He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts

I went to get my license today. FINALLY.
I took my brother's car because my mom has been having trouble with her brakes.
I found out  I didn't have to take the written test, so I got my number for the road test and sat down to wait.
Forty-five minutes later I finally got called. We went out to Ryan's car and discovered that his inspection was past due and his license plates were expired. So I couldn't take the test. Yay brother.
So we went to get his plates renewed, and they said that he owed property taxes. So we went downtown to pay them and found out that he didn't owe anything, they just hadn't removed the block yet. For some stupid bureaucratic reason. We went back and got his plates renewed, but by then it was already 5:30. They stopped doing the road test at 4:30. So I have to go back next week. >.<

The other day I was finishing my lunch break in the food court and went to stand up. I had been sitting next to the railing mainly because that's where I always sit. I looked over the railing and what I saw pretty much made my heart skip a beat. I literally froze where I was for a few seconds. I swear I saw Ryan J down there. And I didn't know how to react. He had shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair and was wearing his usual grey t-shirt. He even brushed his hair back from his face with both hands like Ryan always did. His knuckles had the same bony structure. I couldn't see his face, though, because I was pretty much right above him.
I wanted to throw something at him, but I didn't because:
A. It may not have been him.
B. I didn't want to get kicked out of my place of work.
C. He had a baby with him. He was with some girl who was pushing a stroller, which "Ryan" happened to be standing over at the time. By the time I got downstairs they were walking out the door. So I'll never know for sure. But my mind wanted me to react in so many different ways it was really frustrating and stressful. It pretty much threw a shock into my whole day.

Why can't some things just end peacefully and be over with?

http://nineteenroses.deviantart.com/gallery/

Bunches of new pictures on there. ^.^


The uploaded image is the graphic on the "Make Love, Not War" shirt. You can't really tell that it says anything other than "Love" on the picture of me wearing it.

So here's what happened.

I was closing last night, and Cameron's mom came up to give him something. He came back in and said "Oh my god Kari, there's a tornado warning, we need to go home for real." We basically thought he was joking. And besides. Our work wasn't done. Also, a car is the worst place to be in a tornado anyways. Then at around ten my mom came in and said "There's a tornado in the area, I don't want to wait in the car." so she helped me with my section, then I went to go help Natalie with her section... by then everyone was watching the storm more than actually working. David was on the back patio when a lightning bolt struck the parking lot about ten feet from him. It sounded like a car accident or a gunshot. Everyone burst out laughing because he ran in the store acting like he was getting shot at. I mean, the lightning already struck, it's not like he was going to be able to dodge it.
 A few people left (like Dionne, her 14-year-old daughter was home alone and she didn't want her to get scared/hurt/whatever) but several of us stuck around. My mom kept calling Ryan to get updates, who told her that our power was out, and that he was watching several tornadoes forming pretty much in our back yard. So Kari said she would stay with us until it was safe for us to go, and the work wasn't done anyways. Brittany, Natalie and I were the only sales associates left at this point, so we kept working on go-backs... then Kari (store manager) said "Well, I'm going to clock out and sit on my fat butt because my feet hurt. You guys can do whatever you want." I opted to keep working so I could keep making money since I had to be there anyways, but everyone else just camped out at the cash registers. About ten minutes later Kari yelled at me "STOP WORKING!!!!" and I shouted back "Why? I'm still on the clock!" to which she replied "I don't care, come sit down" so I finished what I was doing and said that I wasn't going to disobey a direct order... I ended up just sitting there on the clock for about an hour. Yay free money.
 Around midnight we clocked out and headed home. Which it seems like everyone else in town was doing, because the roads were as busy as if it were noon. We took a detour to see the damage. At the end of Idols road there were a bunch of cars parked and some guys were walking around with flashlights and stopping cars. They weren't city workers, just random guys who discovered that there was a huge mess of power lines down. Which explains why our power went out for 14 hours.
It turns out that the worst of it was behind my house, in Bridge Pointe. Literally within walking distance... I've done it several times to go visit Blakers.


That's the only actual picture I could find, the worst of it is on this slideshow:

http://www2.journalnow.com/static/multimedia/storm-photos0509/

Image 5 is from that neighborhood. That's the house I was talking about that was completely demolished with the woman and her two children inside.
They heard neighbors talking outside (a friend of my family and a police officer who lives there.. I'm not sure if there was anyone else or if it was just the two of them) and started screaming for help. Luckily the kids were fine and she got out with nothing but a few scrapes.

I found this all out this morning. My mom and I walked through our neighborhood up to the road block with our neighbor to see if there was anything we could do (they weren't letting anyone on Frye Bridge unless they were official help or lived there.) So our neighbor went back home and my mom and I stayed to talk to Erica Taylor of WFMY News 2, who had been reporting on the damage in various locations since one o'clock this morning. She told us what she had seen when she was back there, and in other areas. She had also done an interview with Duke Power and told us that they were expecting our power to be on no sooner than tomorrow afternoon or evening.
We came home an our power was on, but it only lasted for about twenty minutes. It went back out for a few hours and is on again now... I'm not sure if it will last or not.
My mom and I went to lunch at Cracker Barrel since none of our appliances worked. It was apparently the headquarters for the tree removal crews, and Duke Power's crews as well as a lot of the people who were without power or helping the rebuilding crews were all having lunch there. I've never seen Cracker Barrel so crowded. Our waitress said that this morning there was an hour wait for tables.
We then cashed our paychecks and went to the mall so I could buy some more work shirts. I'll post pictures later, because I really am that bored.
I asked if I could have my schedule switched so that I could work Tuesday instead of tomorrow. I didn't know if we would have power or not, and I didn't want to come to work after two days of no showers or air conditioning, so they told me that was fine.
But when I got home the power was on anyways. Oh well. Saturdays drive me crazy regardless. I got a shower as soon as I got home, though, just in case the power goes off again. I was already starting to feel icky and I didn't want to get stuck for another night.

My neighborhood was pretty much untouched, we were without power for about 14 hours, but it just came back on.
I was at work at the time. Lightning struck the mall parking lot about ten feet from our door. David was outside watching the storm and jumped inside like he as getting shot at. I wonder if there's a scorch mark now?
I'll post a more detailed description when I get home, but I'm about to go cash my check and get my car fixed.

I'm a little worried about Blake, though.
I don't know if he was home from school or if he's living in Boone, but his neighborhood (the street behind mine pretty much) was hit the hardest. At least forty houses have some kind of damage. One of them was entirely demolished. At least I know he wasn't hurt, because there were only a few minor injuries... even the lady in the house that was entirely destroyed got out with only some scratches. Her children (two and three) were fine.
I called his cell phone, but he didn't answer, so I left a message.

Today was (according to Facebook) International Beatles Appreciation Day.
So here I am, in my "sky" wearing my LSD shirt. :-D

(click the image or hit reply to get it full-sized)

Reply, and I ask you questions. These are the questions David asked me.

1)  Where's my $80?
Up ur butt
2)  Is there anyone you hold a grudge against?
Honestly, myself. I could hold a grudge against Vick and Ryan (And maybe I do hold a little one against Ryan) but the way I see it, I'm the one that got myself into those situations and let myself get messed up.
3)  What did you originally wanna be when you grew up when you were a kid?
A fashion designer. Or an actor. Or a model. Or a painter. Or an astronaut. Or ...etc. XD
4)  What's scarier for you?  Not being to look forward, or not being able to let go?
You mean not being able to look forward, Mr. Grammar? :-p
Not being able to let go. I'm haunted by things in my past that I really wish would just go away.
5)  WHY THE FUCK COULDN'T YOU GET THAT IT WAS A TAMBOURINE?!

NAPKIN

And besides, I was the one that got it, fucktard.

I uploaded new pictures last night
http://nineteenroses.deviantart.com/gallery/
I don't have time right now to post them all here, so check them out there if you're interested ^.^


I'm working on a new painting. I watched Moulin Rouge (the 1952 film about the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec) the other night and got all inspired... so I hope it turns out the way I envisioned it. It has a sort of can-can girl feel to it, but I think it may turn out to be more... dark.


A word to the wise:
Don't read Naked Lunch while you are falling asleep.
I did that last night.
Reason 1) It's very hard to put down, it catches you up in the flow, and if you were intending only to read for fifteen minutes, you'll find an hour later that you're just trying to get to the next chapter before you put it down...and then the next paragraph break, and the next, and so on....
Reason 2) You will have some seriously messed up dreams. For real. I don't even remember any specifics, but I know that all night long my mind was wandering in some really crazy places. Even before I fell asleep, as I was lying there in the dark, I kept getting what can only be called a mental collage of strange thoughts and images.

It's even worse than falling asleep listening to Revolution 9.

http://englishfail.wordpress.com/

I covered Da'Jae's shift today in For Love. It wasn't so bad, one of the managers brought me a box of new jewelry to unwrap and put out, so most of my time between customers was pretty well occupied.
At around 6:15 the other manager shouted my name like I had done something wrong, so I kind of freaked and asked her what was up. She said "I don't want you in For Love" which made me think I was doing something wrong or something, but then she said that there had been a lot of complaints about things being sent to the wrong sections from the fitting room, and so she wanted me to help out the girl who was in there.
According to Charanda (the main fitting room attendant since the store opened) there are three people who actually know what the hell they're doing in there. Her, Tasha, and me. (that makes me really happy, because I've only worked there a month. :-D)
Tasha and I were both working today, but for some reason, another girl (who I won't name) was working back there.
I came in at 3 and there was maybe half of one rack of go-backs, so it wasn't backed up at all.
By six-fifteen she had brought an extra rack in. The sorted rack was nowhere near full, and she had two full racks of unsorted things. She was just standing there. She said it was because she didn't know where anything goes, but she's been working there since the store opened, so even though they just re-arranged the store, she's had to go through this four times before, you'd think she'd be able to pick it up. And even if not, she could have asked for help. Also, there was a bunch of crap on the floors and pretty much nothing was buttoned, zipped, and tied, which we're supposed to do before we send things up to the front...so what did she do for three hours? Just stand there and walk people back and forth to fitting rooms?
Anyways, she went on her ten minute break, so Tasha started helping me out. In that ten minutes we got half of a rack sorted. It's really not that hard.
When she got back Tasha and I took our 30-minute together, and when I got back from that, I got really sick. To the point that I actually threw up. So I got permission to leave when I was done with my job, instead of sticking around to help everyone close.
Despite that, I had to go into the fitting room (which is pretty much always crazy hot) and sort out two full racks (because apparently she didn't know the location of anything anyone tried on during my break.) alone, while she was on her 30. For some reason everyone in the world decided that was when they would try on their clothes.
On the bright side, one of those people was Katie T. and another of them was Sara S. So that was pretty awesome. <3<3<3 But I couldn't stop and talk to them because of everything that had to be done.
Nikki (manager) wanted the go-backs completely done by 8:30. I didn't end up finishing until exactly 9. But luckily I think she understands that it really wasn't my fault... I was kind of thrown in at the end to try to repair the situation. And I wasn't exactly in top form at the time.

So basically my day sucked, other than these few points:
Some random hispanic girl was booty-dancing in front of the fitting room mirror to Technologic. I'm pretty sure she thought noone was watching. It was hilarious.
Katie and Sara! <3

Um.
Yeah.
That's about it.
XD

Tomorrow I get to go back and do it all over again! Yay!!


Oh! Also, my dad gave me the money to get my car fixed, so that will be happening early next week. Hooray!!!

I was supposed to have tomorrow off. Kari was trying to give the people who usually close on the weekends a break for once. So I was happy. But this girl asked me if I wanted to work for her, so I said sure, why not, extra hours!

Then she told me she was in the For Love room.
Which is the jewelry room.
Which means that I get to stand there under bright ass lights for six hours. Doing nothing.
I can't even leave the room, because people might steal stuff. Or something.

So if you're at the mall tomorrow any time after 3, stop by and say hi :-D

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you; ElephantAss!!


Can I get a BAM?
XD <3

These can all be found at my deviantart www.nineteenroses.deviantart.com
















Yeah. I got a little over-zealous.

I got halfway through loading them on my DeviantArt and some chick IMed me to hit on me based on what I had loaded. XD

Also:

I won the auction for Toejam & Earl I and II

Hooray!
It's for my brother's birthday, but I can play whenever he's not here, which is like 75% of the time. ^.^