Mostly Sunny Hi 106°

Another day of the hottest of the hot days. Where the night doesn't cool and where the house temp gets to 91 degrees which seems suddenly much cooler than the alternative- but not as cool as air conditioning which we don't have. And we've got a few more days of this. Amber says we should escape the heat so I'm going to see a movie at 1. There was some argument about what was the hottest part of the day. Nevermind her argument- It's not noon. Or 2pm. It's 4pm. Because at that point everything is at it's maximum. Inside.Outside. So technically I'm only escaping the temperature ratcheting up because I can guarentee when I get home it's going to be climbing towards 90 in my house. And coming home after being in a/c doesn't really help face the reality of it being 90in my house. Which is insulting obviously.

Some mysterious person suggested a library. I never go to those. There isn't even one close by... Ok, there is one around 2 miles away but it's on the bad side of town and there aren't any fancy chairs to sit in and I am thinking about the sbux which is 2miles on the scrubby part of town...but i'm fasting from fraps till the 1st. I could get tea. Or come home and put my feet in a tub of water, get the mister and the fan out and not feel bad about not being productive. Because who's productive when it's this hot- i wonder if really a/c's are a tyranny? i say that only because i don't have one... but then if i did i would be doing work. and by work i mean trying to print out passport applications and what not. I did watch copious amounts of tv yesterday, so much so that the tv made this, oh thank god you're turning me off sound when i did-

Well, biscuits, what else. A gf multi-grain muffin and some blackberry jam are in my future, and stupid crazy love. and maybe work on my quilt. and complaining about the merciless temps. So long for now, m.

penream,

I had this dream where i was leaving an apt and there was one open so i quick went in there to use their bathroom? And then i saw someone and i was like oh hey, yah, i'm a friend of joey's- and you're oh? right- lou? right? Nice to meet you...It was apparently very important to remember their names because I kept waking up to tell myself so. CUT TO: I'm at a party and we are passing small white pills to one another via our mouths. It was a fairly intense party. CUT TO: I've got Bodo and Twist walking along a street  and then am going up and downstairs/an Eshyer like labryinth looking for this guys apartment, then i'm in another place and find his apartment finally - it's number 5 and i just had to go back further to get to it, which opens up into a movie theatre and a guy offers me a job as the projectionist- before i can accept or decline something goes wrong with the picture and he jumps up to fix it. I fall asleep on the stairs waiting, and then the guy I was looking for realizes I was there, gets angry at the projectionist guy and starts getting into a fight because he thinks he's done something to me. He finally realizes I'm fine and comes over to me. and SCENE.

*joey means: He will enlarge/Hebrew
*lou means: Famous in battle

Anywhozille,
yes, that precipice of decision looms. I haven't heard back from the guy so we'll see what he eventually has to say. I love your shirt. It's pretty fantastic. Oh, and i was totally waiting till you picked up STP. I thought i warned you about it already? Hmm. Well Cathy had already relayed to me what happened at the beginning and i was like WTF!? The nerve really to go somewhere and ruin a perfectly good vacation for everyone. The nerve! No words really.

Anyway, ive got to go make breakfast. I'm all sorts of hungry. (24 days without a frap) AND the other night i had maybe less than 1/2 a tennis ball worth of prime rib and my body was like, hoooold on there sister! So you could say i'm still weening myself off the fast too. Not so bad though.

M.

m,

I don’t know what my conclusion is on South Korea. I mean other being supportive either way and fully willing to execute the camo rescue mission with sidekick Bill Clinton if the situation requires. As J.Lo said, “Just don’t go hiking in the northern mountains.” Mmkay?

My desk exists. I found it again this weekend – it was lost, very lost. Obscured by many piles created by every family member. Bless their little hearts. (Now quit dumping shit on my desk.) Anyway, I took a picture so it would last longer. Hello, desk.

I like the quieter days. Indeed. It still feels simultaneously like there is too much and not enough to do. I mean I guess that’s life. There’s a topic drought in my freelance work (figures #greattiming), so I’m looking around. As usual. This morning I’m doing laundry and have plans to make oatmeal banana bread. Mmm. N.Lo obviously requires maintenance, as the little people tend to do, but my, it’s marginally less so. My little partner-in-crime. We play War and CandyLand and go to the library and daydream. Like introverts do.

The Traveling Pants have betrayed me. I won’t say why. But the reunion book ten years after they lost the pants in Greece requires great pause. So I’m reading another, less stressful book while I pause. Because I’m a little huffy and pissed about it all, really. I mean, how could you do that, Ann Brashares. How. Why.

Maybe a Gilmore marathon lies in my future? I’m thinking about it. It seems like time to go through the entire series. Which I haven’t done since it ran everyday on ABCFam. Which is a shame, because the DVD packaging is fabulous. I heart it.

Oh also I made another shirt. Mr. Quiet. An experiment. (Can I do certain characters? Why yes. I can.) I feel like it turned out well.

Do I, Don't I?

Going to South Korea:

Pros:

• Giving up control over things i most care about (friends, prayer at church, garden lot, twist, the HOUSE)
• Financial provision
• Financial responsibility
• Taking care of finances challenge (can i save money and live on a budget!?)
• Cultural adventure
• Job adventure
• Facing job challenge (teaching!?)
• Facing cultural challenge (what did you say?!)
• New experiences
• It's only a year
• They have starbucks in Seoul.
• I can dream about writing a book i'll never write.

Cons:

• It's a year
• It's s.korea (it's far away man)
• Should I be leaving?
• developing prayer at church
• fighting the good fight with the garden lot
• the HOUSE

Questions:
How much vaykay time?
How much money can I save?
How hard/ easy is it to get things done and do stuff?
Do they have the internet?
Will it suck with the teaching?
What will i be teaching?
Who will I be teaching?
How difficult will it be to interact with the school... pay, beurocracy...? hours?
Will Twist remember me?
Will my parents wait until i come back to tile the bathroom?
I could get a mendacious substitute to stay at the house until i come back?
Will it be a positive to step back from the church stuff even if i'm not the one who planned and executed it and then i come back and it's all decided and what not?

... what else pen, what else?

dear penelope,

it's saturday.

i always feel more alone on a saturday. not sure if it's because its a singular contrast to the abundant life of aquaintance i have on sundays or if its that sucking sound of being alone in the house when previous there'd be prorjects and activity and focus even if it's just laziness. or maybe the ground doesn't seem solid beneath me.

as a plus you'll get the best postcards from korea.

day ?,

good morning,

i was dreaming of kittens and cats intermittently again. and the internal clock on my computer died. strangely enough. i had, i'm sure of it, a few years ago told dad that my clock stopped telling the correct time. which he ignored. but now suddenly its serious and warnings are popping up. dad says, and no, you can't do anything without it. i found the time had reset itself to 1999, january. at that time i was still going to CSUN. i had my thesis to finish. i'd applied to SAIC by the end of the year. agreed to do a missions trip to alaska at a summer camp- for free? what the fuck was i thinking. i was not. even then i had a blind optimism toward my financial situation. it was only when i got to grad school that i proved to be completely wrong. am i operating under a curse?

anyway i took the battery out of the mother board and am on my way to radio shack. i guess. oh also since i complained on FB i did get a tantalizing offer to teach english in korea. which i'm seriously considering. and a mysterious email from an aquaintence asking what i was doing on saturday from 10-12 because through some friends shes learned of a good way to make money. it sounds like a pyramid scheme.

i wonder what else i was doing in 1999. i'd go back to look but eh. oh yes, i was also working at barnes&noble. i was doing step aerobics twice a week and swimming. dreaming of rowing crew. finishing some idiotic theatre productions at school since my actual professional work didn't matter to them- working up to try and get the theatre dept head fired... i had a lot of vitrol back then. fighting with my ass of a thesis director which carried well into the first semester at gradschool. breaking up with my acting company. meeting lost loves. those were the days. all right i'm boring myself. is it good when the chaos ofyour past becomes boring? laughable? or what? i mean really i do wish i had more of my vitrol back.

next up flaxseed muffins. listening group. more episodes of eureka. also posting fur and vintage dresses on craigslist because why not. love you.

m.

time for another word cloud

penelope,

today 596 of 'the fast'. will it NEVER end?! or ever? i don't know. there's only 4 more days left but suddenly it seems completely unacceptable. i guess day 17 is my wall? where i get angry and start having deep animus toward everything in my life. which can be directly traced toward GOD. and sure i have a new long white whiskered kitten named Twist, and a shiny pink dress but that is not enough. i'm going to short circuit thinking about all the ways in which my life could be better- being a different person and not who God made me, having a job, being fiscally responsible... tyranny. but who wants to write a list trying to figure out a 'god not providing for me' 'failing myself' list which is humbly just a list of bills due. He has 13 days.

because honestly, any sort of thoughts i might have in the nature of impatience, bitterness, wants, desires, lacks and missings, while true emotionally just seems so, i know- arbirtary. except for the irresponsibility of not being able to pay my bills. but anyway. 13 days. I WANT DESSERT!

That's it really. Surrendering. I'd say that word is from Celebrity Rehab but i think i read it in beths blog the other day. i could totally relate. I suppose though finally my dietary constraints are met by the desert of my fiscal life. I had tried so hard to keep them separate but that's impossible. I should've lived on tuna and bologna? in grad school and i didn't. Is it God's fault I didn't ... well it's not like there was a joseph to tell me there was 7 years of drought coming. Nevermind.
I WANT DESSERT.

And i remember (unrelated to above) how i said, just think one day she'll be in kindergarten! And though this has turned out to be thee most dismal year for me of calamity plague sickness and recession we're still here- barely maybe- but finding some joy- some kitten and pink sparkly dress in our lives. this long record of complaint which has lasted i know on and off 2 years will in my memoirs be a few pages- maybe 5? in the scheme of things but we have to live and complain in the present. Here's to making it to our anniversary. Oh and to surrendering because we don't have a choice... *snarf.

m.

(ps. pro-run. i mean you know. it's there. it's sometimes a little colloseum-esque? that poor red-headed girl? lamb to the slaughter. what else is on? i can't even watch the new damages (bcs its on direct-tv). and after running out of all other tv and missing the end of my crabshow, and seeing sharkweek, i've now started watching eureka... and everytime i adjust my chair i have to glance down to make sure i dont roll over twist. i need a snack. wait what's that yes, that's right, what i really want is DESSERT. but can i have it? no. *suck.

the word desert

I feel like we could add an “s” and have it be “desserts” instead, right? Because desserts are always better. But I’m happy that you’re surviving in your own desert of sorts, without animal proteins. Well I mean except for eggs, which I assume you’re still eating. Mmm, eggs. I’ve been on a kick with fried eggs topped with tomato slices. So. Good. Also, it was awesome to join you last week in your kitchen while you baked the second batch of muffins. It was like we were really there! I wish we were.

Tomorrow is the first hour of school. What? Just an hour. N.Lo and I will drop off K.Lo in her classroom while we head to the cafeteria to hear the principal speak. Which probably means read aloud handout materials. Which is fine. It will be in one ear and out the other and I’ll feel slightly panicky until I get home and can sit down to read what he just read to us.

I’m in a completely different world, all of a sudden. Kindergarten.

Did you know that we’re approaching our seventh blogiversary? What!

It was supposed to rain this weekend, but didn’t really. Not much. The heat is supposed to break soon. At least for a minute. The corn fields look burned to a crisp and I really couldn’t be happier – not because I don’t love fresh corn on the cob. I do. I enjoyed some this weekend in the form of a low-country boil. Which you might love. By the way. But the corn stalks – dead, papery, done. The precursor to fall. Summer might have been my favorite season once upon a time in a land far away, but not down South. Summer is just loathsome here.

I’m reading a book about 16-year-old girl who wields a gun like such a bad-ass. Felling deer, blowing her father’s 12-pack to bits. She’s on a journey up the river to find her mom. After her dad is killed. It’s one of those books you love instantly and want to recommend to everyone you meet, although I’m holding off because who knows how it will end. Endings are important.

Am jumping all over the place myself. Not ending gracefully.

How do we feel about ProRun? The impending ANTM all-stars? The impending ProRun all-stars? It’s all-too-much. But as long as Michael Kors and Tim Gunn carry on with their brilliant one-liners, life will be good.

More soon?

Yes. Word dessert.

xoxox

pen

dearest, hello.

it's hard to type whilst holding Twist. she's purring even. i feel we're in another desert of words. the same stretch before us. for example i was reading my granduncles letters to my grandmother- so boring. the same obsession with finances and how he was saving for a car, asking her to sell his old one. chatter about how hard chemistry is at ucla. she must've been complaining... so stop going out on weekends and get honors because of the pending job crunch once the war is over. and similarly he is obsessed with tanning and good food just like i am. conversely once his duties in the navy took him to an island he simiarly complained that it would be lovely to ski and was sorry he didn'get to go the chalet like his sister. but i admit i was envious of his 3 hours a day laying out, drinking coconuts and snorkling for 3/7 days for however long he was there. at least from what i can tell he didn't see any action except for maybe the confined quarters of a submarine. and rifle assembly class but whatever he was doing was classified at the time anyway. i imagine i could look it up somewhere. he made lt. i know, and there is one sentence about one of his best pals being killed in action though he wants my gmother to go pay her respects for him. there's a few letters too from my grandfather but only a few- written in the worst scrawl about how nothing much is happening and thanks for the chocolates (private,electrician 3rdclass?). and then from his rather selfimportant brother in immaculate handwriting (graduate of westpoint) about how he saw the president, and so and so gave a speech. (he made general) i waver on whether to throw the letters away because nothing much is happening- how much can be filled in by historical research and subtext? and to make them interesting we're going to need a lot. my two favorites were one from my great uncle george who relayed that he'd heard my great grandmother had chased her exhusband out of her kitchen with a knife! and that she shouldn't delay in getting a restraining order! (from 1938!) and then a newspaper clipping about my step-greatgrandfather being interviewed after a theft at their restaurant: he bemoaned the loss of a choice porterhouse steak, nevermind the $2400- the thief broke in, took the money and cooked himself dinner!

i do appreciate just a hint of drama and daily life.

so my letter would go something like,

dear pen,
i hope your day is swell and the kiddos aren't running you up the wall. i'm sure they keep you busy as all get out. i've had a rum time of it jobwise, as there's not much around what with the recession and all. not sure what's down the line for me come september. things are getting pretty tight. and i'm practically white from lack of sun, though the grubs good and i can't complain much. how's the gang? and things over there? send pics. in your next letter if you can enclose $10 that would be grand and it would guarntee you'll receive a letter from me so i can buy postage and stationary. your letter took 7 days? how long did mine take? and didn't you know i adopted a cat. couldn't help myself you see. she was callin' to me and i couldn't say no. she's mostly black with the best white whiskers. well i better get on with it. so long for now, love m. (girl without a job) endacious.

or

i'm damned broke and tired as hell about it. can't seem to find a way around a job. but well, things will start looking up or maybe that's the light of the oncoming b train. and i've got to weed the garden and this rationing of butter and meat is the worst! are we ever going to see the end of it! give my love to the folks, m.

subtext:
in the dark hours of the night as the train moves along the tracks they know they are running out of time until they arrive at the station. only a matter of days before financial collapse and ruin. but what's worse is the interminable waiting. waiting. waiting. with dwindling supplies and no sign of relief. the waiting and the restless boredom of the day to day lull them into a sense of stupor, with only intermittent stabs of anxiety. they look heavenward. they think, God help me! but they can't manage a thought. the tension of what am i going to do next and how do i think myself out of this one to there's nothing much you can do but wait and see causes much tv watching and staring into blank walls. every project completed is a success against the mounting pressure of inactivity and the possibility of dooooom.

;)m.

another day -

Another shirt? Why not.

Notes: After working with a paint pen – as seen here – I can say I prefer the Sharpie. The paint turns out a bit crunchy. And gets on your hand if you’re not careful. And it spotted up the dryer a bit. So I guess I’m not a very painty pen, in the end. HAHAHA, get it? *sigh

I love $4 shirts that fit right.

What does one even do with pink really. It had to be the right vibe. I did thief the graphic concept online for the cassette tape, as with the dandelion, with a few alterations and the text addition.

Maybe a pic tomorrow of me wearing it. We’ll see what my photographer can do. And of course, you have to explain what exactly is a cassette tape to the next generation… #WeRSoOld

***Morning update, photography by the fabulous K.Lo

my name is pen -

And I have an occasional haterade problem. For someone who doesn’t talk a lot, or enough, or whatever. I can go off on a tangent. Pound a point home past a listener’s comfort level. Take the snark too far.

I just want to effect change, dammit.

But on the other hand, I wish sometimes that I would just shut up. Why does it feel impossible to do so? At least in that moment.

Perhaps I need to fast on words. At least the vitriolic ones? But then where would that energy go.

Maybe I need a mantra.

Maybe I should just pray? I could like, pray for those whom I’m all bitchy about even though they are clearly beyond all hope. Could pray for grace ‘cuz that’s all I’ve got left.

Or just carry a roll of duct tape with me at all times.

Although – and this is my concession, my effort to extend the gift of mercy to myself, too, rather than just everyoneelse. Sometimes I think I’d naturally remain a little calmer, a little less inclined to step on a soapbox and stay there, shouting for hours, if I were allowed some guiltless (critical) time to recharge my batteries. Without someone always in my face, 24/7, needing or demanding constant company. Because sometimes I think my inability to shutup about somesuch topic that inspires somuch bitterness is also my indirect, unintentional way of saying backthefuckoff and givemesomespace.

Thank you for listening to my story. My name is pen. And now I’m off to enjoy some of that socalled aforementioned rare space and watch ProRun. With no one around. Except maybe guilt.

xoxox the occasionally poisonous pen

Trust and Fast

Day 5 of the FAST.
I have come to feel the apple flaxseed muffins are cheating. Though they are delicious. I need to lower their sugar content and try again. Maybe in half? But can you believe i haven't had a piece of meat/fish/cheese or latte for 5 days. The eggs in the morning are providing some necessary stability (is that wrong? should i not have stability?hmm.) and I'll try switching it up to oatmeal later. But otherwise I'm doing pretty good. The first night I had a slight headache but haven't since. Mainly eating quinoa, rice and beans, rice noodles, fruit fruit fruit and someeee nuts? I need more nuts. I'm waiting to revolt or really I need to vary it and try new things... i wanted to try adding egg to grated squash or sweet potato and making a sort of hash thing. Hmm what else... Maybe a stirfry. I'm craving bacon for some reason and everytime i see a sign for coffee i'm mocked. But those we'll have to wait. It's a struggle btw the letter and the spirit of the law here in terms of what to deny myself and what to let myself have. A little green tea and juice... white rice? Is that too far? gf bread... hmm.

It's a pretty bigdeal to see how far i've come in my life and my eating habits and the hypoglycemia and the allergies to let myself feel safe in cutting things out in the first place. And the lack of withdrawl symptoms for the most part is a testament too. Though obviously i love meat and i won't be giving it up anytime soon it's good to know the sustainability of grains and beans... It would be good to take this basic knowledge and carry it into the future no? I'm not praying enough though... or not once yet a concentrated time unless before sleep. The great secret and torment of someone who is chair of a prayer council.

Otherwise what else... here i am blogging. It's high summer and who knows what will come. Hopefully enough money for my bills this month and a job for September. My mantra?or truth? the word i have? besides is: The Lord sustain me. Trust.Fast. I'll have to remember this as i cut down my netflix this coming month.

august begins

And I made a shirt. With a $4 selection from Voldemart and a silver Sharpie. It’s a dandelion. Now make a wish.