ah pumpkins! cuz i know you all want to know! look how big they are!!! the one on the left is probably its set size and the one on the right looks like it might get a bit bigger. there were other things to blog about- i had this brilliant moment in my car but it was gone by the time i got to work. dang.

Random Updates

One of our pumpkins fell off the vine. I'll have to take pictures soon to show the progress of those that remain alive.

Yesterday I treadmilled and there was no sweat-assult. Yes!

Today is cooler than it was yesterday.

I failed to see Wedding Crashers 3x.

I got two invitations to actually do things with friends and alas, could do neither.

My low-fat wisecrackers from TJ's are finished and now I've got to put away laundry, walk away from the computer and watch my day fold out without you.

Spes Altera Vitae

what to blog about eh? i could complain about how penelope no longer has love for the blog. some of you don't even know who this delightful personage is. this saddens me. i've actually been feeling mopey about friends lately- not that one has to have a calvacade of them in a 5 mile radius of your house but it certainly helps. i have more non-specific complaints but i can't really articulate them. although i heard from 2 people in one day that i wished we lived closer. i agree. and i'm glad other friends have had the same thoughts as me. since i tend to be the possessive one. because it's good to have the everyday friend. and you feel demanding when in the back of your mind you know you want them to be an everyday friend but somehow you know it's just not going to work out that way - as those friendships are rare and usually can't last for long periods of time- but when they're there you have more fun. you're more productive. you laugh more... maybe i'm just idealizing this whole thing. but friends are fantastic and they should never be taken for granted- i think too often people have the attitude of take it or leave it in friendship, if something isn't working then the friend is no longer working for you, if you're not married to them then well they're easily dismissable- i'll just get another one. and after a lifetime of one friendship after another falling by the way because they're no longer priorities or they made you mad once- is horribly tragic.

if i had an everyday friend i might eventually learn french. but you everyweek friends are fantastic too. don't think that i don't appreciate you.

Sweater's Revenge

Excuse me sir? Could you stop hitting me with your sweat?!

Yes, it's true. Let me preface by saying that i will try not to fill up my blog with bad workout stories all the time, now that i'm working out. Which I must do today despite the 100+ degree temps. That will be the challenge- a 5 day streak for the week.

Today
Aug 27 Sunny
97°/67° 0%

So I'm on the treadmill and a guy gets on beside me and begins to profusely sweat- now he's a jog/runner and as I am a walk/jogger I saw little bits of sweat landing on my treadmill base. In my mind there was a dialogue of outrage, like- sir! stop sweating on me! Sir, You're man smell is offending me... I thought about moving, about tapping his sweaty arm and letting him know of his offense but I didn't. I'm sure I'll regret it later as these gross offenses build and I start feeling victimized and my gag reflexes become more acute. These things never happened to me before. Why I have to encounter such sweat now is beyond me, that or the people at 24 hour are really rude and okay, extremely fit. The day that I perspire with great fluidity...mmm.

Diet Green Tea (and the cliche of sweat)

This all started when I went to Togos and they said, which do you want Diet Green Tea or regular and I said, Holy Fuck- There's options? (I've been watching Kathy Griffen: Life on the D List- Hilarious. Really f-ing hilarious.) Okay let me back up, actually this started when a friend said, Green Tea metabolizes fat. So with Green Tea on the mind like I was doing the southbeachdiet I ordered GreenTea from togos. This brought to mind something else. My roommates from Chicago. (chills, crack of thunder) Now let me just say, that if i had a blog back then- NO MERCY! The stories would have been novellas of SUFFERING (funny ones, bcs i'm like that- that, and full of rage). I won't dip back too far in the memory bank as I might suddenly start muttering, the horror, the horror- exterminate them all. The first roommate was bulemic and lied to her therapist and just for an added touch of twisted began to make herself into the Mervyns version of our O.C. Palos Verdes Barneys-Anthropologie-loving and buying, friend. "Same" hair color, "same" shoes, "same" jacket... I'm not joking. When she fled back to Iowa and made me help her move out she left a case of diet dr.pepper and an entire box of green tea. I laugh now when I say, oh that's why she drank it like crack. I won't even get to the anorexic-anxiety disorder roommate or the ghetto i think i'm "black" but white and i like faking good sex roommate... not to mention the manniquin she brought home. (lithe, brunette, wistful)

Okay so I'm drinking my dietgreentea laughing about my roommates tragic eating disorder and her obsession with green tea- I think, fuck, I'm not drinking this to do that am I? I gave that last swig a quick thought- intention. Remember my hatred of cliches. I told myself that at the time- I am not an LA living, GreenTea drinking sell-out am I? You can see the sort of pressure I exert on myself having lived here my whole life. Hard. Very hard. Sometimes the popular crossovers are just inevitable- so to ascertain the GT situation I got two types of GT from TraderJoes (another trend bastion of affordable highend (think my mervyns to barneys girl)- And am drinking GT right now praying that I can turn in my 24 hour fitness membership and just hook up the IV.

So I went to, that's right- 24 Fitness. I told you it was coming. And I wore it like a childhood blanket I never stopped sleeping with, or the pink lipstick from the 80's or the whole world of fitness I blew off when I left college. Not that I stopped exercising- or that I didn't pick up some troubling fast-food addictions, but whatever, that's another blog if you want it.And you have to want it for me to tell it... It felt good.

3.2 for 2.5mls @ a 2.4 incline later I noticed a man who was "LITERALLY" dripping buckets of sweat. I marvelled at the pools @ least a foot wide- I AM NOT JOKING- of sweat that were to the left and right of him. At one point he got off his machine to stretch and as he was doing the standing bow pose (for no conceivable reason -show off!), sweat was running off his too efficient body, onto his shorts and streaming- no i said it, streaming off his shorts onto the ground. I was too amazed to be adeqtly disgusted. And all I could think of was that the guy probably caught a chill easily, as most super-fit people do - at some points it becomes a liability. No, I don't tell myself that all the time. But it does, and didn't you know? Green Tea metabolizes fat.

Liar, Liar

So the pants story ended up being pretty good. Could've been longer and contained more of an arc but it is "young adult" and not Dickens or Dostoevsky. Can I help it if I've been conditioned to expect 800 pages of substance in small print. Probably. But eh really. I thought the characters were grounded and appropriately angst filled- with some touching cream filling. And I even stayed up to read it! Nice.

Of course it's back to Dostoevsky tomorrow which is more like 7 courses with pleasant dinner conversation and a dry sherry to end the evening.

So the pumpkins are growing as you see! Just in a matter of days they doubled in size. The one in the middle is maybe 8 inches around. and the flowers in the BG are love lies bleeding and bleeding heart- i have no latin respondants for these unfortunately.

look, i decorated a box AND attached hinges in my 3wks of unproductivity. i need to give myself a frickin' break! and yes it does include my fav latin phrase of the moment from ovid, "est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus in illo" (there is a god within me, he stirs, and lo! i feel his FIRE.) The box is for my god-daughter. She better keep it forever or ELSE!

Oatmeal

I got nuthin. although I am reading Brothers Karamozov and it is a better read than the sisterhood of the traveling pants. sorry. i will say though that it made for poor reading aloud when the last 10 pages were on a dissertaion of why the church and state should or should not be joined and more over the state of the interred- those law breaking folk and their relationship to actual redemption or rehabilitation due to the separation. good to know, we're still arguing about the same things. i like old literature for precisely those reasons, although there are others (Not to mention the scandals and the dresses)- anyone who says things are getting worse is an idiot or lying to themselves- especially when we live where we live and aren't persecuted on a daily basis. i'd say more but eh, i'm lazy. i'm going to go play with my dogs.

ah, to be a peasent- no not really.

2 Years to Check

Remember a while back about how I talked about to-do lists. And how i have this one on my desk that's 2 years old. Still working on it. Well yesterday I signed up at *gasp* Central Casting. Same principle. Central Casting, if you haven't heard of it, good job, way to be anti-hollywood, it's just for extras. Union, Non-Union: Taft-Hartley seekers. Literally over 5,000 people, calling in on one line for a chance to be in the "background", for a chance of "getting familiar", getting an under-five, getting discovered, free craft-service, some quick cash and REALLY LONG hours. I've been avoiding it for 2 years, even though I've been intending on doing it. Now the thing is, even as I write this, my ideas from 2 years ago, are 2 years old. I probably don't have the same reasons or motivation, but because I'm compelled to complete goals previously listed, somehow I have to do this one. I arrived with palpitations, as if it were an actual audition. I changed my shirt 3x. I'm not used to matching colors with blonde hair. I chose a light color and given how this picture turned out worse than my passport photo, I chose incorrectly. It didn't help that the camera seemed to be aiming upward, (but maybe not). I look like jabba-the-hut. I'm not being unkind to myself, necessarily, more laughing at my predicament than anything else. Yes, treadmills are in my future. Why is it that I can bike 20 miles in one day and still be way over-weight. (I know the answer, it's okay, it's not just that I'm metabolically resistant) If i were a guy, say a small linebacker, I would have the opposite problem. Can I get a redo? How to be fat, and feminine... that's the title of my new one woman show.

Now back to the palpatations: I have a problem embracing cliches. That's just the truth of the matter. I'm loathe to propel myself toward the same dream as millions of people, even if I have a better shot than they do. For instance: character actress, a young Kathy Bates or Camryn Manheim. I'm okay with that- This is for all the fat girls. I'm with you, even if I don't want to be one forever. The idea of taking speed to lose weight never occured to me though, but I digress. I play young also- so i have a future. And I'm a director's assistant. Just these two things alone give me an enviable leg up, let alone actual talent and training- than all those scores of ingenues. But what does it mean. I'm a local even. I've been watching for a very very long time.

I confess I'm shell-shocked. Being in an acting company from those formative years of 16 to 24 will do that to you. You see all these people who are so fucking talented never get a hit or a scratch, maybe one national commercial and that's it. They do theatre because they want to be discovered not because they love it- they do theatre because they love it but... you see you're always somewhere and have aspirations to be somewhere else- I'm in a 99 seat house theatre, let's go mid-sized, let's go off-broadway- let's... what about just one movie. Now on one hand you could say that I'm afraid to try- and this goes for any of my loves. But I'd say I'm more apathetic to success than anything else, because I understand the elusive embrace of it. So whenever I do something I have to be very sure as to why I'm doing it- school was for me, not for a future bank account. (Of course cool points, I want my street creds.) Even as I took all these acting classes, seminars etc... I sat in the back, very wary, not sure, and desperately wanting to be sure, desperately wanting that passion that would drive me- because it had to or else where would I be?

You see I'm just not that single-minded. It's been a hinderance. Jack of all trades, master of nothing? But what does that mean. Surely me, signing up for central casting means something. I stood in line, nearly hanging up on my director because (in a hissing whisper) I didn't want him to know. I kept it short, and nearly did. I thought, oh god, what the hell am I doing here. The lady taking my form said, I couldn't do what you guys do. I say, I'm not sure either. But there is something to be said for diving in. What have I got to loose? How could my world be any safer than it is now? A part-time job. A goal. A family home. And I can tell myself that it's just for some quick cash, but it seems to mean something else. Shhh, don't tell anyone. I wanna be famous.

babies

but for now we have some baby cinderella pumpkins growing- so named for the deep grooves and their squat-carriage-like appearance. these are having fun growing up a giant hedge, so let's hope we'll be able to find them all. did you know the flower that is still attached to the pumpkin is the female flower. Once it is fertilized by bees from the male flower it will wither off but if it isn't fertilized, no more baby pumpkin. these guys are looking pretty fruitful.

harvest!

we have an early harvest of 8 pumpkins- and these guys will probably last months and months, well into december. and when mom isn't looking i will be carving one or two of them. sure you can spend cash come halloween and buy one but it's way cooler to grow your own. i yearn for the day when we can once again grow giant pumpkins-

the might haves and are now

so this is sort of a before and after picture. although in actuality i just "accidentally" killed the pumpkins to the left before they had a chance to mature, by cutting off the wrong vine. whoops. the pumpkins on the right made it to term as they say and are about a foot tall and a foot-ish wide. nice sized pumpkins.

Hold the Wry.

SO, no derisive comments about my boring blog? Look I've tried to get Penelope to blog but her life has made her resistant. At least her stories of a hateful job and actual retching would be a counter to my bored contstraints. But alas. Maybe I'm asking you to be interesting for me. And after all, the 5 of you who read this blog, thank you, I know you can't amuse me with your witty retorts all the time. Look within. That;s the message there.

Today has started with some promise. I'm feeling possibly productive, that even so early I see the day stretching before me with hope of not falling into an apathetic slump. I admit not exercising has put me in a dark restless space. But all I can do is whine and complain about it and who wants to do that when they could play computer games. Which I've found just one more to sort of hold me over. Besides that I made a to do list: pluck chin hair, eat power bar, download quicktime with the promise to delete it as soon as possible, play with dogs who are also bored, finish box, call I, call R, exercise?, read irritating paper, do actual work work which i get paid for (as little as possible).

Random Questions: Why, if a friend says they love you, would they not read your blog? And why are pumpkins so popular in October but ignored when the pumpkin patches are actually growing? Hey I know- look forward to my next blog- pics of our pumpkins. Yes! I've found meaning. Woohoo.

BORED BORED BORED

Welcome to Planet BORED and i could give a crap. IT may just be me coming off the game- but there is nothing to do. My mind won't even logically conclude there is anything to do either. Bored, Bored, Bored: Live on Planet sucks-a-lot. Sure I could exercise, read, start an art project, work on an album, the website, write even. But why the hell would I want to!

At times like these, do we force ourselves to produce or go fall asleep on a patch of grass. I'm opting for the latter.

Dear, "When the Sun Shines"

You said, in your letter, that you'd just defeated ultimate evil. That's fantastic. I encourage everyone to attack their personal demons! Of course, yours sounds extremely nasty. I've never heard of a Blunberbuss, but I sure am glad you had one. I hear as well that you were released from Rutledge Asylum. Congratulations on that as well! It's so easy to let obstacles like, mental institutionalization, get us down. And they gave you your cat back?! Well perhaps it was a look alike, although it is hard to say how long you were in there, but happy times. Cats are wonderful companions and I would dare say guides to us in this life- on independent living and mind control.

I do hope you'll come and visit us sometime (once you find a place to live). We could always use an Avatar. I know life is looking plucky for you right now, because hopefully, the death of your parents, losing all your possessions and getting sucked into a vortex, will be the only things you'll have to bear through this life- besides a job and new loves. Those can be troublesome! Let's hope there's not an Alice: Wonderland 2. Although, I personally would've liked a little more narrative summation after so long a journey. It IS superfantastic to hear that the rabbit and cat made it through alright- sometimes friends drop too easily by the way.

Well Cheers, and write again soon. I don't know what I'm going to do now that there's no trouble brewing and evil to defeat. I agree though that I should pick up Dostoevsky - what's to play with but man's immortal soul. Good reading if nothing else.

M~

Excelsior!

So, the red queen. Done. Totally conquered. Of course there's always ultimate evil behind just plain all-consuming evil. So I have yet another level to go. And accordingly the tentaciled telepathic queen- I'm going to fail in restoring my sanity and thus restoring wonderland- and then i cry! i cry like a girl! With all the crying i'm doing I wonder why I even continue to fight at all.

The Red Queen.

Today I face off with the red queen. She's got mental powers that can make me move at will so defeating her will be tricky. Especially considering i don't have the "blunderbuss", a powerful weapon- and well I am only ALICE... I nearly thought I was going to cry in misery at being defeated constantly by the Jabberwoky, but I persevered, when all seemed nearly lost and bested him with Jacks.

To the Game!

(well er, maybe tomorrow, as soon as playing won't make me nauseous. damn rides.)

i'm WASTED!

Yesterday I tried to play along with the boys. When they said, let's ease into things and start with Viper I knew I made a terrible mistake into entering into this whole MagicMountain fiasco. I used to love MM as a kid, or young adult, or whatever. I hadn'tbeen to the park since '91. And as we were driving to the ghetto parking lot where we had to pay $10 to park I realized how much more of a disneyland fan I am then I used to be. I actually do love to scream, go really fast, cry from being whipped by the wind, but the wanting to hurl constantly- is sort of a deterent. dammit. forgot the dramamine. now THAT would've been a good idea.

It was fun to run around with the boys- It was like 10/1. There was another girl that was there but she was latched to her boyfriend and there was no fidelity in trying to get to know me. So hey, even as I walked up to X_treme. . . and decided I was too nauseous, i knew the penalty of trying to play with the boys if I wasn't prepared for the punches. So I bagged out. After getting soaked on the log ride I thought I'd give GOLIATH a try- now, dammit- that was a good ride- it had a 250ft drop and speeds of 80 miles an hour. I don't think my stomach ever found it's way back from my throat. Now if it hadn't been my loyalty to Colasses, which you must be loyal to, as an originater for all those flashy steel engineering marvels, I would've been fine I think. But I pushed it. Went on Colasses and inched my way further to a hurling, puking, ill-faced future. The boys pressed on to SCREAM. I declined. Then as they pushed onto Batman the 2 guys I went with luckily said, are you ready to go- and I said, God yes. Take me with you. So we left.

The lure of free stuff: So keep in mind, none of us had dinner, so as to keep from hurling- even the boys knew they were dangerously close, so they abstained. But you know it was the end of the night and they were pressing free corn-nuts into our hands as we left the park. I ate the corn-nuts, and became increasingly ill, so that even when I went to close my eyes I could see myself being whirled through space at too alarming a rate. There's no rest for those that have overdone it. On the way home I even leaned my head near the cool rushing air. Not much comfort however. And at every sign post i was like, I just have to make it another 20 min, another 10 min. I made it home, luckily, as glancing left to right made me turn green (damn, blindspots)... I curled up onto the bed and went to sleep. Having not hurled at all! Yes!!

However, today I've got a wicked hangover. My body is pissed off, my head still faintly cloudy from my non-equilibriumed brain... oh to have balnace. Oh to not be faintly nauseous. But in retrospect, was it worth it? Yah, I think so. Would I do it again? Maybe in another 10years... but for now give me the Pirates of the Carribean and mellow rides like SpaceMtn and Matterhorn. Does the body need the punishment of G-force if one isn't traveling into Space or skydiving? Sure it does. You have to scream sometimes, to know you've got lungs and a whole bunch of brothers that'll feel bad if you puke, and tell you in secret, they came pretty close too.

saga for a dream

and naturaully, it was all about my game.

just kidding. i've had this dream a couple times. i'm at an art show of a friends husband of mine. the place is a huge infinite warehouse and i've finished watching the exhibition. i end up meeting this guy who knows me from church. but we can never remember each others names. (he's cute) i end up forgetting my shoes? and have to fight my way through shops, sleeping people, and crowds to get back to them, including someone, as i'm running down the stairs, says, hey, there's... but when i call her she doesn't answer and i can't find her again... i eventually do get back to my shoes. i had even left my purse behind. this time i brought a piece of art to show one of the organizers of the show- she likes the piece (which is a strange sort of stick diagram of a box in 3d. it's glossy yellow), she assures me. i leave hopeful thinking that my work fits somewhere- now that it's a glossy yellow stick box.

RQ:which are less healthy: donuts or an egg mcmuffin w/ hashbrown?

blurred

So that creepy little kid that was mewing like a cat helped me move onto the next level... which is just more maze with more things to kill and some nice underwater features with- yes. killer fish. plus i can only stay under water for protracted periods of time ooorrr. yes. you guessed it. i die.

make no mistake though i have managed to leave the house to see a movie called "dreamer" which the boss is doing the music video for. i'm still feeling slightly light-headed too. anyone know what to do with inner ear stuff? take meds, crack the head... and now what? yes, movies called dreamer will do that to you.

today i plan to even stop playing long enough to paint a box and maybe read.

I'm missing Dostoevsky for this.

currently, i'm trapped in a hedgemaze. there are different portals to different levels but i am met with the same suits of killer spades and hearts with lazer fire shooters, squat electricity volt shooting dragons, will sucking ghosts, and life sucking specters. plus there's this one kid who is a little crazy (he mews like a cat) and when i come too near him he follows me around, and gets in my way. i'm just getting weary having to kill the same things over and over again in the same nearly exact places- using my jack-n-box that doubles as both a bomb and a flamethrower, coupled then (once a nest of them are all on fire) with my killer jacks (like the game with the ball) to pick off any others that have escaped, without getting inflicted with too much damage. then i can take their meta-essance and up my vitality and weapons reserve. and so it continues.

mmm. games...

in the other

So my real distractions of late have been a computer game called "Alice"... After her many adventures, the stupid cat at home knocks over a buring oil lamp and the whole place goes up like tinder. The characters in the book scream for her to wake up, which she does. She makes it. Her parents don't. Then she ends up in an asylum, not in a "happy" place, and the nurse finally gives her, her stuffed rabbit, which when left alone, coincidentally tells her she has to help wonderland and sucks her into a vortex. Good times.

Background wise I used to be a bit (understatement) of an addict when it came to Tv, and computer games weren't exempt. I blame my brother and dad... but i could spend all day, everyday being an avatar and killing things, collecting food and treasure and weapons and solving puzzles. It was as we say, a good time. SO my friend got these games... and i get to borrow them. And it rekindles all the love of the game- which is actually a narrative, and a gripping one, in that, you have to employ problem solving and strategy, and come on, it's cool to brandish a magical sword. Or is that just me?

You see why I haven't had time to write or blog or do art or read or anything... bcs you know I'm on disc 1 of 2 and I have to kill the Red Queen and restore the balance in Wonderland, save the tortured and subjected people and finally return to my life, such as it is...

buhbye now.

Well I'm glad you blogged pen- we need some serious angst. It makes us legitimate. I can't sustain forever my carefree caperings about town. I will say in a related car incident last night, i took a downhill turn too fast - what can i say, i was singing along to johnny cash's "solitary man" and well, i got to practice how to stabalize a car when it starts pitching eradically left and right- and thank god, no traffic on either side of me. That would've gotten a wee bit interesting, and okay some crunching of glass and metal and what not... As it was I slowed down and apologized profusely to my car, whose check engine light is already on. Poor car. Although secretly I wished I had a car that had better suspension so it could handle turns better. But whatever.

Angry, Crying Slug Lady

That's me.

It's raining and booming outside, completely matches my mood.

I think I'm up to about oh, 9, 10, maybe 11 hours of sleep per night?

I'm tired.

And extremely whiny and bitter about this whole job thing.

I am in the land of Penelope Suckitude.

It's not as much fun as Disneyworld.

Flipping the Bird

In brief: i had a grueling bike ride and in the last 2 minutes on ventura/sepulveda i get yelled at by a motorist and they're passanger for being in a "car" lane- idiots. i said, learn the rules! as they sped off... and flipped me off. i responded in kind. i don't know why. and actually i feel bad about it. just a responsive gesture i guess...? this time. but you see the precedence has already been set... and of course again, the outrage over being wrongly accused and not being able to correct them of their inaccurate ascertions... then as i was getting into the left turn lane a car was coming toward me- in my lane! mind you... then as i was stopped at the light, people kept going thru the light, even as i was trying to turn thru the red... good times.

i'm going to contemplate my existence over a cup of water-- and the documentary "the eyes of tammy faye"... one of my fav's.

peace.

HangOver

As much as I want to keep up my street-creds. I had a sugar hangover, which not many people get. It's plagued me all my life. And every so often i get a little cocky and decide that I can eat some ice cream and have all the caffienated beverages I want. The price however is that I wake up like I'm in a pressurized-chamber, returning to earth, and wouldn't it just be better to sleep than remove the shifty 100 pound golden retriever from your head. But you're up anyway so why not pretend this day will be like any other day. And no matter how much water i drink, and protein I consume, it won't abate. It sucks. SO you shuffle around, squinting at everyone whether it's bright lighting or not. You talk in slow stilted tones and say, that's uper, that's great- with little to no enthusiasm. You nod your head to show your understanding. Your head tilts to the right with greater frequency like it's encouraging you to follow suit all the way to the ground. People ask how you are, you say, tired, hungover, but fine- if I could fight through the numerous filaments draped over my eyes I'd be able to tell you, fine. i think. i can't say, but i think so. and i feel a little stupid saying so.

The night before I went outside to water the frontyard and was attacked by a giant spider web. Frickin spider. He worked really fast though. I did a dance that involved me, spazaming forward with arms flailing out to the left and right picking the webs from my face and shuffling it off my arms. i saw the offending spider, already contemplating the horror of not being able to capture an evening meal - the only thing I could think besides flicking it was, i wonder what type of spider it is. Does anyone have a field guide? By that time I was already well on my way to drunk.