I’m sure all five of  you are just dying to know what the hell I’ve been up to for the past 6 months. I mean, it’s not like I could have spent EVERY SINGLE SECOND of my free time giving myself multiple nerdgasms watching Doctor Who.

Well I probably could have, but then when would I have found the time to watch Firefly? HUH?

So basically, some really shitty stuff that I had no control over happened in my life. When it did, I tried my best to take control over the things that I could. I made it my mission to try to “find myself.” To work out every day. To meditate. To eat healthy. In short, to be perfect.

Until that point, I had always maintained a sort of  “controlled chaos” lifestyle. But I made it my goal in life to change that. I no longer wanted to be the funny girl. I didn’t want to be the person that people told stories about. I didn’t want to be the person that got herself into horrible, ridiculous situations anymore.

The truth is-by trying to calm the chaos in my life, I somehow created the perfect storm.

The harder that I tried to define myself (or find myself)- the further I fell from the things in my life that defined me. The aspects of my life that I had been trying so hard to control, began to control me.

I found myself truly depressed for the first time ever. I quit writing and doing comedy.  I fell back into disordered eating. I withdrew from my friends family… and THAT’s when the obsessive Dr. Who-ing occurred.

The one bright spot in all of this, is that I was able to recognize that I was in a bad place and that I wouldn’t be able to get out of it alone. I’ll go into it more one day when it’s farther in my past, but I will admit that much of my free time the last few months has been spent in therapy, group therapies, support groups and doctor’s offices. It hasn’t been fun, but it has taught me a lot.

When I got laid off 2 weeks ago-  I was sure I was going to plummet even farther into despair. In those first bleak hours, I figured I would lose even more control and that I would spend the rest of my days flying in weird octagons over the cuckoo’s nest. I imagined my parent’s selling everything they owned and putting on benefit concerts trying to raise enough money to give me a lobotomy.

Amazingly enough, the opposite happened. (You can read more about this in my previous post) It could be just temporary, but I honestly feel more like myself the last three weeks than I have in the past eight months. I’ve been sleeping again; albeit odd hours since I’m not currently working normal hours. I’ve been eating again, normally… when I’m hungry and not obsessing over every single thing that I put in my body. I haven’t even worked out except for the occasional walk here and there, and mostly just to get myself to a destination. I’ve found that I can find a balance in the meditating, obsessive yoga aspects my life and the crazy chaotic ones- and that I like it.

Most importantly, I’ve been recognizing that there is still so much that I love about life… and THOSE are the things that define me.

Guns don’t always scare me. I’ve shot them from time to time, and I’ve actually enjoyed it. I am from Texas  after all.

I do however, have an extremely deep seated fear of being shot with one, despite the fact that  (Mom, Auntie Linda, and P.J.) please skip over the next sentence) I once played a game of indoor Human Duck Hunt- a game where my friends and I shot each other in the backs with a BB gun.

I can actually pin point the exact moment when my fear came along, and as jokey as I might be whilst telling this story, you have to realize that this was, quite literally, scariest moment of my life.

A few years ago on St. Patrick’s day, a few friends and I went to a bar in Ft Worth that was in walking distance from LA’s apartment. There was a patio out back, and we spent the night drinking green beer and having a blast. A few of our guy friends decided to take off a little early, but LA, Moops, Sally and I all decided to stay back and have one more drink.

By the time we left, we were all quite tipsy… or if I’m really honest, we were down right drunk. We stumbled out the door and proceeded to make our way across a dark parking lot towards the apartment complex. When we were about half way there, LA and I, in our usual fashion, started hitting each other with our purses. Every once in a while, when the moon is right, we are struck with the desire to wrestle, (don’t get happy boys) for entertainment purposes only. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw 2 people walking toward us, but I didn’t think much anything of it at the time.

By the time they approached us, we were so caught up in seeing who could de-foot the other first, that we didn’t get any weird vibes from the two. In any right state of mind, one of the four of us would have thought it strange that the two young people who were not wearing green were standing uncomfortably close to our circle. But no, we kept right on laughing and swinging our purses like drunken asshats.

When one of them tapped me on the shoulder, I assumed it was someone who Lauren knew. I laughed and casually slapped  their shoulder, thinking they were just enjoying the show. After a few more seconds I finally realized that Moops and Sally were laying on the ground, belly down, and one of strangers were standing above them.

I was about 2 sticks away from being this naive.

It wasn’t until saw the gun that I truly realized what was happening. From that point, everything started moving in slow motion. I saw then that they were both holding large, silver guns, and that they didn’t look happy. There was a boy and a girl, both in their twenties. The girl was wearing a large sweatshirt with the hoodie pulled over her face, and the boy was wearing a beanie low on his forehead. Just as I started taking it all in, the girl put a gun up to LA’s head and demanded that she hand over her purse. I watched dumbly as she quickly followed her directions without a protest.

I was then the only one left standing. I can’t remember who, but one of my friends grabbed at my ankle and angrily whispered to “get down.”

“Gimme your purse and get on the ground,” the guy demanded.

Even though I knew what I was supposed to do, I couldn’t make myself move. When I finally remembered how to make my arms work, I struggled with getting my new Beatle’s purse, which had been tightly wound around my wrist for the fight, loose.  When I got it free, I had the thought that I should retrieve my credit card before handing it over. Making what could have been the dumbest decision of my life, I slid my hand into the purse, grabbed the card with my cupped hand, and swiftly put the card in my pocket before thrusting the clutch in their direction.

The guy robber asked me angrily if I had taken something out, and I shook my head to say no before I got on the ground. Luckily they believed me. As we all lay on the ground, the robbers stood over us for what felt like an eternity. Even though my eyes were tightly closed and I couldn’t hear anything except for my own heavy breathing, I could feel the burning of the gun on my back. I was sure that every second would be my last.

After what felt like an eternity, LA shouted  “RUN!” and took off. She was halfway to the gate before the rest of us had even gotten off the ground, but we all followed quickly behind her. I was roughly 250 lbs at the time, but I ran faster than I had ever ran in my life.

Once we were in the apartment, we all got quite emotional. One of my friends who had left the bar early was quick to call one of our stolen phones. The mugger answered and some words (that I won’t repeat) were spoken. The police came and our cards and phones were cancelled.

Looking back, it was quite funny that in the short time it took us to cancel our phones, rap song ring tones had already been purchased and downloaded.

You can bet your sweet ass that none of us slept that night, or slept easy for many nights to come.

So you can probably understand why I got so freaked out when I heard a loud bang out my window the other night. Within seconds LA had rushed out of bed and met me at the office door.

“That was a gun shot, I’m sure of it,” she said.

I screamed something like “OHHOLYFUCKINGSHIT” and ran to the hallway where I slid butt first to the ground. “GET DOWN AND DUCK!!!!”

LA stood above me and calmly told me to get up. “It’s not a drive by, it was just a gun shot. I’m calling the cops.”

So I got up off the ground and dramatically tweeted that gun shots were being shot in my neighborhood. LA went back to bed and I sat up for hours fantasizing about the dramatic shit that went down just across the street. When I drove home for lunch the following day and a moving man and about 4 men mowing the lawn and moving stuff out, I’m pretty sure I was right in my conclusion.

I don’t know the details, but if my imagination serves me correctly, the scenario involved a midget, some drugs, the CIA, and an underground sex tape. I hope I’m wrong.

Image via Wikipedia

At the very least, I would like for the entire world to realize that Nickelback sucks hairy balls!

You know what? That’s not even fair. I am not even going to pretend that I know enough about music to say that they are musically shitty, because I’m sure they have at least a little talent or they wouldn’t be winning Grammys and what not. I do know enough about hearing things to know that listening to Chad Kroeger sing is only about 3 steps away from being literally raped in the ear.

Which is precisely what has been happening to me all week.

I get it Jack FM. You play what YOU want. And that is the exact opposite of what I want about 17 times every day.

Every time I hear those first few chords and his whiny groan of a voice chime out with-”How the hell we end up like this?” a little part of me dies.

And yes, I realize that that this may seem a little hypocritical considering that am writing this a day after posting how horrible of a singer I am myself. But you know what? I don’t get paid millions and millions of dollars to entertain people with my voice. (Though I bet I COULD  get paid tens of dollars NOT to entertain my five co-workers in my office.)

It does please me to see that there really is a lot of Nickelback hate out there. I’ve probably  heard more people say that they hate Nickelback than I’ve hear people say they hate Kanye West. If all the hate, then why are they still all over the radio? I’m starting to be convinced that half the people who say they “hate” this band are just doing it to get on the hateorade bandwagon. Maybe it’s just become trendy to shout out your angst at a band whom you haven’t really even formed a proper opinion about and then go home and buy forty dollars worth of their music on itunes to see what the hate is all about, therefore leading the radio people to believe that people want to hear this Godforsaken music and cause them to play it all freaking day. (I only know this happens because I have fallen for it myself. Thank you Miley Cyrus.)

I’ll be honest. Maybe I haven’t given them a proper chance. It’s not like I’ve heard any of there songs besides the five that are played 13 trazillion times on the radio every day. Nor do I want to.

My hate comes from a very personal experience, one  not even related to their music, (though I still think their music sucks) one that Ive spoken of briefly before.

Back when I was in college, our football team made it to the playoffs  resulting in a bowl game in New Orleans. I was involved in  a drinking spirit organization that went to all the football games and drank cheered from the stands. During After the football game, I went down to Bourbon street to meet up with a friend who had moved away a few years before, and had also come in town for the bowl game.

We met at one of those little stands where they sell the big Hurricane drinks (you know those tall red drinks you can buy on the side of the street with an umbrella stuck in it??) We had  just retrieved our drinks (though I was probably already quite a few deep) when we decided we should take pictures to celebrate our reunion and to show off our Hurricanes.

There were three of us gathered and we all wanted to be in the picture, so I looked around to see if there was anyone around who I could trust to take it.

I approached a group of people nearby who were dressed anywhere from “homeless” to “douche-bag,” but seeing as there was no one else around, I decided to ask them anyway.

CJ: Would one of  you mind taking a picture of us? My friends and I all want to be in it?”

I spoke openly to the group. As I did, the group all shifted their attention to the homeless looking greasy man in the center, who was obviously their leader.

Homeless looking greasy man: “Well sure ladies, I wouldn’t mind that one bit.”

He left his spot in the group and walked past the camera that I held out for him.

CJ: Umm… Nervous laughter.…

Homeless looking greasy man: Where would you like me to stand? As he is already edging himself between my friends and I, putting his arms around our shoulders.

CJ: Tehhehee… actually, we were just gonna see if you could take a picture of us! We haven’t seen each other in a while and don’t really want a stranger in our picture.

The homeless looking greasy man was taken aback. He clearly thought we were joking until we had reposed without him and I was once again trying to hand him my camera.

Homeless looking greasy man’s group finally took notice of what was going on, and all at once started talking.

“Do you know what you’re doing?? one of them said. “That’s fucking Chad Kroeger!!!”

CJ: Okkkkkkk? (and why do I care?)

“The lead fucking singer for Nickelback you bitch.”

CJ: Ohhhhhhh yeahhhhh. (shit!… But still,  who cares? No reason to act like an asshole.)

Homeless looking Greasy man AKA Chad Kroeger: Fuck you, Fuck you bitches.

Then we laughed and ran away as fast as we could.

Looking back, I can understand that he may have been embarrassed to assume that we wanted a picture with him.

Regardless, to tell someone “Fuck you” for not recognizing you? Add in the ability to kill small children with the sound of your voice?

Suck it, Chad Kroeger. I’ll never forgive you.

I have told you before that technology hates me. Like, bad.  I pick up a phone, and it loses service. I sit in front of a computer, and it completely quits working. Since I’ve been at my current job, (for a year and a half) I’ve gone through 3 computers.

3 computers. One which was brand new.

I’m sure my bosses think I’m on porn sites all day contracting computer AIDS, purposely sabotaging my computers so I have an excuse not to work. In actuality, I have NO FREAKING IDEA how or why these computers keep breaking on me. I treat them well. I run anti-virus programs regularly, and I’m very careful about what sites I go to. The only reasonable explanation that I can think of, is that I have been possessed by a frequency demon. I’m not sure it is actually a frequency demon. It may be a computer demon or a technology demon, but I personally think frequency demon has a better ring to it.

But I digress.

I will state for the record now, I am in no way responsible for my current state of, yet again, being without a work computer.

I’ll start from the beginning. (Imagine the following told to you in a ghost story voice. It’s not the most exciting story ever… but I think that will help.)

Last Friday was a normal day at work. It was rainy, and I was planning on leaving early to head to Austin to see my little sister.

As usual, my bosses left (even earlier) to go either hunting, golfing, or fishing… I forget which- on this dark and foreboding day. As usual, I cleared my internet history and shut my lap top down before I headed out.

*Side note- I actually have two work computers. My desktop has Vista, and the marketing software I use, naturally does not work on Vista. Therefore, my bosses begrudgingly had to get me a second computer to use for marketing purposes. A computer which I need in order to get anything done.

Monday morning I came back into work. It was still raining, and I was in a particularly foul mood. The bosses were going to be out until Wednesday, but regardless, since I had left early on Friday, I had plenty of work to do. The early morning was business as usual. I updated the blog, checked my email, and caught up on my friend’s weekends via facebook. Around 10:00 am I turned around to start up my laptop and get started on some mailings.

DUN DUN DUN….

The laptop…. was gone.

At this point I actually didn’t think much of it, and I was a teensy bit excited that I DID have an excuse not to spend the rest of my day swamped with the monotonous task of sending out mailings. The bosses have taken the laptop with them on their hunting trips before, (as my screen saver slide-show of dead deer proved) and I figured that they had taken it again to showcase their killings. Plus, the case was gone- so I was confident that they had packed it up, because the case was nowhere near the actual computer. So I spent the next two days outwardly cursing my bosses for leaving me bored and with nothing to do, but inwardly thanking the heavens that I had extra time to do as I pleased. By late Tuesday though, I was as bored as I have ever been on a 13 hour road trip with my parents. I was racing to answer the phone. Giving insurance quotes never seemed so fun.

First thing Wednesday morning when the bosses returned I popped right in their office to ask for the laptop.

Boss: Distracted that I’d come in without knocking “Ummm… OK.. we’ll get it for you.”

I returned to my desk and about 5 minutes later I was called back into their office.

Boss: “Did you say something about the laptop?”

Me: “Umm yeah… I need it back, so I can… do some work.”

Boss: “Well where is it?”

Me: “Uh… umm… you… have it?”

Boss: “Noooooooo…..”

By this time, everyone in the office (all 6 of them) were up and in the bosses office, eager to know what we were discussing. I explained how I thought that they had taken the computer to put their pictures of bloody deer on, and they acted surprised at the prospect that I would think they would do such a thing. There was no sign of foul-play. No broken windows. Nothing else was missing. We looked in every drawer, under every desk, and in every corner of our tiny office. They asked me about five times if I was sure I didn’t accidentally take it.

Oh sure, I packed a laptop and carried it out without realizing it.

Did I? I seriously started questioning my sanity. I clearly remember leaving the office and driving straight to Ft. Worth to meet up with my friend LA, and we headed to Austin as soon as I got there. But what if I had a crazy drunk ambien moment and drove back to Dallas, stole the computer, and drove back to Austin without even remembering it?

Ok, even I am not that crazy.

The bosses called the cops and talked in length to the owner of the building. They all concluded that, besides the cleaning ladies who the building-owner fully trusts, there is no way that anyone could have gotten into our office without a key.

Its been nearly a week now and there are no new leads. Oh sure, there have been the daily jokes… “So Carissa, if you just bring the laptop back- no charges will be made.” Or the ever so clever, “So, hows that laptop treatin you? You sure were smart in stealing your own work computer to have an excuse not to work.”

I’m over this shit. Even if they decide to get me a new computer, it will take me at least a week to get everything set up again… that is if my software is even compatible.

So I’ve decided to take matters in my own hands. Seriously, I’m thinking of coming to work tomorrow donning a trenchcoat and very large pipe. I WILL get to the bottom of this.

In other words… To whoever is out there, typing away on my work laptop. I hope you are enjoying yourself right now. Because in the very near future (*shaking fist) “I’M GONNA GET YOU!!!!!