I stood up for myself, and the world didn't end.

It makes sense, really. Theoretically, people stand up for themselves all the time. They must, or nothing would get done.

I finally reached my breaking point. With the main boss out of the office for medical reasons, her stand in was on a complete power trip. An inefficient, poorly managed power trip. After repeatedly making mistake after mistake, then making other people clean up her messes, I had had enough.

Granted, all I did was put my foot down, and say No. No, I will not clean up your mess. This set off a chain reaction throughout my workplace (because if, heaven forbid, Amanda stands up for herself, it must really be bad.) which resulted in many people standing up to her, in a much louder and more confident manner. Not that much changed, but at least we all got apologies. We got apologies, then told to finish cleaning up the mess.

But at least I got that tearful apology, and the sense of satisfaction for not caving in for the first time in my life. It's a step.

So, oops. It's been two months since I posted. I am, indeed, alive and well. However, I am overwhelmingly, mind blowingly, headache inducingly busy with work and school. It's all good, though.

Other things I've been busy with:

1. We went to Farm Aid and saw Wilco, Jason Mraz, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, and Willie Nelson. We went because we both love Wilco, but in all honestly, I was super psyched when John Mellencamp performed. Now you all know my dirty secret. And man oh man did the middle aged ladies go CRAZY when John hit the stage.

2. As much as the middle aged ladies love John, the middle aged dudes love They Might Be Giants. These dudes were rocking out in their accountant outfits. We went to a show where they performed Flood in it's entirety. It's the 20 year anniversary or something like that. We were by far the youngest people there, which surprised me. I guess it makes sense though considering I was in kindergarten when it came out.

3. We went to a ton of festivals. Greek, Irish, Craft, Beer, Art, you name it, we went to it. It's been a beautiful fall here and we've been out enjoying it.

4. Work drama. Lots and lots of work drama.

5. Drinking. Wine.

I was trying to think of a way to link together all the different things I want to talk about, but fuck it. Bullet points it is.

• Last week an extremely drunk driver ran a stop sign, crashed through a tree, and hit four cars in my work parking lot. Mine included, of course. Thankfully my car was the least damaged out of all of them, and the only person injured was the driver. I've never seen anything like this wreck before. The amount of damage one drunk person can do is astounding.
• I'm finally done with pulling the carpet from my living room. Carpet, rug pad, staples, adhesive, and tack strips are all up. Now, I just need to sand it. Sigh.
• I go back to school tomorrow and I've never been this uninterested. I always loved school. This year, I've been dreading it all summer. I'm ready to be done. Only two semesters after this one to go.
• I had a country filled weekend. Saturday we went to the Festival of the Little Hills and ate chicken kabobs, a bloomin onion, and kettle corn. I've never seen that many red necks crammed into one place. Sunday we drove into the country in Illinois to go to one of my boyfriend's favorite places, Fort Du Chartres. You can climb around on a rebuilt French fort, and run away from the hordes of wasps that inhabit it. After that we went to the ruins of another fort, and drove around the area for a while listening to Sufjan Stevens (of course). We know how to have a good time.
  
• Go see District 9 if you haven't yet. Seriously, just do it.
  

I've had a rough week. As it turns out, I'm not cut out for physical labor.

We're pulling up the carpet in the living room/hallway. The hardwood floors underneath are actually in great shape, so minimal refinishing is needed. In the last week, however, I've managed to:

-Smash my hand between a crow bar and the floor

-Get blisters on three of my fingers and the area between my thumb and forefinger from the pliers I used to pull up staples.

-Smash my pinkie at work when a shelf fell from a side table while I was carrying it.

- Get a chemical burn on my hand and arm from the adhesive remover


All of these on my right hand. I can't even hold a pen right now, so work's fun. And sadly, I'm only about halfway done. I've done all I can on my own, but now I need someone to help me move the heavy furniture.

Any takers?

I rarely get excited about movies. Sure, there are some I actively want to see, but mostly my boyfriend pushes for them and I agree. Or it's something I see because everyone else has. Or I'm bored. But it's rare a movie comes along that I get really psyched to see.

The problem is that when I do get excited, I build things up in my head too much. I'm always convinced this is going to be the most amazing movie ever. And let's face it, rarely are movies that good. Entertaining? Sure. Thought provoking? Sometimes.

So when I saw the trailer for 500 Days Of Summer, I tried to stay calm about it. But really, Fox Searchlight (or Focus Features) movies featuring an attractive cast with a seemingly awesome soundtrack are right up my alley. I love Zooey Deschanel, and I really, really love Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

I kind of loved it. I loved that it was a (somewhat) realistic portrait of a relationship. I loved that they had fights and breakups and makeups that actually seemed like they could happen. It was a sweetly told story, with a narrator that actually didn't annoy me. I loved Joseph Gordon-Levitt's sexy karaoke scene.

It was engrossing, and well acted (of course). I recommend it if you like unrequited love stories. Because after all, as the trailer tells us, it's not a love story.

I haven't done this in awhile, so here it goes: the summer movie edition (there may be a small, tiny spoiler in the Harry Potter review, but not really. It won't ruin anything, I promise)

Moon- For those of you not familiar with this one, it's about a guy (Sam Rockwell) who mans a solo mining operation on the moon, with only a Kevin Spacey voiced robot to keep him company. His three year shift is coming to an end, with only two weeks to go, when he stumbles across a body who appears to be identical to his. It makes you wonder if he's going crazy, if there's really a person who looks like him, etc.

This kind of movie is hard for me, because I'm not really a pure sci fi fan. Sure, I like sci fi if there are fancy space ships blowing up and young hot actors and actresses to watch, but pure, slow, sci fi isn't my thing. However, I think it was a good movie, even if it was very slow moving. Sam Rockwell was impeccable, there was genuine tension, and an interesting plot line. If you're a sci fi fan, I'd definitely check it out.

Harry Potter- This wasn't my favorite of the series, but it was alright. It seemed kind of long and draggy, but then again, it wasn't my favorite book of the series either. It was funny, at least. I'm not usually a purist about book to movie adaptations when the book is as long as The Half Blood Prince. But why did they cut out the battle at the end? It made the movie end in a boring, anti climactic manner. But I love pretty much anything in the HP family, so I liked it.

Bruno- Dirty, raunchy, inappropriate, and absolutely hilarious. There were a few parts that make me squeamish, and very sad for humanity. It wasn't the best movie ever, but it was funny to watch once.

These ones are older, so I'll do one sentence reviews:

Transformers- Way too long and blah.

The Hangover- So very funny and hilarious and awesome.

The Proposal- Nothing new, but I love Ryan Reynolds.

Up- Devastatingly sad, but of course awesome.

I'm going through a weird period of life right now. I'm having huge highs and devastating lows at regular intervals. (And no, not in the bipolar way).

For instance, at work. I had my promotion. Things with that are going well, and I've recieved a lot of postive feedback from my superiors, including fancy pants corporate people. I've made good friends with the two other people in my position, and have been spending a lot of time with them outside of work, with margaritas in hand. I even went with one as a date to a wedding. This sort of thing is hard for me, I'm just not good as socializing and making new friends, especially with girls, but I'm really making an effort here.

But at the same time, people are being fired left and right. It's getting tense. No one's doing anything wrong, per say, just the economy. We used to have 9 sales associates and now there's 3. Every time the phone rings and its work calling, I'm sure I'm being fired. I try to convince myself that I'll be one of the last fired, as I'm in a management position and I bring a little more to the table than the average employee with my background in design, which they utilize often. But that's probably just wishful thinking, there have been many people that were fired that I never saw coming.

Things in my relationship are also up and down. We're going through a lot of stuff that I don't really want to talk about, but it's rough. Basically we want different things out of life, and it's hard to find the right compromise. I honestly think we'll be okay, but again, who knows. There are no guarantees in life, especially with love. And there's so much love there, it should be able to survive this rough patch. Mostly we're okay. 90% of the time, things are perfect. It's that other 10% of the time that breaks my heart.

While we're going through this, we're planning a huge vacation. Bigger than any we've done before. I'm super psyched about it, and Lord knows I love planning things. Anything that gives me a chance to research and organize is great. I'm hoping this isn't just something to distract us from our problems though, like when people don't want to get a divorce so they have a baby instead. And I don't really think that it is, but again, I can only know my intentions, I can't read Mike's mind.

So, basically, I'm at a crossroads. I'm someone who likes to be 100% sure about things, and everything in my life right now is up in the air. It's hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I'm not in control right now.