i joined swap-bot around the 15th of december last year and have really liked it so far. people aren’t too catty and i have received and sent off some pretty nice things. one thing that i really can’t stand is when people just rate a 1 with no explaination then i have to message them to see if they received it or not, and if they did what was so wrong with it that i deserve a one. so far its been because they never received anything, which is an easy fix because i just resend the swap. it can gets really tricky signing up for swaps that don’t allow recent ones, but lets face it, i’m a mail junkie. sometimes when i’m at work all i can think about is what might have came in the mail today. junk mail, advertisements, catalogs for crap i’ll never buy – i love it all. but back to the issue at hand.

for hearts (like extra kudos) for the swap i’m writing about my favorite swap on swap-bot.  one that comes to mind is a ‘newbie profile suprise’ swap in which i received 2 craft magazines, some chocolate, and some other little goodies. i had a terrible week at work and it was a friday night when i came home to find a big box addresses to me. it really made me feel better. another one that i like is the ‘stamped bird atc swap #1′ because it was the very first swap that i hosted and it went so well that i deceided to host more, including the one mentioned  here and more:

Alice in Wonderland ATC Swap
Stamped Bird ATC Swap # 2

well, to all my swap partners: i hope you have enjoyed reading this post and might even possibly maybe come back and read future post.

after i watched that, i returned back to the list to watch a documentary about Nick Drake ( I guess the running theme I had going was dead musicians) but  five minutes into it, i decided i didn’t want to watch it. not because it didn’t seem interesting but something some guy said about how Nick Drake had this sort of mystic aura about him. how there’s no motion picture or much recorded word by Drake. and i realized that’s what i like. sometimes i don’t like knowing the musician, there music is just enough that i don’t feel the need to know the person behind the music.

its like back in the day when you’d hear a song on the radio and didn’t know who the band or artist was or even the name of the song. and for the next couple of days you’d sit next to the radio hoping they’d play it again and that the DJ would come on afterwards and say the artist name so you could go down to the music store and let your fingers walk over the alphabetized plastic letter dividers until you finally find the CD. there’s just something mystical in that period when you don’t really know much about the people behind the music, but just love this musical entity. nowadays, i think that’s really missing. hell there’s an app for the iPhone that allows you to hold your phone up to a song playing on the radio or over the TV and not only tells you the band but pulls up their entire music catalog for you to purchase right then and there.

there was a really interesting line in “About a Son” where Kurt talks about this virtual reality where people will just tune in and eventually become so codependent on this technological high where people will just be found on couches from a virtual reality overdose. okay, so i can’t make it sound as intelligent or make it resonate like he did, but you get the gist.

so i go in to work yesterday morning and lets just say it was HELL.  i was only there for 20 minutes, half of which i spent trying to shut the alarm off and explaining over the phone to the security people that i was an employee and not a burgler (what in the hell would someone still from Curves – a stretching chart?). the morning crowd, called the “flakes” are a bunch of retired women who come in to socialize and complain and do everything but workout. there’s this one lady who’s just a straight up cu*t for lack of a more perfect word. the alarm went off because she was coming in through the door while i was punching in the alarm code (the door has to be closed or else it doesn’t work). every morning she comes in right on my heels when i’m unlocking the door even if i’m there 15 minutes before we offically open. so while i’m trying to talk to the security people, she’s out of the floor complaing about how “that alarm sound can get kind of irritating after a while” and that i haven’t turned the music on. then i have a lady coming in to tan, i haven’t got the computer pulled up or even all the lights or doors unlocked and i’m pretty sure the police are going to pull up any second and demand to know what the hell is going on and just having the insane luck that i do, i’d end up in jail when all is said and done.

thankfully, the owner comes and everything is okay. as soon as she walks into the office (where i had offically made my hidey hole from all the chaos) i just start bawling. thankfully, she’s really understanding and nice and tells me to go home and take the next two days off. which is bittersweet in that i get to relax and try to get well but then again if i don’t work, i don’t get paid. eggh, i’m too young for all this stress.

so i just finished watching bravo’s “the millionaire matchmaker” and while it is pretty entertaining, it is also pretty…depressing. all these guys, who the majority of the time seem like they’re overcompensating for something, have appearances as their number one priority. some stereotypical knock out dead goregous lady ( in the most conventional way) comes in and the guy is saying she’s not pretty enough! let’s totally forget about personality, intelligence, or if the person punches babies in their free time. these guys are totally “picking with their pecker” as patty the matchmaker likes to say. this episode there was a 48 guy who was very adamant about dating 25-28 year olds. i’m going on 23 and my dad is turning 50 this year, so that comparison alone would make most people puke in their mouth a little.

not like i have a problem with age differences,  but there’s just a lot of things to question when you have an older guy looking for a specific age. personally, i’d say mid 30′s would be my cut off range. there just gets to be a point where the generation gap is very noticeable. like i’m sure someone who knows about Mr. Green Jeans would have no clue about the background of the White Power Ranger and vice versa. Irrelevant topics, yes. But it’s the little small things that people have in common that can really make a difference.

but back to the beauty issue. i know i don’t fit into the conventional standards of beauty. if anything, i’m just interesting looking at most. i like “interesting” better than “beautiful”. beauty can get boring. a little snaggle tooth or mole with a hair growing out of it never hurt anyone.

occassionaly i do venture on back every now and then when there’s some slang for sexual positions my poor sheltered(ha!) little mind doesn’t know about.

anyways, i’m a work, multislacking and tasking. trying to sign up new members, guiding people through their first workout, checking facebook, answering the phone, playing games on facebook, faxing records. ya know, the usual.

i have to mail in my application for a job a FMU. i really want the job. i should have had it in the mail last week, but i’ve been working 10 hour days for most of the week and i hate wasting my luch at the post office. somehow, i always get stuck behind the person who doesn’t have a clue how to send a package. first problem, whatever they have to send off isn’t in any kind of package. secondly, the address is written on a little scrap of paper from which they spend 5 minutes transferring over to the envelope. third, they don’t know the zipcode. they have the entire address except for the zipcode. fourth, they have to hear every single shipping option possible. think for about 5 minutes and then ask the clerk to repeat them again. then say they need said package by X date and just end up letting the clerk choose for them. fifth, they usually think of something else to take up more time just so they can kill my soul  make sure thei package makes it on it’s way.

i’ve been at work since 7:30 a.m. and won’t get home until around 7:30 p.m. we close at 7:00 p.m. but lately people think that if they make it through the door before 7 it doesn’t matter how long they stay afterwards. i do have lunch from 2:00-3:00 p.m. so i’ll probably run down to hancocks and try to find some carbon paper. i know i have some somewhere in my blackhole of a room, but i rather pay $1 than drive myself nuts tearing my room up from top to bottom looking for something. i want to use it for some ATCs. i’m always signing up for owl ATCs and i want to handpaint some, especially after my 3 rating.

i was rated a 3 because i used a stamped image (sent to me on an envelope) in one of my ATCs. crazy, right? i love collage ATCs and I use any and everything if i can, including stamped images on a mailing envelope if I like them. to make matters worse, the person said that my ATC was the last straw and the main reason why she was quitting swap-bot. obviously she had some prior issues or some other issues i don’t know of, because this little 2.5×3.5 inch of paper really upset her. i love the site and have only been there for going on 3 months, and it really is therapeutic for me, so i hate to think that i turned someone away.  oh well.

i plan on making some ATC tonight for a couple quick turnaround and free theme swaps, so i might post them tonight or tomorrow morning.

i’ve made so many of these blogs and just let them die by the way side. i have a theory that its because i can never live up to the glory of the first post, thus, i’m going for subpar quality here.