Motivation Speech

I've started my new job-finally-as a magician's booking agent. It's a new area of the entertainment industry to explore, and i'm excited/scared/confused. It's a new business and things are slow to start, so that's probably making it more difficult than usual.

I asked an old intern boss of mine for some advice. How much should i call back people before they start to hate me? Should i play cool or professional dealing within the college market? Since this is just a glorified sales job, should i be super pushy? He forwarded me to another IUP alumni who lectures on the college sales market.

He really gave me a great outlook on this job (perhaps that's why he's a motivational speaker that would usually charge for this advice.) He graduated from IUP, moved to NYC, worked a couple jobs he got fired from, and at age 28 realized he may as well start his own business. He sounded like he was having fun and really loved his position. He's like: Ashley, this is your time. You're selling yourself right now, so stick with it and make a bunch of calls even if you don't get a lot of responses. Take lots of risks, do different jobs if you need to, and this magician can probably help you get more jobs and make more connections down the road.

It really kept me positive that as slow as things may start, as struggling as my monetary situation is, and as unsure as i am about my future, this is just my beginning. And if he didn't settle until he was 28-i've got 5 years.

The Dope Show

After about 9 months, as I'm sitting at the house in Pennsylvania, I get a call from a 717 number. It was Heroin Aaron. I called him back while I was sitting at BWI waiting for a plane to take me back the west coast and we had a 30 minute conversation. A conversation that i'd been waiting to hear since last August.

He got out of jail the night before he called me. He was in rehab 5 months before that. So he's now about 6 months sober. He OD'd again and realized he needed to get his shit together-sent himself to detox and now here he is. He said it was maybe a bad way things had to work out like that, but he couldn't be happier with how it is right now. He kept stressing that he was so happy. He's even going to school in January and is looking for jobs this week.

It was probably the best conversation I've had with someone-I had such a smile on my face the whole time he told me everything. Despite breaking my heart, standing me up numerous times, and putting me in shitty situations, I can honestly say he's one of the only people in my life I just want to see happy, regardless of how i feel.

I've thought a lot about karma lately, and about what goes around comes around. I think I've done a pretty damn good job of being nice to people and being there for them even though they treat me like a piece of shit. I finally feel like it paid off when he called me. He doesn't talk to any of his old friends, or his gross old hippy girlfriend, but decided to call me right away after the slammer. I'm there for somebody-I'm strong, I'm positive, I'm drama and drug free, I'm not judgemental, and somebody can count on me. I feel ecstatic about being able to do that for someone. So after being heartbroken and depressed for awhile, it all paid off in that one conversation when he said he was happy. It makes me happy too.

Dad

and i were riding in the car back from lunch today. We had seen the army band play a trombone concerto a week ago and my brother had mentioned that Dad asked some of his students to come and see it. I ask Dad in the car:
"So did your students come to hear the concerto?"
"I have students ya"
"No, did they go see the concerto?"
"I have a girl working on that concerto."
"Right, but did she go see the army band?"
"We went to that concert, you me and mom, remember?"

He also just asked if i wanted to pack up some cat poop and take it with me.

Small Town Hero

I walked Charlie, the dog, through the streets of Hanover the other day. I smelled downtown where all those trucks and motorcycles ride by, saw the crazies (even an old Ratface's Christmas Special star) sitting on the benches, and watched the trashy people walk in and out of the Texas Hot Weiner for lunch. And it all felt absolutely wonderful. It made me realize how lucky I was to grow up in this small town. A place that is cultural because of it's proximity to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. A place that I may have been the weird colored hair/dress in thrift store clothing girl at school, but still fit in because all of us were Hanoverians, all of us were raised well, everyone pretty much accepted everyone else. A place that, despite my semi-hatred, has an accent, and therefore a character. A place that has history behind it. It's the brick sidewalks, the churches, the teenage mothers, the crabshacks, and the greasyspoons that make up this small town. It's hard to explain what life is like here to people out west. They can't imagine what an amazing childhood somebody can have at a place like this. But i've grown up wellrounded, openminded, and an extremely compassionate person.
Before i left, Chad said, "you know it's going to be the exact same when you go home. Nothing's going to have changed." I couldn't be happier that he was absolutely right.

Dadio

If i lived at home, i would make this a daily blog of something rediculous my father does. Today, my brother and I knock on the front door to be let in. He comes to it, looks directly at us, then walks to the side door to check and the back door to check for us.

The reality of Myspace

Some people like to treat Myspace like its real life. Like the private profile: god forbid people that you don't know see your pictures or your interests or what music you listen to. It seems absolutely dramatic to me. Instead of joking around and using the site to keep in touch with friends, these private profilers are making Myspace some overly dramatic "My life is soooo important/dramatic/crazy that only a few people can know what's going on." Then there's the private blog. If you're going to say something to someone just say it. Don't use some tool that people have to read or are not able to read to guess emotions and just get angry about. It's simply for dramatic effect. And here comes the kicker: when people delete their myspace account because it's literally taken over their life. Some girl told me this weekend that she deleted hers and now she has so much more freedom! Are you serious? Can you really be taking this website that literally? At any rate, I wonder if I've started taking Myspace as reality, or am i just affected because the people that i know treat it like that?
The good old top 8. As soon as I take one of my friends off or move them down a bit, it's like the end of the world. Hell, I'd be perfectly fine with just keeping the first 8 people on my list up there again. It doesn't mean you're any less of my friend or I've moved on-it's just Myspace! I'm on the low end of some of my friends, my sister switches her list a good amount, I remember I had hooked up with this guy and he eventually took me off because we stopped talking. I don't really get upset about any of it.
Then comes the good old friends list in general. Who do you add? Who do you take off? I get a little offended when somebody takes me off-like, hey? I'm not good enough to be your friend anymore? Then i realize they're probably not somebody I talk to much anyway. Somebody said to me once-well, now we're friends on Myspace. That means a lot. Does it really? Don't i see you out at the bars and talk to you on the phone anyway-what's it matter?
But i recently came to my first reality mypace shock. I had been seeing this boy for a few weeks, became friends, and then (like all people in my life lately)-he went crazy on me and didn't want to date anymore. That's cool, but a week later he deletes me from his friends list! Why do i take offense to this? Because he completely wrote me off and out of his life like I never mattered and won't ever again? Because i'm not good enough to even keep on his limited list of friends? Really because it makes a person feel like absolute shit when somebody completely cuts you out of their life.
No, down the road this won't matter. No, he wasn't the most fun or hilarious or cool dude. But it feels as though cutting me out of a friend's list on a silly computer site to somebody who got to know me quite well and supposedly cared about me is like saying, "I never want to see you again, hear from you again, or think that you exist anymore. You didn't matter enough to me." Ok, so maybe I'm being a little dramatic. Maybe I should have posted this as a private blog instead.

Never knew

I realized how much more hilarious exboyfriends are when they're just friends and you're not dating. No drama, just fun.

Travelodge

Body: Put an [x] by the states in the U.S. and the countries that you have visited.

[] Alabama
[] Alaska
[x] Arizona
[x] Arkansas
[x] California
[] Colorado
[x] Connecticut
[x] Delaware
[x] Florida
[x] Georgia
[] Hawaii
[] Idaho
[x] Illinois
[x] Indiana
[]Iowa
[x] Kansas
[x] Kentucky
[] Louisiana
[] Maine
[x] Maryland
[x] Massachusetts
[] Michigan
[] Minnesota
[x] Mississippi
[x] Missouri
[] Montana
[] Nebraska
[x] Nevada
[] New Hampshire
[x] New Jersey
[x] New Mexico
[x] New York
[x] North Carolina
[] North Dakota
[x] Ohio
[x] Oklahoma
[] Oregon
[x] Pennsylvania
[] Rhode Island
[x] South Carolina
[] South Dakota
[x] Tennessee
[X] Texas
[] Utah
[] Vermont
[x] Virginia
[] Washington
[x] West Virginia
[] Wisconsin
[] Wyoming

27/50. and can we really count lame midwestern states that no one would want to go to? ok, i guess so. i shall raise my number again soon!

Happy 1/2 Year Anniversary

To me! In 2 weeks it will officially be 6 whole months in Las Vegas. I believe it was around this time last year that Todd started talking to me about moving here from Baltimore. It took me 6 months to save up and move out here and it was an amazing journey across the country. I've met great, interesting people, partied and made great stories and memories, learned even more about myself, played in an orchestra, bought a car, drank anywhere at anytime, and probably a lot more.

I've also discovered things about this town that i don't like so much. That everything in this town seems fake and not really important-jobs and businesses here are just existing to make money, not to be socially important or responsible for their employees. That kids grow up here fried from partying too much even at 18 absolutely hating life because they think the world sucks and it's not their fault the world sucks. That cocaine flows like water. That having no downtown is weird. That there's no real neighborhood feeling or culture. That everybody stays here, hates it, and will continue to stay here, and it's 6 degrees of everyone in this town.

Todd asks me a lot if i still like it here. It may not be my initial reaction from April: "God i love it! I'm so happy!" But it's definitely that I'm very happy I'm here and that I will stay for awhile. I know fun people here. I absolutely adore living and hanging out with Todd, Chad, and Mike, and when it comes down to it-people and a job are really what make a place. I don't have a decent job here, so the only thing I would move somewhere different for would be that. Maybe I'll start saving now so come June I will try somewhere different. And I'll keep doing it over again so I learn more about myself, have more experiences and memories, and finally land myself in a happy place where I have friends and a job I love. But for now-it's First Friday in Vegas and i wanna go out!

I'm unhappy more often than not

Maybe it's just rejection. I wish i could stop convincing myself that people have a 1 in a million chance of getting along with me and me liking them. I wish i could stop caring that i mean as much to someone as they mean to me. The goddamn answer is that I'm scared of rejection. So much that I care when a drug addict dumps me, an 18 year old chooses another girl over me, and a one-armed jerk stands me up over and over again. i wish more than all of that that i'd follow my own advice and start being with people that deserve me. oh well-just get over it ashley.