oh bother.

so i've been home from work for about an hour. i forced curtis to play with me for at least 10 minutes after i walked in and before he went out so that he wouldn't leave angry and maybe not come back...this is what i worry about. of course, only after i saw that the house wasn't burned to the ground. i was sure the c'mas tree would go down and the lights, on a timer (b/c i like to enjoy the thought of it) would set the carpet on fire....but only one glass ornament was sacrificed to this shift. i buried it and said a few words...

and there is always something to bury when i get home. shreds of newspaper, hole-y plastic bags, a pottery barn catalogue they evidently determined i perused too much....you know, that sort of thing. "they" being my cats.

and upon sitting down at the computer i found cat hair meticulously stuck to the bottom of my laptop screen (i could've swore i closed it before leaving monday)...and stella is the culprit b/c only she has a truly white coat of fur disguised by black tipped hairs, and only she takes obsessive interst in talking to my computer screen.

anyway, i really have missed the blogging scene. i dont really read or write blogs that often anyway, but i do miss writing them. and i've commented a few times to beaux kevin, and finally (after i edited the hell out of my blog to make sure it was presentable) i gave in to yet another request, and handed over the address

he'd kill me, but this is his email response. verbatim.

I'm not sure how people put themselves out there like this! But, I now know what your basement apartment looked like, you have a thing for latin men and you used to write a lot more than you do now. Do you miss it?

Love,
Caucasian Kev


"hmm. well could be worse!" i thought...but of course this also sent me on a wild goose chase to find the conversation i must have posted that flaunted an attraction to latin men...

not that i could get away with denying a slight interest in oggling nice-looking men of latino descent...i just can't find the dang posting...

(and for the record i actually prefer Greek or the ever-so droolable Italiano--help me out here LAPO! haha)

ok geez. i'm cutting myself off. fresh on the blogger and already i can tell this could get me into trouble! hah.

have a nice weekend everyone. ciao-

Moo

Yes, I am aware I am not a high performance blogger!

Sometimes we use "picture feelings" at work when the girls have a hard time expressing their feelings.

This one just about sums it up for me today :)

rain or shine

my little indulgence for the year. a weekend in the tennessee mountains with two great friends and a gorgeous view of the valley. it's beautiful here in the upstate carolina hidden treasure of laurens house....the weather channel says seveirville is not so beautiful. but it doesn't really matter. we're "getting away"...and that's all we've got on the brain.

still in pajamas, i'm hunkered into a living room chair watching lauren and heith run around getting ready to leave. i should be getting ready too, but here i am. i brought my heafy suitcase in to "organize" since last night was a little bit of a crazy-lady packing job. heith swears he's not going to wear the black converse shoes lauren put out for him, and every so often reminds her shes wearing "bermudas," and only really wants to find one more pair of low-cut socks...lauren made muffins and coffee, and we're all taking way more than we need. "just in case"
it's fun. i'm very happy :)

shoes
socks
underwear
bathing suit
raincoat
camera
laptop
sunglasses

and seven billion other things i really dont need. in multiples of 3. at least.

and a bike.

playing cards! how could we forget! they're promptly going into the "game bag"

ready for a nice weekend. pictures soon.

I sat silent, five commercials

every so often, someone comes up with a really great commercial. i, for one, am a "laughingly good commercial" fan. and i have been known to watch a relatively bad channel if they air the same good commercial a few times every 30 mins. it's how i get some of my more satisfying kicks.

congratulations to the writers for the following companies. they are, frankly, hilarious.

Milky Way

KMart

Vonage

in that order. but vonage has had the lead for a while, for the record.

geico, on the other hand...FOR THE LOVE OF ALLAH! NO MORE TALKING GECKO!

"fly high--be my getaway--gotta get away"

well, i feel compelled to make a brief appearance here. haha. i am now 24 years and 15 minutes old. WOO. yea.

and just as i accepted a low-pay job at REI, ms. muroff calls me from the cumming, ga DHR and wants to know, do i want to interview for a 30k/yr job?

oh lord. is it wrong to be torn? i just want to go back to school. just let me go back to school. i want to be the psychologist, not her secretary. but the salary still raises an eyebrow.

thank you for everyone who has already wished me a happy day. my brother even graced me with a serenade! haha. love the stef-man. I hope everyone has a great day. i'm doing some last minute cleaning and then heading to columbus so the parents will feel "involved" by taking jeff and me to dinner ;) love the parents. they are so sweet. and jeff gave me an ipod shuffle for my birthday ! sweet! it's definitly what I NEED! and now i can give him his little mp3 player back...haha...i think there were ulterior motives there

"Hide and seek, kissing and running
Till you were out of breath
In the late night day sun
Until your Mamma called you home... and you didn't wanna go"
-stereophonics

karma police, arrest this girl

as monday wanes on, the weekend loosens it's grip and hands over the reigns to yet another business week, and our columbia pal, here since thursday, is on his way back home...but not before squeaking out one last tennis game (pictures courtesy of Rob, to be posted later today or tomorrow)...so it was a weekend of severe indulgences, but, fun to say the least. and this week should be great too...jeff and i are celebrating a happy 365day marker on wednesday, and i will celebrate becoming six years shy of 30 on thursday! woo. so we'll be heading to columbus for dinner with my folks, and then...THEN, friday and saturday i'm training for my JOB. yay.

okay, the job front has been grim for quite some time now, and i, having left a discouraged dent in THE Rock-Bottom and begun an equally gloomy journey along the plateau of unemployed depression (all the while keeping my poo-eating grin and sophisticated cover letter crafting at a convincing-yet-false-positive) finally began narrowing down my "part-time" options. on an optimistic whim, i applied at REI here in ATL; a place that I appreciate as the closest outdoor retail supplier in the area--and since i can recall having been labeled "the outdoorsy type" in my day, I dropped in and queried the friendly customer service woman for an application, and happily interviewed the same day. of course it went very well, i'm experienced in the outdoors, i'm fairly experienced in the how-tos of cycling, and i'm experienced in retail (not to mention, obviously yet another well-educated, desperate college graduate) and possess what i would call, polished "interpersonal skills"...with a degree to back it up. so i was pretty confidant (and kept a keen eye out for any snobbery my pride might fling at the interviewing manager) but then again, several interviews have gone "well" and resulted in kindly rejection letters (if anything) so my hopes were in neutral, as they have been for some time now (my conscience no doubt conserving the very last scrapings of a tattered self worth)

in the process of prepping myself for a possible turn-down from a mere retail position (because in Atlanta, anything is possible, especially rejection and poverty) I received a call and an attractive offer just two days later--the better part is that the position is with the department of my preference: Action Sports...which includes kayaks/canoes, climbing equip--and cycling--which includes mountainbikes. and mid-interview, a friendly lady who i later learned is the head honcho of this dept (and who probably snagged my resume to boost the female gender count in this area) sympathetically patted me on the back for potentially having to learn and sell not only Cannondale, but also several brands of what I kindly refer to as "comfort cycles"...this is a really difficult thing to explain to someone who isn't really into real mountainbiking. and i, along with many of my trail goers, have perfected the answer to the ever so frequent question "so, what's a good bike to buy?"...to which one replies "well, what do you consider 'good'"...this is an 'inside' retort that i will promptly have to UNlearn and replace with a sincere smile and something like "what sort of riding are you planning to do?" OR "what do you feel you will need in your future bike"...then, and perhaps more importantly, "how much are you willing to spend"

(sneeze) and with springish weather comes springish allergens

the hard part is tactfully guiding people to understand their capabilities. a few acquaintances have naively scoffed at a favorite film (The Collective) that wonderfully flaunts the craft of "sponsored" free-ride cyclists. which is an entirely different type of riding from cross country mountain biking--i've heard things like "yea that's what i do or "heh, I can do that"...and of course one can do a lot of things if they put their mind to it, but, willingness and ability go hand in hand...along with endurance, actual SKILL, and a (somewhat heavy) touch of masochism. not even i would dare set an intent foot on a freeride/downhill cycle...tho i'm rather envious. but if tubby comes in determined to drop two-grand on a bike that he'll never really use to it's full worth, so be it, big-boy. i dont make commission, but i understand the value of sales and marketing. and if i have to take a retail job, i'll be derned if i dont make it a point to be one who is promoted as soon as possible. anywho. so that's my story as of late. i am now employed. and i might add, by #7 of fortune 100s best companies to work for.

and i hear an old riding buddy of mine, joseph, is making a swell move to a bike shop in boone, nc. and i wish him (and his karma) all the best...mwah ha. a tribute pic to old rides below-





that's all for now.
cheerio.

"in a world"

Last night I watched David Lynchs "Eraserhead" with Jeff. He'd already seen most of it, and warned me it was "typical Lynch"...and maybe I wasn't completely prepared ? but then, how do you prepare for a man who creates films like Lost Highways and Mullholland Drive...so, Eraserhead. I made it 3/4 of the way through before retiring for the night. And so the dreams began.

I have a family, as in mother/father/brothers/sisters/grandparents. and we live in a big house, with a large indoor pool in the basement (me? a dream involving water? surely not)...anyway, for some reason there are fish in the pool? I think, and over breakfast I say maybe we need a few more fish...so that evening, I hear my parents drive up, and yell "open the door"...well, that day I had come across a baby nurse shark...a small animal that would be comfortable in a pool that size. Granted, I have no idea why I want fish or a shark in this pool, but whatever. The more important part is from outside in the yard I hear this father figure (I have no idea who any of the people are) say "well, we have a whale!"...and in they march with a small gray colored whale....A WHALE? oh, not only a whale, they also have a young tiger, two monkeys, a parrot, and a few other wild species better found (or left) in the forests and jungles of elsewhere, certainly not our basement.

My first reaction is of bewilderment, then I move to attempting reasonable discussion with the memebers of my family, who seem to see no problem with the fact that a dozen wild animals were living in our home, and were going to grow up to be LARGE animals. hmmm...so, the first whacked out thing to happen is the tiger eats grandpa. yep. the tiger got into the ductwork and jumped on grandpa while he slept in a hospital bed in the back corner of the basement. This is like a combination of some bizarre cartoon and The Ghost And The Darkness...as in, it seems ridiculous, but it was really like, scary, evil stuff. After that happened I woke up, and drifted in and out of the same dream, which turned into something more scifi than what it had been, until the alarm clock went off at 8:30, afterwhich I snoozed in another weird dream until around 9. All I'm sayin is, and I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin...watching Lynch before bed has to be about the equivalent of doing some crazy drug right before you go into a house of mirrors.

And today was supposed to be sunny, in my fantasy world. But, tut tut, it looks like rain. No pioneering the pool deck today!

tootles

how we move our lives for another day.

10 is creeping up on me, but I'm still ready to get out of here before too long. These spontaneously premeditated weekends are always imagined with the intentions of "getting away to relax" or "escape" a hectic big city, but always end up being nearly opposite...last night determined to call my brother and tell him to stay away and leave me the house to myself, then this morning in the shower wondering if i should just stay with my grandparents, I'll be there most of the time anyway, and in Boiling Springs, visiting my other grandmother, now home from her stint in the hospital...I guess by 91 you're gonna break something eh...anyway. hmmmm....well, I have the best intentions...I guess (insert under-breath chuckle here)

the WOW in our area. also known as the "Women of Willivee" have now gone public with what is currently a battle against invasion that is now going on in our wee neighboring neighborhood...and that battle is against none other than (what? you are wondering? what adversity are these brave women fighting against? sexism? harassment? (said "haress-ment" like the cool Atlantans do) neighborhood crime? oh they are so selfless and valiant!)..

...yes my friends, they are winning, against, yes, wild yard onions

I know, I know "HOW?" you might wonder, because it is such a brutal and often odiferous war, but I believe they will prevail....I saw at least 5 women out just yesterday around 4pm with their little weed plucking devices, hunting their grounds for the devious and infestuous little green devils

and with that, I must be gone. off with me.

"theres not a moment to lose in this game-
dont let the troubles in your head-
steal too much time, you'll soon be dead-
so play--but every day should be a good day to die"

Opening Night

as i'm tentatviely re-entering the blogosphere. as i have all the time in the world to post. so, here we go.

quip of the day

every so often, someone comes up with a really great commercial. i, for one, am a "laughingly good commercial" fan. and i have been known to watch a relatively bad channel if they air the same good commercial a few times every 30 mins. it's how i get some of my more satisfying kicks.

congratulations to the writers for the following companies. they are, frankly, hilarious.

Milky Way

KMart

Vonage

in that order. but vonage has had the lead for a while, for the record.

geico, on the other hand...FOR THE LOVE OF ALLAH! NO MORE TALKING GECKO!

oh for blogs sake

yesterday i was washing a load of whites and somehow as i was pouring the clorox into the specialized bleach receptacle, about a tablespoon of it splashed into my right eyeball. at this point i'm not sure how much longer my right eyeball will last, as it is the eyeball that always catches anything that could remotely damage an eyeball. bugs, paint stripper, mascara,unidentifiable organic matter...etc. so, bleach. i have a history with bleach, mainly because, well, i love bleach. the idea of bleach is awesome. it BLEACHES things white, and it kills the AIDS virus. and because i'm someone who can dwell myself right into a panic attact at 4 in the morning because there was a lot of blood when i killed the mosquito on my arm last summer and a billboard that i read every day on my way home reads "Brother, you're all the same to me. HIV," i like stuff that kills deadly viruses. just the idea of it is comforting.

and to give a little history to the story, i get ringworm. i know it sounds gross, but some people have skin that is just more desirable for growing fungus than others. and i guess i'm one of them. if i so much as look at an animal or human who has a hidden or visible spot of it, bam. i got it too. i get it about once or twice a year when it's hot and muggy and the conditions are prime for growth. and ringworm is a bitch because it takes a stinking month of twice-daily care to get rid of. so, about three summers ago, during an internal tantrum over discovering yet another emerging ring beside the one that was almost gone, and having used the very last of my trusted tea tree oil at the very same moment, i became desperate, and vengeful. i decided that if bleach kills AIDS, bleach can kill ringworm. so i moistened a cotton ball with a dab of bleach and taped it over the ringworm on my leg, determined to get rid of it no matter what. naturally.

the guy i was dating at the time was a pharmacy student who was about to transfer to UGA Pharm school, so I'd say he knew a little bit about chemistry, and when he heard about what i did, i received the proverbial slap on the back of the head effect from the look he gave me. the bleach swab was removed, and i was scolded, by him right then, by my soon-to-officially-be father#2, and by my body for the next 4 months. for the next four months my hands, feet, and chest turned into a harvest of boil-like blisters. the doctor i finally went to wasn't particularly interesting in figuring it out, but said if i'd gotten bleach in my bloodstream it was possible my body was ridding itself of the poison by pushing it to the skins surface. oh well. the blisters finally went away, and no more bleach-cures for me. and i know i'm not really THAT stupid. but i really hate ringworm.

meanwhile, back at the ranch, the bleach splashed into my eyeball, and i ran frantically into my roommates bathroom, which is right next to the laundryroom, to rinse my eyeball. i ran in, turned on the first light switch i felt (because i had both eyes closed at this point, dont ask why) leaned over the sink and began dousing my eyeball with water.

just then, above the screams of pain coming from my eye, and the rush of water in the sink, and the frantic bewilderment of being momentarily blinded, i heard a terrible noise. it sounded like a bone being slowly scraped across a cheese grater. then it sounded like a prop-plane choking in mid-air and beginning it's decent back to the earth. it was a horrible metallic sound, and i squealed a classic rachel squeal, and jumped. when i jumped i put my hand on the sink to brace myself for whatever horrible thing was about to happen to me, but my hand immediatly slid because it was wet, and i flopped backwards and hit my head on the towel rack and fell in the floor with a nice big thud. so, being cornered, i assumed the "chill-out and be rational" self therapy that would be necessary for me to escape the apartment even though i was trapped in a bathroom with no windows and only one vent for the fan

the fan. the damned fan.

the fan in robs bathroom has been dying since we moved in. it used to sound like an engine warming up, and then one day it sounded different and rob commented that it had just started making that weird noise. but that day i wasn't home alone in a chilly apartment with all the lights out for energy conservation. the position i was in at the moment the fan gurgled to life yesterday was the position i imagine my cat stella feels when she just knocked over something that probably nearly killed her and then i angrily chase her around the apartment and close doors to all her getaway areas while i'm chasing her, and eventually she runs herself into a corner and rolls over and begins to shake (it's how she gets out of being reprimanded, by acting traumatized before you even scold her). that's how i think i felt crouched in the floor of robs bathroom. traumatized. by a spalsh of bleach and the ventilation fan.

today i'm going to the office to request the fan be replaced. we're out of bleach. and the spot on my shin that i've been convinced was dermatitis since summertime, has been determined by my paramedic friend to look "a lot like ringworm"

ta da

look at the world with a smilin eye and laugh at the devil

So tonight is the Alison Krauss concert. The Robster and I will be travelin to C-town in the next thirty minutes to see Ma and Pa and have some bluegrass fun.

The last however many days it's been since I posted have been your regular howevertheygo days, so I can't say theres a lot to talk about. I've finished reading a few books...mom gave me The Bean Trees for Christmas. A Barbara Kingsolver I had yet to have read when she gifted me with it. I was standoffish b/c I'd heard it wasn't that great, but have to say I enjoyed it...if for no other reason than finding out the origins of some of the characters I've read about in her other books. I have yet to acquire new copies of Poisonwood and Prodigal Summer. I used to loan books to people, and a few of those people just never gave them back. I guess I assume that if they want them enough to have ignored my queries (rare as they were), maybe they just liked the book that much. And that's okay with me. I'd like to have new hardbacks anyway.

Sunny day here. It was so cold this morning everyone was bundled in about 7 layers and scraping ice off their windsheilds while their cars struggled to life...the day will bring temps in the comfy upper 60's...and even better is it's always warmer in Columbus. Whenever I'm visiting down there I always tend to say something along the lines of "I do love springtime in Columbus, that's what I always miss living in Atlanta"...and it'll set Mom and Wayne off into a tangential tizzy about my getting a job there and moving back. That doubtful, but I am sortof stuck in the Ga area for a while, seeing how mom isn't likely to live anywhere else after they get married and build...and while I do want to live elsewhere, I'm inclined to stay within driving distance from my Ma. I guess that's a southern family thing...hard to part.

I've been watching a western Welcome To Hardtimes, so I'm in western mode. Its not obvious is iT?

K...gotta scramble. Supposed to leave in 20.

cheerio

Spiderman Boots

It's these little things, they can pull you under.
Live your life filled with joy and wonder.
I always knew this altogether thunder
was lost in our little lives.
-rem,sweetness follows

Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says
"Dam!".



have a good monday everyone :)

peace love and bugs.

here here, new year

I left the apartment around 12:30pm yesterday and hopped on 285 to begin making my way to Columbus....about 30mins down the road I remembered I'd forgotten to drop the rent off at the office before I left. It wasn't a big deal, I'm going back today, which is the due date, so I could do it then (and I realized that as I was dropping it in the slot) but I turned around and went back. My neighbor flagged me down to inquire if we had mice, and I disclosed that we had secret mice police protecting our apt and would send them over any time she needed. Still, unsettling to know there are critters in the complex, tho not surprising.

Okay so the party was a hit, as it always is...and everyone had a great time :) I took myself to bed around 2am with a belly full of cranberry and vodka and champagne and a throat sore from laughing and talking with all the people who were here. Mom passed out gifts that denoted who was having the next party. I got Valentine cards, so we're having the V-day party, and everyone seemed really excited about coming to Atlanta and hosting their own gatherings respectively, and I'm looking forward to that :) so here I sit, slowly rehydrating, blogging, etcetera. Ready to go home.

Hopefully the next few days will involve a good mtb ride, and a little moolah from boss Vanman. Hopefully everyone had a great New Years Eve, Happy 2006 :)