meme: economic stimulus

My Aunt just sent me this, and I wanted to share:

Just in case you get a check....or don't.....lol. Sometime this year, we taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus payment.This is a very exciting program. I'll explain it using the Q and A format:
Q. What is an Economic Stimulus payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy..

Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of Asia ?
A. Shut up or you don't get your check.

Below is some helpful advice on how best to help the US economy by spending your stimulus checkwisely:
1. If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, your money will go to China .
2. If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to Saudi Arabia .
3. If you purchase a computer, it will go to India ..
4. If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico , Honduras and Guatemala .
5. If you buy a car, it will go to Japan or Korea .
6. If you purchase useless plastic stuff, it will go to Taiwan .
7. If you pay off your credit cards, or buy stock, it will go to pay management bonuses and be hidden in offshore accounts.

Instead, you can keep the money in America by:
1. Spending it at yard sales or flea markets, or
2. Going to baseball or football games, or
3. Hiring prostitutes, or
4. Buying cheap beer or
5. Getting tattoos.

These are the only wholly-American- owned businesses still operating in the U.S. Conclusion: The best way to stimulate the economy is to go to a ball game with a prostitute that you met at a yard saleand drink beer all day until you're drunk enough to go get tattooed.

fat girl goes slim: weight, again

As soon as it got cold, I got fat again. Man, it'a annoying. I don't think I'm eating any more than I did before, though I'm probably eating more bad things again, but I'm still being active...

guh.

I need groceries. I keep having to eat at work, which means I'm eating icecream. Not good.

tis the season to celebrate not having been eaten by giant birds

January 9th at noon starts off the Seventeen And A Half Days of Aveomas! We are all very excited. We've got our tree covered in birds, we've got many of our Bought Gifts and we're working on our Made Gifts, we're writing the most terrifying carols, we're planning an Avomas Special to possibly post to the interwebs, and we'll be putting up a post on Wikipedia (mostly to see how long it lasts) and Uncyclopedia beforehand. We've created a secular gift-dealing sidekick. We've added to the Mythos. We're spreading the word.

What is Aveomas, you say?

It's only the coolest holiday every to be celebrated throughout history as of four years ago! See, we all work in retail or foodtail, and Christmas is a horrible time of overwork, screaming customers, much stress and expensive gifts. So five years ago, we suffered through one last Season and decided to call it quits. After that, we moved our gift-giving to a semi-arbitrary date in the middle-to-late January, and we've made a series of myths and stories to make a real holiday of it. Since everything is on sale after Christmas, we celebrate The Search For the Holy Bargain, and get all our Bought Gifts for cheap. And since we were directly arguing against commercialism, we make out Made Gifts ourselves, and that way, everyone gets at least two presents. We celebrate because the Giant Birds have allowed us to exist as a country and a people for another year, and we're hoping to repeat the good luck of not being fed to baby Giant Birds for our insolence. We eat chicken or turkey on Aveomas Night to thin out the competition for the Giant Birds and gain their favor, and because they are delicious and can be bought already cooked form a rotissimat. We try to be good so the Aveomas Faun called Lil Pepe will bring us liquor when he comes, instead of cutting off our feet and pickling them. And we all get together and share in jokes and feathery-meat meals and togetherness and really nice hand-made gifts.

Excellent, right?

You should all join the Aveomas Facebook Page we set up last year, and spread the word all over the world. If Take Like A Pirate Day can catch on, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster can sway minds, so can the Giant Birds!

shonagonisms: how i know that it's winter

- Even here in Florida, it's been cold enough that I can't sleep without three blankets and a cat.

- All the leaves are gone from the pecan tree where my room used to be, and the branches stand out like ink-lines against a paper sky.

- I feel the urge to subsist entirely on potatoes and home-made bread, to hoard food for the Cold Times, to sleep for two thirds of the day.

- My first impulse in food-making each dinner time is 'How about some soup?' and I'm desperately glad that I had the forethought to put up turkey broth and pumpkin broth at Thanksgiving and Halloween.

- My thoughts are turning internal, evaluating, planning, being less outwardly productive, but more inwardly constructive.

- The virginia creeper is all red and orange and has gone lacy with the cold.

- Acorns are everywhere, dying the streets saffron where cars have crushed them into flour.

- Oxalis is coming back up, and the grassy summer weeds are being replaced by wintercress as we speak.

- All the oranges all over the neighborhoods are bright orange and round and heavy, just waiting for a freeze.

- All the cats, and even the dog congregate around the heating vents and tolerate a much closer contact with each other.

- I feel the pull of an ancestral life, where winter is a rest from work and I should be able to bundle up with a hot cup of tea, and focus on a book or an embroidery.

switched-on x: desperately seeking wardrobe

After going to the dayjob's Christmas party in a long skirt while all the other girls wore sexy dresses, I realized that my wardrobe is pretty sad lately. I've got some cute summer dresses and a selection of long skirts, but no winter clothes (which will be a problem next year when I start school where there's actually Fall and Winter), I haven't owned a Little Black Dress in years, and I have almost nothing to dress up in. I'm desperately low on accessories outside the earrings-and-necklace range-- I don't even own a belt, I have shawls but only a few of the square variety of scarf, my hair jewelry is limited to about fifty hairsticks and two headbands, I don't have any gloves, and certainly none of the sweet lace type-- and only one pair of warmers because my friend made them for me last Aveomas. My underthings are severly limited to one bra (that's seen better days), a few pairs of panties that are getting more and more beat up by the constant washing, none of which are particularly sexy, no slips, one pair of thigh-high fishnets with a garter belt I'm too fat for right now, nary a merry widow, and two corsets that I'm hoping I'll fit back into before too long. I still own clothes I wore in high school, and most of them don't fit anymore. I have some cute shoes, but most of them no longer coordinate with outfits.

This is pathetic.

So here's The Plan on this Issue:

- I'm looking for a Little Black Dress (or, better, three) that will accommodate the fact that I have up-and-down weights and will look nice and flattering either end.

- I'm looking for dresses that are versatile enough to be dressed up or dressed down, and used in a variety of ways through styling (Avon has two that I want), and come in solid colors that will last a while (all my current dresses indulge my fondness for large patterns, usually involving flowers or paisley).

- I'm looking for wide belts / patterns to make them myself.

- I'm looking for fascinators and cocktail hats / ideas to make them for myself.

- I'm looking for headbands and hair clips and flowers and little felt whimsies for my hair, now that I've figured out a few ways to make it not suck and don't mind drawing attention to it.

- I'm searching through Etsy and DaWanda and 1000 Markets and Indie Fix.

- I'm looking into making my own retro under-roos, and finding cheap romantic fancy-time underclothes like corsets and merry widows; if I can manage it, I want to start wearing these things more often, preferably in place of traditional bras, which I hate.

Inspirations for these wardrobe renovations:

- Zooey Deschanel in the Cotton commercials

- Emily Deschanel as Bones, when she's wearing softer and more romantic clothing (especially the big ethnic necklaces, and her parade of wonderful shoes. And her party dresses. Man, I wish I had a stylist.)

- The girls in the Mark catalogs, specifically the ones labeled 'rock' and 'punk', blended with the ones that are labeled 'retro' and 'romantic'

- These key words: Fun, Unexpected, Flirty, Romantic, Rock, Retro, (I hate to say it, but) Hipster (in the sense of the above words), Vintage, Hand-made, Sweetly Sexy, European, Long-wearing, Gypsy-inspired; Hand-embroidered; Feminine-but-not-girly; Green; Blue; Earth-tones; Ivory; Jewel-Tones; Sexy-but-not-slutty

- Other noted search terms: Owls / Birds / Feathers / Leafs / Branches / Acorns / Seeds; Roses / Cherry Blossoms / Lillies / Dandelion Puffs; Japanese patterns; Retro patterns; Russian nesting dolls; The Ocean; The Sky; The Earth. How fortunate that so many of the things I already love are fashionable right now (and will probably soon be not fashionable, and will all go on sale).

fat girl goes slim: progress!

This morning, I weighed in at 150! Down ten pounds from the start of this adventure, and one quarter of the way to a healthy weight! I have to figure out how to keep it here, and how to keep going, but I'm going to tentatively say that it's working!

I figured out how to turn in a circle while I hoop today, which was both fun and upping the effort it takes to hoop, and I practiced a few silly arm-things-- pulling the hoop from around my waist, up over my head and back down on the other side. I can't manage it when I'm actually hooping yet, but it's a nice flow and I'll eventually figure out how to get my hand under the moving hoop without knocking it down to the ground.

I get paid this week, and I'm going to stock up on decent real foods as much as I can; I'm tired of the icky feeling that crap food gives me, and Lean Cuisines, even when they're good, never seem to satisfy. I've been re-reading French Women Don't Get Fat, which I first read the last time I was trying to lose weight, and I managed to do pretty well on it before, so I'm going back to mindful eating, never over-eating, never depriving, more movement, fresher food. And I looked up herbs I can make teas out of that will help control cravings-- don't worry; I found the ones that do so by nourishing, not the ones that make me not think of eating. A well-nourished body needs less to eat and therefore craves less.

shonagonisms: names i would like to give to a child

Lucas Alexander (Xander) ("light-bringer" "defender of mankind")

Jack

Owen

Jono Leander

Grey

Heath

Harper Dresden

Cameron Valentine

Constantine

Rhys

Malcolm Gregory (Mal)

Paisley Sagan

Poppy Allegra

Carter (for a girl)

Olivia

Brennan

Aveline Rose

Mellora Elise

Gwen

Gillian Morgana

Aryn Katrina

Blue

Gallifrey (Frey)

Finbar (Finn)

things you should know if we ever get married for your greencard

I always wanted to marry a man named Jack. Partly for the fannishness of being named Sam & Jack, and partly because it's my favorite boys' name.

In the middle of the night, if I stay up too long after I know I should go to sleep, I get melancholy and romantic.

I want to go back to Scotland. Or at least find someone to talk Scottish at me.

I don't know how to use a blowdryer, how to whistle, or how to properly apply liquid eyeliner.

I'm pretty sure most things have individual personalities, and most of them have a perverse sense of humor.

My most frequent sudden urge is for chocolate, closely followed by the urge to slap a bitch. Really. I constantly want to smack people for being stupid.

I need someone to start paying me for writing at a rate where I can give up retail before I become an unfixable misanthrope and it ruins everything.

I am a founding member of Aveomas.

today

... I feel:

Awful, and not as in 'full of awe' so much as in 'full of sinus pain'. And ear pain. And pressure under my eye and on my already-embattled teeth.

... I like:

Leftover mashed potatoes rolled into balls before re-heating so I can eat them with my hands and not have to use any kind of silverware. Everything is better in bun form.

When I have a headache, and for once, it's not starting on my right browbone and crawling over my skull on the side that I hit against the side of the car the second time I was hit by a car. It's alarming when all my headaches happen where I've had head-trauma. Makes me hypochondriacal. I've seen that episode of Bones where her mom died of ancient brain-trauma!

... I'm amused by:

Ryan Abbeglen's mechanical creature cards.

Clients from Hell, because I'm addicted to niche-blogs.

... I'm loving:

Sweet baby puppies who sit down on my lap and sleep, even after they make me clean up all the puffed wheat cereal in the world because they've spread it all over the house.

This notepaper download, because one day I'll start writing letters reliably again. Another thing to add to my Must Reincorporate Into My Life list.

That Avon has added a blog function to the eReps site. I'm on that site all the time anyway, so let's see if I can keep it up!

... I want:

Divine Twine because it's pretty and I'm secretly a cat, or a bowerbird, or a magpie.

This gorgeous 2010 calendar from Mibo. Because it's it's sweet and clean and I want a life it would fit into.

To get Christmas shopping underway already, but I'll have to wait until I can pick up my second-job paycheck tomorrow.

... I am:

Glad I have so many hours this week.

Tired, but not ready to sleep yet.

Sick of the only comments I get on my articles being from idiots.

letters to the aether

Dear Everybody,

As you may or may not know, I sell Avon, and I think it's about time that I kicked it up a notch, as I'm going to be needing money for travel and grad school soon, so for the new year, I'm offering several Specials!

If you live somewhere I can walk to, I'll give you 10% off orders of 20$ or more, and every time you refer three people who place orders, I'll give you one item free with a cost of up to ten dollars. After three orders in six months, you can join the Customer Appreciation Club, which will eventually have a cooler name than that, I'll give you something cool on your birthday, and each order will build points toward more free stuff! If you work downtown or go to Flagler, I'll give you an automatic 10% off.

Don't live or work somewhere nearby? No fear! If you order through my online store (www.youravon.com/sholcomb), your order can be shipped directly to your home, and if you contact me first, I'll give you a code for free shipping! If you order through me directly, I can offer you all the above deals and benefits, but I'll have to charge you shipping through the USPS-- I use flat-rate shipping boxes, so whatever will fit in each box or envelope will all ship for one low price. Contact me for details!

We carry all sorts of neat makeups, tons of really great perfumes, men's colognes, clothes, shoes, housewares and kitchen goods, natural skincare products, children's things, and advanced anti-aging products. Come see what we can bring to you, and feel free to ask me any questions you have!

Love,

Me

Your local Avon Rep

fat girl goes slim: update-itude

I knew that Thanksgiving would ruin me. So I'm not surprised that I've regained five of the six pounds I lost before hand. But that doesn't mean it's not annoying.

So this paycheck, after I pay all my bills, I'll be getting the stuff to make my own weighted hoops so I can work out a little more as I hula-hoop my way to weightloss. That's how I got those six pounds off, and it'll work more than that, too, damnit.

I'm also looking into herbalism. I've got all these herbs-- for a while, I wanted to get a degree in herbalism and just sort of never did, mostly because of a collision of no-money and no-opportunity-since-there's-not-a-school-here. I figure it's time I started suing them to balance out my crappy systems, and see if that helps. I made up a tea for cleansing the gallbladder that will hopefully help me get past my gall-stomach-intestinal issues, if the interwebs are right about how it works, and it's not the best-tasting tea ever, but it's nowhere near as bad as that cough-tea I made that one time. And I only need to take a cup or so a day.

I went through all my various supplements, and I'm taking them again: Multivitamins always make me sick, so I take them separately, which looks alarming, but does so much better in my stomach, and things like omega-3 supplements help keep my teeth from hurting, calcium helps that and keeps my PMS in check, coconut oil is supposed to regulate appetite and help with weight loss, spirulina helps with intestinal issues and has iodine which should help with my thyroid-- you know, everything all at once. Yay Puritan's Pride.

And probably the best of all, though it's horribly inconvenient: since my bike was stolen, I'm waking much more, and that's definitely a bigger work-put than seven minutes on the bike, which was mostly coasting even when I tried not to.

as i said in my writing blog: new year's a-comin'; i can feels it in me bones...

Do you make resolutions? I totally don't. For ages, I tried, only to fail within a few days or a few weeks, and I think it's because it's too big: in this one moment, I'll make plans that will change my whole life and everything will be awesome from here on in? No way. Too hard.

So I instead, I think of myself and my life as a work in progress. Each month is a new beginning, each Monday is a chance to get back on track. I know exactly where I want to get to*; it's just this pesky in-between-ness that's causing problems, so as I go, I check back every once in a while and try to figure out how to get closer to the place I want to be. Life is a journey and all that. My map is just sort of missing chunks of the landscape.

But I still feel that... pull, maybe, when a year is switching over. I want the new year to be better than the old. 2009 was full of sickness and poorness and unemployment and stress, and one of my friends' sister is dying, and I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I want, and my savings are entirely decimated. This is a sucky place to be. So 2010 will be better. By sheer force of will, it will be better. I mean, it's Twenty-Ten. That's the way you say the years of the Future, so it's got to be better.

I'm going to diversify my writing, and do so more often, with the help of various new professional memberships I'll be getting, and gradschool, and a year at ICFA where I don't have to worry about presenting a paper.

I'm going to get back in shape (because the six pounds I lost were gained right back through Thanksgiving), and I'm going to go back to eating healthier.

I'm going to save money as much as I can and work on my habit of spending money that really should be put away. Hopefully the writing will help me get that under control. Any new sources of income will be much appreciated, and I've been throwing around the idea that maybe I can buy stocks. All the prices are down right now, but the upswing is on the horizon, and maybe I can get in on that if I can find some steady stocks that people will still need, even if the economy stays crap.

And it'll be better.

*I have details and shading that's a whole other post on it's own, but here's the gist: full-time writer before I'm too old, so I can enjoy being young and not working retail; my own dream house on a hill with a beautiful garden and a view of moving water; a tall beautiful husband or three and several smart and healthy kids; enough renown to be recognizable (students writing papers about my work, people asking me to write for their books, stuff like that); free money that's plentiful enough to travel frequently.

this is how i looked today: 12-2-2009

Clothes were work-boring, but I thought my hair looked cute today, the morning after I attempted to straighten it for the first time.

Also didn't put on any eyeshadow or foundation or anything, but the lipgloss is Glazewear Sparkle in Cinnamon Apple from Avon, my new favorite color (since they seem to have discontinued my previous fav, Rosebud).

The leafy earrings are ones I love, Raquel Earrings from sweetVintage on Etsy. The loop piercing at the top is a replacement for the barbell I lost, a 14g stainless steel with a cute little point on the top from Painful Pleasures, lovingly pierced by my friend MayMay before she ran away and joined the circus, and the cuff is from Silver Feather Downtown.

The pinkness in my cheek is probably rosacea; that's from my dad, even though my mom is the one with the pasty genetics and sensitive skin.

The scar under the corner of my mouth is from my aunt's dog when I was ten; it snapped when I was petting it and grabbed ahold of my jaw. There's a matching scar under my chin, a little further in from where I bashed open my chin when I was four, and where there's still a smudge of road rash from when I was hit by the car when I was sixteen. Yeah, I'm a scarbaby. You can't see it because of the hair and the glasses, but there's another one on the corner of my eyebrow from slamming into the corner of a coffeetable when I was three. You should see my knees and my elbows.

shonagonisms: moments when I feel connected to the grand history of all women

When I'm stripping all the flesh off a carcass to make stock to last us through the winter.

When I'm kneading the dough or leaving it covered in a dishtowel before making bread.

When I'm standing barefoot in the kitchen, making a yummy dinner.

When I'm standing barefoot in the garden, tending to plants that will make food for my family.

When I'm cooking up a batch of Winter Salve to keep the dryness from devastating my heels.

When I first lace up a new corset.

When I hold a brand-new baby.

When I'm putting on my makeup for a night out, and especially when I'm adding perfume.

When I'm in bed with someone I love, and almost, almost there.

daily gratitudes

Today I'm grateful for:

- Hoola hoops.

- The lovely day we're having today, and the fact that the last week actually felt appropriately cold for the season.

- Sesame pretzels. Seriously, they're awesome.

- Time! I don't have to work until 4 and I finished my editing last night for the week. It's wonderful.

- Fuzzy blankets-- the little cheapie 8$ ones from IKEA. I want more.

- The smaller appetite I get after being sick. Makes it easier not to eat myself sick.

letters to the aether

Dear puppy,

Please quit pooping by my door. I'm tired of stepping on it first thing in the morning.

Love,

Me

Dear calendar-in-my-brain,

Please stop making smug little noises only I can hear as I sit here shivering in 55 degree weather, wondering how the hell I'm supposed to survive Pennsylvania in the late fall next year. Also, stop reminding me that it's secretly winter (because the Winter Solstice is Midwinter, so it has to be winter now for that to be the middle) as I'm walking to work on legs that don't want to work right because it's too cold.

Love,

Me

Dear stomach,

WTF? I mean, really. Since when have we not been able to handle even two days of Thanksgiving leftovers? I do not appreciate the late-night pains and the all-day nausea, and I'm not buying that it's a cold until other symptoms start showing up, so you and gall-bladder better tighten up before I scoop you both out with a spoon and build my own mechanical stomach out of old computer parts, a bit of fishtank tubing and a ziplock bag.

Love,

Me

Dear bank account,

You could stand to be a bit fatter.

Love,

Me

the girl in the mirror

There's this funny thing. Most of the time when I look in the mirror-- all the time when I have my glasses on-- I see pretty much the same face I've seen since I started looking in the mirror regularly somewhere around eleven, the age when I started wearing make up (before that, I avoided the mirror, but that's another story for another day / middle of the night). I see the glasses, the crooked teeth and therefore a slightly lopsided lip-line that has to be corrected when I put lipstick on, the bangs that don't like to lie flat, the chin with it's three scars, the nose that could be better shaped, the green eyes that aren't like my mom's (her's are dark jade green and don't have rings or lines or any gold or anything). I don't think I've changed that much since I started looking how I was going to look as an adult,

But the last few months, when I look in the mirror without my glasses, like when I'm putting on or taking off my makeup, it's almost like I'm seeing this other person that's underneath. I think maybe my glasses keep me from noticing that I've grown up. I use face creams morning and night now. I usually remember to take my makeup off. I have little baby crow's feet from laughing and squinting from bad prescriptions and too much sun. I have patches of dry skin and patches of oily skin that need to be taken care of. My nose looks shapelier without the glasses, like it's only pretending to be sort of fat and blobby-- and I know for a fact that it's been improved by that breaking it got when I was hit by the car that time. My eyes look bigger, and my eyebrows arch better. Makeup looks different, like it wants to be more glamorous. My jawline looks more defined. The teeth don't look so out of place-- they add character.

Is it just that I'm seeing who I am now that I'm grown up? I was born when my mom was twenty-four, so when she was my age as I am now, that's when I was starting to solidify memories-- this is sort of how my mom looks in my memory. This isn't the girl I associate with me, this is a woman who appreciates Yves Saint Laurent's new perfume, who wants to have babies if her ovaries would cooperate, who's trying to build a proper career so she doesn't have to work retail anymore, who knows the difference between wines and has a preference, who usually orders vodka and cran with a twist of lime when she's at a bar, who presents papers at a conference where moderately famous people know her name. This is a woman who could be gorgeous. This is a woman who knows what she wants out of life, and maybe one of those things is a darker hair color and flat iron combo. Maybe one of those things is a husband. One of those things is definitely a shelf full of her books when she visits the bookstore. Definitely a house on a hill overlooking water, and a writing room with good light and green walls.

She's a little intimidating, and I think sometimes I skip the nightly routine because I'm not ready to be her.

But I think it'll be great when I am. One of my friends said that when she hit her thirties, she was relieved that she didn't have to worry about not being wild enough to be a typical twenty-something; I think I understand what she's talking about.

appropriate weight and other matters

I just spent half an hour looking up appropriate weight-to-height ratios, and aside from one really scary chart that said I shouldn't be over 99 lbs for my height (?!?), they all sort of agreed that I should be around 120ish for the middle-range height (max, somewhere around 130, min somewhere around 100, though it seems unfair that my min is further from my average than my max).

Now, I'm currently at 159, as of this morning. I know this is too much, but I don't feel like I'm well into obese as far as these charts are concerned-- I mean, I don't look like those women that come in and order triple-scoop icecreams, have three chins and huge elbow-fat, and look like they're smuggling pillows under their shirts. I'm also not as mean as them, but that's a different story. And I know from experience that at 100, I'm bony and boobless. 120 should be about where I was when I started college, though I carry my weight in all new and different places now, and I think I wouldn't feel too skinny there, but that's alot of weight to lose to get there, and-- well, here's a confession:

In highschool, I was anorexic. I spent more than a year eating once or less a day, and at my lowest, I was under 89 lbs. At the same height I am now. I didn't realize at the time that I was anorexic because I didn't have the mental problems or the exercise addiction that went along with it, but I did (and do) have a stomach-valve malfunction that makes it hard to eat sometimes. In high school, it made it better to just not be hungry, so I stopped eating. But now, I know my triggers, and I know that when I cut my intake too much, I start obsessing, and I develop the OCD I didn't have then. And it would be so easy to just stop eating again. After a few days, I'm just not hungry any more.

But I don't want to starve myself, so I have to be careful to keep this reasonable.

And I still hate exercise.

I'm working on only eating when I can sit down and have a proper meal. I'm drinking more tea again, both because I love tea and miss it and because it speeds my metabolism without getting me so wired that I can't function (although I have to be careful about drinking it too late, it seems). I have a hoolahoop that I really like, and there are apparently hoola-hoop-exercise videos on YouTube, and maybe I'll take up poi or something, too. Things that take effort but are about the opposite if boring. When it stays cool, I'm going to try to walk more and maybe start running some, when I can afford to buy a pair of shoes that aren't flip flops. I'm working more, and that means I'm lazing less, and that's already good. And I'm going to start enforcing weekly weigh-ins so I know where I am and have to face it when I eat poorly.

And that's where the Plan is right now.

And in other matters:

I think we're getting a pitbull puppy. I'm not ready to pottytrain a baby dog, but I think as long as we're nice to it, it should grow up nice, right? Just because they're bred as fighting dogs doesn't mean all of them will clamp on and have to be killed to get them to release, right?

things you should know if we ever get married for your greencard

... I am a pro procrastinator. I know dozens of ways to waste time and get far less done than I should.

... I am addicted to lipgloss. I'm also very picky about the texture, so I'm constantly buying new ones.

... I refer to the cats as 'So Many Kittens', even when there's only one visible. Like so: "Hello, So Many Kittens! Where are the other ones?"

... I have at least two years' worth of pictures on my SD card at any given time. Before this, I had up to eleven undeveloped cameras hanging around at any given time, and before that, up to five rolls of film. I'm working on getting the leftover cameras from before I had a digital fixed.

... I go on tangents all the time. Usually for a week or two, I'll research the crap out of some subject or other, memorizing details, tracking down sources, finding downloads and pictures and what have you, incorporating the concepts into my brain and my life... and then I'll find something else to do.

... I am a perpetual work in progress.

... If reincarnation is real, and I have any choice in what I come back as, I'd choose a spoiled house cat in a nice home every time.

... I'm sure that delusions of grandeur are only delusions if you don't achieve grandeur.

... Shiny things will always distract me, and I'm really kind of okay with that.

... I never get enough sleep.

... I'm convinced that at some point in my life, I'll be distressed and out on a moor or some sort of moor-like location, I'll yell HEEEEAAAATHCLIFFFF!! and someone wonderful and meant for me will yell CAAATTHEERRRIIINNNNEEE!! and I'll know in that moment that it'll be all right because we've found each other.

lushness

I think my life has been too spare lately. There isn't enough in it that I could call Lush or Sumptuous, and I want to fix that. Nicer fabrics, better foods, better makeup, all the perfumes I've recently fallen in love with*-- or at the very least, I need to pay more attention to my camera and learn to take pictures of things so that they look better. And then remember to post those things here.

Because I'm not a monk**. I've just been too damn poor to get past that sort of living. And I'm getting tired of it. I'm getting tired of the constant feeling that I don't have enough money for things and that I never will-- and I'm pretty sure that at least part of perpetual poordom is accepting these things to be true, so I'm fighting against them. I'll be successful. I'm already working toward it. I have my articles, I have two jobs now, one of which is basically outside the budget***, and I'm starting school next fall in a program that should introduce me to all sorts of people who are already doing what I want to do, while simultaneously teaching me how to work in that world.

Relief. That's what I feel.

This blog is helping, like a therapist or something, to get my head where it needs to be, so thank you, readers mine, for working through my crazy with me. And thank you internet for making me do so in a public way, instead of suffering on my own. And thank you recovering economy for helping someone make just enough extra money to hire me for a few days a week, loosening up my situation even as it ties up my schedule.

* All of them from Avon, who used to only have horrible musky old-lady perfumes when I was a kid, and now has wonderful fresh things that I love: first and foremost, Rebel Rose, but also London, Jet Femme, Spotlight, Play, Vitality and 50s Glam.

** I dated someone who was willingly monklike once, and that only proved to me that I'm not an ascetic, and that's not at all what I want my life to be like. I'll leave empty rooms and bland color schemes to someone else; I want big airy rooms, vintage furniture, good and plentiful food, sunlight, a garden full of roses, and good tea every day.

*** The Budget is the list of all the bills I have to pay every month, and the usual pay covers that, so long as I don't want to buy food or toothpaste or shampoo or go to the movies or anything. Job the Second provides for that part of life that is actually living.

ps: I also want to be skinner, as has been mentioned before, but in a chic, beautiful way, not in a starving because I can't afford food with nutrients way. Hopefully Job 2 will provide for that, too, by keeping me more active and keeping me away from the icecream samples that keep thwarting my current attempts. It's time to get my food back in line, now that I can almost afford nice things to eat again.

organization

I'm not organized. Like, at all. I generally know where everything I need is (generally...), but there's very little that a person could call organization about my life. But with this being NaNoWriMo and with taking on a second job (what will allow me to eat and maybe have a little more spare monies for things like books and movies and other things in the category of Not Living Like A Monk Until I'm Crushed Under It All), and still having the articles to write and the editing to edit and the various other things I like doing to do still demanding my time, I've decided to try and organize.

I've been using the Organized Writer's Planner for a while now. It's awesome. Even though it's geared more toward freelance than fiction, it has the idea that creative types need different ways to wrangle themselves and have other things to wrangle than non-creative-business types, and that means it's already something I can live with. And it breaks things down so they aren't so scary, which I've realized recently is a big part of my natural procrastination: being overwhelmed.

And since I never could leave well enough alone, I combine it with the D*I*Y Planner that has a lot of other pages I can and frequently do use, and I make several specific pages for myself, like the debt management pages (I want to get most of my debt, meaning everything that's not a school loan, paid off within the next ten years, because that's when I plan to start being Important and I don't want stupid old debts from when I was 18 dragging along after me), and the expenses pages. And Avon is very good at sending me pages to help track that, so that's good, too.

I'm freakishly visual, so I have a calendar on the board in my bedroom and by my desk, and a dayplanner in my purse, all with everything I'm expected to remember in them.

I make lists constantly.

And it's starting to work. As long as I remember to keep up with it all, it makes everything much more reasonable and handleable.

How do you, readers mine, organize yourselves?

crisis management

No details, since I don't have permission to give them to the internets, but there was a crisis when we got home from a dull and annoying day at work on Monday, and it's resulted in hospital visits, many calls, and no time for all the side work I do. I'm fine, but one of the room mates is probably not, and we're still waiting for news, apparently. I work today, so I won't be there, and I'm starting my second job tomorrow, so I won't be there then, either.

This is probably selfish, but I feel like it's the universe slapping me in the face. Whenever I think things are going well, something crappy and unexpected happens to someone I care about, or I lose my job and someone starts spreading vicious rumors about me that keep me from getting another one for a long time, or all my bills bounce because of one small thing that I didn't remember to write down or something equally out of my control. And it leaves me devastated and knocked entirely off track. That wobbling platform where my mind and my sense of wellbeing lives is tilted again, and I feel like I'm scrabbling at nothing to try and keep it all together. I'm pretty sure this is how crisis works, but it's not something I'm good at handling, and I'm trying really hard not to internalize the fear and the uncertainty and trying not to shut down and zombie through life. That doesn't help anything at all, especially not when someone's in the middle of a Big Writing Project, and not when someone's time is being consumed by multiple jobs.

But I feel better since I vented here. Thank you, internets.

new leaves

You know that feeling when everything changes for the better? How you feel like you fit into your own skin better? I always sort of feel like I'm made up of several voices all talking at once, or several layers of image and color, all overlayed, but mostly I'm a little out of focus, a little off-center, and you can see all the layers as separate things instead of them shining through together, all in one plane, all making up one cohesive me.

I started NaNoWriMo this year, and even if I never get to the end, it's already fixed me. It's brought me back into focus and reminded me that I'm not where I work or what I wear-- I'm made of the people I create and the stories I tell, and that's why I'm here. That's why I'm going to school in the fall, why I'm trying to find places to publish me. It's the only think I've ever wanted to do that I could actually accomplish, the only thing I can imagine doing for my whole life and never getting tired of.

I feel like the air has all been let back into the room. I feel like a fever has broken and now I can get better, or like I'm fertile and unpoisoned again. If I can keep this on track, maybe I can get the rest of my life back where it belongs. Maybe I can get back to the right headspace without the WTF Island bullshit.

These are my gratitudes today.

meme: 30 things every woman should have and know by 30

Found this on Girl's Guide To, and I think most of it is good advice.

By 30, you should have:

1. One old boyfriend you can imagine going back to and one who reminds you of how far you’ve come.
2. A decent piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in your family.
3. Something perfect to wear if the employer or man of your dreams wants to see you in an hour.
4. A purse, a suitcase and an umbrella you’re not ashamed to be seen carrying.
5. A youth you’re content to move beyond.
6. A past juicy enough that you’re looking forward to retelling it in your old age.
7. The realization that you are actually going to have an old age—and some money set aside to help fund it.
8. An e-mail address, a voice mailbox and a bank account—all of which nobody has access to but you.
9. A résumé that is not even the slightest bit padded.
10. One friend who always makes you laugh and one who lets you cry.
11. A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill and a black lace bra.
12. Something ridiculously expensive that you bought for yourself, just because you deserve it.
13. The belief that you deserve it.
14. A skin-care regimen, an exercise routine and a plan for dealing with those few other facets of life that don’t get better after 30.
15. A solid start on a satisfying career, a satisfying relationship and all those other facets of life thatdo get better.

By 30, you should know:

1. How to fall in love without losing yourself.
2. How you feel about having kids.
3. How to quit a job, break up with a man and confront a friend without ruining the friendship.
4. When to try harder and when to walk away.
5. How to kiss in a way that communicates perfectly what you would and wouldn’t like to happen next.
6. The names of: the secretary of state, your great-grandmother and the best tailor in town.
7. How to live alone, even if you don’t like to.
8. How to take control of your own birthday.
9. That you can’t change the length of your calves, the width of your hips or the nature of your parents.
10. That your childhood may not have been perfect, but it’s over.
11. What you would and wouldn’t do for money or love.
12. That nobody gets away with smoking, drinking, doing drugs or not flossing for very long.
13. Who you can trust, who you can’t and why you shouldn’t take it personally.
14. Not to apologize for something that isn’t your fault.
15. Why they say life begins at 30.

This is originally from a Glamour Magazine article written in 1997 by Pamela Redmond Satran but I think it's fabulous and hopefully some of you agree.

letters to the aether

Dear Semi-Anonymous Weenie,

It's not your job to patrol the internets. I think you have a skewed idea of what this is: We pass on information when we find it and in our free time; this means that sometimes things will get phrased poorly and / or one letter will be switched for another. Deal with it. Because if you want to be taken seriously, this is not the way. And I'm going to keep deleting your comments until you learn that being critical does not mean being a dick, and a civil human being with real concerns is more likely to get responses. Other things you need to learn: this is not a personal attack against you, so shut up with the personal attacks against me; I get paid by you clicking on my page, so if you don't like what I have to say and don't think I should have a job, you can very well bugger the fuck off and leave me in peace; information travels at different speeds for different people, so if you think you can do better, you're more than welcome to start your own page and then you can worry about whether a date was announced already.

No love at all (and alot of pity that your life is so empty that this is what you do with it)

Me.

the goal-oriented plan

I've been, as you know, trying to lose weight and get my life on track. I managed to off about five pounds, which puts me back where I was before I gained it all back again last month, but this life isn't helping-- working at a sweets shop? Really? Has the universe met me? It's making it very hard. And the on-track part-- paying school loans is rough, and working enough to be able to leaves me with little time to write.

I'm the sort that knows where I want to go, but has no concept of the steps in between and I suck at doing things without a defined endpoint and deadline. So I'm setting up the sorts of focuses a pregnant woman might have to get her through the labor pains: a picture, a mantra, an idea to focus on. In true fangirl fashion, I'm going to make myself worthy of David Tennant*.

First things first: I'm pretty sure I outweigh him, despite the fact that he's a foot and a half taller than me, and this cannot be allowed. I haven't managed to get running shoes yet, but I've found a kick-ass yoga studio and I have my rollerskates, and I'm going to work on getting my ass in gear. Again. Because I suck at follow-through**.

Once I'm reasonably thin, and along the way, I'll figure out what to do with my hair (I've already learned how to do flattering make up, and let me tell you, that was something of a revelation).

Meanwhile meanwhile, I'll be working on diversifying my writing: Sure, he's famous now for SciFi, but he started out doing plays, and he's a fan of the drama-acting, so if I'm to gain enough notoriety to be worthy of the funding that will allow the casting of such a well-known actor so I can meet him, I'll have to work on other genres and other medias. I was meaning to start writing and selling scripts anyway, so now there's a goal.

I realize that the chances of getting to actually meet him are slim, and the chances of hitting it off and staying friends, let alone marrying or something, are extremely slim, especially since I don't do well with people I'm in awe of***, but if the opportunity presents itself, I want to be ready. And this is sort of the world I want to work and live in anyway, so there's no reason I can't work toward it regardless.

*... or, at least, the person I perceive when I see interviews with him. Until I actually meet him, it's a moot point.

** Another of the things I'm working on improving. Because, regardless of who or what my focus and goals are, I've known since at least high school that I'm not the person I want to be, and I've learned ways to bend myself to my own will and get closer-- it's like I'm two people, one lazy and kind of melancholy, and the other driven, but scattered. I just need to learn to get these two working together so I don't have to work so hard at it. Self-improvement the Sami way.

*** I'm getting better!

bleargh

This is a conversation I had with my Uterus yesterday:

Me: (at work doing at-work things)

Uterus: Hello! Remember me?

Me: Why does my back hurt so bad all of a sudden?

Uterus: I said hello! I know it's been months and months, but I thought I'd pop in and see how you're doing.

Me: T-- I need to go to the bathroom right now can you take over my register?

Uterus: Look, I brought this gift for you! You can still have babies!

Me: Uuuugggghhhhhsssssssss....

And so here I am, my only day off work this week, all sore and squishy and not really up to doing much of anything. So I think it's time for a Letter to the Aether!

Dear Uterus (I'm going to call you Bertha from now on).

Dear Bertha,

It's nice to know that at least one of my ovaries is still functioning, true, but it'd be nicer if you'd give me just the teensiest bit more warning before dropping in after three months. Like, an hour before hand when I'm getting ready for work, and noticing that my bra isn't fitting right-- that's not enough warning. You're just lucky I had a pad in my purse, because that's my only pair of khakis for work, and I'd be very put out otherwise.

Love, Me

ps: If I wind up on I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant because of you, we Will Have Words.

letters to the aether

Dear Body,

I know it's been years since we had an official yoga class, and I know that it's not often that we intentionally contort ourselves like that, but come on. Where did all our balance go? Where did all our stamina go? When did our thighs get so fat that we can't bend easily over them, and when did our boobs get so big that we can't do any of the chin-to-chest poses without smothering ourselves in them? And when did our butt get so huge and heavy that even attempting and failing a shoulder-stand is exhausting?

This cannot be allowed to last. Tips better be good so I can afford at least one class a week, or we're never going to get back in shape. Because the threat of diabetes and the already-present hormonal imbalances are made worse by all this fat, and now they're saying that people who don't exercise have higher chances of breast cancer, and I've got too much breast tissue to be messing with that.

But on the other hand, there were only a few poses that we totally gave up on, and I'm proud of us for that. We're not as flexible as we once were, and Kate is much rougher on us than Lupinetti was, but even getting near to the Warrior poses was pretty awesome, and even when drenched and dripping with sweat, Downward Facing Dog is still pretty great. And during Om-ing, we all came into tune with each other and rang those walls like a bell, and during cool-down meditation, I started feeling my way back into the old balancing pathways, and that was a welcome skill to find I still had. Thank you, body, for that one.

Love,

Me

that's one steep hill there...

In my head, I've got this list of all the things they never tell you when you're a kid and you want so badly to grow up. The one that's been plaguing me lately is that no one ever really told me when I was eleven and I wanted to be a writer that getting there is really hard. Like, not just a rough and narrow path, but one like this picture-- miles upward, almost vertical.

But you know what? I'm doing it.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not much good at anything else because of the obsessive writing* that means no matter what other job I'm doing, it has to share brainspace with the stories I want to tell, and therefore probably won't get done as efficiently or quickly as anyone wants. The whole world is just going to have to deal with this fact. One day, I'll be able to afford an assistant who gets me enough to keep me on track and remind me that things need to get done** and then maybe I'll be more efficient and less overwhelmed, but for now, yeah. Stories first, then food, then the rest of adult responsibilities.

And I'm stubborn. Really stubborn. I hate when people tell me to be patient, to calm down, or to cheer up. I hate compromise in things as important as what I'm going to do for the rest of my life*** and I really, really hate setbacks and the feeling that I'm not getting anywhere. So I bully myself through stuff I don't want to do, like calling creditors to get payments plans set up that I can deal with and arguing with people on the phone to get financial aid ironed out-- because I'm not passing up a chance to work with people doing what I want to do because of something as stupid as the fact that I don't have money. The point of this is so that I will have money later****, and a better life, and maybe won't wind up one of those bony, angry, used-up women by the time I'm fifty. There's enough other people who have done that; it's not for me.

The upshot: I now have my financial aid payments set up. But it means I have absolutely no wiggle room in my budget, and I feel a bit like I'm suffocating, but I can deal. I'll eat less, sleep less. Breathe less. And I'll get through this again.

* I can't concentrate without a pen and paper around, and I've considered keeping a grease pencil in the shower so I can write on the tiles while I'm washing my hair, which is when alot of my best ideas happen.

** And do alot of the more horrible things like paying bills and calling creditors and balancing the checkbook and making schedules and making sure I get up in the morning...

*** Which will be a very long time because I intend to live to at least 122, and the way science is going, with the growing of replacement organs and anti-ageing DNA therapy and digital immortality, I think 122 is a conservative number.

**** At which point I'll set up a scholarship for writers and a fellowship and so on to fund people who want to do this and are in the same place as me

letters to the aether

Dear cats,

That's just a lizard, and it's on the other side of double-insulated glass, and it doesn't even notice you. I know you're aware that there are approximately seven billion lizards on the back porch, because you crash into the window about seven billion times a day trying to hunt through the previously-mentioned double-insulated glass.

Continuing to do so only makes us think you're incapable of learning, and we know that's not true.

Wait until one of the little beasties crawls through that gap by the door, then have at it; the rest of the time, kindly stop knocking everything off all the desks.

Love,

Me

i've lost track of my life again

It happens periodically. Something just-- slips-- and then I suddenly don't seem to have enough time to do all the things I usually do, like update the blogs and craft things to sell on Etsy and bake for the house and write. You know, the things I actually want to do in my life. I don't know what it is that makes the change; I'll just be puttering along with my day-to-day, and then realize that I've been sleeping an hour later each day, and I've been getting less done before work, and I've been neglecting smaller things like getting the laundry done and typing up those things I had to type and calling those people I had to call...

It's happened again this last week or so. I haven't watched hardly any shows this week, so there's nothing to update for the TV blogs. I haven't finished the scarf I'm making to replace the one that sold, so there's nothing to post on Etsy. I haven't called my mom yet. I haven't finished cleaning my room or putting away the last load of laundry or getting the current one together. I haven't done my weekly Bike upkeep (though I did refill the tires), so the wheels are getting wobbly again, and it's making horrible scraping noises. I haven't cleaned out the dead tomatoes and peppers to get the yard ready for the fall planting that's already late. I've been making the seasonality lists later and later each week. I haven't read anything but one and a half National Geographics, so there's nothing to post in the Book Blog. If it weren't for C, I would have forgotten to order Avon this week-- or to pay them for last week. I haven't finished the dance videos so I can stop looking up routines on You Tube and have a more reliable access to new ideas. Today is the first day I've washed my face in more than a week. I can't remember if I've posted enough articles this week. I never got around to writing any for Texbroker at all.

I'm a mess.

And I don't know why. I just... lose it. I'll have everything down real good, everything smooth and situated, and then one day, it's just not. Part of it is my ongoing computer issues; the poor baby has a memory leak and not enough RAM and needs a new external harddive, and so on. But that's only part of it.

I think I'm going to see about reorganizing my MegaPlanner to see if that helps; a few more days, and I'll need to be printing up the next week's pages and such. And here, to torture myself, is a list of things I need to do:

- call about that second job and see if it's still available

- write more articles so I can make more money and not be so poor

- restart the comic idea and actually get it off the ground now

- figure out if I'm going to write a paper for this year's ICFA and get the proposal in if I am

- find out about the Buffy Con, when it's deadline is, and whether I can make a decent proposal out of the vague idea I have

- start saving for a computer upgrade

- see if I can find a cheap way to invest in a moderately safe environment and make a little income off it

- finish cleaning my room and take the leftovers to Betty

- contact those people about my school loans again

- catch up on all the shows and post synopses

- contact people about reading my stuff on a weekly basis so I have an external need to actually write stuff down

- figure out what I'm going to be for Halloween and get started on the costume soon

gratutous pictures of my cats

Look how much bigger Ninja is...
Kitty cat butt, and Mouka don't care...
Oh no! Another cat struck down by sunlight!

gratitudes

I haven't done this in a while, but I like to, so here you go. I mean, it's easy when things are good, but when things are rough, it forces me to look on the bright side, and that's something I need.

Like, always.

1. I'm glad my tooth pain continues to be managable, and I have hope that it'll eventually go away entirely.

2. I'm glad I have a job, even if it is incredibly boring most of the time.

3. I'm glad that when I lost track of things and misplace my timing, there's really no one that suffers but me, because then I can get back on track in a relatively stree-free way

4. I'm glad all our friends are coming back from their vacations soon.

5. I'm glad all our shows are coming back soon, and that there are more than the usual one or two that I actually want to look into this year.

just another mental

I'm glad I have this blog. I'm.. well, I'm working on getting myself from being a collection of disparate voices all talking at the same time to being a nice chorus. Maybe even a fugue if you will (and I will, because I like that word). And the way I can just fold all the other blogs into this one helps in that process. Because my first inclination is to make them all separate-- food, reading, scifi, tv, makeup and girly things, 1001 things, avon, spirituality, writing, memories, genealogy, crafting, environmentalism... I like having a constellation of things I could choose from, but you know waht? It gets hard. I need to do it the same way I need to write even if I'm never published again, but I go on jags where all I do is post here, all I do is watch tv, all I do is read. I need to find balance and integrate these things.

I'm hoping this Makeshift Surface can be a place to build a new brain on.

things you should know if we ever get married for your greencard: my showering habits

Here's the deal: I'm not a quick-shower-taker. I know, it's horrible-- it uses so much water and the cost of reheating a whole water tank is probably most of our heating bill, but I just can't do it. I've tried. But I have skin that doesn't know how to exfoliate itself-- I can't remember the name of it, but my mom has it too, and it makes for rough, bumpy skin, and if I don't spend enough time exfoliating it for myself, it makes these ugly scratchy patches that don't go away unless I'm swimming in the Springs, which are an hour and a half away at best, and it makes the rest of my skin feel sandy. All the time. Especially across my chest and shoulders, and I just can't handle it. Add to this the fact that I have hip-length hair that's really frizzy and fly away unless I give it a deep-conditioning treatment every time I wash it, and a scalp that flakes off whole unless I'm soaking it in shampoo for at least five minutes, and there you have a recipe for, at best, if I don't shave and forget to scrub my back, about twenty minutes. When I take the time to do that, you're looking at more like fourty. So the last thing I need is a weekly olive-oil conditioning mask added to this mess, right? Only I totally do, because my hair is feeling the almost imperceptible change in seasons more than I am, and it's gone all dry and splitty again.

Another thing you should know: I've been told I have latent engineering talents (or, at least the ASVAB I took in high school says I do), and I've been thinking about this problem. See, so many of the things that green up a household are kind of crap on luxuries like long hot showers that force your pores open. That's why hippies are always kind of... well, let's not go there. But there should be a way to reuse water in a shower. Stay with me, I know it sounds a little gross, but hear me out: most of the water used in a shower is just keeping you wet, and isn't all that dirty or soapy. So if there was a holding tank-- and optional one, that you could turn off when you're coming in from twelve hours of laying sod or something-- that holds the offically accepted prudent amount of water under the drain, it could catch the water you use in the early part of the shower and recirculate it back to the shower head. There could be filters to clean some of the soap out, and one of those as-you-need-it heaters that's hooked up to a thermometer that you can set to the temp you want, and when the recirculated water falls below that temperature, it can turn on and reheat it. This way, when you feel like taking a long shower, you're only using a decent amount of water, and once the bugs in the design are worked out (I'm looking at you, German and / or Japanese luxury engineers), you wouldn't even really need to notice that you're reusing water! Then, when you're done, this thoroughly used water can go into a biodynamic greywater system, filter through the reclaiming swamps, and then water your garden (because we'll all need Victory Gardens of our owns soon enough, I think, and they may as well be integrated into the functioning of the home), then excess can go back into the municiple water system. Best of all, this can be a retrofit, like turning old diesel engines into biodeisel engines-- any house with pipes could be fitted with the recycling system.

By the way, if you're an engineer and you want to build this, go ahead, but you'd better give me credit and cut me in on the patents and such. This is a dated entry-- it's proof I thought of it! ~;)

Also, I can't wait until houses have designs like this all the time.

how to make America a better place to live

Sure, we've got Freedom and we've got Democracy, and when these things work as they're meant to, it's a wonderful thing. But that's not really the issue. The issue, as I see it, is that America isn't taking care of Americans-- the culture and the society and the businesses that define both are incredibly short sighted, and it's already resulting in a massive amount of unhealthy and poorly-informed people. What's the point in having all this freedom and democracy if we don't know what to do with it?

Obama is trying very hard to fix healthcare, and that's a very good thing, even if he's only partially successful, but like Michael Pollan pointed out, the reason we need so much healthcare is because the Food Business is making bad choices that are sort of polluting the populace. But it can still be fixed, if alot of linked things are tackled in the same way healthcare is. Here's my plan, and it's probably very long-term, and I know it depends on people not being idiots in big groups (which seems to be nearly impossible), but that's the thing about dreams and ideals: they can be big.

Healthcare: continue as we have been, and keep improving coverage, safety, access and everything, with an eye toward getting every citizen and those here legally (at least, probably illegals, too, but immigration is another issue I don't have any set opinions on yet) the covereage they need to stay healthy. Shift the focus to prevantative medicine, allowing people to catch and change things before they go bad instead of basically waiting until they're dying or broken to see a doctor. Herd out the doctors that are only in it for the money, and replace them with people who actually want to help their fellow humans (I'll leave it up to the profession to decide how this part works). Run national ad campaigns to get the idea out to kids deciding what they want to be that they can become doctors and that the country needs them, the same way they have the campaigns getting people to join the armed services.

Governmental Reform: Clean out all the people who aren't doing anything. Cut back on all the waste. Form new entities that can keep up with the change in the world and manage the greening and improving of our country. Foster self-sufficiency at all levels so that the whole of the govornment is sleeker and better functioning. Improve checks and balances. Keep strict reviews that make sure no one is abusing their power. Get people informed and involved so less are taken advantage of. Foster new political parties that can stand up to the entrenched old ones. Update and streamline systems. Leaders should study with foreign leaders to adapt and adopt the things that work for the leading countires in teh causes we're fostering in this plan: greening, education, human rights, health, world-responsibility, and so on. Build long-term plans that can't be undone, so that all the people who succeed this generation can keep improving, keep streamlining, keep making this a better country, instead of bogging all the plans down in new leaders undoing what the old ones did.

Food Systems: Move onto the root causes of American's sicknesses, including howe we eat and how we grow and process our foods. Get the health professionals behind it. Bombard the public with the real truths about eating healthy, not the half-truth slants that we usually get, and really seriously fine the coumpanies that make bad things sound good. Tax junk food-- even a little tax will go a long way with so much junk food out there. Require big companies to use local products as much as possible, and to process them only as much as needed, not into unrecognizability. Give benefits to those who comply and fine those who don't.

Foodshed Education: Get cities and neighborhoods and all schools-- not just elementary schools in crunch-granola areas-- involved in the local food sources they have. Make it the pride of the area. Encourage the return of artisan foods. Give benefits to small companies that meet the needs of their communities with local products, and encourage people to purchase them. Set up community gardens wherever there's space, and communal composting to feed these gardens. Get those who need to do community service-- all of them, from kids trying to get scholarships to people working off crimes-- to work the gardens and the intra-city produce network. Take the burden of feeding us away from the big companies that keep poisoning us, and actively put it back in the hands of the people. Send everyone information on their local resources on a monthly or quarterly basis. Foster massive community involvement.

Environmentalism: Encourage people to go from learning about food to learning about other green changes they can easily make-- greywater systems and rainbarrels will be easy when they see them used in the community gardens. Run competitions to see what city can be the greenest-- How much power can they get from solar, wind or water? Where can tehy plant gardens and trees and set up parks? How much of their food can they grow themselves? How many local and sustainable businesses can they encourage? Get city leaders from the ones lower on the list to visit the ones higher and see how they did it and how it can be applied to themselves. Hand out awards, make it public, get people involved. Up the number of green changes that allow people to get tax breaks, and extend the rules about cities and their green spaces. Get the populace behind major green innovations, like wind farms and wave farms and bioreactors and algae farms and mining old landfills for natural gas and recycleables and whatever else-- the bigger and more daring, the better. After the cities are improved, move on to getting those cities to help fix the world, encouraging Americans to take responsibility for what our lifestyle has done outside our borders and getting them to help make it right.

School Reform: Expand the education fields, rather than restricting them. People who grow up learning how things work are more likely to care when they stop working, so teach them more science, more engineering, more nature studies. Teach kids art and personal expression. Get schools out in the community to build monuments and gardens and beautify their cities. Teach citizenship and how the govornment is supposed to work and critical thinking, and encourage kids to grow up involved in their local govornments so when they're old enough to vote, they know what they're doing-- we especially need to get people all over the country to be able to understand what polical speak means so we can't so easily be led astray. Expand education as much as humanly possible. We need well-rounded people to run the future, people who understand the world, not people who can't find Germany or don't know how things started. Recruit teachers, librarians, adjuncts, professors, instructors the way the military is recruited, and pay them better, with more benefits and more freedom-- the future is literally in their hands and dependent on their ability to teach children well.

Mandatory Education: Make Community college or the first two years of a four year college mandatory because it changes how you think about things and expands on the basic educations you recieve up to that point. Make study abroad at least once between starting highschool and graduating college mandatory, because living in another country changes how you view everything. Make at least some trade school mandatory, so people can always have a physical skill to fall back on. You can never learn too much-- that should be our motto.

Civil Involvement: Teach people how things work, and they'll want them to be improved. We need good citizens, not sheep. Everything happening in this country is supposed to be for us, and we need to start embrasing both our power and our responsibilities. We need a country-wide remake, a cleaning-up and updating, and we need the people to be behind that so it can't fail or be lip-serviced out of existence.

And voila! Shiny new country full of the smartest, freest, healthiest, best-kept and well-educated people a nation could hope for! It won't be easy-- in fact, it'll probably be the hardest thing our country has done since declaring indipendence-- but it's something that needs to be done now, when we still have a choice, rather than later, when we have to react or die and have little control over how things go. We want to preserve all the things that make America great, while adding to the list and bringing up new generations who believe in the new ways. Things have to change, guys. It's the only constant in life. We should take control of our change and bend it to the goals we need to have, rather than letting it slip away from us and ruin what we have.

toothache update

If you haven't been following my facebook updates, I've had a toothache most of this week. I can't afford a dentist, I don't like taking antibiotics, and I certainly can't afford an extraction right now (even a much-discounted student one an hour away in Jax), so I looked up a slew of homeopathic cures-- and you know what? They work. Surprisingly. Distressingly well. Here's what I did, but first a backup for context.

A few years ago, when I was working at Mi Casa, I'd had a jaw pain and I thought it was sinus pain, maybe a head cold, so I'd been taking sinus meds at night and loading up on ibuprofen during the day. And then one day, on the way to work, the extra exertion of getting to work, as opposed to laying in bed moaning, but my bloodpressure up high enough that the side of my face blossomed into debilitating pain. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but this-- I couldn't even see. Breathing hurt. My whole face swelled up and I couldn't swallow, loud noises were like being jabed in the ear with an icepick, my hair was too heavy for my head and so on. So Neisha took me to the hospital because I couldn't function and I couldn't even tell her what was wrong. I could only sit there and sort of wail. They went, 'oh, it's an abcess in your tooth. You need antibiotics and you need it out of your head, STAT.' and they gave me said meds and a list of dentists and some painkillers that were really too strong. Only one dentist would touch me without insurance, and they said they'd take it out for just short of five hundred dollars, since the tooth was broken and would require surgical extraction. Which I had to willingly allow, because the nine shots they geve me kept wearing off and the laughing gas just made me hyperventilate. At one point, my O2 stats dropped so much that they had to stop and let me bleed and breathe so I wouldn't pass out or worse.

So it was bad. I class it, subjectively, as being worse than getting hit by the car the first time, worse than being emotionally and sexually abused by my first boyfriend, and worse than being stranded in Orlando, which just about drove me insane for a few years.

Now, this past Sunday was a holiday weekend, and it was stressful and it was hard work, so I didn't think much of the pain in my jaw, I just took a bunch of tylenol and powered through. But by Monday, it was getting close enough to debilitating that I could identify it-- and maybe it's just that I'm older and less gullible or something, but I didn't flip out and go to the hospital right away. I looked up alternatives.

Apparently, infections get in because of weakness. I've had this particular tooth broken for ten years since I worked at Borders and a bagle took the front side of it out of my mouth. I think it was already undermined by my wisdom tooth on that side trying to come down, and maybe that's why it's acting up again, since the tooth never did come down all the way. But it never hurt, and it never got infected, even when it totally could have when the other one went batty and my whole body was in uproar. But there are natural ways to fix the weakness and to bolster your own immune response-- and this is the best part-- to stop being a medical victim and take your healing into your own hands. So I started taking lots of vitamin-c, twice as much as I normally do, and every day instead of every second or third day like I usually do. I found a suppliment of natural calcium, magnesium and zinc, and started taking that with an Omega-3-6-9 suppliment. I took acidophilis, got an all natural mouthwash, swished with baking soda to make my mouth-environment alkaline instead of acidic (how bacteria like it, apparently), ate yogurt to bolster good bacteria in between, switched to a mostly liquid diet for a few days to keep pressure off my teeth, slept with my head at an angle where I couldn't grit or clench my jaw, and packed the tooth with papertowels soaked in olive oil.

And it worked. Within three days I was better enough that I could brush my teeth without stabbing myself in the underside of the brain, I could eat solid foods again, I didn't have to call in on my opening shift like I thought I might, and I haven't needed an ibuprofen since monday. I still get little tweaks of discomfort, and my cheekbone aches, so I don't think it's entirely cured, but it's under control, and at the very least, I can hold out until I can afford a dentist appointment on my own terms. It's awesome. And it's had other side effects, like that I can taste things better now-- I think the water tasting weird that I thought was the pipes was maybe an early-warning of the infections, and the zinc is probably repairing my busted old tastebuds anyway. And my gums are much less sensitive than they were before, which I thought was just the norm because they'd been persnikety since I got my new toothbrush ages ago.

mergers coming?

I'm havign trouble keeping up with so many blogs, so I think I'm probably going to merge a bunch of them into this one-- especially the ones that I never seem to update much, like Switched-on X-Chromosome, and maybe Sami Does Avon...

But I keep waffling about it. I want to be up to date, but I like having everything in it's own little cubby, and I've got the other blog picking up all of them so you can read them in one place...

I don't know. Maybe it's just another passing moment.

c20

Campaign 19 has come in, and while I'm collecting up payments, I'll be starting to accept orders for the next campaign, number 20! That's the one with the white background and the girl with the blue and green scarf! There's tons of awesome deals there (Jet Femme is only 12.99! That's the cheapest it's ever been!), so make sure you look out for the things you've been holding out on!

I'll be taking orders until next weds (the 16th) at midnight, just email me at pirategirljack at gmail dot com or tell me directly what you'd like, and as always, you can order online at any time. Just go to www.youravon.com/sholcomb and click on the shopping tab at the top!

things you should know if we ever get married for your greencard: personal saints

I'm not Catholic. I'm about as far from Catholic as someone can get, being of the general polytheistic heathen persuasion, in a really non-religious and barely-practicing sort of way, but I do believe that when someone does something special for the greater good of the species, that something should be rewarded in some way, and so for the last few years, I've been collecting up a list of what I call Personal Saints.

And most of them are food-based because that's how I roll / that's what's important to me.

Currently, the list stands like this:

Saint Whoever First Burned Sugar and Convinced People To Eat It (patron saint of caramel, toffee, caramelization, hard candies, creme brulee and butterscotch)

Saint Ancient Chinese Emperor Who First Made Tea (patron saint of tea in all it's forms)

Saint First Chick To Make Bread (matron of all breads, yeasts, doughs, baked goods and baking)

Saint Whoever First Though Bad Milk Might Be Good For Something (patron saint of milk, milking, cheese, yogurt, kefir, butter, sour cream, and lacto-fermentation)

Saint Aztec Guy Who First Tried Chocolate and Brought It Back To Town (patron saint of chocolate, chocolate-making, enrobing, moxing weird things in chocolate, Cadbury's, Kinder, Ritter Sport, and cultural misappropriation)

Saint First Person To Eat That Weird Thing And Not Die (patron saint of pineapple, durian, catfish, rambutan, sea urchin, taro, and anything else where you just go "How did anyone even think to eat this?")

Saint Whoever First Thought It Might Be A Good Idea To Drink Things That Had Been Sitting Around For A While (patron saint of fermentation, wine, cider, perry, beer, pickel-making, saurkraut, kimchee, and anything else that doesn't start as milk)

Saint Inventor of Custards (patron saint of flan, cheesecake, Byrd's, pudding, half the ice creams, and several sauces)

Saint Hey We Can Preserve That In Sugar (patron saint of jams, jellies, preserves, sugar-sauces, syrups, Aunt Jemima, chutneys, pate de fruits, turkish delight, sugared-fruits and flowers, candied fruits and peels, and anything else saved in sugar, including when it's used to disinfect wounds and save lives)

heal thyself: toothache

A few years ago, I had a toothache that turned debilitating-- like, taken to the hospital from work by my boss, unable to speak, whole side of my head swollen up debilitating. That turned out to be an abcess, required two weeks of antibiotics, and an almost-five-hundred-dollar tooth extraction. Which was all my savings, and I haven't had more than 75 or a hundred to my name since, which just won't cut it if I need another extraction (and I certainly can't afford a root canal or whatever, and I'm severely resistant to pain killers, so it required two rounds before and I really don't want to do that again).

So yesterday, at the Day!Job, being as how it was Labor Day Weekend, it was crazy and I was stressed, and after sleeping all night with gritted teeth, I woke up and thought that's why my jaw hurt. This morning, however, I find that it's definitely because of a sort tooth. The pain has matured like a fine wine (whine?) and has become both sharper and more localized, and is definitely to do with one specific tooth.

I looked up holistic remedies to handle it while I still can, and at the very least to buy time so I can maybe make it a few more paychecks and scrape up some money. It seems I need to get my hands on activated charcoal tablets, calcium and magnesium suppliments, probiotic lozenges, baking soda rinses, and plantain leaves to make a poultice. Used teabags can help, and I always have those around, and green tea is proven to be good for teeth anyway. I can do this. These are all natural things, and I can manage them. They are not scary and they don't involve trays of shining tools that look like they're out of a Medieval torturer's bag. I'm planning on going to the store later today as soon as I crunch some numbers (rent is coming up, so I have to be careful), and seeing what's available at our local Tar-jay.

And this bugger is going down, naturally.

rules of acquisition: chadwick's end of summer sale

I'd forgotten that I'd signed up for these mailers, and I get on in my inbox and I'm all, "Chadwick's? Who the heck is Chadwick's?" and then I see these fun summer clothes that are all on sale, and I'm sad I didn't check them out sooner. Who knows if they'll be still on sale next time I have free money, but I do need new tank tops (which are the main sort of shirt I wear all year, so they get worn through pretty well), and the rest is shopping history.

I want this sweater like woah:

Thi obi-belt that I could probably make for myself:

This sundress... and this adorable yellow skirt...

See, here's the thing: I want my life to look like the life in these pictures, and catalogs always have this life-- windswept, sunny, brightly colored, nothing fading in the wash, no chores that make you chose to wear something less fun. I image the house I'd live in would have climbing roses around the door and a big garden full of flowers I could pick and put in cut-glass vases (I don't even own a vase now, only budvases and a big water pitcher), and is near a seashore that's white and blue and can be looked at down a hill with a glass of something sweet and alcholic in hand.

It's probably from reading Sears catalogs when I was a kid-- and living overseas where views like that were more possible than anywhere I've lived here.

But if I can't have it yet (and I stress YET because I will have the idea life at some point, even if it's not until retirement), I can dress like I do on my days off, right?