Poultry Days 2006

How can one ever describe Poultry Days (PD) to someone that has never experienced it? I'm not real sure, but I'm going to do my best here. PD is by far one of my favorite tournaments every year. It is set in this little town in Southwest Ohio, Versailles (not pronounced like the one in France, pronounced like it looks), every June. I LOVE this tournament. So, Friday, Scott, Susie, Joe and I get on the road around 3:00pm, not too late, and we get there around 12:30. It is a nice night, and many of our friends are already there. We head over the the Nooga area, since that is where I always camp, and to my surprise and utter disbelief, almost everyone over there was already asleep!!! It's been four days now, and I'm still in shock! Anyway, once I get over that, and say hey to the few ppl that were still awake, Susie and I decide to find the bathroom and let the boys set up the tent (yes I know how to set one up, but why do that when you can get boys to do it for you? :)) So that gets done, and then I end up setting up Ray Dav's tent for him, because I'm the most amazing friend ever, and then I somehow end up losing my car buddies! I find Joyner coming over the hill, and we find Erin, who then proceeds to go exploring with me to find Rival ppl. We end up over at Savannah and IP's site, Erin heads to bed, and I find McCargo. Who has Jolly Rancher Shots. Watermelon flavored Jolly Rancher Shots. I have no idea what is in these things, but I've heard that they are amazing, so I run up to McCargo, and he has them in a container with a pour spout. So, place mouth under, pour, and enjoy, which I did immensely. I enjoyed them so much that I proceeded to partake of 7 of them between 2:15am and 2:45am. It was fabulous. Finally found Susie and Joe, and then Scott showed up, and decided that he wanted to take down McCargo's tent, while he was still in it. So, Jenn (bobbies) led the way, Joe, Janet, and Scott helped her, and Amy Sallie, Susie and I watched and laughed from the path... very funny. I then decided that it would be a good idea to get in bed before more than four of those shots set in.
Woke up Saturday morning, and it was raining. And I was wet. Our tent had leaked, and anyone that knows me knows that I get cranky when and camp and it rains and my tent leaks. Oh yeah... and the temp was hovering somewhere around 60 degrees. Maybe. So, I bite the bullet and get out of the tent. We end up losing every single game that day, by at least five points. It was not fun. All of my fun was had while hanging out. After play was over, went and showered and grabbed food, then started drinking. Apparently I wasn't drinking fast enough, because every time Scott would look at me, I got yelled at for not drinking. We watched the all star game, which was kinda boring, and then headed to the fair for a little bingo (YEAH!!!) I love bingo. We ended up picking up Janet at the all star game, and she was with us the rest of the night. I think I ended up going to bed sometime around 2:30ish... all this equals a good Saturday night at PD.
Woke up Sunday morning, yelled at Erin because she wouldn't leave me the hell alone, and told Tom that I wasn't playing, mostly because I didn't want to. We broke down camp, then headed over the the fields since Joe and Susie wanted to play anyway. We finally headed back to ATL around 12:30, stopped for lunch in Lexington, gas in K-town, and made it back by 10:00pm. It was a great weekend, and despite the weather, I'm sure that I'll go back again and make that ridiculous drive again. I mean seriously, it's Poultry Days.
Pictures here.

Hate

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the word "hate" and what it really means. Dictionary.com defines the word in many ways, but the most basic definition is "To feel hostility or animosity toward, to detest". This is a word that I did not like to use when I was growing up, because I honestly thought that I shouldn't hate people, and at that time I didn't feel that strongly about anyone. Hate is a very strong word, and I always said "I don't hate (insert name here) I just strongly dislike them." Well, in the last couple of months, I've finally come to realize what the word hate really means, and what it feels like. I've been preoccupied with this feeling towards someone so much, that it makes me into a person that people don't really like. I've started acting different towards my friends, and taking this anger out on them, my true friends that mean something to me. But I don't know how to make these feelings stop. How do you stop hating someone when they have hurt you to your very core? I've tried cutting this person out of my life, but I can't do it completely, because they are tied to other people that I truely care about, people that I can't cut out.
Then there are the people that I care about, but that hurt me without ever knowing it, and I can't cut them out either. It's one of those situations where it hurts to have them be a part of my life because they unconsiously hurt me, but it hurts too much to cut them out and not have them around. It feels like I've lost a friend, who doesn't want me in his/her life anymore, but I can't just let them go.
It's a vicious, downward spiraling cycle that I can't seem to get out of. I try, but I can't stop being angry. I've become bitter, angry, and much more cynical in the last two or three months, but I try not to show that to people, because no one wants to be around someone like that. So all I do is continue to lock my feelings up inside, and build a thicker wall around my heart and my feelings, because all I've learned is that it's hard to trust people, because you never know who people really are, or whether they will only end up hurting you in the end.