaways, my blog readers are never far from my mind.

Like I said: issues.

(Poor Kyle.)

Anyway, I’m back from my hiatus and I promise to make things up to you.

For those of you (all four of you) who wrote a Saturday Steal post last week only to have your hopes crushed by my absence, I’m sorry. I’ll never let it happen again. And this weekend I’ll even host a giveaway for the entrants as a token of my remorse.

Truce?

Truce.

Posted in failures, It's All Good, Married Life, on the road again, Poor Kyle, quickies, Travel | Tagged | 11 Comments

Manageable After All

by Camille Posted on May 12, 2010

I drove from Canada to Arizona all by myself.

I have done it several times before, but every time I go, I question whether or not I will really be able to make it. I mean, that’s a long way to drive all by oneself (it took me 22 hours of driving time in the space of two days). What if my contact lenses don’t work for such long hours of driving? What if one pops out? What if I get drowsy and fall asleep at the wheel? What if I don’t time it right and run out of fuel on the side of the deserted highway and flag down a crusty truck driver for help and instead of helping me he actually rapes me and beats me to death with a tire iron and then rapes my dead body and leaves me for the vultures who eat out my eyeballs with their greedy beaks?

What if I fail?

I mean, I don’t think I’m the type of person who would get myself into such predicaments. I’ve proven before that I can complete the drive and complete it well. But for some reason, every time I decide to make the trip again, all confidence gained from previous experience flies out the window and I am left a quivering ball of self-doubt rocking in the corner.

But that’s no way to live, so I always get up and get going.

And I’m never sorry I did:

Driving through the Rockies in Montana.

Sunrise in the hills south of Saint George (this is always the part of the trip where I start to feel like I’m coming home).

The new bypass bridge under construction on the Hoover Dam.

And one of the many rewards upon a safe arrival.

The occasional extended road trip all by oneself is good for the soul, I’m convinced of it. It buoys the spirit, boosts the confidence, and rekindles the knowledge that life is manageable after all.

See you on the flip flop.

Posted in Canada, introspection, on the road again, self-actualisation, the great state of AZ, Travel | 13 Comments

Saturday Steals: Spanish Body Spray

by Camille Posted on May 7, 2010

Hi, and welcome to another rousing batch of Saturday Steals.

My steal of the week comes all the way from Spain (what a week for international packages!).

Image swiped from here (I hope that’s okay, Chloe!).

I entered a giveaway at My New Life as a Housewife a few months ago for these body sprays, and lo and behold, I won (first win of the year, despite entering every contest available to me).

A few weeks later, what should arrive in my watering hole box but a package from España itself! Such excitement. Foreign items seriously turn me on. Intellectually.

They’re so exotic they glow! (Oh wait, that’s just some overly ambitious photo processing. Oops. But still, they ARE from Spain and thus exotic.)

These are the tiniest, cutest little body sprays—perfect for travel—and I immediately stowed my favourite of the four scents in the armrest of George Jettson. Good luck for me, because I used it today during hour 12 of 15 (the hour when I started to smell like old man and butt in that order). I could be dead right now on the side of the road from passing out while driving with the stench of me.

So thanks, Chloe, for saving me from myself.

For free (for me). That’s a steal if I ever found one.  You’re a real pal.

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What did you steal this week? Write a post about it and add your link to the list below. The link will be open from now till Sunday at 11:59 p.m.



Posted in blogger finger, on the road again, Saturday Steals | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Package from Across the Sea

by Camille Posted on May 5, 2010

In third grade (Grade Three, Canadians) my teacher, Mrs. Easterling, paired up with another teacher in Detroit and hooked all of her students up with pen pals.

It was awesome.

For like a month.

And then it sucked, because I only got one letter.

Anyway, ever since then, I have always wanted a real, live pen pal, and since starting this blog, I’ve gained like 100. But online pen-pals are not the same as old-fashioned pen pals, because emails are a dime a dozen where real letters in real mailboxes are worth their weight in gold, and I promise these blog-awful clichés are going somewhere.

Like here, to the picture of the package I received in the mail from a REAL citizen of the REAL country of my dreams: England.

Yes, my friends, it’s true: I have fostered a relationship with a British person and we are BFFs now.

I’m practically Princess Di reincarnate.

See, it all started when Ros from England either found my blog or I found hers, I don’t quite recall. Either way, we were fast friends, and then one day she wrote this post about the British things in her British handbag (HANDBAG! SO BRITISH!).

And I was all, SQUEE, because I really am British at heart (but don’t tell Canada or they’ll take away my residency). I am fascinated by all cultures other than my own, always have been, but British is my longest-standing favourite. So I was excited to see the things a British person keeps in her purse, and I know you will be, too. Here’s what she had (photo swiped from Ticklepea herself):

(Even the plank wooden floor is undeniably British!)

See there, the pink and white circular tin on the right side of the photo? It’s called Rosy Lips Vaseline™, and apparently it’s the only product my British friend Ros deigns to use on her British lips.

So I, being the lip-product aficionado that I am, straightaway commented on Ros’s post and said I’d never heard of that stuff, and was it only available in England? Because if so, I’d have to come visit just for the sake of buying some myself.

Quickly, Ros realised the errors of her ways—an uninvited guest was not on her list of things to deal with this semester! So instead of allowing me to hop on the next plane and force her into friendship, Ros instead offered to send me a tin of the Vaseline (and just for good measure, she donned a necklace of garlic cloves to ward off eager would-be American house guests).

I was disappointed she wouldn’t let me move into her attic and follow her around all day mimicking a proper British accent, but I was pacified with the prospect of a package. It would do.

So we made a deal: a package for a package.

Well, look what finally came for me this week!

A British package! And Ros was awesome and went stamp-happy on the box, which, hello: just the sort of thing a good British pen pal would do.

Do you want to see my haul?

1. A real, British, hand-written letter with explanations for the contents of the package:

Her British penmanship should be a font, for reals.

And look! She even wrote, “ho hum!” So British.

2. A fancy variety pack of British Tea:

The flavours sound amazing.

3. A British mug with which to drink my British tea:


4. British candy:

My favourite was the Kinder hippo which I failed to properly photograph before devouring it in one enormously greedy bite. Next time I go to England I will buy cartons of those delicious morsels and have a massive giveaway on my blog. It was amazing.

5. British stamps in a collage, courtesy of a real British stamp collector (Ros’s dad):

(This is going on my desk.)

6. British swag:

7. A British copy of a British classic by one of my favourite British authors (and I have been meaning to read it for years now!):

I love the simplistic look of the cover. Such good design is of course British.

8. And, my favourite item of the package—Rosy Lips Vaseline™:

Not only is the container amazing (“gently tints and cares for lips”)…

…but it smells heavenly and WORKS LIKE DADGUM BRITISH MAGIC. Which is way better than the American kind.

My only fear now is what I’ll do when I run out of it—it’s going to be a sad, sad day, and judging by how fast I’m using the stuff, it’s not far off. I might get my trip to England yet!

Thanks, Ros, for the bit of excitement amidst this otherwise-dreary week. You’re a regular pal. I hope you like your return package!

Everyone should have a British pen pal. Only not Ros—she’s mine. Get your own real live British friend, fool.

Posted in blogger finger, Overall Good Things | Tagged , | 12 Comments