Status quo

I've always believed that everything happens for a reason.  So when i didn't get the job that I really, really wanted after graduating I assumed it was because something amazing was coming my way instead.  Shortly after I received a call from an old coworker and viola! I was graduated and employed and ready to make shit happen.
So here I am employed in the worst job I think I have ever had.  Why is it the worst?  Because I can't care about this job, I can't try and make this a better place.  No one here gives a crap, they are all totally ok with status quo.  No desire to update or even stop the employees from robbing it blind.  Apparently, they would rather have friends than employees. I tried for 2 months to help ease them into the technological era, and to nip the employee rapage in the bud.  While they smiled and nodded at me with glazed over eyes they were really just appeasing me with no intention what-so-ever of changing anything.  At least it kept me busy for a brief moment.
I am finding it more and more difficult to work at a place that I cannot invest myself in emotionally.  I am not a "punch-in punch-out" person.  I need to care.  I also need to be busy and that isn't really happening here either.  More and more I am looking for something new outside the state.  As much as I love Reno it doesn't seem to be reciprocated right now.  Leaving is a huge decision and one that i will not make lightly.  For now it is just a tiny pebble rolling around inside my brain.  I listen to it tinker around but I am still able to ignore it.  I fear that it shall become a bowling ball before too long and not easily ignorable.  We shall see.

treading water

I want my day back.  I don't want a crappy substitute that makes me feel mediocre and second guess myself.  I want that happy comfortable secure feeling that used to wrap around me like a warm fluffy blanket.  I'm sick of feeling the cold. 

Have you seen me?

I think its time to find myself again.  While I have had oodles of fun playing the party girl the last couple of months, crap I think its actually been a year, I am starting to miss the responsible Vickey that was always on top of her shit.  I know the Honky misses her. 
I'm not sure I remember her exactly but maybe I can keep some of the new and blend it with the old to make a new and improved Vickey.  One that sleeps a little more, studies a little more, and generally cares a little more.  Aha that was it, caring.  I used to care.  I know why I stopped caring but in hind-site I don't think that was the solution.  Although it did take me to some crazy places with some amazing adventures. 
I still want adventures so now I will have to deal with disappointment but that is better than losing myself in the madness. 

Amazing adventures=Good for my Soul

Lately I have been a tad on the mopey side.  Too much stress and not enough outlets.  Derby of course my main outlet was put on the back burner for school, and after a nasty spill at the marina I don't get to recreation skate for a spell either.
Stress List:
Tied for 1st and 2nd place: School and Derby.
Derby: If I put any more of my own money into the league I am going to have to quit school and work full time. How the eff are we going to make it through the next 2 months.
School: I haven't managed my time wisely and my grades show it.
I am accepting that this feeling of angst is here to stay for a while.  At least through the semester.
The cure for the angst is 24 hour mini vacations to SF.  Thank god for a good friend that lets me be me to an extreme level.  No filters, no offending, just super good times.  No planning, no stressing time and we always have a blast.  The most recent trip was so fantastic that I need to blog about it.
Friday night we went to our new favorite restaurant Grand Cafe.  Dinner was amazing as always but HOLY SHIT I have a new favorite drink-a fresh berry basil martini.  It was like candy.  Candy that got me trashed.  2 of those, 2 absolute mandarin and 7s.  Yeah I was barely walking.  Well thats how I felt but apparently I hide the drunk pretty well-Ed couldn't tell.  After 4 I had to head to the room, sleep came quick.  Saturday was time for touristy fun! Living in SF I never did any of the touristy BS, that was for the tourists right? Oh hell no! That shit was awesome.  We tried to do Alcatraz but it was sold out and so we rode the duck.  They gave us Quakers, we quacked, sang, danced, laughed.  I got to drive (when we were on water, not land).  Ed got a pic of me texting and driving. It was so awesome I am including the link http://sanfrancisco.ridetheducks.com/home.aspx  next was the Boudins for clam chowder in bread bowls and then the Aquarium-which was fun but they have nothing on the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Then to top it all off we took the 30 Stockton back to the hotel.  If you haven't been on the 30 Stockton-well you've missed out on a true SF experience.  Then we headed our happy asses back to Reno.

  

                                          Berry Basil Martini of awesomeness

What a long strange trip its been

I just discovered this in my draft folder.  Its incomplete but I am going to publish it anyway so I don't forget about this amazing journey.

6/29/10
I know the title is a blatant rip off but it describes the last 2 days off my life perfectly.  Get ready for a novel.

It started because of a post on facebook-Skate for Sarah.  7 long-boarders skating Lake Tahoe for Sarah Pugh.  Sarah is a wonderful woman with an amazing spirit that has beat cancer once and sadly it has come back.
The skate for Sarah is a 72 mile skate that takes place in 48 hours.  Sounds easy enough.  I throw it out to the RRG's and I get Flash Crash and Toldya Twice to skate it with me.  When we told people we were doing this we got many strange looks and a few vocal "are you crazy's".  Hell no! We are derby girls here us whiiirrrrlllll, we got this.
Day 1-June 28, 2010
I started my day at 3am.  Having prepared my shit the night before I woke up brushed my teeth and rolled out to grab the gals.  We get to Safeway in Kings beach by 5am, gear up and head to the meeting place-Java Hut.  I think the guys were a little shocked to see that we actually showed up.  Hehehe they had no idea we were gonna rock this shit!  We set off for Incline a little before 6am, our first hurdle was Brockway.  It was a little slow going but we skated right up that hill as the boarders had to walk.  Yes! Score one for the roller girls.  I believe that was the only score for the Roller Girls.  Brockway gave way to Crystal bay and another hill.  Hills became my friend quickly.  At least on a hill I could control my speed. Leaving Crystal Bay we got our first taste of downhills.  tricky to say the least, while the boarders were able to "bomb"them we had serious issues slowing down and therefore tried to limit our speed as much as possible.  Our new friends Gizmo and CJ (the guys pacing us with water/snackies/cameras and video) stayed behind us to stop traffic.  That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  Incline Village brought us the joy of Lakeshore blvd!  Woohoo for a relatively flat bicycle path.  The path didn't last long and dumped us at HWY 28 - here we discovered our major downfall for the entire trip.  Lake Tahoe's roads are greatly lacking shoulders.  We stayed as close as we could to the guard rail and managed to make pretty decent time.  Until we passed Sand Harbor and hit the nasty effing hill (mountain) of doom that seemed to go on forever.  I cannot stress the word FOREVER in that sentence.  Somewhere on that mountain of evilness the pace car peeps had parked and were waiting for us with granola bars, water, and gatoraid. I believe that was the best damn granola bar i've ever eaten. 
50-Once again no shoulder or very minimal shoulder and while we tried very hard to stay to the right we still got honked and yelled at by assholes that couldn't bother to get in the left lane.  Douche bags.  Toldya rocked the downhill as she didn't care about the cars that were coming up quickly behind her.  Flash and I were a tad more cautious as the Semi trucks scared the shit outta us.  At least we were making decent time.  At Zephyr Cover our new found BFF's came back to hook us up with some water for the last part of our journey to the Hard Rock Cafe.  Which was awesome and not so awesome all at the same time.  Water was welcome "(and he other granola bar I scarfed down in 2.3 seconds) but stopping meant starting again and it was so much easier to just keep going.  We were all feeling the hurt/burn/exhaustion at this point.  We continued on as the sun beat down and the hills stacked in front of us.  The BFF's has said only 3 more hills.  We made it over 2 and sadly Toldya looked at the 3rd and realized her body was pushed to its limits.  Gizmo and CJ picked her up and Flash and I continued on.  The 3rd hill was nothing in comparison to the others and as we got to the top we realized just how close we were.  And suddenly there they were, we could see the gloriousness of the Casinos looming just in the distance.  That was all we needed to keep us going.  Shitty pavement and crappy sidewalks be damned we had made it!

As we walked up to the restaurant the boarders clapped and cheered for us!  It was an amazing moment.  These guys just skated (full speed with no gear) down HWY 50 and they were clapping for us?? The people at the Hard Rock Cafe were kind enough to buy us lunch and damned if that wasn't a tasty tasty bacon cheeseburger.  We sat and gabbed and enjoyed.  Damn it the part I was dreading had come.  Our official finish line for the day was Camp Richardson, that meant we had to put our skates back on and get there.  We ditched our bags in the pace car since it was only "4" miles away.  Toldya, after resting, decided she would throw hers back on too, yay!
4 miles? Who the fuck said 4 miles? It was apparently closer to 8 miles and NONE of the paths to get was in decent shape.  The road sucked (I thought California paved all the fucking time??) and the bike path was covered in gravel and sand.  So this little jaunt took us an hour so.  We all hit the "I don't give a shit, fuck off and die" point on this little side journey.  Not towards each other which was amazing but towards pretty much everyone else in South Shore.  Cat calls were fun for a bit but "Derby Dykes" was a little much.  If ever in South Shore and you feel the need to skate, don't.

Camp Richardson-Fucking awesome.  Again, we arrive to the guys cheering us on.  Apparently they didn't think we were going to make it.  Thats ok, we didn't think we were going to make it either ;)  We hit the beach, hung out, gabbed, bbq'd and had s'mores and went to sleep, yay glorious sleep.  So, at 3am (yup, I looked, it was on the dot) I hear noises outside and realize, pretty fucking quickly, it was a bear.  Awesome, the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep was bears.  I didn't want to go through this awesomeness alone so I woke up Flash.  She being braver than I looked out the screen part of the tent to see a baby and mama bear. Holy Fucking Shit.  The bear cub was in the tree that was next to our tent.  Oh My Fucking God.  The bears make noises at each other.  I Am Going to Die.  I tensed up and briefly thought about running for one of the cars.  The bears were too close. Shit.  Flash remains calm in the situation, well calmer than I was.  I am in full freak out mode now.  The cub started to come down the tree.  Awesome now both bears are going to maul me.  They moved behind us and sniffed around the skateboarders that weren't in a tent, just sleeping bags on an air mattress.  Thank god, of course that was an evil thought but survivalk mode kicked in somewhere.  They finally left and the only harm done was to this long board.

   Despite the adrenaline rush I was able to get back to sleep and we slept until 6 am then got ready for the final part of our adventure.  Blister band-aids, foot powder in our skates, new dr. scholls inserts purchased the night before.  A little sore but not as bad as I thought I would be.  I was ready!!
Emerald Bay & D L Bliss-Chewed us up and spit us out.  We trudged up the mountains and side stepped down.  With no shoulder on the side of the road and turn after turn we feared getting run over (since most of the cars thought the speed limit was 50+ not 35) and opted to side step or walk in the dirt (our skates were still on) when we could.  Oh so happy when I could actually skate but those moments were pretty rare.  It took us HOURS to get down the mountains.  By the time the skate boarders made it to Kings Beach I think we were just getting

I've lost something

It wasn't really mine to begin with.  Its like a warm sunshiny day laying on a bench staring up at the sun streaming through the leaves of a tree.  A fantastic feeling of comfort and ease and completeness.  When I had it it was fantastic.  We all know that nothing lasts forever but somewhere in the back of my mind I had hope.  I realized recently that hope is my ultimate problem.  There is far too much at risk when there is hope.  So I won't hope for more Sunny perfect days just accept the regular course of nature.

I thought I could win, that I was enough.  That I was special.  When hope is gone comes the self doubt.  Was it real?  Was that perfect day really for me? Or did I make it something that I wanted it to be.  Did I allow my judgement to be so clouded that I didn't realize until it was too late that I was simply a girl on a bench.  A moment in time that passed so quickly the only one to give it any thought is myself.  In the end it was all simply an illusion.

I feel guilty when I say no

Someday I will learn to say no.  Until then I am yet another stage of overwhelmed.  School, derby, unr club for derby, trying to have fun time.  Something is gonna have to give. Actually the thing that is killing me is my mother and her assuming I have all the time in the world to answer her emails and calls and run her bitch errands.  She has seen how busy I am and even commented on me needing an assistant yet she adds to my load without a second thought. *sigh*