A narrative timeline? Biography in short.

Everyone has a story. Or at least a short one.

Early years:
1980 – Born in Flint, MI.
Sometime in here I burnt my hand on my dad’s tractor’s muffler.
1983 – My younger sister was born.
Sometime in here I had a friend with the same first and middle name as me (Kelly Dawn), I remember other random things – being run over by my uncle with his Blazer, the time that the entire street flooded and my mother wouldn’t let us swim in the road like all the other neighborhood kids were, digging up enough worms in the back yard to fill up half of a five gallon bucket, the little red headed boy who was my boyfriend who had a broken arm…there is no time line though, it’s all just random images.
1987 – Moved to Huntington, IN.
Somethings that happened in here – joined the gifted and talented program in school (because I am smart), had the stereotypical fight with my best friend in the 7th grade year of middle school which cost me that friendship and the friendship of a bunch of other people, became much better friends with Amy, learned photography in high school (even have pics in the yearbook I think), had my first “real” boyfriend, had sex, got accepted into college with a full ride scholarship, got into a car accident with my mother (jaws of life were required to get her out)…
1998 – Graduated from high school.
1998-2002 – College at Bowling Green State University.
Broke up with boyfriend #1 and eventually met boyfriend #2 who would last all through undergrad and on into grad school. Had an internship through NSF up at the University of Toledo where I learned that I hated soil ecology. Made so many friends and learned to hate living in small spaces with most people. So many first time images run through my mind – getting caught drinking in the dorms (butterscotch schnapps and shotgunning beer, mmmmm), Saturday mornings spending hours down in the cafeteria watching the boys come down for breakfast in only pants (mmmmm, yay for young college 6-packs), moving into an apartment for one summer with my friend Todd and getting a kitty with him…oye, not so good memories like the eventual break down of the relationship with boyfriend #2 (not that it stopped the relationship from continuing in some for nearly two more years…)
2002-2004 – Graduate School at Ohio State
Got my kitties. Had my own first apartment (GHETTO) and moved out of there after someone tried to break in while I was there. Had my own second apartment (not ghetto) where my car got all burnt on one side after someone supposedly firebombed the car next to it (I got to call the fire department). Wrote a thesis (80+ pages), taught three separate labs…gave lectures, gave presentations and pretty much learned that making an ass of yourself in front of your peer group is less frightening that you’d think. Bought a cool bike and started biking to work, only to have that bike stolen. Had a crazy roommate with crazy bunnies who just wouldn’t leave. Or clean. EVER. Bunny sat for a friend in Brazil (And lizard sat. And snake sat…). Finally ended the relationship with boyfriend #2. Tried internet dating while working on the end of my thesis. Met one guy in the area who never, ever looked at my tits (I even tried cleavage shirts with push-up bras….), met my current husband and starting talking to him via email.
September of 2004 – Moved home to Huntington, IN
Looked for a lab job (this is a continuing search for nearly two years!), settled for a job at a warehouse shipping shoes. Yuck. Met my husband for coffee (though he wasn’t my husband then, and I was just going to use him for sex). Lived with my parents and started removing beef from their diet as well as dragging my mother with me to Curves (she still goes even though I’m not around to make her go anymore — GOOD FOR HER! And she went down three or four sizes in clothes!).
March of 2005 – Moved out from my parents house and into an apartment while I would eventually share with my friend Colleen. Went to Boston with then boyfriend #3, now husband.
July of 2005 – Quit warehouse job, started at Subway when no other jobs presented themselves.
October of 2005 – Moved in with husband.
December of 2005 – Married husband.
March of 2006 – Moved to AZ.
June of 2006 – Got current job.

I’m sure there is lots more that actually happened…but I think it would require actual questions and/or random events to jog the memory. Things tend to clump in my mind after a certain amount of time.

From her.
If you comment on this post:

1. I’ll respond with something random about you
2. I’ll challenge you to try something
3. I’ll pick a color that I associate with you
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on yours. do my bidding

And what she said about me:

1. When I first found you, I thought, based on your name, that you must be in medicine in some capacity.
2. Write your narrative timeline and post it for us all to read.
3. Periwinkle Blue.
4. You’re a nerd. I love nerds.
5. I can’t pick a memory. Hmmm….
6. Striped tabby kitten.
7. What do you want to be when you grow up? Do you feel grown up yet?
8. You know the drill.

What I say about her:

1.) Your hair always gives me hair envy whenever I see pictures of it. It’s so cute and short and chic and I just can’t pull of that look – such hair cuts make me look like a frightening biker girl.
2.) Try to post more pictures of your kitties, kidlets and love.
3.) Mahogany.
4.) You are unfailingly honest in your posts about yourself and about other people as you see them.
5.) I think I bought soap from you once — I still have one bar that I’m saving for a special occasion.
6.) That cute puppy that you see in pictures as available for adoption – the one with one ear all pointy-up and the other one all kinds of floppy – that is so adorable you don’t even care if it’s a special breed because you know it is going to be an awesome dog.
7.) What do you regret most in your life?
8.) Your bidding is done!

My answers to your questions….
well, I will skip the narrative for now because that will take time to write! Did you want it as a brief biography?

However, I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up – and I don’t really feel grown up. Not yet at least. Nor do I know if I ever want to feel grown up. I did just order this book from amazon.com to help me figure out what I do want to be when I grow up. I never really got past having a job making decent money, paying off my credit cards and buying a house. I have the job, I’ve started on the credit cards and we’re looking for a house…so what comes next?

I finally get to test real samples at work – official as of yesterday (Friday at 1am).

And of course, on my very first set of tests (we test in sets of 91 tubes for HIV and HCV at the same time, with 16 individuals usually being pooled into each of the 91 master pools), I had an “initial reactive” set. That means that a master pool showed up positive (for one of the two viruses, we don’t differentiate for the first two test) and therefore, all of the 16 individuals will be retested (again for both HIV and HCV). I had one individual show up as way fucking positive. Although I can’t (according to FDA regulations) state that it was HCV positive, from the light levels the test showed, everyone in the lab knew it was clearly HCV.

So, my first thought on the matter is that I gave this person HCV. Which I really didn’t. I am the person that discovered that they have it. I am the person that will enable them to hopefully get some sort of treatment to minimize the damage and extend their lifespan. But, suddenly, this job is very real. That is blood that could have potentially infected 10 or more people (depending on what they used the blood for) and that is a person’s life changed because of my actions. It’s weird to have a job that actually makes a difference. And more than slightly freaksome. Going from the academic world of bird DNA to shoe shipping to sandwich making doesn’t really give me a basis for dealing with the fact that EVERYTHING that I do at work now is potentially important…

At least tonight I didn’t kill anyone.

Hopefully there will be digital camera shopping this weekend. And by shopping, I mean me going into a store like Best Buy or something similarly large and electronic-ky, full of geek boys and video games and touching, holding and fondling cameras. I am very tactilely oriented and I’m only becoming more so as I age. Before I spill my hard earned money on a camera, I want to feel it (or something similar to it) in my hands and make sure that I don’t hate how it touches me.

Also, a friend here in AZ asked me to be in her wedding. Yay for new friends that are becoming very good friends. And double yay for a wedding between two people that I like (her fiance = very good for her). But boo to a.) finding a dress (pale blue but no set pattern) and b.) eeep! all that pesky weight that I gained while sitting on my ass trying to find a job just jumped up and bit me in the ass.

I just did one of my many workout videos. I’d like to bike – but not only is it a tad warm, when I’m tired, I don’t really feel safe biking on the slightly busy streets around here. A gym is a possibility, especially given that my job is working on getting waivers for the initiation fee to L.A. Fitness as well as reduced rates (and I drive past one on my way home). Anything that gets me INTO a gym is a good thing. I also signed up at work to be a part of the fitness challenge that they are starting there as of July 17th. It will be kind of nice to have someone to report to (that helps with the motivation, especially if they glare, or look disappointed in me) as well as be part of group activities at work. So far, I like most of the people that I work with so, expanding out of my department and meeting new people will also be good.

Sadly, my biggest problem is less the exercise and more the food. Mmmmm. Food. How I love you. Coke, cookies (damn you Trader Joe’s and your delicious wafer chocolate cookies from Italy!), Subway….oh, the list could go on and on. I do fairly well trying to eat smaller meals, most of the time. I’m trying to reduce carbs and increase protein while still eating a fairly balanced (my veggies tend to suffer) meals – and have 5 littler meals. My main staple has become a slightly modified white chili recipe from Curves. Aw, fuck, who am I kidding? It’s nearly entirely modified. I don’t use chicken (turkey and twice the recommended amount), I cut the green chilis and jalapenos (adding additional cayenne pepper and black pepper instead – the texture of green chilis = yuck), I doubled the beans required and went from white kidney beans to a combination of black beans and great northern beans and I have added barley (I’m still experimenting with the amount). Total yield (I doubt most people are still reading at this point as the grammar and flow of this paragraph blows) for an entire pot of this soup (6 servings) is 1448kcal, 17.7g fat, 161 carbs, 48.7g fiber, and 157.9 g protein. I’m looking for a veggies that will hold up fairly well to a 30 or 40 minute simmer time and will increase the general bulk, add some interesting color and texture and not be too high in carbs – maybe carrots? or corn?

**************
 Oh my.
Poor KITTEN! And now they’re going to name him Chipper…

So posting all those pictures on flickr has given me a bite in the ass of the old photog bug that I thought I’d gotten rid of.

Of course, I’ve been dreaming about a digital camera forever. But I don’t know what I want — other than that I want to be able to have manual and auto focus and I want to be able to change the shutter and aperature settings if I so chose – Mr Zeppo is a bitch to take a picture of in AZ with all the sunshine and that white fucking fur…

So, photo-folk, any recommendations on a.) where to find more good, solid basic information on digital photography (since my basis is good old high school darkroom, film based SLR work) and b.) what do you like that’s portable (to take hiking – probably no more than 1-1.5lbs) and relatively easy to use if you’re in a hurry but can be dinked around with to get really nifty images if I have the time and also, is within budget (I’m thinking under $500).

Thanks!

I put pictures up on my Flickr site. I feel all awesome and stuff.

I have to work tonight – but time and half and it is very unlikely that anyone donated much blood on the 4th of July. Here’s to a night spent either a.) napping in shifts with the rest of the 3rds or b.) eating delicious food that we decide to order in while sitting in comfy black leather chairs in the conference room and doing logic puzzles, crossword puzzles or sudoku puzzles.

Do you have sound on your computer?

Yes?

Watch this.

Guess who got her first paycheck today?

AND

Guess who gets a weekend shift differential too?