so here are some of the pictures i promised to post. mostly of the dogs (of course). since it's been getting colder around here, they tend to sleep alot. bibi has very little fur so i had to get her a hoodie, but she hates it. i have to knit her a sweater fast otherwise she will freeze and her arthiritis will bother her. yesterday vanessa taught me how to knit, so today i am going to go buy some needles. i also tried to take pictures of the moon the other night. it was so beautiful it looked almost staged. the moon was full and so bright, you could see the rabbit clearly but the wind was blowing the wispy clouds like a smoky swirly haze. it's the kind of moon you see in movies when something magical is happening. well, my camera isn't the fanciest so the most i could get was a bright blur. but even that turned out pretty cool. without further ado....

bibi tends to stick her tongue out when she sleeps, but this time she stuck it out really far so i had to snap a photo. well, today is my last day of vacation so i have alot to do. i feel very refreshed and ready to "start over". we deep cleaned the house, organized closets, got a lot of things in order and today i shall do pottery some light shopping and cook. good times.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

that's a squeal of excitement if you didn't know. after a week of interviews i finally took an offer. i got the news today while hanging out at west end with my mom who's going to korea tomorrow for a week. they offered me more than i asked for, which was cool. i like this firm a lot - they are very very small. i interviewed with them twice, the first was on one of their jobsites and the second was a lunch. i met with all the senior staff, including the principal. he's a great guy - we hit it off instantly. it was probably the most candid interview i have ever had. i told him about how i honestly felt about my previous job and my career in general. we agreed on everything and spent 2 hours just talking! it was a marathon interview but we were so engrossed in our conversation time just flew by. i though long and hard about joining this firm all week, so i was prepared to accept if they offered me the job. so, i start next tuesday and i am pretty excited. i get to do what i went to school for and i don't have to play the corporate politics game. the people i will work for are very close knit, like family. it will be a refreshing change and i am optimistic.

it's kind of late so i can't do it now, but i have to post some pictures i have taken lately. bibi got a new hoodie and i tried to take a picture of the moon last night. it was beautiful. i also bought - this may seem weird - fabric remnants on ebay. some really pretty scraps of vintage prints on cotton. i have to organize my office again - what will i do with all my crafting supplies?!

all in all, i am happy. i am optimistic and content. i think this past couple months have been very enlightening for me and i am ready for the next chapter.

making headway

i actually made something cute yesterday. i nearly went blind trying to thread my needles, but i managed to produce a new pincushion for myself seeing as louie ate my last one. i decided to make a faux sushi roll out of pre-made felt. it came out kind of cute if i do say so myself.

i've been on a mad crafting/farming/child development/education/ home business/ heirloom gardening information hoarding binge. i have learned a lot. it kills me how you go through life trying to figure out what you want to do then when you finally got it you spend the rest of your life trying to get there. it really blows. i'll try not to rant today, though. i have been keeping myself placated through ebay and amazon. i've bought a few books and random things through ebay like buttons and beads, wool fibers, and felt. i have serious plans to take over the world with this stuff! last night i could hardly sleep with all the ideas running through my head. i really really wish that i could record my thoughts. i have ideas forever. i have so much information and ideas in my head there's no room for anything else. i am running out of space up there. what's really fucked up is if i try to write them down i begin to forget. it's like once they travel from brain to mouth or brain to hand the ideas begin to decompose. also, johnny and i stayed up half the night talking so we didn't get much sleep. i have another interview today which i'm not really looking forward to. back to johnny - he's really starting to get me now. it's awesome. i believe he has attained the position of the only person in this world who knows me better than anyone. sorry, kim. but you're a very close second, dewd. even better, he is speaking his mind about more things. i don't know if he was worried about hurting my feelings or scared of starting a fight but he found the balls somewhere to have a serious conversation about who i am, what we are. i'm quite proud - and glad that he feels comfortable enough now to do that (finally!) i guess i have to return the favor - but here's where him and i differ. i guess he thinks that knowing every detail of someone's past constitutes as "knowing" them. i typically forget about the past. i wish it could be erased from my head. i don't like to talk about it and i don't think its very relevant. i have no desire to know every detail of his past, either. i think he wants to share it with me, though. i think the future is so much more important. but maybe you have to know the past to see the future, i don't know. if that's the case i am going to be seriously depressed. but i'm going to concentrate on the present and future. it seems much more worthwhile. what i love most about johnny is his incredible patience. it's truly unbelievable how much shit he puts up with from me - and i know everybody likes to think i dish out evil bitchiness to him but it's not always that. i test him in so many ways and it's stuff that would probably piss off or annoy most people but his incredible sense of humor and kindness just swallow up whatever i throw at him. it's really hard to find that in a person. i haven't seen it anywhere else. if you know johnny, you probably have seen that about him. humor and patience is priceless. i need as much of it as i can get. in return, i have to figure out what johnny loves about me and make sure i deliver on that. i can't imagine it's the "name that smell" game i like to play at random moments. i can't imagine he likes being bossed around by general om. maybe i make him laugh cause i am so hopelessly nuts. whatever it is, i hope it doesn't go away. ok, now i have to go to my stupid interview.

entering the rat race.....again

remember the famous phrase from forrest gump? stupid is as stupid does. that's what i hear in my head - in gump's southern drawl - whenever i think about going back to work at a big firm. isn't that crazy? everyone else is crawling over each other to get a job at a big firm and i have to be dragged there. well, if i can be perfectly honest here, i have not been job searching at all since i left work. well, maybe a teeny bit. i would look up a local firm, browse their website and possibly put in an application if i liked the place. i think i put in maybe three applications myself. i went on one interview - that went well. maybe karma knows how much i dread working at a corporate firm. maybe i really am a lazy ass. either way, i decided late thursday night to at least make a serious attempt to find a job. so i went on to monster.com and posted my resume at the last minute. the next morning, bright and early at 7 am, i woke up along with johnny and not a minute after he left, i started getting phone calls. back to back, even calls while i was talking to someone else. i got calls on my cell phone and my house phone. all of them in reference to my resume. at first, i was kind of thinking, oh great, what have i gotten myself into? but after speaking to some of these people (who were headhunters, of course) i realized it was legit. and they were desperate. they wanted me to come in right away for an interview. i spent all morning digitizing my portfolio to email it. i told everyone i did not want to work for a big firm. they all seemed to know about the massacre at the old place (which shall remain nameless for good reasons). i even got an email from a woman looking for someone to work on retail and restaurants (cookie cutter shit like old navy, chili's, longhorn, etc) and i emailed her back and said i would consider a position there provided i could telecommute or work part-time with full health benefits and a relatively high salary (for part-time, anyways). i haven't heard back from her LOL! i mean, what an insult!! i went to a design school for how long - and she wants me to cad clothing stores and restaurants??? i wish i could have shown her my face in person. get some high school kid for that crap, woman. well, anyways i lined up a few interviews this week - my first one today with a very enthusiastic head hunter who doesn't seem to GET IT that i don't want to work for some mega firm (he described the place like the office in the movie devil wears prada) that doesn't give a flying shit about its employees. I would rather work for a small firm that clings to it's good people. duh. who the fuck wants to be an ant? the stupidest thing i have ever heard a fellow architect say (who shall remain nameless again...) is "i'm going to make partner and be running this place in 5 years!" That's gravy, you dumbass. go ahead and leave the real world for the rest of us. run your megafirm and sell yourself like a dollar store to your board of directors. i saw a movie yesterday which had an opening narration that so perfectly described how i felt - i wish i had written it down but i'll try to remember bits of it - basically this lawyer had a moment of clarity while facing a wall of oncoming traffic as he walked out of the building he worked in (a big big law firm in NY). He realized he was covered in something - like a coating, or a glaze. he thought it was placenta and in the face of death was experiencing a sort of re-birth. then he looked back at the building that he had just exited from and realized it was not afterbirth. it was shit he was coated in and he had just been pooped out of a giant asshole. his whole outlooked changed after that and he was determined to rinse the shit off of him. i knind of know how that feels. maybe not as strong as he does but when i come home i feel totally empty - when i talk about my work it feels empty. when i actually think about what i am doing, what i am contributing to - i feel horrible. when i read or hear about all the "positive" stuff that we are responsible it feels like - some kind of faux facade (something architects are really fucking good at) covering up shit. that's what it is, isn't it? we don't sell our souls to evil like lawyers do, we package it up nice and pretty on the outside so it looks good and wholesome and right. case in point, these eat.work.play. "communities" that are becoming so popular here these days. they are popping up everywhere just because it seems like a really good idea and it's popular and everyone wants one. well, it doesn't work out in the middle of nowhere, assholes. it needs requires infrastructure and you can't just plop one of these things out in the country like a big band-aid. can you tell how much i hate these things? i can't go into it too much here but they are evil and i hate them. i also hate what's going on with spruill - which seemed like the last wholesome place around here. their board of directors is selling out to a big developer who has graciously agreed to build a nice new mixed use modern building - on spruill's property - and generously lease the bottom part of it to spruill and rent or sell the above as private residences. the whole thing stinks from front to back. i can't even go into that, either. it sucks big time.

well, i suppose this is enough bitchin for one day. i am going to get ready for some interviewing. i don't even care about conforming myself into the "perfect candidate" anymore. if they want me, they'll have to take me as i am. if not, i will be just as happy working elsewhere.

back from the dead

yes, i'm talking about choco. i really figured he was either dead or living with some other family or probably dead. well, yesterday moto snuck out when nobody was looking so we let him play outside for a while. then when it was time for us to leave, i called moto to come inside and just out of habit i called choco's name, too. to my complete surprise i heard choco answer my call with his distinctive meow. for a mintue i thought it may have been moto, but he hardly ever meows and he's never done it when i called his name like that. sure enough, over in my mom's garden, i see a black cat with a white patch on his chest meowing at me. i immediately went over and sure enough it was choco. i couldn't believe it. i haven't seen that cat in many weeks. i think the last time i saw him was sometime in june. he looked pretty good, fat with a thick coat. his ears looked a little chewed up but otherwise he was in good shape. i petted him, gave him some whiskas and water. moto came around because i has said the magic word, but as soon as he saw choco, he hissed and ran away. i guess they had a falling out. they don't seem to liek each other at all anymore. so johnny and i went to petco (which is having a store closing clearance) and i got choco a reflective orange collar and an i.d. tag. we also got new collars for the dogs and some fancy cat and dog food.

so now the dilemna is what to do with choco. he is no longer a housecat. he is wild. living off of squirrels and birds probably. i can't really leave food out for him because that attracts rats, possums, and 'coons. i want to feed him, though. he wont come inside and even if he did, he would fight with moto and generally raise hell because the dogs will go nuts with another cat in the house. but i also don't want to leave him out all winter. i don't know what to do. for now, he can stay out, i'll feed him and he has i.d. so hopefully he will be ok - he's survived this long. i can only imagine what he's been through.

last night was really chilly and the dogs were shivering a bit so i decided to break out an extra blanket for them and they all piled onto the futon and curled up while i tucked them in. it was so damn cute i had to take pictures.

drought

so the drought is a lot worse than i thought. there's even been talk about "running out". i've come across some articles about it in the news and also from chatting with some of the people in my pottery class. it's way serious. the sad thing is, it doesn't have to be. if people and more importantly, the government and developers, conserved water and used their heads to design more water efficiently, we would not be in this much of a crisis. it reminds me of what my sustainability professor said to our class once - he said that man could never bring about the destruction of the planet. the phrase "save the planet" is a misnomer. what we are effectively doing is destroying ourselves. mother nature will prevail no matter what we do. but in that process mankind could be wiped out. and it would be all our fault. there's always a balancing act going on, whatever we dish out will be counteracted by nature. i think we are learning this lesson the hard way now. hopefully it's not too late.

on a brighter note, i made an excellent roasted vegetable lasagna last night. it was probably the most delicious thing i have ever made in my life.

on a darker note, all this talk in the news about staph infections has caused me to worry about my toe - which is still not healed. i did some research on staph infections and it sounds exactly like what i have going on in my toe - it's called ritter disease or scalded skin syndrome. i am kind of mad at the doctors i have been to who have failed to notice this. now that i don't have health insurance i am kind of screwed. why are doctors so damn stupid? what's the point of seeing a doctor when you have a better chance of diagnosis using google!?

and on a even darker note, i am swirling down my little vortex of introversion and loathing. it happens occasionally, usually when i am especially insecure or depressed about something. i begin to really dislike people. all people, strangers and people i know. it's not normal to do this, right? i just think about how ugly people can be even if they don't realize it. by ugly i mean rude, self-absorbed, shallow, mean, condescending, etc. i get especially pissed at my mother when normally the comments she makes rolls right off me. this is a time when i become very anti-social and begin to lose contact with friends and aquaintances. sometimes i come back around but sometimes i don't. i've only got one friend who has survived all of my phases so i'm not worried about her. maybe it's better that i stay awy from people that way i don't have a chance to be dissapointed with them. i just don't know why i get like that and what to do about it.

i also started the compost pile today - finally. who knows if it will work. we need to get some chicken wire and some worms. i can't wait to get the wool fibers i bought on ebay and try felting. my creativity has been so stifled i don't even know where to begin. i got some ideas to start with, though.

i freakin hate raisins

they are vile little things - why would someone want to eat something that's not quite dry but not quite moist and tastes like sweetened funky shit? and then put it into EVERYTHING!

on a side note, i haven't eaten meat in two weeks. now i want to have my colon flushed.

breakin' the law

this morning johnny and i woke up and decided to pressure wash the house. we've been talking about doing it for months. we decided to go have breakfast at the galaxy diner then go to our favorite place to shop - home depot. during breakfast, we couldn't help but overhear the conversation going on at the table next to us. something they said reminded me that the entire state of georgia is under a watering ban. well, that kind of gets in the way of our pressure washing, doesn't it? then i got a little miffed because how does the government get off telling everyone not to use water instead of doing something to control water waste by using some common sense civil engineering? so much water is wasted by the storm drainage system and oh yea - the fact that almost every square inch of atlanta is paved. well, before i veer off topic too much, johnny and i decided to hell with the government - we are going to pressure wash anyways. we can use the well if we have to. so we got some rocks to landscape with and went home to wash. at first the pressure washer wouldn't work, so we had to take it apart and clean it. we cut down some branches, swept alot, did some minor grading, and i sprayed some simple green on the toughest stains on the house. we finally got the pressure washer going and boy was it loud. all i can say is i am very glad we decided to pressure wash the house. i calculated the amount of water we used to be around 300 gallons, maybe a bit less. the back patio looks completely different - like a brand new patio. i never knew it was a nice shade of tan before. the whole time, however, we were paranoid that someone was going to call the cops on us. the machine was loud and we had it going for almost 2 hours. no cops, and a nice clean back patio and house. so worth it. i don't feel guilty, either cause we never watered our lawn and we conserve water in the house wherever we can.

on a side note, i am developing a weird rash on my neck and face. never had this before, and don't know what it is. i noticed it yesterday, after fall family funday that i was itchy around my neck. now i have little bumps everywhere. hmmm....

fall family fun day

so after a day of driving around the foothills of the north georgia mountains and eating such foods as apple fritters, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, apple cider, and greasy cheesy fries; johnny and i are both going to need new stomachs, livers and kidneys. we are intoxicated with greasy sugary foods and have crashed like a couple of heroin junkies. next time we decide to do anything like this again, i am going to pack a picnic. i know that tomorrow i am going to feel like s-h-i-t. however, we had a good time, took some good pictures, and learned valuable lessons in diet. i am uploading some pictures and will post a slideshow.

skinny bitch

if you have already heard me rave about this book i just read called skinny bitch then you may want to just stop reading now - there's more comin'. i learned some new things, but for the most part i have known, or at least suspected, many of the things talked about in this book. really it was just a confirmation for me - with research to back it up. and for that i am very grateful because i have read hundreds of articles, pamphlets, brochures, and books about diet - what you should and shouldn't eat, how and when and how much - and it's mostly just bullshit. or most of the time they write like they are trying to explain astrophysics to a retard. either way you end up reading in circles and end up back to square one. the beauty of skinny bitch is that it's short and to the point - use your common sense. trust yourself and trust nature. DO NOT TRUST MAN or anything manmade. nothing is sugar-coated and i like that. if there's anything you should know about me by now is that i like to make informed decisions - and i like to my own decisions whether they are good or bad.

in a nutshell the book tells you to become vegan. and it sounds extreme (and it kinda is..) BUT they explain why very well. and the way that they explain it makes you WANT to be a vegan. Vegan is good, but it's not for everybody and it is VERY difficult. I honestly do not see myself being sucessfully vegan. not for the long haul, anyways. the only things that i couldn't give up are cheese and eggs. i cannot live without my cheese and eggs. but i have decided that i eat way too much cheese and eggs so i am cutting back drastically. seriously after knowing the process and where cheese comes from and how they get it is disturbing to say the least. your are basically eating moldy breastmilk from another beast.

so, read the book if you want to know the truth. it won't be easy. DON'T read the book if you enjoy eating the way you do. but don't expect your health to improve, either.

vegetarianism is much easier and more practical. it's amazing how much more variety and flexibility eating cheese and eggs gives you as a vegetarian. CHICKEN is terrible, people. just yesterday my mom and i drove past a big semi carrying chickens stuffed in crates - i saw dead chicken heads poking out of the sides. it's fucking horrendous. this is why i want to have my own farm because i wouldn't mind eating chicken and especially eggs if i knew exactly where it came from, how it lived and how it died (in the case of chicken, obviously). I can't ever see myself butchering a cow or pig, though. it's easy to eat those things when you don't think about the process but once you KNOW it takes some re-prioritizing to ever eat meat again. I don't know how i got sucked back into eating meat again - i have a strong suspicion that it was korean bbq. no beef can equal the taste and savory smell of korean bbq. i must stay away from it because that is my weakness. before i went back to eating meat, the sight and especially smell of ground beef was repulsive. probably because i could smell feces and rotting flesh in the meat. chicken also grossed me out cause it was slimy and you had to see body parts. pork was just gross for some reason. pigs are cute and eating them seemed somewhat evil. it is.

fish, however. fish i can eat. i enjoy fishing and i think it is pretty natural to eat fish. there's problems there too, though. fish are very sensitive to their environment. you can tell much faster that water is contaminated by looking at it's inhabitants. fish unfortunately have to live in our polluted waters. think about the type of shit that goes down your drain. what about the drain at say, a gas station? or a mcdonald's? where does that shit end up ultimately? do you want any part of that entering your body? i am skeptical of eating salmon now - it is a big industry that has it's flaws just like any other meat industry. i would rather eat fish that came from sources i trust. better yet, fish from my mom's lake. but she only has brim, catfish, and bass. i like tuna, salmon, cod, and tilapia. I also like crab, shrimp and lobster. i shall continue to eat seafood but be discriminating.

what i can remember from being vegetarian way back when....
i could see, hear, and mostly taste and smell better.
i had more energy.
i could wake up earlier.
i did not have food cravings.
i did not have sweet cravings.
i could think clearer.
i lost weight.
i had better skin, hair and nails.
i liked the feeling of empty in my stomach. it did not freak me out to the point where i felt like i had to stuff myself or die of starvation.

now i have to keep in mind that at the same time i was vegetarian i was extremely poor and smoked pot. i was too poor to feed my munchies from smoking pot so i had to get used to being hungry a lot. but i did it. i had to. maybe i resented that fact and when i had more money i went overboard with making sure i had an adequately stocked fridge. i began to overeat and that led to eating meat. i don't know what i was thinking but i do think i had some sort of mental paranoia or delusions that made me think i had to gorge myself whenever i got the chance.

fortunately, it's only been a few years since all that started happening. unfortunately, it doesn't take long to completely fuck up your health. i would say it's been about 6 years that i have been living in this unhealthy state. it's time to reverse some damage.

justified ancients of mu mu

i was watching videos on mtv.com while i sorted through the markers i bought off ebay and on a whim decided to do a search on one of my favorite childhood bands - the KLF. to my surprise, they actually had their music videos! for the first time, i watched a klf video. no wonder i had such a strange childhood - watch this: http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=375&vid=59506

around the same time i was wearing out the tape on my klf cassette, i was reading stephen king's gunslinger series, in which a sociopathic uni-rail bullet train named blaine killed people who couldn't answer his riddles. coincidentally, klf had a song called "last train to transcentral". i was a weird kid.

on a side note (you would think this would be major breaking news, but no...) i finally got a new job - uhm, tentatively. i have to show them some more of my work but everything in the interview i had yesterday went beautifully. so hopefully i will be employed once again soon.

politics, shopping, and art

i plan to vote for president next year and because of that i've been trying to learn some american politics. i have never votes before - mainly because i just didn't know enough. i like to make informed decisions. so this year i have started researching presidential nominee candidates. right off the bat i liked hillary clinton. i agreed with a lot of what she said. i also liked to see what having a female president would be like. i still do. but i also did some research on other candidates - even republican - to see if there was someone out there who i agreed with more. there is only one other person i like for president but somehow i don't think he will win...but anyways he gave a really good interview on public tv so here is the link.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1AhaH1ozbg

this past sunday, since we DIDN'T go shrimping in beaufort, we went clothes shopping at northlake mall. i had some coupons and i needed some new work clothes to go on interviews with. shopping with females can be tiring, i know. but i am not really one of those females. i power-shop. i look at everything really fast and then grab whatever i like in my size. i weed out anything that is too expensive or has poorer quality then i'm pretty much done. i hate clothes shopping so i tend to get it over with asap. i always have to force johnny to buy clothes - he for some reason doesn't think he's worth having new clothes. i made him get some pants and shirts at old navy and after that he was pretty pooped. i made him go to lane bryant with me and the first thing he saw was a comfy chair. it didn't take him more than 2 minutes to fall asleep. sitting next to him was another guy who also fell asleep. it was kind of funny so i took a picture from behind a clothes rack.....



and last but not least i finally took my lazy ass over to my parent's garage and fished out some of my old canvases to re-paint. i realized what a crappy painter i am. but i don't care. people can say whatever they want about my paintings - i've decided i don't care how they come out as long as i enjoy creating them. which i did. here's the one i did yesterday:

mentionables

dry pond garden is a wonderful place to visit. it is also a fantastic place to get married. the landscape is beautiful and the old house is very charming.

BUYING ANIMALS FROM PET STORES IS EVIL. THEY BUY THEIR ANIMALS FROM MILLS THAT END UP IN SHELTERS IF THEY AREN'T BOUGHT. THEY DO NOT TAKE VERY GOOD CARE OF THEIR ANIMALS. THEY CONTRIBUTE TO THE STUPIDITY KNOWN AS "DESIGNER BREEDING" WHICH IS BASICALLY CREATING A NEW KIND OF MUTT. IF YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO HAS BOUGHT A PUGGLE OR A COCKERDOODLE FROM A PETSTORE, YOU SHOULD BE BEATEN AND HUMILIATED. YOU JUST SPENT SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS ON A MUTT YOU DUMBASS. GO TO THE SHELTER AND ADOPT AN ANIMAL FOR WAY LESS AND YOU WILL BE SAVING A LIFE.

costco is now carrying an environmentally friendly product!!!! it's called ecos and it is a liquid laundry detergent. it costs about $12 and you can do something like 150 loads. it is biodegradable and made from soy products! they are considering carrying more eco-friendly products IF there are good enough sales. we bought some yesterday and if you have a costco membership, you should too!!

taking vitamins is good for your health, people. i was a very adamant non-vitamin taker because i believed that our bodies are capable of extracting vitmains from food and other sources naturally. which is true, BUT - the energy that your body uses to extract these vitamins from food causes damage to your DNA (it's called aging and is caused by the release of free radicals) and if you take vitamins (GOOD ONES like juice plus) that energy can be used for other functions that benefit your mind and body thus contributing to *gasp* evolution of your dna (which is then passed down to your children who are less likely to inherit negative traits from you!). don't believe me? well, i am no scientist but these people are:

morphologists tell us that certain body structures would be impossible to build without enough of the right kinds of food. to build a brain, for instance, you need miles of lipid (fatty) membrane to wrap around neurons, and lots of vascualr tissue to feed those neurons. both components are made of essential (long-chain) fatty acid derivatives, which are chemically manufactures in an herbivore's body, startin with fats in leaves and seeds. an easier way to amass large quantities of these "neural" fatty acids is to eat animals that have already manufactured them for you. switching from a leaf only diet to one with meat, therefore, might have given carnivores a larger supply of neural building blocks - the ticket to advanced structures like keen eyes and a bigger brain.

second, in addition to being a structural material, food is also a batch of chemicals, which, by their nature, are reactive. when these substances enter the body, they bump into and interact with the bath of hormones, enzymes, genes, and neurotransmitters that govern and regulate cell life. above a certain threshold concentration, food chemicals may begin to influence which enzymes start to work, or when genes will turn on or turn off.

this threshold mechanism gives food the ability to tweak powerful control knobs within the body. imagine, for instance, that an adaptation is lying dormant in the genes, just waiting for a chemical surge to "turn it on". there's no telling what might emerge as a result of a good diet. witness the spurt in human height, for instance, when nutritious foods became widely available in the western world. in this case the nutrients affect the phenotype (the growing body) but not the genotype (the set of instructions encoded in DNA that is passed from generation to generation). take the diet away from the next generation of phenotypes, and heights will shrink to prior averages.

but what if diet can affect certain aspects of our permanent genotype over the long haul? Crawford and Marsh think that it can, and they offer the following rationale. if you can eat an animal that makes an important nutrient, such as vitamin A, you no longer have to devote your biosynthetic pathways to making vitamin A. this frees your energy for other chores, like building a brain. it may also free up genetic space, the authors speculate. say you have only so much room on your chromosomal "hard drive" and it's already filled with genetic instructions. by eating vitamin A manufactures by another animal, your instructions for synthesizing vitamin A become superfluous. if a mutation suddenly rewrote that gene sequence with another set of instructions - a new adaptation - you wouldn't miss the vitamin A recipe, and you could therefore live to take advantage of, and pass on, the new adaptation. evolution, stuck on its plateau, would suddenly spring to a new level.

excerpt taken from Biomimicry - Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janin M. Benyus

another brainfart

so this here is another one of my ideas that will probably never live to see it's fullest potential but warrants an attempt (as feeble as it may be) by me in an effort to be more "normal". why do i want to be more "normal" you may ask? well, i believe in opposites. i believe without hate you cannot have love, without sadness you can't have happiness, etc, etc... well, i have been around "abnormal" my whole life so i thought i should give being normal a try. normal just looks so - wholesome. like the picture of the athletic (but not too athletic!) woman jogging along a lake with a carefree smile and matching soft pink spandex workout bra and shorts. she looks happy. she looks healthy. happy and healthy. happy healthy people that everyone likes and gets along with. happy healthy people get to do normal things with other normal people while unhappy unhealthy people sit at home and seethe at them.

so there's this thing i've heard about called a "routine". this is something that most people seem to have - whether its conscious or not. example of typical routine: you wake up, brush your teeth, comb your hair, have a cup of coffee, read the newspaper, get dressed, go to work, come home, check your mail, take out the trash, cook dinner, eat, go for a walk, watch your favorite tv show, take a shower, read a book, and go to sleep. it's not as monotonous as it may sound because in between all of that you are doing other small things but what's important is that you do those same things everyday. it's not like those are activities that you can skip for a few days and then pick up later. everyone has to brush their teeth, eat, go to work, check mail, etc at some point, right? well, i tend to do everything when i REMEMBER to do it, which fails more often than not. sometimes i don't even care - for example bathing. this is an activity i have hated since childhood. i still do. i try to get it over with as quickly as possible. being wet doesn't bother me - and i love soap. i hate being damp. i hate having to dry off every stupid little droplet of water off my skin, and having to get all dressed up again. it's too much work for me. i would rather just bathe and wrap a big cloth around me and call it a day. i guess i hate dressing more than bathing but i always have to get dressed after i bathe, right? i digress. i am completely nuts, huh? ok, so back to the whole routine concept. i hear that routine is good. i believe that it probably is - and i have tried and tried to stick to a routine but it always fails. because i am lazy. because i am apathetic and don't believe that anything will ever make a damn bit of difference in the long run. but it does!! so i decided to challenge myself to stick to a routine for one week. here is a draft of my proposed routine:

8 am - wake up & stretch.
8:15 - brush teeth, wash face & moisturize.
8:30 - make coffee, turn on news, feed dogs, & get dressed (ugh!)
9 am - eat breakfast, take vitamins, check email, make phone calls, pay bills, etc.
10 am - go for walk/bike ride.
10:45 - do something productive until lunch.
12:30 pm - make & eat lunch.
1:15 - shopping (grocery, etc), running errands, or cleaning.
2:30 - rest. meditate.
3 pm - work in office & have a snack.
5 pm - check mail, take out trash, last minute cleaning.
6 pm - hang out with johnny.
7 pm - cook dinner & eat - clean kitchen afterwards!
8 pm - go for walk with johnny & dogs. play.
9 pm - shower, brush teeth, & take vitamins while johnny checks email, etc.
10 pm - watch favorite tv shows.
11 pm - leave johnny alone so he can go to sleep. read a book.

doesn't this sound like a good day? i think it does. if i can stick to this for a week i will be very proud of myself. the weekend are going to completely mess up this routine but i must establish a good weekday routine.

crabbyness

i'm a little ornary today. maybe because i'm frustrated that i am so busy despite being unemployed. i need personal quiet time to re-do my portoflio and try to find a job. i need to FOCUS. but i get distracted. everyday it's something new - usually has to do with my mother who thinks that the world revolves around her. i feel bad because she really needs my help with things but at the same time i really need to help myself.

acupuncture is also pissing me off. imagine having to dedicate 3 hours every other day to get stuck like a pincushion. not exactly something to look forward to. it's wasting my time at this point because i seriously and really really have more important shit to do, people!

i paid 170 bucks to take pottery classes, which i have been so busy i actually missed two of my classes. BUSY!! can you believe it?? HOW THE HELL CAN I BE SO F*ING BUSY?????? I know much of it is getting the house in order, which is like taking two steps forward then one back. but the OCD in me prevents me from disregarding my house duties to focus on other things. i need to tell everyone (my mom and my uncle) to piss the hell off so i can get my life back on track. why is it always family that fucks you up the most?? god FORBID i tell my uncle i don't want acupuncture. my mother will have a fucking cow. this is pissin me off so bad.

what i want is to a quiet, clean room with NO DISTRACTIONS and nothing but office equipment and supplies so i can make my stupid portfolio and whatever this CV bullshit is. so frustrating.

Not having a good day which is weird cause i went shopping (with my mom OF COURSE) and that usually makes me feel better but at the same time i wasted HOURS setting up a bunch of computer shit for her.

GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGRGRGGGGGGGGGGGG

i gave our neighbors that jam and a card. i am such a dork.