In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.

I shouldn't be surprised, or appalled or ever so disgusted; but I am. I've been quite drawn in by some of the political stuff going on in my little area of the world. I've been on a rollercoaster of disgust for humans in general, to hope for humans and the nice little things they can do, back to a strong desire to withdraw my membership to the species.
Yet, there are some very good things coming about very soon.
I will be in Colorado in April. I haven't got the invitation out to everyone (everyone that matters, that is), but there will be a Geisha party of sorts taking place. I will give more details soon.
In a week I should have more energy and time to update my thoughts more frequently.
Hopefully the return will bring more humor, Lord Shiva knows I need it.

I'm being punked

This is good, funny goodness.

Mr. Diety

Watch it.

The need to breed, and other sundry tales of self-deception

I was thinking of this title last night, while sitting at home. And then, I found the article that it was for today!

I can't believe that the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance thinks that passing Initiative 957 is going to help people who are wanting to get married that aren't a "man and a woman" partnership. They are over the top and can only be viewed as nutcases, in my book.
If you're too lazy to click the link, the initiative states that a couple must be able to prove that they can procreate before they can get married and that if they don't pop a few progeny out within three years, their marriage will be annulled.

I understand that maybe, perhaps, they are trying to force this whole union for the sake of procreation as a bunk idea, but this just seems like a loose cannon sort of way to do it.

Reasons for absenteeism

It's not that I haven't been productive, actually I've got a lot done lately.
First order of business:
I got a new car. I've never had a new car, I've had "new" cars but this is a brand new car.


Uh, and I moved to San Francisco! Actually I've been putting off taking a picture of my own. Mine is exactly like this though, except the windows aren't tinted.
It has this cool part by the stereo that tells me hello (on the display everytime I turn the car on) and that red line does a flashy Knight Rider display. It makes me feel really welcome.



It also has really cool blue lighting mixed in with the red.


I'm thoroughly enjoying my new car and would recommmend the Mazda3 to anyone, especially if you like manual transmissions, as it has a lot of pick up. The automatic wasn't bad either.

It also has a place to plug my iPod right into the stereo without any need for special hook-ups.

Other things that have kept me away:
I've also been pretty involved in a local political campaign and that has taken other pieces of my time as well as energy.
I am also planning something that could be a huge change in my life, and I'm not going to say more until I know for sure, but it involves business plans and stuff like that...

All in all, I'd say this year is starting to get better, but I'm still not placing any bets.

hmmm

I know I should be finishing the finance report I'm working on, but I had to throw this out into cyberspace.

Do You Know How Goddamn Sexy I Think You Are When You Clean?
It does something special to me inside. Even The Cramps agree.
Now you know the secret way to my heart.

What a bunch of fucking humanimals

I will be the first to admit that I haven't always agreed with what I've seen PETA doing in the public eye. I still felt a soft spot for them because I believed their intentions were good, and their hearts in the right place.


I was wrong. It's sad that people who walk around all self-righteous about helping animals are actually disrespecting them just as much as a person who doesn't give a shit about animals.Peta is sick and they can suck my dick from now on.

New Year, New Post

Dear New Year,
I don't like to be the type to complain, but let me start out by saying you could have made a better first impression. I am very well aware that there are so many expectations from people all over the world, but really, I didn't bother you by making any predictions, any resolutions and hell, I didn't even bat an eye to the departure of last year.
This being said, I have high hopes that you can improve. Seriously? You can only get better from where you started out with me. Let's try to start fresh and make ammends and try to make this year even better than the previous few. I promise to take better care of myself and my loved ones, and I'll try to only use all of your time for good and prosperous activities. I'm not going to bribe you, I'm just saying that you could be a lot kinder in the days to come.
I don't mean this as a threat but if it doesn't seem to be improving soon I'm going to switch to the Chinese New Year and never look back.
Think about it.
Sincerely,
blackpetunia

29 Things

I'm almost a week into this new age of mine. I've been trying it on for size, seeing if it feels any different. Mostly, it doesn't. Here are some things that may or may not be related to aging another year, but that I've forced myself to notice.


1. I finally understand the phrase "Don't mix your alcohols".
2. I really don't get carded anymore, regardless of who I'm with.
3. I consider myself to be more serious about the activities I'm involved in and don't think about running away from the stress of responsibility.
4. I don't mind that I'm in the Midwest, for now.
5. My animals bring me endless amounts of joy, maybe not having children gives me more time for this.
6. I find it easier not to take things as personally and realize that other people have issues of their own that they battle with, it's not all just me.
7. Recognition for my hard work is nice, but not required.
8. I really miss having my family in my daily life.
9. I'm beginning to accept that some of my dreams are not feasible, and yet in some ways much more possible now that I don't have the hardcore attitude of being worthless if they don't happen.
10. Lists like this are harder because I want to be as honest with myself as possible.
11. My cynicism is aging like a fine wine.
12. I'm also more apt to know when it's not appropriate to share it with just anyone.
13. I'm really bored with just having a job, paying the bills should be secondary.
14. I am not going to quit my job just because I'm bored. I have a plan.
15. I'm still scared to take the risks necessary to make my plan reality.
16. I can actually come home and not feel like I need to clean, all night, every night.
17. Dilaram and I have been together 6 times as long as I've ever been with anyone, and it still feels like just the beginning.
18. I am looking forward to laughing with Cassie about all this when we're old.
19. Unlike Cassie, I'm not really feeling bad about getting older.
20. Twenty seems like more than just a decade ago.
21. Riding the bus isn't so bad, with and iPod.
22. This coming year I will master my scooter riding skills, and then no one will ever see me again, just me and the scooter, riding into the sunset.
23. I still want to elope to Iceland, someday.
24. I hope that someday isn't a decade away.
25. As much as I want to help make the world a better place, I don't like being involved in politics.
26. I think the most effective way to influence change is by planting gardens(for me) physically and metaphorically.
27. Focus, I need more of it.
28. I may never get to see an elephant or whale in the wild, and this makes me more and more sad.
29. I'm going to make the last year in my twenties count.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

Many people might misinterpret this phrase. It actually means: The time of unhappiness is past. It means that the things that have made us sad are sleeping in the cold ground.
Like Shakespeare, I may be misinterpreted, or even not understood. I like to think of myself as fairly straight forward, but that's all in my own head, anyway. The duality to this is that I secretly feel like I am a character in a foreign film, one in which most people do not know the language, and there is an incomprehensible plot. When the film ends, you are left wondering what just happened, and why, maybe you even find yourself feeling slightly existential in the sense that you just fell into a rabbit hole of nonsensical rhymes and non-meanings.
Maybe not.
Either way, I turned 29 at 7:47 this morning and I feel happy that I made it another year.

One Holiday, on the rocks, shaken

It's been awhile, and yet, I have no apologies or excuses. Instead I will attempt to fill the void that I am sure many people felt in my absence, with pictures.

We had a good, exhausting time in Colorado. I hate to even say this anymore: we never have enough time. It's always gut-wrenchingly hectic. The only good thing about the pace is it's a great excuse to drink more.

Here are a few images from Turkey day vacation:











We were really quite lucky with the timing of our trip since the day after we got back storms began to brew. On Thursday we had a pretty serious ice storm, which also had it's benefits:

Ode

A beautiful friend
Entered my life 15 years ago.
I somehow always knew that we'd be friends
now, even now
when she believes she is getting old.
I think we are still so young,
in many ways.
And have so many years yet to fill
with our friendship and our lives, well lived.

Love to you, my friend.

What are you doing on December 22nd?

Perhaps it's a bit early for you to answer that. No matter. This is something nearly everyone could spare five minutes to do, and they'll probably be doing it anyway. Literally. You can do it alone or with a partner, but please, don't do it with the family pets.

It won't hurt you, unless you want it to

AlphaBetaZeta

I'm playing around with this new layout. I like the new beta blogger features, and recommend it, but also warn potential users that you will spend most of your blogging time playing with it and never actually post anything. I'm breaking that cycle though. One thing that may or may not be helpful for those interested, the picture feature seems to be no better on the beta version.
Things have been going well enough in my corner. I am getting ready to come out to Colorado next week, and feel the usual mounting excitement that comes with that until I have to deal with trying to find time to see everyone. It will be good to see the mountains again, either way. And family and friends.

Tonight I brought home another German Shepherd named Zeta, for a trial period to see if she will fit into our family. A coworker propositioned me at the end of the day. She's a very beautiful dog. She makes Anya look like a little midget and not nearly as wolf like as I used to think.


There are things brewing in the near future that I'm not going to talk about just yet, but if they work out, there will be many changes ahead. Good ones. Changes That Do Not, I repeat, Do Not involve child bearing or anything of that nature.

It's that time of the month again...

I've been waiting for this

Mark always makes me smile. I was going to do a nice long post about how I felt the veil of darkness being lifted just a little bit from our daily conciousness, in this country. I never really got around to it though. Nevertheless, it does feel happier, lighter and more hopeful the past few days. Perhaps it's all my perception, but it was what a lot of people needed. The shifting and swinging of a pendulum.
We can hope, right?
My sentiments, exactly

Super-hero of domesticity or work of art?

Cassie was good enough to animate part of my closet door story. She had recommended that I comment on some of the features but I think I'll leave it to the imagination. The only thing I will add is that I SO wish they made size 3-U.S. Docs for adults.

A perception of doors - the conundrum

This post should also be titled, my stupid, fucking closet doors, but I'm trying to cut back on my profanity.

Months and months ago I began to plan a new look for the closet doors in our bedroom.
When we moved in last year one of the things at the top of my list of what I hated about the house were these doors. I didn't take a good before picture, but they looked almost exactly like this,











except they had awful dirty-white plastic knobs.


















I felt like I was sleeping in a h/motel everytime I looked at them.





The only solution was Deconstruction. We ripped all the louver-things out first.

















Then I painted them black.











At this point, I began the true "learning experience" phase. I picked out a fabric that I thought would work out well and spent the past two weeks finding the best way to get it to stay on there. In the middle I ran out of fabric and felt like sticking a few of the de-louvered planks through my forehead when I couldn't find more of the same fabric. Luckily, I did.






So here is what they look like now, they're not perfect, but I'm going to let them sit there and grow on me. See, the sad thing is last weekend when I went to Illinois to get more fabric I found all these really awesome fabrics with asian designs and now I have a totally new and improved vision in my mind. Anyway, for now, I'm done.

















Now that they're done, I Really want to paint my room. Yellow sucks.







~Special message for Thisandthat~ I am fully aware that this post does nothing to dispell your belief in my Martha Stewart-like tendencies.

Saint Louis is Number 1! Yay, oh, wait....

Since I've received a few emails from family and friends that are obviously worried about my safety and well-being I decided to comment on the new list that came out. "Most Dangerous Cities"

Firstly,
this list is only taking into account the City of Saint Louis ( I'm sure this is applied to all the other cities too). St. Louis only has a population of about 330K in the city. However, the outlying suburbs rack up 980K, almost a million people! So the study was based on crimes per capita, I don't really see it as quite fair that the city is taking the blame just because almost 2/3 of the population doesn't technically live in the city. Anyone who knows much about the way things are run in St. Louis City vs. St. Louis County knows how screwed up the whole city/county border war is. I'm not going to get too deep into this part.

Secondly,
I live in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods right now. At our meeting last week our Neighborhood Stabilization Officer told us that we were somewhere near 2nd - and that our murder rate has increased 300% percent since last year! Sounds fucking scary, doesn't it? Well, to elaborate, the murder rate was 2 last year and this year we've had 6. So, yeah, 300%. That puts things in perspective. I still walk my dog in my neighborhood and have yet to get shot.

And,
that is what truly makes this whole report akin to public defamation in what to me is an unfair statistic.
Then again, it isn't the best, and I did feel way safer when I lived in Oregon and Colorado.

Which brings me to my final thought: I remember awhile back a very heated discussion on Cassie's blog about NYC, and how damn dangerous it is. How it's so much safer in the Midwest. So I thought I'd extract a few interesting examples from the list for amusement. Keep in mind the list is numbered as #1 - the safest to #371 - the worst(St. Louis)

371. St. Louis
356. Kansas City, Mo.
342. Kansas City, Kan. ( I found it interesting the KCK is safer?!)
303. Denver
262. Seattle
249. Portland, Ore.
148. Sioux City, Iowa
145. New York City

Wait....is that right? Sioux City, IA is more dangerous than NYC??
hmmm....apparently this list does not have anything to do with the danger of running into a drag queen at 3 in the morning on the subway, or any other scary culture for that matter....
The other thought that came to my mind was the irony of the city just winning the game and then this report coming out, like someone didn't want the city to get to cocky about being good at something, anything, other than killin, rapin and stealin.

Only it's a fairly chilly October night, other than that, times don't change that much

It's now time for a little Chinaski

ground zero

the consensus is that this is a difficult time,
perhaps the most difficult of times:
large groups of people in cities
all over the world are
protesting that they'd rather not be
treated like shit.

but whoever's in control
will not listen.

the suggestion is that, of course, it's
only one power fighting another power
and the real power, of course, is in the hands
of the few who run the nations
and their need is to protect those many things
that belong to them.

it is conceivable that these few rulers
will escape
when the final eruption begins;
they will escape to their safe havens
where they will watch
the eruption to its finish,
and then after a reasonable wait
they will return
again and
will begin building
a new ridiculous and grossly
unfair future.

which, to me, is not a very
happy thought
as I crack open a can of beer
on a hot
July night.

C. Bukowski(who else?)

I'll drink to that...

A Tangible Presence

Today the air outside is close, you can feel the mist and almost, out of the corner of your eye, see it. It is like walking in a cloud, but you can only tell that you are by looking in the distance. Up close it is not discernable, which causes everything to take on a surreal fuzziness. In this smudged reality things ironically grow sharper, in my mind. It makes my own existence a little more tangible. I am able to see myself in the distance, as a fog, and with this little piece of enlightenment I can stop looking at each small speck, grasping so desperately to see the specks for what they are, and realize that I am in the midst of it.
Today, the atmosphere gave me a gift of myself.