Plan B

I should have realized Plan A never quite materializes for me.

Instead of tomorrow, I'll be hitting the Trail next Saturday, on March 27th. Which coincidentally is 1 year to the day of my starting date last year.

That's what I like to call a Sign.

Forgotten

We're having a staff meeting tomorrow at work, and they just sent around the notice for it a bit ago. It's one of those mandatory things that all employees have to attend, so you know it's going to be boring and probably be about something that's either going to be bureaucratic bullshit or some kind of policy change that is sure to upset someone. It's split up into 2 meetings to make the groups smaller, and is scheduled first thing in the morning.

I'm not listed on the schedule for either meeting. The lady who organized the meetings and sent out the memos about them said she forgot to put me on the list, but I'm free to attend either one I choose. Now normally I wouldn't really care about it; I'd make a joke or two about not having to go since my name wasn't on the schedule, and then forget about it. But this isn't the first time she's "forgotten" to include me in staff-related notices. It's not the 2nd time either. It's starting to become a pattern with her, and I'm beginning to worry about it. I'm probably overreacting about nothing, but I'm wondering if she has some kind of problem with me and is doing it on purpose.

I hate work drama.

11-11

Many months ago I started seeing the number 11 everywhere. It would pop up all over the place for days on end. Every time I looked at a clock it would be at 11 minutes past the hour; the convenience store bill would come to $11.11; numbers and addresses all through the day at work would have an inordinate amount of 11's. It would stop for a day or two and the numbers in my life would go back to appearing at random. But then it would come back with a vengeance and there would be day after day with the number 11 suddenly everywhere I turned.

Googling it turned up quite a few results of varying believability. Part of me knew that it may have been just a coincidence (once I noticed the first few 11's my mind started looking for them subconsciously and I just thought they were everywhere). But at the same time another part of me thought it was a sign the universe was sending out and I should listen. I decided to take a mid-range approach and use a mix of both to be what I would go with: if it's a sign then that's cool, they'll eventually point me in some direction and let me know what it's a sign of...but if some big sign doesn't happen then it was just in my head and I didn't need to think about it anymore. Naturally the 11s disappeared. I didn't notice when they stopped, they just went away like it had never happened. It was either all a coincidence or I pissed off whoever was sending me the signs by being so apathetic about it and they stopped sending them to me.

Whatever the case, I hadn't thought anything about it again since early summer. Until Friday night. I realized that Sunday (today) was the eleventh day of November, 11/11, and everything came crashing back into my head with an odd sense of urgency this time. I even had some run ins with 11s earlier in the week but I hadn't noticed them until Friday night. I don't know if there was something profound or life-altering I was supposed to do or learn today. I've decided not to let it go this time though. I'm going to treat it as a positive sign and see what happens.

Signs

It doesn't matter what they are.
It doesn't matter where you see them.
It doesn't matter.
Follow them.

Camping

I survived my first solo camping trip last night (solo human anyway, the dog was there). I've been wanting to do that for a year or so now, and finally made myself go ahead and do it. Even so, I put off heading out until later in the afternoon and the site I had planned on using was already full of people. I ended up driving a few miles further down the road and found an empty spot. I'm kind of glad I didn't stay at the original place as the new one I found was more open and private. The site was off an NC Forestry Service dirt road named Cathey's Creek Road. It's located in the Pisgah National Forest and the area is packed with hiking trails and waterfalls.

The experience wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Not that I expected it to be bad or anything, I was just a bit apprehensive about spending the night by myself in the woods and was pleasantly surprised by how good it made me feel. It was a bit chillier than I expected but overall it was pretty fun. Granted, if the dog hadn't been there I doubt I'd have slept more than a few minutes at a time. The mind tends to wander off pretty quickly when you're alone in a pitch black tent in the middle of the woods. And trust me, my mind can wander into some very freaky places if I let it. There were quite a few times when various serial killers, bears, and Eastern Puma were going to suddenly tear into the tent and torture, maul, and/or eat me. And don't even get me started on what was going to crawl up out of the stream and, finding a colorful tent in its favorite napping spot, would tear me apart in a limb ripping rage. But once I reconciled myself to the fact that Shelbe would probably hear anything coming up on us quite a bit sooner than I ever would, I managed to fall asleep.

I'll definitely be doing it again soon and I'll plan things out a bit better beforehand. For one, a nice warm blanket will accompany me next time and not just jeans and a sweatshirt (yeah, I had the sleeping bag for warmth, but Shelbe claimed that as soon as she stepped into the tent so I had to "share" it with her...not going to kick the poor dog off the only soft, warm thing available to sleep on after all) . Plus I'll need to replace one of the tent poles since I managed to snap it when I was packing up camp.

All in all, a very good experience for me and I'm glad I did it.

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As this is my first post, the links to right will point you to my pics page on Flickr and to my Video page at YouTube.