Alright, alright...you want the monkey, you've got the monkey.

Well, here you go, all you anxious (some even slightly naggy)friends, family, and otherwise general acquaintance of mine who've been after me to write something over the last week since FINALLY receiving instructions from my brother on how to contribute to my own blog. That's right. Don't blame me for my tardiness, blame Nathan. I'm sure this could become a common theme on this, my own personal soap box. Nah, who am I kidding? If Nathan hadn't set up a blog for me, I'd probably never have done it and then Val, my best friend, would have to take the brunt of my rambling in several daily emails. So thanks nathan. And thanks for the lovely pink background. If anyone out there could tell me who that's a monument of in the top right corner up there, I'd really appreciate it. For right now, I'm going to call him Gus.
This is a lot of pressure! I've finally got a blog and a brother whose writing on his own blog has developed over the last year and a half or so and fallen from it's cocoon with a somewhat amusing "thunk". And here I am, someone who professes herself to be an aspiring writer and i have the audacity to slap my jumbled, rambly (and not by any means guaranteed to be spelling and grammatical error-proof)thoughts up on a blog out there for all to see. Well here you have it. It sometimes goes down a bit better with a little Pepto so take a swig and hang in there.
To catch everyone up on just exactly where I am in my life right now, here's a brief summary:
I've graduated with an English degree (creative writing) from East Carolina University and now find myself kicked out in the Adult World, still wearing my Doc Martens and a "Life is Good" T-shirt. So far, the Adult World hasn't been such a comfy fit but I'm hoping that I'll learn to ignore it's restrictive and somewhat itchy fabric after a while. To make a long story short, I have recently found myself back out on the job market, surrounded by classifieds and online resumes. Why is it that after college, you're either under-qualified or over-qualified? There's got to be a happy medium out there somewhere and I intend to find it! In the meantime, I'm going to try my hand at writing and see how it goes.
My first self-imposed story assignment has been a recent full-scale Civil War reenactment that I attended with my family and I'm already finding some trees down in the road. For instance, why is it so hard to write about a couple of Union soldiers named George and ________? Because I can't remember the second guy's name, that's what. That's right, my big writing debut has been put on hold until I figure out how to morally go about quoting this guy (married 20 years to his lovely wife, lives in Norfolk, Va. and can tell you quite a bit about beavers and tree bark...but what's his frappin' name again????) when I don't have any idea what his name is. Aaron? no. Ken? I don't think so. Ferdinand Alexander Penswisher III? Could be, how the heck should I know? Maybe I could quote the guy and make up a name. Maybe he wouldn't even care. Maybe he'd like his new name better. To all those of you out there biting your nails in suspense, have no fear. I don't plan to let such a teensy thing as accurate quote attribution prevent me from doing the best I can with what I'm sure could still be a heck of a story. There's lots to write about from that day and I plan to kick some serious nineteenth-century booty in doing so. Let this be a lesson to me: Thou shalt not let thy pen and notebook leave thy hands on any occasion which thou planst to write about and also, thou shalt write continuously until thy subject dost shuttest his/her mouth.
To be continued. If I feel like it.