Hallelujah, Holy Shit!

My favorite Christmas movie is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I'll even watch it in July. This year...we're living it.

My father set up his outdoor Christmas decorations the Saturday after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday, they went out and bought some additional outdoor lighting, such as some lighted trees. My father punctuated our front yard with them.

About a week later, our next door neighbor decorated his yard. With the same friggin' decorations. Only he bought more of them. And put them even closer to the road than we did.

So we bought a reindeer.

And he bought 3.

Not wanting to get too petty over this subtle battle, we now began a contest over who has there decorations lit first. It started at 5:00 PM and slowly each house has pushed the light up time ahead.

Well we won today.

Because it's 11:30 in the morning and we flipped the switch.

Blogger Jamie, Writer Extraodinaire

I, your favorite unemployed blogger, have found someone naive enough intelligent enough to hire me.

I was at the airport on Friday when I got the call. I accepted a position as a technical writer for a software company. I will be updating their website and writing the information that goes on their software. I'm very excited because I finally have a job in my field: someone is paying me to write. I couldn't have hoped for anything better.

It's also on the posh side of Atlanta so I'll be a hip young professional. And by professional I mean yuppie, not prostitute.

Updates

For the past week I've been interviewing for a proper job, but I don't want to elaborate on it because I don't want to jinx myself and have to explain to everyone why I didn't get it. It's going well though.

I had to go into Atlanta the other day for a drug test. I spent the last six years of my life living in a small town and I still have trouble adjusting to Atlanta- even though I grew up in the metropolitan area. Sometimes I'll be in Costco and the crowd of people I have to fight through just gets to me and I have to leave immediately before falling into a panic attack. I'm not used to crowds or anything like that anymore. I used to, which is the weird thing.

I pull into this clinic, thoroughly pissed because I had to drive over an hour to pee in a cup, and I find out that they only have valet parking. So I had to drive over an hour and pay for valet parking to pee in a cup! Freaking city.

I have to go to a wedding this weekend so I'm going to be busy with that and the people that will be staying with us afterwards, but I have some good postings waiting.

My pretty

I want you to meet Patsy, my new phone:

She's not much to look at, but it's what inside that counts (That's what my parents tell me anyways, but I think they're full of it.) Patsy also doubles as an MP3 player and a digital camera (with flash) that work off a removable memory card. She has stereo speakers, so I don't have to use head phones for the MP3 player if I don't want to. There is also a cool visual equalizer for cool graphics. Best of all, Patsy gets service so I can actually talk on the phone again! Now, you must excuse me, we have some alone time we want to spend together...

I'm cool now

It only took six years after high school ended, but I finally got invited to a kegger by the cool kids of my graduating class.

A Thanksgiving tale of woe and imagination

For reasons beyond me, I am the one who turned out to be the black sheep of the family. I mean I went through school, follow the law, I don't do drugs, and I'm pretty giving of myself- I don't get why I don't fit in with my family. I'm a good person! I often find myself average among a group of elites.

The worst part is when I try to fit in. I wear the Ralph Lauren khakis and sweater set, flash the smile, and follow the proper etiquette. Then it comes- why is my hair blond? Why isn't it my natural color? Am I still looking for a proper job or have I become the retail clerk of the family? I get taller every holiday and why am I not married yet?

It makes me want to rebel against my family and give them everything that they talk about behind my back. It makes me want to show up for Christmas wearing that butterfly beaded backless shirt and a leather skirt (which almost fit again.) That way, I can control what they are saying about me.

With that, I give you this year's Thanksgiving criticisms:

• Ladies do not say "butt," they say "heinie."
• "Kick-ass" is not a good description of the cracker and cheese platter.
• "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, yea God," is not an appropriate Thanksgiving prayer.
• It also not appropriate to teach this prayer to my 6 nieces and nephews.
• When I pulled the Scrabble tile C, being thankful for "My bartender, Charlie" was not a sincere gesture.
• It is frowned upon having just alcohol at my place setting. Apparently, I should have a water glass too to keep up with the appearance of my sobriety.
• It is, however, decent for one of my brothers to say, "So you're where all the beer went."

Dear Diary

I had a dear diary moment yesterday... I found gas for under $2 a gallon. It is the first time I have over half a tank in my truck since August!