i was updating my 43 things with detailed blog entries on each of my list entries when i just realized that all of my spring/summer goals have a common thread: cut out the fat.

the fat from my body, the fat from my mind. overspending is fat. clutter is fat. fear is fat. waste is essentially fat. i want to make my life lean and focused. to train myself to understand that the freedom to wake up whenever i want and eat whatever i want and ignore whatever i want is not a freedom at all. it is a prison. an illusion. my fat eats all that is life wise nutritious and only leaves me crumbs. all this time i just never minded, or never made the connection. crumbs allow me to survive but that's not the whole story, that's not the only way to be alive. i don't even always feel alive. i recognize the enemy in me. and i understand that i can flush her out without losing who i am. circumstance from long ago so huge that it's defined me till today shall no longer control me.

i'll be weak again but not in the same way. and not as a constant. i sealed the bulkhead on some deeply serious shit. breathe. sigh. flow. i am so completely addicted to the burn.

don't ask me what's up cause i couldn't tell you. i'm on a life roller coaster of sorts. if i tell you that today is great (and it is) then tomorrow surely won't be. vice versa. i will be 26 in a week. the turning of this year is a happy non event. i am glad to see it go with no regrets. i gave a lot of my soul to 2 or 3 things this year; one failed miserably and two worked out really well. i'll take that as a victory.

school is kicking my ass but in a good way. i'll be happy for the freedom of a break. my energy and time for creative stuff has been a sad but necessary sacrifice to the read this-write this-and read this some more gods. my school isn't so kind as to offer many classes for my major during the summer. perhaps that's a blessing in disguise. anyway i am looking forward to reorganizing my studio, breaking out the still in it's box sewing machine i got for christmas and jamming. the only seriously creative thing i've made in the last 2 months is this bird i made for lilo for her birthday. next to it is my new stress ball to combat my lack of time for art expression.



lilo and i incorporated our business. we are official partners and stuff. we have clients coming out of our asses. we've got an employee. an office. i'm honestly having fun "at work." and it doesn't feel so strange anymore to be legitimate and grown up. i am not a truly consistent self yet but i no longer have odd fears of stability. i still struggle with the strength of comfort in my life, sometimes mistaking it for boredom. i'm not bored. i'm just scared of what i have to do that may be hard or uncomfortable and i project. i'm working to keep my head on straight when it comes to these types of things. keeping my head on in general...

i've had this for a long time. since florida i think. i never really used, at least not properly. i am slowly adding goals to my list that are real and specific and intended to be completed during this spring/summer. i'm excited. it's helping me spring clean mentally. one of the things on my list from before was to go to the nyc pillow fight. last year i think one of us was sick so we didn't go. this year nothing was stopping us. lilo smacked some strangers and i got trampled in the pit trying to get photos. more in my flickr.

another beautiful day out.
gotta go buy school supplies.
i'm anxious and freaked out of course but i am excited.
maybe a lil proud too.

this weekend felt really big. open to being filled. i mean it's only 5pm on sunday and i've given up doing anything else aside from waiting for my baby to come home so we can eat mac & cheese and watch a movie. what should we rent? you have exactly 2 hours to make suggestions. no pressure. so even after resigning to a lazy sunday afternoon i still feel like i got a lot done.

saturday i woke up bright and early and spent a few hours scanning photos. my first real pile of papers client! 2.5 hours of mouse clicking made my hand hurt but completely worth the $65. i made more than 20 bucks and hour in my jammies. it's working. it's working. *does happy dance*

then i made tasty pizza for lunch:


( Read more )

on the first day of summer i am going to take lilo to coney island and make love to her on every inch of the sand. and we are going to laugh. because we can.

i am super amped up about the new year. i gave up on my health at the start of the holidays. there stopped being time for my art. my back burner at this point is a huge freaking crock pot. this past year was settled. i think that is the best way to describe it. my struggles were mainly against that calm i spoke about before. the calm i can't quite accept. and my happiness ultimately came from that same place.

january through april was spent being a work monkey. everyday i put on the clothes that were more fun buying than actually wearing. hop on the bus. hop on the train. put in my 6 hours with the brother's damary. tried to help resurrect a new nervousness.org site. don't even get me started on those fuckheads. best thing that came out of this experience with dynamod is my website

april i cracked out of the job. april was kind of bad because lilo and i hit this angry period in our relationship. i felt justified in certain resentments and she felt guilty & judged and we always arrived at the same conclusion: we just want each other to be happy. we purchased a futon. we slept apart and did our best to live apart for a few weeks to see if that would make a difference in how shitty we had found ourselves feeling. of course it didn't. we're always better together. leaving my job helped with my resentments and since we've both been working on the balance of money and work.

i'm not a worker, i don't have the ethic. i am pretty lazy in the sense that i will get away with what i can get away with without harming anyone. that's not something i am proud of but i also don't feel the need to be constantly guilty about it. i'm aware and i am working on being better. first step in that was to admit that i don't want a regular job. i can't stomach them. so i started my own business that i am using to supplement my income with. i am in the start up phase but i've got one job so far and some prospects.

that leads to focus number one for 2008: advertising & website improvements for pile of papers. i want and need to be able to contribute to our household in a proper monetary way but i also need to be able to do that in my own way. i think this is going to be a successful compromise.

round may i made a plan with a girl. a friend i thought. a huge poet of a girl who talked about her toes in grass and made me look at the moon. a girl who once had 'you status' in my journal. today is the last day of such a status. you... you muse. you saga. you core-less, untrusting, fool. you are leaving my house and i am happy. i can't put these past 6 months into proper words. i had this friend and she was in a bad spot and i wanted to meet her as i always have and lilo and i were in total honesty about what she meant to me at one point. i showed lilo the box i had been hiding. the moons seemed aligned. one day i was like why doesn't she come live with us for awhile? to my surprise lilo said sure. she was excited to have a roomie. we envisioned a 3 musketeer type thing. we fixed up the nook, bought a futon, even painted a sky all in honor of her coming. and she came but i can honestly say that she was never really here. no matter how hard i tried to get her to let me in. no matter how i offered helped. no matter how many questions i asked. no matter how much faith i gave. no matter how fucking low i set the bar. never enough. never right. never worked. never ever ever. i made many mistakes in the last few months of a 2.5 year friendship, the biggest being seeing her as a basket. she clearly was always a chicken.

focus number two for 2008: stop putting all your relationship eggs in one basket.

i'm proud to report that i am doing this. i had a little internet research session the other day. i made a journal in hopes of bringing one friendship back where i think it belongs. i wrote a letter to someone who supported me when i couldn't accept it. emails with my aunt are going alright. i'm actually using myspace with a purpose. i found my sister's grandparent's address and wrote them a letter in hopes of being put in contact with annie. that's scary to me because we haven't seen each other in like 12 years. and i feel bad because when i turned 18 i should have found her but i was in a bad place then. i'm nervous that she won't like me but i want to try and salvage a relationship. she grew up without our mother, and than god, but she must have curiosities. it's been awhile but i enjoyed being the big sis. so i have hope. i also unearthed my father's address and the address of the family that i am sure my mother gave my brother too. she was in high school and couldn't keep him. he's about 35 now. i don't really want to have relationships with either of them. my brother's letter will be more of a hey just thought i would say hi. i can't imagine what i will say to my father once i sit down to write. i've never met him but i've lived within 15 minutes of him for a lot of my life. it's a long story that's not interesting. he doesn't like to admit i exist. he hates my mom.

summer was lilo being sick a lot. she woke up one day and her left eye stopped working. she was ass tired all the time. a bunch of weird and awful symptoms. she hates doctors so of course it was awhile before she bit that bullet. the doc sent her to the er. she had anemia and for awhile because of her eye and the headaches they thought she had ms. let's not talk about how scared i was. she was in the hospital for 5 days. one blood transfusion. 4 days of iv steroids. had 2 spinal taps. 2 because the first needle wasn't long enough. omg. i was holding her and talking her through it while they were back inserting the god awful series of needles for the tap and as soon as i saw one of them shake his head cause it wasn't going to work i was like OH SHIT. but my baby was a trooper. we had our fun though. every night i would help her get a shower. all the nurses thought we were sisters because if i was family i would get to stay later. god forbid our love counts as family. anyway we kinda enjoy faking everyone at. it makes making out in the hospital bathroom feel way more wicked. ;) anyway lilo is fine now. she was super anemic and her eye thing is some weird thing that can happen to overweight women in their late 20's. her sight in that eye is coming back.

focus number three for 2008: support lilo better.

i don't mean that what happened was my fault but i can be supporting the things she needs to do better. if i had bugged her more about going to the doctor faster then the anemia wouldn't have gotten so bad. we both have these lists of things we need to get done for our life. i want to see those lists shrink substantially this year. i bugged her enough to go to the gym and she is. that's more her victory than mine but i helped.

one day in september i was browsing craigslist and saw this call for artists. a gallery called art gotham was having a square foot show (all artist start on the same blank 12x12 canvas.) any emerging artist could be in it if you went to the gallery on a certain day and picked up a canvas. i went. i got 2. that was a big step in accepting the legitimacy of me as an artist. i don't really sell work and i don't do it exclusively as a career but that doesn't mean i am not an artist. period. i am past the stage of explaining that i do a lot of mail art and atcs. that's art. these are my pieces:



i had the canvases for 5 weeks and i painted both of them 2 days before i dropped them off. the pink was still drying on auntie bean the morning of drop off. not doing much to cure my procrastination but i have eons more confidence. going to the opening and seeing my work hanging next to a bunch of awesome artists in nyc was worth all my anxiety over what to paint. because of this one experience i got serious about creating an inventory for my etsy store. and i started a studio blog.

focus number four for 2008: organize my creative goals and then meet them one at a time.

- get my blog off and running, score some readership.
- build up stock in my etsy store.
- stop joining swapbot swaps for a few months no matter how fun they seem.
- have CraftBake once a month.
- put together a portfolio.
- accept invitations to creative events and actually go.

this brings me to thanksgiving. the beginning of the holiday. the beginning of my face getting so fat that i ignore it. you know you've let yourself go another level when you long to look like you did last year even though last year you were pissed at how you looked. i've been overweight for more than half my life now. it all started the summer between 6th and 7th grade. i moved in with a new foster family who didn't really care what their kids did. i was always going to be an emotional eater, i always would have been addicted to food no matter what so i don't blame them. the environment was so chill and not what i was used to. i found myself with all of this freedom and for whatever reason the snack cabinet held my interest the most. i landed there in june at a normal weight of like 110 pounds and i started the new school year as a fat kid around 170 pounds. ripped my identity like a motherfucker. and to a degree it still does. it's a cliche to make this "resolution" but i'm doing it anyway.

focus number five for 2008: let this way of life go. enough with polluting my body and by extension my mind. i don't really make serious attempts at losing weight. no diet fads for me, etc. i'm putting my whole self into this. game on.

other than that i will be focusing on my new school semester and decluttering this house.

what are you going to be focusing on this year?

i have an odd mixture of loneliness and after christmas depression and the promise of a new year spinning inside. i just realized how much i miss funneling my meanderings into this journal. i don't really know why i stopped. i guess i feel like being here is symbolically keeping one of my feet in the past and that leads to guilt. that is silly though, no need to tell me.

i am often enough what i hate in other people. what i bitch about. what i scoff at. what i try and distance myself from. i guess that's true of a lot of people. i mention it because i am homesick tonight for a time when i understood. when possibility was the purest of substance. when what i had was more than i thought i'd ever get and the future was just a big bonus that couldn't go wrong if i tried. maybe i am just stuck in a moment that i can only see fact drowning in face compared to belief. maybe i should have asked for faith on christmas.

well actually my christmas, especially the week before, was really special. i was put in charge of fixing up the downstairs living room so we could have a nice holiday dinner. i got to rearrange furniture and buy new curtains and steal cool stuff from other rooms like on hgtv. this helped me exercise my poor kid demons from my childhood. every year my mom would promise we'd fix whatever crap ass apartment we were in so we could host our family's christmas dinner but it never happened. this year it happened. lilo gave me a sewing machine and a bunch of adorable handmade gifts. i gave her a fish named george and an apron i made from plastic shopping bags and a bunch of equally adorable handmade gifts. and we are just happy in our love. it's sad that we can never make a baby together.

anyway... i am trying to soothe myself from a certain loneliness i cannot ever seem to save myself from. i feel shitty at this moment so i guess just take all this as a by product of that. i am at a place in my life where i can stand back, use my head and understand that the next step is to turn my passions into a bridge that will deliver me to the flip side of problems. i understand the concept. it's even been quite awhile since i stumbled upon defining it. i just haven't found that perfect formula. the right mix.

my point is: i hit the ceiling of whatever stage of growing i was in. so i'm sitting on the floor, pieces of glass strewn about, sharp and shiny, feared but inspiring. the yin. the yang. and i'm ok. of course i'm ok. this is the first ceiling bust through i've been able to appreciate in my life. there is ample perspective. ample resources. i'm fucking smart in a self defined way. i've let go of not being where i am "supposed" to be. i'm drawing the map now. and i'm the better and happier for it. i guess i am just not used to being where i am. often i feel too calm and in response i pile on busy work. and then i get wrapped up in meeting demands that have nothing to do with what i really am working for.

like going back to school. for real yo. in 30 days i shall walk into the scary world of the classroom. i will be armored to an almost immobile degree. but when i walk in the door instantly each crust of iron shall fade to dust. and not that anyone will be able to tell but i'll be humiliated and naked and insecure almost to the point of incoherence. the thing that's different about me now is that i will still go in. i'll still find a way to be what i want to be. this is a skill increasing in strength everyday.

i mean i am a bizarre person so you have to understand the nature of my victories. i'm shy. my talents don't really afford me too much social grace. i have a gag reflex when it comes to the phone. and i want to be able to do things properly therefore not admitting when i won't be able to. so yay for me because i'm not one of those stubborn people who can't ask for help, i just rarely realize i need it until it's too late. i gotta start believing more deeply that it's never too late but that's easier said than done. i am infamous for not communicating properly. i let little bumps in the road set me much too far off course. i let time go by. i mourn distance but somehow nurture it as well. the one sure disease i know i have in life is that i get in my own way a lot. without my of an explanation i can only say that i find it impossible to keep more than one deep relationship going at the same time. and the irony is that if you ask me what i want in life, having several truly deep relationships is in the serious top 3. and doors are open all around me. myspace alone has thrown me a hand full of the past including a cousin i should really try to strengthen ties with. even doors that seem closed are probably still open.

it took one miserable failure of a friendship that had ever possible odd in it's favor and an email from my favorite aunt (who i wasn't talking to) to make me understand that i need to focus on a bigger picture. my picture is pretty decent for 25 years old but the big nagging hole of loneliness is my lack of friends and family. so i'm saying it out loud and will definitely not just leave it at that. i never truly did.

Change, shit
I guess change is good for any of us
Whatever it take for any of y'all niggaz to get up out the hood
Shit, I'm wit cha, I ain't mad at cha
Got nuttin but love for ya, do your thing boy

i am finding it impossible to communicate with people i love. don't want to spill truth. can't stomach halves. this is a return to the former self, the self formerly known, the self never left. i am depression. i am prince. both of which i find puzzling and devoid of magic. that sums my being up perfectly: i lost the magic. the magic of love. the magic of promise. the magic of life being in sync.

now i live in the room next to the room i found magic in. i am out of reach. or she is. or we are.

i'm sad and careful to the point of seclusion and i can't find solace in sleep like i could when i was a teenager and i don't know how to put the psychotic leftovers into my art because i'm not that kind of artist.

still i fear death so not one bit should you worry.

rock on future:
my company is offering health insurance and one week's paid vacation.
and they gave me a cell phone with a camera for free as long as i work for them as a thank you for helping them out with their recruitment project.
lilo and i have a step plan to take care of our woes.

sad but necessary:
after a month with our beloved huckabee

i am sad to announce that we are giving him away to a new home. he proved to be too much responsibility so we are doing the only responsible thing we can in finding him a new home. we did however pay a lot for him so we are trying to recoup some costs. apparently this makes lilo and i the lesbonic devil couple from animal treatment hell. i put an ad on craigslist and some really low life people sent these nasty ass emails to my poor lilo. some woman actually said that her husband works for a swat team and that he will find us and hurt us because we are evil for not keeping our dog longer. wtf? we realize that we can't give him what he deserves and we are doing something about it.

happy feet:
which reminds me... watch happy feet. it is the most adorable movie i ever did see.
a friend and i are friends again. actually on a friendship note in general i feel like i am back on the good side of a lot of people.

blubber:
i am at a point where my skinny jeans are too tight and my fat pants fall off my ass. the most honest thing i can say about this is that i am working on making one of them fit properly. which pair changes everyday.

rain-clouds-40 degree april-motherfucking global warming-cocksuckyness:
hello spring??... it's veronica.
do you remember how you promised to save me?
hello?

advice:
don't go to brooklyn as you may butt hump the idea of breaking up with your girlfriend.
also don't go hungry & poor as they don't serve the "good pizza" by the slice after 5pm.

my new favorite word:
bub ♥

monetary confusion:
the federal reserve is a private bank?
that our government borrows money from to print money?
our labor is our personal property?
there is no law stating we have to pay income tax?
freedom to fascism

i could really do this!!:
my website has gotten almost 1000 unique visitors in the last 3 weeks. i am being offered weird and exciting opportunities to collaborate on art and projects. i have all this new confidence and inspiration. it's overwhelming.

my beloved camera and me. we go everywhere together. even tho it's not actually mine:

i am so god awful fucking tired of my girlfriend's family.

you have the power now
struck of moon try my inside
flick me like a fly

you gotta love the combination of a craigslist ad response and babelfish.

"I make works of cleaning and I am answering to him by its email that tapeworm placed in the pagina of craislist"

what's a pagina?

is anyone else addicted to craigslist? my personal love of the sight is borderline obsession. when i am bored at work i post ads on clist. my latest is to see if anyone in the nyc area wants to start a regular kickball game. i am pimping my website in the artist, creative services and even the resume section of clist's all over the world. it's actually working. some woman offered me a job to photograph her wedding. only problem is the gig is in seattle. i got my job from a clist ad. my lovely lilo runs her business from clist ads. she's never been hurting for clients. i've written very involved pleas to people giving away cute puppies and working vehicles for free. tho sadly our little bundle of joy (huckabee) wasn't found that way. i sold a mini fridge there. i'll even admit i sometimes make ads of odd nature just to see what people will say. if that site ever goes pay i will implode. or find some other unproductive entertainment.

how's life?
my mental state, mood and accessible happiness are comparable to the weather: one big floppy see saw. i desperately need new music and a hair cut and possibly a drunken night on a beach.

my weekend was quite lovely. the house was previously cleaned. the laundry and errands that seem to plague my lilo and i were nowhere to be found. i spent saturday finishing my website, and making pizza, love & atc's.





i woke up on sunday the way i like... satisfied from the night before and perfectly full up on sleep. i sneak out of the bed while lilo is just rustling awake. she hits the internal snooze for a half hour and i make my daily internet rounds. we decide to go out to breakfast. tasty. then to a dollar store to economically feed the shopping beast. i bought little plastic molds for sand castle making. a frog and a turtle and a fish. i'm going to use them for bento. lilo doesn't share my love for dollar stores because they are usually cramped and that tends to give her a headache. so to purchase her cooperation during my shopping spree i promise to take her to see the puppies.

do you know what happened? well a simple trip to coo at puppies led to us being put into a puppy play booth with one very adorable beagle. 10 minutes of playing with said puppy led us to discuss the finance plan with the puppy salesman. i had no clue that they finance puppies i guess it isn't that weird but i'm still like holy crap. 5 minutes later the dude is like i'm sorry... undesirable candidate... yada yada yada. yeah we know it wasn't going to work. that's why we let you try. they are closing. "our" puppy is taken back to it's cage. we are mere steps from the door when she turns to me and goes let me offer him a deal. 10 minutes later i am running to the atm to retrieve the small fortune we are to pay while they hold the store open just for us. 5 minutes after that lilo is carrying the biggest impulse buy ever to the car while i repeatedly shout don't drop him.

meet huckabee. huck for short. he's a beagle. he likes to smell stuff. he's almost 6 months old. so far we can't get him to take a walk. we carry him down the stairs, plop him on the side walk and he just refuses to move an inch.


he's actually a she but we've made an executive decision to call her him because we are crazy. there is no reason in the grasp of my powers of explanation. i guess this is what happens when two androgynous bisexual girls are allowed to raise some form of life. we are glad we don't have to look at the scary lipstick doggie dick.

we weren't planning to have a dog until spring, and really that was one of those i would love to do this wishes but not exactly a plan. what does it matter now? we feel like we have a kid. and that's fun and tiring and hilarious. this morning as i was getting ready for work he pooped (NOT ON THE DAMN NEWSPAPER) and then stepped in it. i ran screaming ew ew ew ew after him. after i washed him off he ran through the house like a a pinball bounces around in his machine. i actually made lilo smell me cause i was freaked about carrying dog pooh aroma around with me all day.

poop is a much larger part of my life now compared to 2 days ago. totally worth it tho.

queercents

we're here
we're queer
and we're not going shopping without our coupons.

lately i just want to be still.
and to turn my mind off.
to not be involved in anything around me.
i've been in love these last few weeks just like in the beginning.
i'll go to work and wash my clothes and eat but there is nothing else.
just u.

cell for cash

sell your old cell phones. they don't pay a lot but money is money. besides what are you going to do with your old cell phones? i know a particular someone who keeps them in a giant box for no reason aside from the fact that she is insane about keeping gadgets for forever.

i shall join the ranks of saying blah.
the long winter is paralyzing.
i'm not complaining it's just that i want to breathe and run and skip and shit. i want to shave off some of the weight and to stop letting my focus wander to unhealthy wishes. i'm anxious. i want to lay in a hammock.

i'm turning 25 in 24 days. i don't really have depressive thoughts, nor do i feel like working up the wax of nostalgia. that surprises me but i'm pleased because being freaked out about getting older is a waste of time. i'm excited to just have a nice cake and go somewhere interesting and to hold hands with her while we walk there. i want a completely new birthday outfit and to not have to go to work. perhaps a balloon or some of those party poppers. the sweetest of simple wishes.
if i am going to get depressed about anything it will be because of how boring i feel lately.