Aubkabob

i was talking to a coworker today who told me that as much as he loves working with all of us, if he was offered a job with benefits, he would have to take it, because he needs to look out for HIM. i told him that the best advice i ever received in life was when my mother told me - as i was leaving home 3 months after my 18th birthday - "Aubrey, live your life for YOU." She wanted me to make decisions not because of others, to not lose weight for boys, to not sacrifice my happiness to appease anyone. that it is MY life to live, and i have to live with my choices.

what is the best advice that you ever received?

as always, tickled pink when running into people i know. today, oatmeal came to say hullo, and it clicked that i haven't seen him since DaDa in '03. cheez, that's a long time to not see someone that lives PRACTICALLY in the same town.

time sure flies.

and now i'm sleepy, so i must clambor onto my cloud bed to fill the vortex in the middle up with my ass until morning. i shall see you then.

*salutes*

yay for having tomorrow off.

social things are different from region to region. i've lived in a lot of different regions in my lifetime, so i got to experience a lot of them.

the biggest thing that comes to mind, though, is the different little social nuances between places that really aren't THAT far apart, such as washington state and arizona.

i spent all my teenage years up here in washington, and even as a teen, my friends and i would meet 'for coffee', even if we didn't drink coffee, that's how we did social stuff. "hey, wanna go to coffee?" we'd parade down to the local diner and drink coffee or soda, eat ice cream or salad or sometimes something actually substantial, and hang out until like 4 am or later.

after my best friend joe and i moved to phoenix...

joe and i: hey, wanna go to coffee?
person: *blink blink* coffee? i don't drink coffee.
joe and i: well, you don't have to buy coffee, we just meant to go somewhere like denny's and shoot the breeze for awhile.
person: well why call it coffee, then, wouldn't we be going for dinner?
joe and i: well... it's.. um...
person: and i'm not really hungry.
joe and i: well, you can get a soda, we'll hang out.. talk
peson: that's... weird.
joe and i: *sigh*

i can't count HOW many times i would ask people if they wanted to go to coffee sometime and would get that response. i think towards the end of the 8 years that i spent in phoenix that it finally turned out to be COOL to go to a local coffee place and get tea, coffee, dessert, what-have-you, and sit and just.. hang out.

and for some reason until this morning, i had totally forgotten that i was once again back in the land of 'coffee'. once the realization hit, i remembered a lot of recent conversations with people like wallbrat and oatmeal as to how we should get together for coffee. i knew that in the offer, it wasn't a situation to where i HAD TO GET COFFEE OR DIIIIE, but a nice social invitation to 'do lunch w/o food' type thing. 'let's hang'.

and i really did miss doing coffee, and am happy that i'm back in a place where i can just show up with one or two other people to say... Denny's.. and hang out until 4 am. granted, i never do this, but it's nice to know the option is there.

yay again for days off.

p.s. - i need to make more friends that like taking random road trips. "i'm bored, wanna do anything today?" "sure, wanna go to SEATTLE?!?" "*dies with glee*"

i freaking love/miss road trips with a PASSION.

p.p.s. - R.I.P., Scotty. Thanks for giving us such a fantastic catch phrase or two.

i had been talking all year about how i couldn't believe that management kept talking to me about my horrible attitude last year around back to school, and how i was incredulous. MEEEE? i'm a kitten! i never have a bad attitude.

how i had forgotten. just HEARING the stuff coming out of my mouth last night, and we aren't even into full swing for back to school yet. it's going to be a loooong season.

(in my defense, i had asked a coworker to come up front and cover my register for five minutes while i went to pee. as i was leaving, a lady came up and insisted that we find her the 12 cent pencils we have on sale, though i said we were out. so Manager Rick, the new guy Hai, and I ran around everywhere trying to find the pencils. no luck. so Igor (the guy covering my register) says she wants a rain check. fine. have her come to the kiosk and i'll put her info in there. i stand by the kiosk for - and i'm not exaggerating - 20 min, waiting for her. igor keeps asking where her rain check is, and i explain to him repeatedly that she needs to come over so i can get her name, address, etc. on her way over from the register, she stops to talk to another customer for another 5 minutes or more, then FINALLY comes over to me and says snottily "um, where is my raincheck? you going to give me one or what?" i gave her her stupid rain check for 5 packs of 12 cent pencils (yeah, that much grief was SO worth a freaking 60 cent transaction), and then headed back to the bathroom. i got to the hallway with the restroom when igor says over the radio "aubrey, can you come up here? has anyone seen aubrey? she told me that i was covering her for five minutes, and she left me stranded up here." right in front of a customer, no less, i got on the radio and said "*heavy sigh* how bad do you NEED me, igor? i have been trying to go to the freaking restroom for a freaking half hour, and i just got outside of the bathroom. i will be back up there as SOON as i can." i went up and then apologized profusely.

also, the entire evening, anytime i asked for help from someone over the radio, alli got was resounding silence, which is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves. after the fifth request for something simple, like a backup cashier, whoever would respond would YELL into the radio "I'M BUSY!" well, if you would tell me this in the first place....)