My Chemical Romance

Addiction. We all have one. We all have more than one. And really, I don't understand it. I mean, I understand the pathophysiology of the body's physical addiction's (things like nicotine and heroin), but I'm talking about the addictions that everyone has. Some might call them obsessions, but I am not one of those some. At least not today. I spend a large majority of my time at work dealing with addicts. They are all the same really. I swear that I scrub the giant "stupid" off my forehead every day --especially before work. But apparently sometimes I forget. Each person thinks that they are the only one to try to get drugs, and most of them can be quite entertaining actors. They all have big dramatic stories and elaborate descriptions of their pain, and they are all allergic to vicodin, toradol, morphine, compazine, reglan, and motrin. Strangely enough though, the only thing that works for each and every one is dilaudid. We all roll our eyes and prepare for the dramatics that will inevitably ensue when we explain that they will not be receiving any narcotics. These addictions are easy to see. So are the alcoholics. I must admit, I have a hard time trying to reason these things out in my mind. In my mind, if you want to do something, you find a way to get it done. By the same token, if you don't, you don't. So in my brain, if you don't want to be drunk all the time and loose your family and friends, you stop drinking. I understand that it's not that easy, but that is just the way my brain works. I've been doing a lot of thinking the past couple weeks though.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we are all addicted to something. For the most part these are healthy addictions. My addictions vary and are for the most part healthy. I only have the capacity to have one at a time though --I get REALLY in to my addictions :) It started in middle school --well ok, probably earlier, but I'm getting old and can't remember the specifics of any before that. Middle school is when I became addicted to Days of Our Lives. Yep, the soap opera. Actually, come to think of it, I was addicted to Saved By the Bell in 5th grade ...but we won't go there. My friends and I arranged our schedules around the show, and it affected a large part of my day. In high school I quickly became addicted to basketball. I didn't miss a single home game, or any that were within driving distance for my 16 year old self. In College, I was still addicted to basketball --just Aggie Basketball instead. Most of you understand this well. It's an addiction. You know it is. Then when my Aggie bball days were nearing an end my addictions began to shift to the Yankees. And Derek Jeter. I get the text messages of game updates, I check the Yankees website and everything related to the Yankees every day. I drove 1000 miles to see them play in Oakland. I could tell you each players batting average, who's hitting streak was how long, who they played today yesterday and tomorrow, how many games were left and what the standings were in each division. I even wrote a research paper for my motor learning class (a 3000 level) on the Yankees. I have a life size cardboard cutout of Derek Jeter (the best birthday present ever) and he has been all over with me. Oh the places he's seen! He's been on my cross country road trip to Long Island, NY. He spent three months living on Long Island, then joined me on the trip to the other end of the country where he spent a glorious 3 months in southern California. He thoroughly enjoyed the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, and has been living it up here in Seattle. He came to all our parties and even dressed up for special occasions and holidays when he lived with my roomies and I in Logan. We celebrated his birthday every year --there was actual cake and singing :) Each of my roommates and I have had at least one conversation with DJ --he makes a fantastic listener.

You are probably wondering where I'm going with this. Well, I'm a horrible fake girlfriend. Today I realized that Derek Jeter's birthday was 2 weeks ago, and I did not even remember a little bit! Let alone celebrate with a cake or birthday margarita or feathered hat! Apparently my addiction has evolved again. Everyone take a deep breath ...it's ok, I still love Derek Jeter ...calm down. But like the changing of the addiction from the Aggies to the Yankees, I am now addicted to someone else. Which sucks, to be right honest with you. It sucks because I'm moving 3000 miles away, and I'm having withdrawals. I'm not exaggerating. I get jittery, I'm nauseous all the time, I had an honest to goodness full blown panic attack the other day over the thought of leaving. My lips and fingers and toes were numb and tingly and everything. And I couldn't make it stop. And I'm still here. And he's still here. So really this is all pre-withdrawal withdrawal. The thing is, that I know that it's the right thing for me to do to go to New York. I know that if it's meant to be that it will work out. I know that I can come back at any point. I don't know why I'm supposed to leave, but I am. And it sucks. A lot. Whoever said that it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all was full of shit! Before you fall in love you are in a blissful ignorance of your numb state. You can't ever go back to blissful ignorance. Once you know how wonderful it is, you can't go back to blissful numbness. There is only the blistering pain of the separation. The fact that -for whatever reason- the separation is what is supposed to happen, or what is good for you, does not make it better. A heroin addict can never go back to the blissful ignorance of not knowing what it's like to be high. It is better and more healthy for the addict to not do heroin, but that doesn't take away the pain of withdrawal. Is it better to have done heroin and stop than to never have done it at all? Of course not! So why does this philosophy apply to love? It doesn't. If you can't continue doing heroin in a blissful continually-high state then it is best to never know what you're missing. As far as love goes, jealous doesn't begin to describe the way I feel toward those of you who fell in love the first time (I mean really fell in love --not the high school kind) and got to keep your addiction for time and all eternity.

So I don't understand addiction. Why does something so emotional have such a physical pain accompanying it? My brain does not comprehend why I can't just stop the crying and stop the anxiety. That is the way my brain works. I do what I want, and if it's not easy, I just work harder and harder until I do it. This isn't like that. No amount of work on my part can change the Lords plan for me. No amount of work on my part of aligning my will with his will make this any less painful. There is medication you can take for panic attacks. There is mediation you can take for anxiety. There is no pill that will take you back to blissful ignorance. There is no pill that will take away the empty gaping hole in my chest that I put there myself by leaving 3000 miles away from my addiction. There is no pill that will make this go away. In this way physical addictions are easier to cure --there is a pill you can take to fix it. How did this happen? Why? I don't know. I hate not knowing. It makes me down right mad to be honest with you. My freshman year of college, there was a girl in my ward named Katie Webb. I don't know what she's doing now-a-days or where she is, but she said something in a relief society lesson that has stuck with me for a long time.

"The Lord always blesses up. He's not going to take a great guy out of your life and say, ' here you get this looser now --have a great eternity.' " The lord must have something truly spectacular in store for me. But I think this applies to more than just boys. The lord always blesses up. He is perfect and his plan for each of us is perfect. The concept has got me through a lot of sticky situations non-boy related, and it has always held true. I can only hope the way she intended it originally will hold true as well.

This has turned into kind of a depressing post, and I didn't intend it to be ...so anyway ...how are all of you ;) From here on out I vow to be a better fake-girlfriend --and I'll get Derek Jeter a belated birthday card next time I'm at the store :)

Oh beautiful for spacious skies...

I love the 4th of July! It has been my favorite holiday since I was a little girl. Baseball, picnics, watermelon, fireworks, parades, rodeos, fairs, cotton candy ...I mean really. It doesn't get any better. Still to this day, there is something about fireworks that takes you right back to being a kid again. Back to a day when the 4th of July was about who could spit watermelon seeds the farthest and not about how many stab wounds and gunshots can be wheeled through the ambulance bay doors. (What is is about the 4th that brings out the knife and gun clubs?) Back to a day when you could spend hours writing your name and various designs with a sparkler in the dark night sky. Back to a day when you and your family all huddled on a blanket on the grass to watch fireworks explode in the sky. Nobody argued, nobody fought, you all just laid there in each others laps and watched in awe.

This year my 4th was spent a little different than in years previous. Traditionally my family all meets at the parade in Lewiston, UT, where we watch the parade (tractors and all :) ) then walk around the fair for a little bit. After that we head to Grandma's or Wes and Jen's house for lunch and head back to the Lewiston Rodeo in the afternoon. That night (when I was little) was spent watching the fireworks on a blanket on the grass just outside the nursing home. I remember looking at couples that were there and marvelling that girls would dare get so close to a boy --ew and gasp! My how times change :) After the Logan City fireworks we would come home and spread out a blanket on the front lawn and light our own fireworks as a family. The sparklers were always saved for last. I was always a little afraid of them, because I was sure that a spark was going to fly off and ignite my arm on fire. But they were my favorite part none the less.

Those were the days. Then I grew up and decided to become a trauma nurse. As mentioned before, I would not trade my job for anything in the world, but it does change your perspective on things. Trauma nurses tend to look forward to any warm sunny holiday with a feeling of dread. Yes, I know that is a contradiction. We look forward to all the cool traumas we are going to get to see because warm+sunshine+outdoor activity+alcohol = stupidity =trauma. Really I feel OK about getting excited to see what blood and guts get rolled through the doors. It's not that I'm wishing bad things on other people, but people are going to be stupid and get hurt whether I'm at work or not, so I may as well be there to enjoy it! We do not look forward to running our shoes thin for 12 hours and not being able to sit, eat, drink, or pee for 12 hours. Well, maybe a little bit in a masochistic way--the reason we get to run for 12 straight hours makes it all worth it. I'm getting off track. So I'm working this weekend. Without violating any privacy laws, I can sum up my night by telling you that drunk people with access to explosives (and other more traditional weapons --see knife and gun club comment from earlier) is a bad thing. It was a good night of work!

It did mean however that I missed out on my favorite parts of the 4th. Thank goodness for DVR. I recorded the fireworks shows that were on tv from around Elliott Bay, and watched them when I got home this morning. I can tell you that even on tv, it still brings a tear to my eye to watch the beautiful displays and listen to Ray Charles sing 'America the Beautiful'. I don't know what it is about them, but fireworks are just absolutely captivating. They do them well in Seattle. They shoot them right out on the water and it is absolutely breathtaking. Curling up on the couch is not quite the same as cuddling on a blanket on the grass, but the fireworks are just as good, and just as magnificent. We are so blessed to live where we do and to have the freedoms that we enjoy. I'm so grateful for the blood sweat and tears of thousands who have gone before to give me what I have today. God bless America!

The Fam

Why am I still awake? I just drove home (12 hours) from Logan back to Seattle, I got home at 4:30 in the morning, it's now 7:30 and I'm still awake. Why, you ask? Well, because I have a problem. I am addicted to facebook. And blogging. I spent an absolutely wonderful fathers day weekend with my family, and I got through the whole thing without getting online once --it was oddly refreshing :) But the first thing I did when I got home and unpacked, was not getting ready for bed. This would have been a much smarted plan. Instead I decided I'd make a quick check of my email and facebook and blog. Well, after 6 days, the stuff that you usually clear out every day accumulates, and here I am, finished reading everyone's updated blogs and catching up on all my updates and notifications from facebook. I decided that I would just write a quick not to explain that I have the greatest family ever! (Then I'm really going to bed!)

I LOVE my family!!!!! I spent the last six days doing nothing but hanging out with them (with the exception of a 2 hour lunch with an 'old' friend :) ) and it was fantastic! I can't describe the pure joy that it is to eat dinner with my family. For more reasons than just that I get to eat wonderful home made food that I didn't have to cook. You will never laugh so hard as at dinner with my family, as many of you can attest to. I have the funniest little sister in the world. She is an absolutely wonderful person. She is straight forward, says exactly what's on her mind, has an opinion on everything, and is 100% herself all the time. And it is hilarious! I love that about her!

I love just chillin and watching tv or the latest ball game on tv with my dad. I love that when I come home, I still can go outside and spend an hour or two playing catch with my dad in the back yard --even if my arm is still sore 2 days later. I love that in order for him to fully enjoy the fresh salmon and king crab legs I got him for fathers day, he had to show me how to run the grill :) and we had a great time doing it. I have the greatest dad in the world! I have the greatest brother in the world. He is so sweet --don't tell anyone :) He truly cares about people ...all people. He is a friend to everyone, and I really admire the way he jumps in and helps his friends out with whatever they need. Whoever ends up with him is going to be one lucky girl! And my cute mom! She's the greatest too! How did I get to be so lucky! I love that I can go to midnight movies and stay up talking all hours into the night about anything with my mom, and I love that she lets me sleep in till noon :) She is an amazing woman ...I hope one day and can be just like her ...or almost ;) I love that she and Heidi got scooters, and taught me how to ride them! Well ...significantly past my bedtime, so until next time!

Why?

So I may be just a bit bitter, and this rant may be hormone induced (I'm sure at least part of it is.) And all of you should feel free to leave your comments and opinions on all the above and all of what follows. See here's the thing. Girls like to be liked. It makes you feel good when boys come up and talk to you. Girls like to be hit on. Really. Even if you don't like the person that's hitting on you, the line was awful, and you're not attracted to them at all, it still makes you feel good. Even if you turn the guy down and later laugh about it with your friends, deep inside you feel just a little bit good about yourself that someone wanted to meet and talk to you. No matter who it was. Now it's a little different when it's a drunk psych patient restrained in the hallway at work (that's just never ok). Now, here's the problem. And I almost hesitate to write this, because I don't want it to come across the wrong way, but those of you who know me well will get it. I'm a good girl. I go to church nearly every week, I do my best to live the right way. I have morals and I have standards. I lived in Utah and went to Utah State for 6 years. I was active in my student wards, and had the best roommates and friends. We always had a ton of fun. Dating though? Not so much. I just figured it was not the thing people did any more. After all, my friends (boys and girls) dated as rarely as I did. I spent a majority of my time there wondering how people actually met and got married.

Then I moved away. I went to New York. Then Orange County, CA. Now Seattle, WA. I found the same thing held true in student wards across the country. If good little Mormon boys were dating, they weren't dating me, or anyone who didn't seem to be an 18 year old size 2 blonde. The thing I discovered though is that the problem isn't with young people my age, it was with good little Mormon people my age. People of other faiths didn't seem to have this strange aversion to dating. It was really quite refreshing to be walking down the street and have people come up and start talking to you. It was great to be dancing in a club with friends and have people buy you drinks (even if it's a waste of their money since you won't be drinking them). It's a lot of fun to go out with friends and have the bartender give you you're first round --and 2nd --and 3rd. Again, not that my diet coke is that expensive, but my friends who do drink are doubly grateful that I don't drink. I'm a great designated driver, and they get to share all the free drinks that I don't drink. It doesn't really matter what the men's alternative motives are, or how much they have already had to drink. It just makes you feel good, that for whatever reason they were paying attention to you. That sounds a little sad, but it's true. Perhaps if the 'right' 'good kind' of boys paid more attention to the good little girls, we wouldn't be so attention starved that it didn't matter what the alternative motives are.

I see the holes in this blog, I really do. Perhaps the good little Mormon boys don't want to pay that much attention to people that are around people who are drinking and dancing in clubs. That may be. I understand that there will be people who feel this way. Here's my rationalization. I understand that bars and clubs are not the place to meet the kind of person I want to meet. That is not why I am there. I am there to be with friends and have a good time. I would like nothing more than to meet a nice boy at church or at some church related activity, but the past nearly 10 years of my dating experience leads me to believe that this is not going to happen. This is not the point of this post. The point is not about who I (or any of the other 'good' mormon girls that I've met in my travels) am dating or not dating. The point is that in my bitter jaded old age, have decided that this is the venue for me to vent my frustration to all the good little LDS boys out there (yes, I know there are none of them reading this blog, it doesn't make sense, but when has that stopped me before?) Date darnit! If that is too much to ask, just try a couple lines now and then. You don't have to want to marry the girl, you don't have to even like her really. Just show her that it is possible that someone more than the people she meets in a bar or around town thinks that she is worth talking to. Pay the girls at church a little bit of attention. Go up to them, smile and say something simple like, hi. Compliment them. Tell them their dress is nice, or their hair looks nice, or they smell good. A compliment ...any one will do. Then you can go on your merry way and continue your life as previous.

A girl can really get a complex if she is only getting hit on by people she can't have. The truth of human nature is that we want to be liked. We want to fit in. Many people much smarter than I will tell you that the need to belong is stronger than the need for food, and even health and well being.

Now, mom, if you're reading this, don't worry. I still go to church, I still don't drink, I'm still the little girl you know and love, and I have no immediate plans to change any of that. I'm not depressed, I have not giving up on getting married to a good little Mormon boy --not entirely. There's always the millennium for that. Or I could convert my own. The sad part is, whenever I've considered this option, I find myself reluctant to do so in fear that when converted he will catch the 'I don't date' disease that is a pandemic among young LDS men. It's quite possibly the most selfish a person can be, but I like him just the way he is ...flirty and bad habits and all. The last thing I want to do is bring him to church and risk him catching the 'I only date 18 year old size 2 blondes' disease. Awful! I know. Before I left Utah, I didn't realize that there were men over the age of 21 who wanted nothing to do with 18 year old girls! OK, bitter diatribe over :) At least for those of you who can't hear the voices inside my head :)

The Breakfast Club

Mmm, breakfast! Let me explain a couple things for those of you who may not have any experience working night shift in a ER. Your co-workers are your family. The doctors, nurses, techs, respiratory therapists, firefighters, cops, paramedics, etc that you work with are the closest kind of family there is. It's like the dead dads club from Grey's Anatomy. You can't be in it till you're in it. Lots of people can understand parts of your day and parts of your job, but you just can't know until you've been there night in and night out and seen all the best and worst that humanity has to offer. I've worked in other places, and I think that you get close to your coworkers no matter where you work or the profession that you're in, but nothing compares to the ER. Like I said, you can't know until you know, so I'm not going to sped a lot of time trying to explain. Lots of people go out to eat with coworkers after work, but it's not the same. When a group of us gets together to unwind, only we can understand the pain on each other's faces over the 9 month old we were unable to save after he was beat by his parents, The baby who died after being on a ventilator for a month after it was born at 25 weeks and weighing less than a pound. The look on the family's face who is suddenly without one or both parents because of some drunk driver, and watching them trying to deal with that while not being able to tune out the crazy drunk person across the department shouting profanities at the top of his lungs. See, now I'm getting away from the point of this post ...believe it or not, it wasn't to make you sad, or to point out what we deal with at work --it really is just another day to us. It has to be, or else it would eat us alive.

The point was, that we have a great time every Friday morning at breakfast. It's our own little breakfast club. Some of us get off at 5:30, and others don't get off till 7:30. The bar opens at six (yes, the bar ...nope, still don't drink :) ) so those of us that get off at 5:30 play pool, or just hang out and talk until our 7:30 friends get there, then we order food, play some more, and enjoy not having other people's lives in our hands. It's kind of like our own little therapy where we repress all the depression and carnage from the week before deep down inside because we can't talk about it outside of work to any one. Privacy laws. But we all know. It's part of the club. I love breakfast days! It's one of the things I'm going to miss the most when I leave this place, so I thought I'd share it with you. The following pics are from breakfast last Friday, where we said goodbye to Anne, one of the travellers that works with us.

Relationships

I've got absolutely nothing to report, but it's been a long time since I've posted anything, and I'm highly addicted, so I'll share some recent random musings I've had lately. Relationships. So, obviously I don't have a lot of experience in this field --I'm 25 and still single --but why on earth do these things have to be so complicated? My friend John Visser once told me that the reason men are so complicated is because "you women assume we have more depth than we actually do." Comical at the time, but since then I've come to realize more and more that it's actually true. At some point ya gotta grow some depth or something! I mean, come on man! I would like to review some trends I've noticed about the way that relationship-changing phases usually go. I use the term relationship-changing phase, because break-up doesn't always cover it. For instance, what if one is unsure of the status of the relationship to begin with, one can't necessarily label it a break up if one is unsure of the status of said relationship to begin with. Can you break-up from a more-than-just-friends-but-haven't-had-the-dtr-yet relationship? Breaking up just seems the wrong term. I understand that I'm not making much sense, but it's my blog and it all makes sense in my head, so take it for the comedic value there is :) The point is, whether you're dating or talking about platonic friendships, things change.

When I was in nursing school, my favorite sign/symptom of a disease was 'sense of impending doom.' We used to joke that we were going to call in sick to class on test days saying that we felt a sense of impending doom and were sure we were coming down with an acute case of COPD. The first sign/symptom that your relationship may be changing is often a sense of impeding doom. This feeling may be accompanied by a tightness in one's chest, occasional bouts of shortness of breath, and unexplained wrinkles on the forehead. If these symptoms persist you should call 911, otherwise you can rest assured that it is due to the fact that the relationship is changing. This sense can be triggered by thoughts such as, why didn't he call this morning, my fingernails didn't grow AT ALL yesterday, etc. Now, it is important to note, that you should be feeling the sense of impending doom for the relationship, not for oneself, otherwise see suggestion above.

This sense of impending doom leads to various levels of panic and/or hysteria. This is evidenced by uncontrollable and unreasonable crying brought on by love songs on the radio, leading to irrational thoughts that you will be alone for the rest of your life. You may find yourself drunk-dialing friends at all hours of the night in tears (and not actually drunk) asking for their opinion on why he hasn't called in the last 12 hours. You also may feel a compulsion to become clingy, and overly flirty. You should fight this compulsion with all your might. You should also resist the temptation to check your phone every three minutes just to make sure your phone didn't ring, or he didn't text you and you somehow missed the sound. This will just drive you crazy.

Eventually he will call, and this will start the confusion phase. You will likely find that all is normal when he calls, you may flirt just like normal and convince yourself that you panicked for nothing. Then you realize that you are just getting mixed signals. What do you do when the conversations get shorter and shorter and more sporadic, but when they are there, they are just like the hour long conversations you used to have, just abbreviated? You may tell yourself thatit would be better if he doesn't call, that way it would be more difinitive, but that doesn't stop the feeling of relief you fell when you see his name on the caller id, or the anxiety and depression you feel because he still hasn't called. Once all hope that things are fine has been squandered, you will move on to the next phase which is depression.

You will find yourself very lonely, regardless of how many people you are around. You may find yourself missing all things familiar --your family, friends, your pet fish who died two years ago, etc. You will stop listening to the radio, and watching movies because all you see and or hear is inevitably a love story --and at this point you want nothing to do with any of that. It's like when you're starving, but nothing sounds good, so you don't eat.

Eventually, you will become angry. You may find yourself yelling at your phone after hanging up with him. You should really try hard to not throw rocks at things that remind you of him. Like his car in the parking lot, or store windows, or your tv, or billboards, or at the beach --lest you should maim a small child/animal. You realize that this change is a good thing, because obviously it wasn't meant to be, and while this thought still nearly brings you to tears, you are too mad and don't want to scream profanities in public again --that was really embarrassing last time. A healthy outlet for your frustrations would be retail therapy. I recommend shoes. Remember shoes?! Also good are jeans, lip gloss, bubble bath, whatever you like. Flowers. Buy yourself some flowers! You should also stay as busy as possible. Shopping can occupy a lot of time. Go to the park, go to the zoo, blow some bubbles outside, read a book or two. Also, remember the therapeutic power of a girls night out. Inevitably while at a girls night out, you will get approached by a lost soul who will remind you of why it's ok that you're single. Like the guy who hits on you first, and after you politely turn him down, he makes his way to the other side of the table to try his luck on that end. Or the crazy guy dancing with himself occasionally stopping to stare at the wall. Yes, there are definitely worse things than being single. Other ways to occupy your time can be found online. You may be surprised at the amount of hours that can be piddled away on facebook, myspace, blogging, etc. Especially if you don't have all 3 --think of all the time you can waste creating them! You will inevitably find family ad friends that you haven't seen for years, and spend about that long getting all caught up on their lives! There are also such fantastic websites as willitblend.com or jughead.com --where on you can spend hours watching people making fools of themselves, and learning how to give a homie handshake, and swear creatively.

One way or another you will come to a resolution of the relationship. The difficulty comes in knowing how or if you can regress back to a friendship state ...were you ever 'just friends' to begin with? I suppose that would depend on how close to the friend zone you were when the relationship began. Can you go backwards into the friendship zone, or is that like a one way street? And if we're talking platonic relationships, do you want to back off a couple notches on the friendship scale? Or is the friendship zone ruptured beyond repair by all the carnage left behind? Once you get to this point, you will start to form a patch over whatever part of your heart was wounded. At first you may find yourself wondering how on earth you forgot how to entertain yourself --what did you do when you had a night to yourself with nothing to do? You know what you can do? You can hang out with girls again. Hanging out with girls is great! Chances are you will find it oddly refreshing --like a popsicle or glass of ice cold kool-aid on a hot summer's day! Hanging out with the girls will lead to great experiences that remind you why you're glad your still single --and eventually you will cycle on up out of the awkward relationship into blissful contentment with the single-and-loving-it life. The only problem is that one time it isn't going to be the creep that you meet while out with the girls, it's going to be the next great guy, that you want to start a relationship with. I'm told that eventually, for most people, one of these relationship things eventually lasts and the cycle I've mentioned will eventually end. Hopefully before I get motion sick!

Fire Friends

Something you may not know about me is that I'm not allowed to talk to other people within 15 minutes after waking up. I also have to turn off all my phones because I have been known to have answered the phone in my sleep and carry on a full conversation, which I wake up halfway through. I also have to set my alarm clock for at least 30 minutes before I actually need to wake up because by the time I equate 'alarm going off' = 'need to get up' I have hit the snooze button at least three times. I have found it's best to give myself an hour to fully be awake before attempting anything so adventurous as using the phone or getting out of bed. So imagine my surprise when the other day I woke up to the most obnoxious beeping I have ever heard in my life. I had been asleep for an hour and 37 minutes after getting home from work the night before, and I spent a good 5 minutes pushing every button on my alarm clock trying to make the noise stop. Then I half-consciously stumbled into the living room to make sure the fireplace and/or fridge and/or washer/dryer weren't malfunctioning. On my way back to bed I walked past the fire alarm and briefly wondered if that's what the noise was, but in my half conscious state I determined that since a) there was no blinking lights accompanying the beeping b) I could not see or smell smoke c) neither the floor nor the walls felt warm d) the sprinklers were not on --it could not be the fire alarm. I crawled back under the covers, plugged my ears and put a pillow over my head, and attempted to go back to sleep. After about 10 more minutes, the beeping persisted and I was awake enough to realize that I should probably really figure out what the beeping was. So I threw on a hoodie over my jammies, ran my fingers through my hair, and grabbed my glasses. I opened the door, to see my crazy neighbor from across the hall who informed me that it was indeed the fire alarm. I still wasn't awake to inquire about why she was still in the building if she knew what the sound was. I sleepily stumbled back into my apartment, grabbed my cell phone and keys (ah, the important things :) ) and dutifully locked my door on the way to the stairs. When I got down stairs there was indeed a large conglomeration of my neighbors. Apparently the water line to the hot tub that's on the roof sprung a leek and was spurting water everywhere. So, as we're all standing there sans make-up and real clothes (most of us that were home at 10:30 in the morning work nights) Up pull 3 trucks of Seattle's Finest ...Yep. That's right. Three trucks full of hot firemen --gear and all!

So eventually we were allowed back in our apartments and an hour and a half after that, they were able to turn off the alarm and I was able to drift back into a blissfull slumber for a couple more hours before I had to wake u to go back to work.