The Third Incarnation

of my room. I rearranged and it was a bitch. Real wood is heavy; I was literally suspended between the wall and a wardrobe trying to push it across to the other side of the room. I do believe this works better though, better chi or feng shui or what not. I was hesitant to move the larger items after the last time I tried to push the bed, but I'm glad that I did. Now all I have to do is put the wall hangings back in proper order. To nail or not to nail, that is now the question. I used nails and sticky adhesive tape the last time and the tape lifted off the paint and wallpaper (?) from the walls. Uhh, I don't know how I'm going to explain those when I move out but I'm going to do my damnedest to cover them up at this point. Also, my wall sconces did not come with the screws pictured on the box. Now really, it specifically said they didn't come with the candles or flowers pictured on the box, but the matching screws? That would have been nice to know.

Other things that have earned an honorable mention without being honorable:

The baby was absolutely befuddled when I sat him in the middle of the freshly rearranged room.

I bought 3 dresses at Urban Outfitters and cozy warm things to wear during this Portland/Vancouver winter. Although the knit cowl threatens to smother me, I might not return it after-all...

Found things I want to go to...an Ale festival, Christmas Ship Parade, and a Holiday Artisian Market. But what I'd really like to do is something more artsy like a gallery/reading/show.

Not finding time to read.

Finding more things to add to my reading list.

Stacks of books can no longer be taller than the baby!

Need to solicit music recommendations.

The dilemma: having to create a completely new wardrobe on a single parent budget. This isn't good. It just can't end well. I moved a couple times before I got to "here" and to me packing means packing the trashcan with things I won't be hauling with me to my next destination. It was a tough call too, I mean things just didn't fit. I look for them sometimes and after a while I realize it's not just misplaced but gone. I also didn't realize everything I kept happened to be in a range of sizes, so complete outfits I do not have.

Now I don't mean mommy and me clothes or work clothes. When I have the time to get ready I want to wear something impractical. I've come full circle. When you're a kid you don't care if you're feet hurt or your ass is cold, as long as it looks good. As you get older you learn the value of keeping warm and being comfortable. I just want to look good. Pregnancy will kind of do that to you. It was easier to be fashionable before the baby. Maternity clothes are a lot cheaper and you don't have to get dressed during nap time. The idea of creating a whole new wardrobe should be thrilling, this is me we're talking about here, but instead it just seems like a daunting hassle. It's probably just the money. I have expensive taste now. It happened overtime... Oh and mother nature. Winter here is a bitch. I love snow but freezing locks and frozen shut doors with an arm full of shopping bags and a baby, not my idea of a Kodak moment.

Hmmm, even with all that, clothes seem to be an endless source of happiness. I embrace my inner shallowness, you should too :)

The Weight of Words...

I realized I have deep thoughts, they occur at various times during my day and I always think I'm going to remember them later and I don't. I've taken to sticking a post-it on my name tag and jotting things down as they're happening. Now that's multi-fucking-tasking (or muti-fucking-tastic?). Alas the other thing I also lose track of: my post-its. One fell off and I looked everywhere for it, convinced it held some sort of epiphany or degrading comment I wouldn't want found by anyone else but me. Makes me wonder where it got off to, or maybe I should start believing in Harry Potter magic because it Kaiser fucking Soze'd it's paper ass right out of that building.

Other things I thought of today:

Maybe I should start proof-reading letters on fb before I send them. I do give them a quick once over but when I reread them in the stream I inevitably think, "Oh, that didn't come out right at all." Tone is soo hard to convey in type. I'm much better when I'm being sarcastic and actually meaning to be.

It's hard not to feel, "Keep your ego in check when dealing with customers" is not directed directly at me when I read it on the break room wall.

Ooohhh, I get it. I google = igoogle

I had this professor once who wanted us to draw a diagram that measured the weight of words. Feather would be light, and Anvil or Concrete pit equal heavy. It's not how much these things actually weigh though. Sunshine and the color Pink seem pretty light and fluffy to me too. I thought it was such a bullshit assignment at the time. I don't even think I did it, or I half-assed it if I did. But it comes back to me now. Maybe I will diagram some words, but I was thinking more in the respect of events and or occurrences. An annoying customer is annoying but in the grand scheme of things how much should they impact the effect they have on my day? A divorce or a death are heavy, having a piano drop on you from above 3 stories above is also heavy, and they impact your life a hell of a lot more. So what about the other things I tend to dwell on...how much time should they merit? I don't know the answer to that. What pops in your head pops in it for a reason, and if it lingers then there must be some reason for that too. I'm just tired of over thinking things to the point that they lose all meaning or get assigned too much. I've been trying to be more instinctual but I think I have pretty bad instincts, or at least opposite from the norm, hahaha.

Motha Fucking Tree Stars Bitch! Whaaa?

You would think working in a bookshop would make me more high-minded. It does not. Sure we have a Philosophy section tucked away in the farthest corner of the store next to Shakespeare and Poetry, but we don't really use them. At least our customers who aren't attending public school don't. They want Karen Kingsbury, Karen Kingbury, KAREN MOTHA' FUCKING KINGSBURY!!!! "Trickle up Poverty" and Glen Beck. The magazines I pick up are usually "Us," "People," "Star," and "InTouch" which has the super sweet price of $2.99. It's cheaper than pot and it kills more brain cells.

Today I learned Demi Lovato is a cutter and has an eating disorder. She also punched one of her back-up dancers in the face. In the face! Actually I think I kind of I like her now. She was never as cute as Selena Gomez but at least now she's skinny and kind of a bad ass. So rock n' roll.

Other things I thought of today:

I'm tired of waiting for my hair to grow out. The constant visual reminder of that mistake grows tireder.

Is there any other experience other than the good time that's worth having and will happen in the next 5-10 business days?

Why do all my lists bore the crap out of me? And why do I continue to keep making them?

Must buy skull. See also dagger, repeat.

There are people out there who think they're real vampires. I aspire to be that delusional. Commit to something.

Receiving and Returns

I think I'm going to stop shopping online. This is the third time I've gotten something in the mail and it hasn't fit. Too big, too small, looked better on the model...I just need to try things on. But the selection online is soo vast! I don't have to drag my baby to the store, into a fitting room! I can find exactly what I need in my room, but alas when it appears...it is never to my satisfaction. This time I'm going to do something unheard of. I'm going to return the tuxedo jacket that doesn't fit because guess what? There is an Urban Outfitters in Portland. Thank god, it's like $55. And that money can go toward the fund for my new fantabulous vintage cape. As long as it's still there on Friday.

I've been trying to live in the moment or on instinct instead of over thinking everything like I tend to do. I wish my brain hadn't decided to turn on like a flash in that one instant last night. Yes I would of done the same thing but instead I put myself in a position where I had to consciously choose to do what I was already doing, and that just seems redundant and off-putting. Maybe I'm pms'ing. I always get weirdly emotional then.

A Love Letter...

I used to live in a magical land called Fresno. In said land there were these beautiful things called parking lots that some said destroyed the natural beauty of the place and just took up needless space. I run into people everyday who take up, "needless space." They are affectionately labeled customers and do not beautify anything as far as I'm concerned. Parking lots while lacking an aesthetically pleasing color palate serve a very important function. They exist so you don't have to walk a half a mile from the club to your car after you've been dancing all night in stiletto's! And for that, Oh Parking Lot! you are forever, priceless.

P.S. Fuck you Portland.

Memorial Service For My Lg will be @ 6pm Tomorrow

My cell phone died. Both screens just glow, one in black and the other in white. That's really strange. I'm actually not worried about this at all. I'm going to think of it as a mini vacation from technology, besides it's not like it rings off the hook anyway. I think there was life before the age of cell phone users. It was an age before texters, and hipsters and Borat. Once I have my internet for a month I get to lease a new phone for free, until then we'll always have facebook.

And she says she's selective about the things she buys...

dress: found in dumpster

tights: LL Bean

boots: Frye

necklace: thrifted

ring: ex engagement ring

earrings: gift from friend 10 years ago

Halloween Fun Facts! Happy Samhain!

The word has power, and its wielder is Tina Fey. It's to hard to try and figure out where the, "Slut rule" came from, but maybe it's prevalence came about by it's naming. Who doesn't remember that little light going off when LiLo makes reference to it in, "Mean Girls." Halloween is now synonymous with letting it all hang out, and i mean all. I was in Wal-mart the other day and I wanted to slap this woman's hand away from the slutty candy corn costume and not so gently remind her that for her, those days are long since gone. Here, take the Gumby costume, go on...green's your color. We all know, after all, that the real sluts take the night off snickering to themselves, "Amateurs..."

Fun Facts!

The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, near the border of upstate New York, reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street guising on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops and neighbors to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs.

In the movie “Halloween” the mask worn by Michael Meyers is actually the mask of William Shatner painted white.

There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with “orange.”

Halloween 1948, members of the Madison Square Boys Club in New York City carried a parade banner that read "American Boys Don't Beg."

Picking up girls on Halloween is like finding Waldo in a world full of hacky whored-out Waldos.

Signs that your boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend might be a werewolf: a unibrow, hair palms, tattoos, and a long middle finger.

Halloween is one of the most commercially successful holidays, second only to Christmas with candy sales reaching the 2 billion dollar mark. Chocolate candy bars top the list as the most popular candy for trick-or-treaters with Snickers #1.

Christa Getz, the purchasing director for BuyCostumes.com said, "Probably over 90 to 95 percent of our female costumes have a flirty edge to them, adding that sexy costumes are so popular the company had to break its Sexy category into three subdivisions this year.

Bobbing for apples is thought to have originated from the roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of fruit trees.

Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.

So you wanna be a real witch? Samhain (Halloween) is also considered a witch's New Year's Eve.

Pick 13 leaves, one for each full moon, and put them in a small box.
Chant, "Goddess, I thank you for your bounty.
As the wheel turns, walk with me from season to season."
Place the box under your bed for love and prosperity for the coming year.

(No Altar needed, but this one's just pretty)

Karma Police

Is this really it? Am I falling into that white picket fence trap? I’m not a white picket fence kind of a girl. I was supposed to teach overseas and wander around Europe dating Michelangelo's and Niccolo’s with thick unruly hair, a wicked sense of style, “300 abs” and collect men with accents that could melt the thong off my perfectly toned ass. Why don’t I have the body of a goddess yet? And I don’t mean the fertility one. I wanted to walk the beaches of Greece with a bag filled only with contraband, a bottle of red wine and a bikini, visit that shoe museum in Amsterdam and couch surf for a while. What happened?

(Lol, see comment box.)

Sometimes I wonder why. Why did all these things happen to me? Is it a god thing? I’ve heard god only gives us as much as we can handle. I think that’s a load of bullshit because there are plenty of people who can’t deal and shut down or go crazy or many other things I’m not actually interested in getting into at the moment. I started thinking about Karma, the law of three, and energy. I believe in energy, everything just changes forms but it’s always a form of it. There are positive and negative people, and the negative ones are usually so depressing they naturally repel you, but then so can the positive ones when they have no ground to their thinking in reality. Think Pollyanna on crack. Still, it gives no meaning to anything.

The Law of Three is a Wiccan thang. Basically it means that what ever you put out comes back to you times three. Also another wheel-barrel full of manure next to that first one. It’s just a general principle coined by Raymond Buckland in 1968 and kind of got picked up by everybody. It reminds me of the Good Samaritan, the phrase “do unto others as they do unto you,” and you might want to rethink that curse spell work… a warning, the boogieman.

(Although if you want to get into a debate about different planes and levels of existence let me know. I’ve got a great story about quantum energy bananas.)

It all comes back to Karma. And the theory of Karma is a fundamental doctrine in Buddhism. Apparently it predated the Buddha, but he just explained it, how kind.

"“What is the cause of the inequality that exists among mankind?”

Either this inequality of mankind has a cause, or it is purely accidental. No sensible person would think of attributing this unevenness, this inequality, and this diversity to blind chance or pure accident."

Oh really? So if it’s not blind chance then it’s your actions from a previous life? Right.

""What is the cause, what is the reason, O Lord," questioned he, "that we find amongst mankind the short-lived and long-lived, the healthy and the diseased, the ugly and beautiful, those lacking influence and the powerful, the poor and the rich, the low-born and the high-born, and the ignorant and the wise?"

The Buddha’s reply was:

"All living beings have actions (Karma) as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge. It is Karma that differentiates beings into low and high states.""

I really feel the Cosmic Karma Past Lives Bank is a load of bull too. It does feel like official religious bull though. A story you can tell your kid at night that makes everything seem fair again in a weird way. Everything is cause and effect, action and result, Karma and Vipaka. This doesn’t mean you can’t change your life, it’s kind of all about changing it. How you view your circumstances and limitations. Limitations are self-imposed, even if other people impose them on us it is ultimately our decision to believe them or not. Are you just going to keep asking, “Why me? Why now? Why won’t it stop? Why again?” Or are you going to say, “Fuck it, it stops now.” I prefer the latter but am still struggling with the point. All those things I listed, they don’t bother me anymore. Actually I couldn’t care less, and I know what I want to be doing and am working towards that, but so what? So what indeed…