the piper's calling you to join him

You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy my response below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-word answers seldom help anyone out.

1. First Name: Betel

2. Age: 22, nearly 23

3. Location: Rochester, NY.

4. Occupation: Technical support for The Cow Box Computer Co

5. Partner: Captain Emo Ranger - a little over a year and going strong.

7. Brothers/Sisters: The ones I count are Older brother (nearly 24), Younger sister (12), Baby sister (5).

8. Pets: Currently a calico cat named Honey, a shepherd mix named Abby, 5 goldfish and a koi outside in the pond.

9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:

Work: My number of hours is fairly consistent (40-45 hours a week) but the schedule changes on a 4 week rotation. This month I'm working until 10:30 pm. Next month it's 6:30. That makes it hard to plan a social life, especially with my "weekends" falling on Thursday and Friday.

My life: A mess, but tolerable. I could sit here and list all the things I wish were different, but that's not going to accomplish anything. I've got my boy, I have a job, I have a roof over my head, and I have some really supportive real-life friends. I'll take it.

Living arrangements: Still sharing a house with people who have been overly generous, and wishing I had a place of my own. That'll be remedied soon enough. I hope.

10. Where and for what did you go to school?:
Juniata High School: 1999-2003, Mifflintown Pennsylvania
SUNY Albany: 2003-2008 - Forensic Chemistry, Albany NY

11. Parents: My parents are still in central PA and don't really have much interest or input in my life anymore. Well, that's how it seems sometimes. I don't actually know that that's the case. His parents have more or less adopted me, and have said that if we ever broke up, they were keeping me and booting him out.

12. Who are some of your closest friends?:
I have a few friends in real life that I'm working on getting closer to. They're incredibly supportive, and came to visit me in the hospital last month. They're this strange hybrid between the parents I wished I had growing up and the friends I need now. The best word to describe them is "sensei."

your pixel army can't save you now

To steal a line from a blog I was reading earlier today: Okay so it’s been almost a month since I’ve posted but I’ve got a pretty good reason in that I temporarily forgot where the internet was.

Ok, so that's not quite true. I could also try the line about how after spending 8.5 (or more) hours in front of a computer all day, the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit in front of my computer, but that's also not true. Most of the websites I visit in my spare time are blocked by the filter at work, so if I want to stay caught up, I have to do it from home.

Don't look at me like that. I'm not talking about pr0n or anything remotely that inappropriate. My own blog gets blocked by the filter, just for being a blog. There are also web serials and comics and other blogs and the news and the list goes on.

Anyway, I've finally accrued some PTO from work, and I'm trying to plan a trip to visit my family for the first time since Christmas. This is officially the longest I've been away from home, and believe it or not, I'm actually starting to get a little homesick. For the people, not the place. If you saw the house, you'd understand why. I'm sure the feeling of wanting to go see my siblings will be gone in about.. 30 seconds after I pull into the driveway, because between the 5 year old and the 12 year old, they can be downright pains in the butt.

The plan (hypothetically at this point) is to get my car inspected, go to an amusement park, hopefully meet Noe, and then go to a wedding in another part of the state, several hours away.

Next week is The Dark Knight opening night at the IMAX theater in the next city over. That'll be fun since it also involves seeing Josh for the first time since college.