Thanks!

-Jessica

Bullshit! Just another advertising ploy to trick people into believing what they are selling is limited, in high-demand and you must ‘act now’ (or tomorrow, pfft!), or you might miss out. Trust me, they don’t care if your last name begins with F and you call next Saturday at 3 in the morning; they will be there to take your money. Sad thing is, so many people actually fall for this.

Basically, every time it rains this stupid place floods. Seriously. And not just when it rains a lot. When it rains period. But it started raining early yesterday and did not stop until about 2 hours ago.

How about a visual?

Everywhere you see water there’s supposed to be a road or a sidewalk, and keep in mind this was taken earlier in the day long before it stopped raining.

Just like that one.

Some people drive through it, but I refuse to. #1, it’s unsafe to drive through water like that! #2, the car I had before the one I have now DIED not long after I drove it through this flooded complex in the past. Really though, does it take a genius to realize that driving through a lot of high water can screw up your vehicle? Especially if you’re in one lower to the ground than a truck might be. I’m still paying my damn car off. I’d like it to LAST a few years after I finally do!

On a different note get this, while we had floods in the center of the state, at the same time there was winter weather advisories in the northern parts of the state and TORNADO WARNINGS in the south! That’s Arkansas weather for you. In The Natural State you get a bit of everything.

So, that’s really all I have to say, other than Merry Christmas to everyone. :-)

I left. Without my ticket.

When I got home I called Greyhound (their main headquarters, or whatever) to complain and to find out why there were no employees to print my ticket. I was upset, knowing I had purchased a non-refundable ticket and that I was going to have to go back to that awful station and wait an hour or more in it before I could board my bus and get the hell out of there. I expressed my concerns about being mugged and made it quite clear that if anything happened to me that I’d sue the shit out of them.

After I hung up I immediately called the station I had just left and after several minutes of busy signals and no answers, a girl finally answered. Her excuse for not being there was that she left to get breakfast at Mc Donald’s. Really? Must be nice to just leave like that whenever you want to during business hours and there be absolutely no one to pick up your slack.

Anyway, we had words and she was rude and I was rude back.

The night of my leave:

I was to board my bus at 1:10 a.m so I had to be there an hour early. My brother took me and we waited outside in the parking lot forever, and during our wait we were approached by a pimp/crack head/drug dealer! He kept coming up to the car window and I was so scared I just wanted to get out of there. Where were the security guards? Where were the cops? This place was crawling with EVIL! We watched a drug deal happen right there in front of the bus station, which once again was devoid of employees save two strange guys that seemed to like talking to the pimp. :-| Anyway, it was after 2:00a.m before my bus finally got there and when I got on I was forced to sit for two hours to Memphis with two drunks directly behind me, constantly saying extremely loud ‘motherfucker this’ and ‘motherfucker that’. They smelled so bad that I could have vomited if I let myself breathe like a normal person.

Then there was my bus driver, who like just about every Greyhound bus driver I’ve ever had the displeasure of being driven by, couldn’t seem to drive without swerving. Needless to say I did not sleep a wink from Little Rock all the way to Chicago. I guess if I was going to die in a fiery bus crash I wanted to watch it happen? I don’t know, but I couldn’t sleep and that was the longest 13 hour ride, ever.

{INSERT HAPPY CHICAGO TIMES HERE}

I dreaded getting back on a Greyhound to go back to Little Rock and I almost spent my car payment money to buy an Amtrak ticket instead. In fact, for a long time I was dead set on going home by train as I refused to step foot on another bus. When it came down to it, I knew I didn’t have the money and that I needed to stick it out (if I lived on the way back) and get it over with. Brian and I went to the Downtown Chicago station an hour before I was to board and once again, before I even got on things were awful. I stood in line forever to check my bags as the customer service woman talked on and on with two girls about everything but tickets and such. She didn’t care that people were waiting in line. Finally when it came my turn, she was just rude in general; the way she hardly looked at me when I spoke to her, how she wrinkled her nose when I asked her what gate I needed to board at. She didn’t even verbally answer my question, but rather stuck my ticket in front of me after writing my gate number on it. I wanted to smack that woman.

It got worse.

As Brian and I were sitting down and waiting on my bus to arrive, the same customer service woman was being so rude and nasty to an Asian lady because the Asian lady could not understand English. It was really sad because that poor woman was so distraught and upset that the Greyhound lady was being so horrible to her. At that point I was fuming! I was so close to walking up to that woman and telling her fat ass off.

Unsurprisingly, my bus was over an hour late. When I made it to Memphis again, I had to switch buses and ended up with a grouchy bitch for a driver that was as rude as the customer service woman in Chicago.

I’ve explained enough and won’t go into detail about what she did and said to me and other passengers, but I think I’ve summed it all up.

So that’s my story. I will never ride a Greyhound bus again for anything. I hate to say it, but Greyhound is truly the international travel for crack heads, loudmouths and other people like them. The stations are nasty. The buses are nasty. The bus drivers (most of those I’ve encountered anyway) are horrible with people, rude, falling-asleep-at-the-wheel, threatening and thoughtless. Their schedules are whacked out with layovers as long as 6 hours or more, overcrowded buses, rude passengers that want to take up both seats and will make it known they don’t want you sitting next to them.

It’s a horrible way to travel.

Enough said.

I have never gotten up at the crack of dawn to stand in line at a lame department store for anything and I never will. It’s ridiculous! Have you seen these crazy people trampling other human beings as they squeeze their way through packed doors and several hundred people for a few bucks off some stupid product? What, was it last year or the year before when a Walmart employee was KILLED by a stampede of frickin’ shoppers?

Heeeellll no!

Let me just let you in on a few secrets, which shouldn’t be secrets at all, really. #1…

(Hold on, I’m still watching this crazy shit. Geez! This store looks like the mosh pit at a Pantera concert! For a PS3! I love gaming, but this is stupid.)

Anyway, #1…you don’t really want to buy electronics from a department store (any electronic device I’ve ever purchased from a certain ‘ruler of the retail world’ has had something wrong with it), especially things like computers. A $200 laptop is guaranteed to be a piece of shit. Trust me. #2…

(Oh, now it’s the insane wedding dress shoppers. This is something I’ve never understood. I mean sure, a $6,000 wedding dress for $200 is a steal, but these women are nuts! They picked the racks clean in under a minute! Lame. You’re going to wear that dress once. Once! Is it really worth all that? No.)

#2…The amount of stress you put your body through during the shopping madness shortens your life by 2 years! Not to mention, why would anyone want to risk life and limb for a deal? Chances are you’ll end up spending the money you saved (and more) on the hospital bill later. #3…The price you pay for the stuff (sale or not) is triple compared to what the store actually pays for it. Can you imagine how crappy and cheap that $200 laptop really is? Do the math. You don’t see Alienware computers marked down to $200 and there’s a reason for that.

So that’s my rant for today. I will wait until the stores are clear of psychotic people and when I can take the time to shop for things the people in my life might really like and find good deals. And I can do this all without being trampled, or threatened to have my throat cut if I don’t give up the last Bratz doll. But before I go let me say to all of you people out there that do intend to shop in the morning: you can still be human if you stop when someone gets knocked over and help them up, rather than pretending you don’t see them and running over their head as you go about your merry, crazed way.

~steps off her soap box~

OK, maybe not so much a cat suit, but you get the idea.

Yes, I’m still going to submit to agents. I guess it’s a necessary evil, so I’m sucking it up and am going right back into the belly of the beast. For now…. (I talk a lot of shit when I’m thoroughly upset – don’t mind me.)

They say most writers publish their first book in their 30’s. Let’s see if ‘they’ really know what they’re talking about.

Hmmm, let’s see. I’m just babbling this morning. I could tell my Greyhound horror story since it’s technically not in the same happy Chicago post, but I think I need more than 30 minutes to word it right and all, to give you the full horrific effect. So, I’ll save that blog for next time.

I can’t wait to go to Whole Foods this weekend to get some sushi and one of my new favorite drinks that I can’t remember the name of (Brian?). And I need to go to the AT&T store to get a new battery for my Blackberry. Why am I telling you this? Because, like I said before I’m killing an hour before I have to go to work.

~sigh~ One more day of work this week and I’m out for Thanksgiving, too. I need to get some writing in! I need to get my queries ready again and start submitting, while at the same time writing in my YA werewolf novel and on the side reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Yep. Much to do.

Now the energy to do it….

I used to sit out in the vast green field in front of their house under a massive walnut tree, searching through every cloverleaf hoping to find one with four petals. Below is the tree, which is still there thankfully, though unfortunately, it looks nothing like it once did.

After my grandparents died, the family sold the house (which was built by my grandpa) and the land. Since then, everything about it has changed. There was never a fence before, and the grass, like I mentioned was beautiful and healthy and green; the way grass is supposed to look, and there were no ‘dead areas’ and spots of dirt. The walnut tree was one hundred times fuller than you see here and I remember the branches and leaves seemed to hang down like a vibrant umbrella of green.

And…(it hurts me every time I drive past it now)…there were never old junked cars strewn about the land, as you see in the photo above and goats and horses walking around practically everywhere but the front porch. I have nothing against horses and goats! But seriously, this place used to be so beautiful. There were pretty Dogwood trees in the front yard, a big and wonderful garden in the field where my grandparents grew every kind of vegetable you can imagine, and a grape vine, and on the land in the back was a giant watermelon patch.

Seeing it now is hurtful and even disgusting.

Like I’ve said before, one of these days I’m going to buy that land back and clear all the junk off it and make it look the way it did when my grandparents were alive. I swear it! You just watch me! :-(

On a lighter note, directly across from my grandparents house is where my Uncle Darrell lives, still. :-) Above is his house, which is still pretty and also holds many memories for me.

And above is the little store at Bee Branch where we always stopped for drinks and candy on our way to my grandparents. It’s about an hour and a half drive to Greer’s Ferry from Little Rock, but when we were children, an hour and a half was really three hours, of course. Bee Branch (actually called Snappy Foods) was our in-between stop. Once we made it to this store we knew we were almost there!

And this is the corner store in-between my grandparent’s house and the swimming area at the lake. I remember walking there a lot and stopping in for Orange Sherbet Push-Up Pops.

So, that’s my little stroll down memory lane. I don’t know whether to smile or cry….

On another note, the Dirty Eden blurb is up on ‘The Work’ page. I’ll be adding a pdf. file of the first chapter for everyone to read once it goes through its editing phase.

I’ll keep you updated.

(Click image for full view)