ryanreacts

 Oh my holy hecking what now, I survived an extra slow night at work and, as of a little more than an hour ago, Ryan's Entire Weekend of Alone Time has officially begun. So far I have spent that time waiting for the shuttle, eating six gummies, taking a shower, and sitting down right now to type up my goals for this weekend.

1. Get extremely stoned and watch Doctor Who! (Other things I have downloaded at the moment include two of the funniest episodes of Modern Family, the very first episode of SpongeBob, the first three episodes of Daria, four episodes of Buffy, and several other things that will be great to watch while I am extremely stoned.)

2. LAUNDRY

3. Clean the room a little (while listening to music without earbuds!)

4. Collect pakidges from the warehouse as they arrive. These pakidges are of significant importance. I purchased many snacks.

Can't remember if I have any more goals for this weekend right now, because I am too hungry. The cooks made that pasta for the second night in a row, so I'm gonna go eat.

I must remember to charge my portable charger ASAP, because we have another planned power outage happening on Tuesday. 

Now that I have gotten up and had breakfast, I need to . . .

Eat gummies immediately
Throw some laundry in the washer and set a timer
Shave my stupid face before the gummies kick in 
Watch stuff

Since the Wi-Fi in the middle of the desert is so intermittent, I always have at least a few episodes of something downloaded so that I can watch offline. But with April 10th approaching, I have really taken it up a few notches and given myself lots of options. As of this writing, those options include . . .

Wicked The Musical The Film
most episodes of Yellowjackets season three (I need to re-download six and seven, which is currently impossible until I start watching things and deleting them)
the last four episodes of Deli Boys
Doctor Who: all three 60th Anniversary Specials with Fourteen & Donna, Fifteen's first Christmas Special, all eight episodes of season one
A Goofy Movie
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: one episode ("The Body")
The Little Mermaid: TAS - all thirteen episodes of season one
Witches: Truth Behind the Trials - episode one
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Little Mermaid 2023
The Pied Piper
The Lion King
Sleeping Beauty
That's So Raven: one episode
Fantasia

Harriet the Spy
In the summer of 1996, my sister & I and at least two of our five cousins spent a month with Grandma & Granddad. They had recently gotten cable, so we watched a lot of Nickelodeon. This was their very first movie, so they promoted the hell out of it and made all four-or-was-it-seven of us excited to see it. I don't actually remember seeing it for the first time, but I do remember the aftermath. Everyone else enjoyed it, but I LOVED IT and wanted to be Harriet and spent the rest of the summer pretending that I was. Even though, you know, I didn't really have much to spy on other than my own family.

When the VHS was released, I begged my mom to buy it. She did, and I was thrilled to be able to watch it over and over and over. At some point I even took it to school. I was in a very small third-grade class, and all of them also got inspired to start keeping a notebook. I don't think any specific drama ever happened, but before it could our teacher made an announcement that we should not write anything that wasn't nice. So I stopped bringing my notebook to school, and looked forward to going home so I could write whatever I wanted. After all, what is the point of writing if you can't write the truth?

Obviously, the film is based on a book that was first published in 1964. I don't remember exactly when I first read it, but I was young enough that Harriet seemed wise and mature and worldly. She's eleven.

I also don't remember when I realized that it is My Favorite Book of All Time, but I do know that I can barely even imagine what my life would be like without it, and I still wish I could be Harriet.


Animorphs
My name is Ryan.

I think I was eleven when I read my first of these books --- #23, The Pretender. Before that I had seen them on display at Barnes & Noble many times. I presumed that there were a lot of Animorphs and each cover depicted one character who could only morph into that particular animal. Hahaha, WRONG.

Gosh, I really don't even know what to say about this series. Jake, Cassie, Marco, Ax, Tobias, and Rachel are some of my favorite fictional characters ever written. Some lines are burned into my brain forever. 

"Fall down seven times, stand up eight."

"Evidently I am insane. May I go now?"

"Is it not time for cookies?"

"Please make every effort not to drop me!"

"Yellow is the color of warning. I do not know why."

"Live free or die!"

"I wondered if---"

Someday I will re-read all sixty-something books, and I hope someday comes sooner than later.

 So there’s this server named Andrew who introduced himself even though we usually don’t work the same shift. That’s a little weird (there are many servers who have never introduced themselves even though we work the same shift all the time), but of course I don’t hate the guy for being friendly and a little weird, right? Of course not.

I don’t remember exactly when this happened, but some time after Andrew told me his name I received a Grindr message that simply said “Hi” from a pic-less profile (Red Flag #1) with no information (Red Flag #2), which normally I would have been quite content to just ignore . . . but the app said he was 0 ft away, so I asked, “What do you look like?” 

He sent two pictures of himself, and of course he turned out to be Andrew. I’m sure Andrew is a very fun person outside of work or whatever, but my attraction to him is zero percent. So I ignored him even though he said “Hi” one or two more times after that.

At some point in the last month or so, I deleted Grindr. At some other point in the last month or so, Andrew got sick enough to take a lot of time off work.

Today was the first time I’ve seen him in at least two weeks. He left shortly after I got here (see above, we don’t work the same shift), but our paths crossed while he was folding silverware and I got myself a drink. He said hi to me and I gave a neutral “What’s up?” and that should have been the end of our interaction, BUT NO, FOR SOME REASON this stupid moron felt the need to say, “I think I tried to talk to you on an app.”

(internal screaming)

”Oh, well, if you did it must have been a while ago, because I had to delete all of my apps.”

He still wouldn’t let it go, he had to ask if the app was Grindr. I made some sort of neutral noise and (wonder of wonders) he actually seemed to sense how uncomfortable he was making me because he said, “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

GOOD.

YOU SHOULD BE SORRY, YOU STUPID GODDAMN FUCKING MORON. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? IF SOMEONE YOU BARELY KNOW IGNORES AND SLASH OR REJECTS YOU ON A HOOKUP APP, MENTIONING IT WEEKS LATER IN REAL LIFE IS *UNHINGED* BEHAVIOR!!!

Seriously, I hope you actually did sense how uncomfortable this conversation made me. I hope you learn how to be less unhinged and more appropriate at work in the future. And if you don’t learn, I hope you never have a moment of peace.

Stupid
fucking
moron!

 Another nice thing about Direct Deposit is that the money can show up in my account two full days before payday. I'm not going to say the exact number of my current balance, but it's somewhere very close to what it was when we left CMR. Possibly a little more, possibly a little less. I don't remember precisely how much I had then. But it was definitely a lot more than I have had since then. Until now, which feels fucking great. In another month or two my balance will be more money than I have ever had in my entire life, which is going to feel even better.

 Honestly, thee most important thing to do this weekend is sleep as much as I want. Allergies have been kicking my ass for the last three days, and every second I had to be at work made me want to slap someone in the face and slash or cry like a baby.

Other than that, though . . .

Laundry, of course. Preferably sometime after picking up my second work shirt from the warehouse.

Fill out that form, take it to the post office, and get my own PO Box.

Try to assemble that free organizer thingy that Ben found for me a few days ago. (Not sure if it has all of the pieces, but it probably does?) Which will be a good excuse to clean my room a little bit.

Re-watch Yellowjackets 304. And probably 303 as well: There is a very short Adult Shauna scene that I'm very obsessed with, and all of the wilderness stuff is just fucking excellent.

Finally open those three LPS blind boxes I bought last weekend?

Watch Harriet the Spy? Still not sure about this. It really might be too painful.

I’m taking a no-lunch break (well, Joey did give me a cookie) because my stomach feels just barely gross enough that I kind of wish I could go home early. But if I was at home, what would I be doing? Waiting for Yellowjackets and NOT getting paid??? 

 When I had my interview for Death Valley, I was asked if I wanted seasonal or year-round work. I said something to the effect of, "How about seasonal for now, but after I see how it goes I might switch to year-round?" My interviewer thought that was reasonable, and signed me up for one season, starting in January and ending in June.

At the time I was thinking I would just save as much as possible and then move back into my old apartment building in El Cajon. 

Shortly after I arrived here, I was browsing CoolWorks (which, in my experience, is the best website for finding seasonal jobs with housing) and found a resort in Washington with at least three different dishwasher/kitchen steward jobs. I would literally kill to live in Washington again, AND this place offers a bonus after your first twenty-one days of employment and a bigger bonus at the end of the season. Unfortunately, they listed multiple start dates, and the latest one was like a week before the end of my season here. I still wanted to apply, but I knew I should polish my resume first. Polishing my resume is one of my all-time least favorite things to do, so I put it off for a while. Yesterday I made up my mind to go ahead and do it . . . and all of their dishwashing job listings are gone.

So I texted DJ, the manager of my old apartment building. She (once again) said that I can definitely move back in as long as they have an empty unit. I asked how much rent is these days and she said the lowest possible option is $1,050 per month. 

One of the biggest perks of seasonal work is that living expenses are much, much, much lower than they are in the real world, meaning that it's actually possible to save most of my earnings. HOWEVER. Between now and June, I'm only going to be able to save a few thousand dollars. As much as I miss my cozy peaceful apartment in El Cajon, I just feel like it wouldn't be responsible to dive back into paying real rent until I have saved up a bit more. Like, I don't want to break down the numbers or make a statement like "I need to stay at Death Valley for x months and save up," but it would be wise to stay here long enough to save at least $10,000.

I think I might need to be employed for at least ninety days before they can switch me from seasonal to year-round, but I'll ask HR about it tomorrow or Tuesday.

If I stay here for the rest of 2025, I should be able to save more than $12,000 without even trying.

ANYWAY. Let's talk about stuff! You know, like, stuff I could buy . . .

Sometime soon, I really do need to buy more pillows, at least one more work shirt, and at least one more towel.

I don't exactly "need" a new sling bag right away, but mine is kind of starting to fall apart. I'm somewhat obsessed with this one. The red pattern is the same as one of the best backpacks I have ever owned. But I think I would get the blue one. The only thing I don't love about it is the label, which I could cover up with some fun pins. 

As much as I prefer the sensation of holding an actual book and turning actual pages, it might be a good idea to get a Kindle. That way I could buy books & comics without, you know, having to wait for them to be delivered to the middle of the desert. Speaking of, whether it is a digital or paper copy, I MUST buy Jenny & Kristin's book - but that won't be released until April.

Obviously I don't need to be spending money on toys, but I did join the LPS subreddit, and about two weeks ago someone posted two pairs they found, and one of those pairs included an adorable pink & white cow, and now I must have that pink & white cow . . . someday. I also really like the Diner Dash three-pack.