it seems as though louie's swimming lessons have come to an abrupt halt. yesterday he was swimmin like the little engine that could and today he chickened out. this time i had the sense to bring a camera.
some of you may be thinking wow! heather hasn't posted in a week! well, i think i was becoming a blogoholic so i had to taper it down a bit. i guess there are people out there who think that over-blogging is tasteless and leads to nothing but shallow thoughts. perhaps this is true. perhaps those people are just another type of judgemental hypocrite. who knows? anyways, on to the topic at hand. today we met potentially cool neighbors. this is groundbreaking news, people. johnny and i live in a great neighborhood but the only people we've met so far are really old and crabby or just plain rude and stuck-up. all too often its both. so perhaps this was just some good karma returning to us for laboriously cleaning out our trailerpark-like carport but whatever it is this little spark of hope.....this teeny tiny glimmer of hope.....has led me to a mini-quandary. johnny and i left the back fence gate wide open while we were putting john's crap in the shed and totally forgot about it. later, when we came inside the house, i let the dogs out to pee and johnny and i relaxed on the couch and watched some mythbusters. about halfway through the show, i get a phone call on my cell which johnny answers. all i heard him say is WHAT?!? which immediately gave me a heart attack and i jumped up thinking someone had died (men don't seem to realize doing that causes hysteria in women). it turns out our neighbors about 3 houses up the street had called the number on syrus's tags and told us they had our dogs. instantly i remembered the gate was left open and johnny and i began to freak out. i ran outside calling their names and louie came running out of nowhere. we all got in the car and drove (we didn't know they were only 3 houses down) up the street. we knocked on their door and a young couple answered, holding their own brindle mix (pit mix, possibly). syrus and bibi immediately came out to us and we thanked our neighbors profusely for holding our dogs. we were very very grateful. the guy then intorduced himself to us as victor, and his (wife?) introduced herself as sonya. sonya was asian. victor white. they looked like a prettier version of me and johnny. i was so happy to meet them and about the dogs, i just wanted to hug them and become best friends immediately. they seemed like a happy laid back couple. i think we would get along with them great provided they aren't crazy christians. in any case, i began thinking of ways we can show our gratitude as soon as we left their house. this is the problem. what should i do? a simple thank you note will simply not suffice. who gives a shit about notes these days, i mean really? i want to give them something truly heartfelt and something they would like without thinking i was some kind of stalker. so i am thinking about giving them a jar of homemade fig jam that my dad makes. is that too much? too corny? i also thought about making a little basket for them with cheese and crackers but then that seemed over the top. i'm such a nerd - i meet people i like and i'm like love-struck. i should just go over there with a sign around my neck that says "please be my friend?" and give them a puppy dog face. all i want is ONE. one neighbor to be friends with. one neighbor that i hang out with like i did in savannah. have i grown out of that? have i gotten weird or something? how come we don't have any friends in our neighborhood? i hate the fact that i live next to an ornary 90 year old woman who sounds like glen burns and has nothing better to do than spy on people and then on my other side i have MY FREAKING PARENTS! tragedy. well, at least we have a good excuse to move, right? in the meantime i would really really like to make friends with victor and sonya.
i also have to mention another big breakthrough happened today - louie finally learned to swim. it was hilarious and sad at the same time. we took the dogs to lake erin (right by our house) and found a quiet secluded spot to let our dogs play off leash. bibi goes straight in the water and louie will wade in but never go in past his shoulders. this time however, i brought louie's kryptonite - the chuckit. he didn't even think twice - as soon as i threw the ball in the lake, louie plunged in the deep end. he had no choice but to swim - that retard! well, he learned instantly to kick his hind legs and paddle with his front. johnny and i watched with curious fascination as louie practically drowned in front of us. he was scrambling to keep his head above water - kicking and paddling furiously like he was trying to run up out of the water. his head bobbed dangerously low several times as he splashed around like a elephant. i seriously thought one of us was going to have to jump in the lake and save louie but he miraculously made it to shore - a new dog. after that, he was a swimmin' machine. by the 5th or 6th throw, he actually outswam bibi and got the ball. bibi was less than thrilled. i was so proud of louie. i watched him grow today. then we met a very interesting little boy who apparated somehow right behind us. he was wearing a white tshirt that had a lifeguard emblem on it and wore glasses that made his blue eyes look bigger. he threw the ball a few times for the dogs and told us that he liked dogs. then he asked what kind of dogs they were. I always hesitate to answer this cause we get different reactions and i didn't want to scare the boy - but something about him made me think he was a smart kid. i told him that two of them were pit bulls and one is a pointer mix. immediately he asked "pit bulls are the dogs michael vick fought?" i was amazed this little boy knew about that - he seemed like he was all of 5 years old. i said yes - vick is not a very nice person and he fought pit bulls like these. it didn't phase him, he continued to play while his mother nervously hovered several yards back with her dog. she obviously wanted to move on but let her kid talk to us. i asked him his name and his age, he replied (very politely) that his name is brian and he is 9. i thought he looked younger than that and realized this kid is a runt. he's small, thin, wears glasses, had braces, the whole nerd look completely. but he was so damn cute! like the little boy in jerry mcguire but not nearly as contrived. i told him he was a smart boy and he agreed. so cute! i hope he doesn't get tortured his whole life by bullies but he looked like a schoolyard bully's perfect target. i shall send extra good karma his way everytime i remember that kid.
all in all, it was a very nice day. we finally went garage sale shopping and bought some antique dresser and armoire, sewing machine, and some prints. tomorrow i will be throwing clay and johnny will be refinishing furniture.
usually cleaning makes me feel happy and productive. today it's just pissin me off. i need to just chill out for a bit. i think i am going to get a pair of glasses. i wear contact but my face is so bland. my glasses are too thick to wear all the time, plus i get the fishbowl effect and my eyes look like beads. i think i am going to get just frames with no prescription. is that stupid? i wanna look smart. i also have an invention idea for exercising. it's pretty good. i gotta figure out how to make it though. i also made two decisions regarding employment. i want to be a teacher, so i am going to see if i can get a teaching job. OR i could get a job that requires being more active. i just haven't really figured out what kind of job lets me be active without working my ass to death. now, keep in mind i only say that because i am trying to get rid of my asthma, not make it worse AND i still have issues walking with my left foot getting swollen and sore. any ideas?
i also had a little OCD episode flare-up. i actually get angry when i organize things and then have to re-organize it again a short time later. i also get angry when people take things without asking - or even just letting me know so i don't waste a bunch of time looking for it. i also hate that my stepbrother won't clean the basement at all. i don't like him bringin his drunk buddies over either. i must be pmsing....i hate it when i get angry and the dogs get scared. i also hate cleaning toilets. i hate the smell of bleach. i hate that i have to clean up big nests of my hair that collect in the drain. (not anymore now with my perm though!) ok done ranting.
"to abrogate suffering is not a panacea for happiness."
-Heather Om, unemployed nobody
(i just tried to make a sentence using two "words of the day" at dictionary.com)
i'm a little miffed. btw, one of the main reasons i get depressed is when people let me down. especially people i know and are close tome. but i also get sad when total strangers act like assholes for no reason. it's amazing how people can treat other people sometimes. this is teeny little example, so it's not really a big deal but i have seen it happen on a much larger scale. anyways, this morning i attempted to exercise. of course, it is never that easy. i wanted to ride my bike but the tires are flat so i went looking for the tire pump in my dad's garage - which after 30 mins. of digging through old dusty dirty buggy crap i couldn't find anything capable of inflation. defeated, i went back home and got bibi on a leash to take her for a walk. i didn't even reach the end of the driveway before i met an ugly neighbor. some lady was walking her samoyed - big fluffy white dog - and her dog was whining and howling cause she wanted to meet bibi. so the lady waited at the end of the driveway while i finished putting bibi on her leash (she can slip her head out so i had to tighten the collar a bit). i walked up to the lady with bibi and she asked me if bibi was friendly. i said she was friendly - and the lady said her dog likes other white dogs, and i said i think bibi likes other white dogs, too. meanwhile, bibi and her dog are sniffing each other. well, i think the lady's dog was trying to do a dominance stance because she stacked up her shoulders and kind of looked down on bibi with an arched neck (i know this cause i see louie do it all the time - taller dogs like to "look down" on other dogs). well, bibi don't take that shit (i'll pounce on you like chiggers, ho!) and she curled up her lip a little and snapped her teeth. immediately i said, bibi no - no snapping! and she was fine. as soon as i stood back up (i had bent down a little) the lady was already halfway down the block. she didn't say a thing - just walked away. i just stood there for a minute wondering what just happened. then i realized the woman just dissed me. i couldn't believe it. i go to the dog park all the time and have never had a problem with my dogs fighting. sometimes they get into brawls when another dog is trying to dominate them - but not always. bibi is very mellow but she does not like to be dominated, not by strange dogs. she will curl her lips and show her teeth as a warning. but that lady booked it. i could understand if she was worried about her 80 lb dog's safety but she could have said something. like maybe - oh maybe our dogs don't like each other as well as we thought and just backed away (i pulled bibi close to me so she can't lunge). instead, she probably thought - oh that's a pit bull - they can't be trusted - their owners are so irresponsible - those are such vicious dogs! grrr. i hate it when people choose to be ignorant. it's not like every dog gets along with each other. breed has nothing to do with it. i could have had a chihuahua out there who didn't like her samoyed and it would have been the same thing. i really don't like my neighbors. we haven't met a single one that was nice yet.
i love having my digital camera back. even tho it sucks. well, i thought i would post some pics of me with my new straight hair. some of these came out pretty good, which is very rare. to level the field, i will post some of the bad ones, too.
pretty, huh? well, here's a "before" shot fer ya...
ok, and now this is just me being stupid.
some of the stuff that's been going on lately has my wheels turning. i seriously don't have time to work at some stupid firm. i have plenty going on without a 9-5! I still need to get me a job, though. I think my next job will only be long enough to finish my idp and get licensed, though. then i'm quitting the corporate rat race forever. i have had so many ideas and plans in my head just screaming to get out, i think i'll go crazy if i don't do something about it. i think some of my long-time friends might remember how many plans and ideas i have. i am always so inspired - you can tell when i am depressed if i don't have plans and inspirations to do stuff. a lot of my ideas stem off of my mom's ideas. she has a non-profit organization called the forsythia house which helps battered women establish self-sufficiency. she is also building a hotel in a very run-down part of downtown atlanta that we met with a contractor about today. there's a million things going through our heads it's crazy. when my mom and i spend a day together we brainstorm the entire time. we also butt heads on some things because my mom is a little more ruthless than i am. she utlimately sees dollar signs in everything she does. but i seem to have inherited that entreprenuership spirit from her anyways.
during lunch today, though - i almost got mad with her because after all this time she still has this need to control my life. it's like i HAVE to get licensed. yes, i agree. i am going to. but not because she says i HAVE to. that pisses me off. she makes it seem like a non-option - just like everything else she wants me to do. which only adds pressure to me. i try to tell her about how working for a corporate firm SUCKS ASS because they treat you like toilet paper, but that doesn't phase her. she is all about SUCCESS - and i am too. but on my own terms. i can play the game, but i wont become it. unlike her - i have a personal code of ethics. well, actually she has her own code of ethics but it's about honesty mostly. mine is about integrity. honesty is just a piece of it. if i don't agree with a policy why should i have to mold my life around it? did you know in most other civilized nations women are given 6 months of PAID maternity leave? America has the worst policy. why should women have to chose between family and career? i can't even get into this arguement now cause it angers me so much but suffice to say that one day i might just have my own architecture firm with nothing but FEMALE PRINCIPALS that can boast the BEST policies for their employees. Why have a dozen employees breeze through the office every year when you can have a dozen really good and committed employees that stick around? this is all i have to say to corporate workers - why the fuck should you work in those conditions to make someone else rich?? always have a goal in mind - SEE your future and live with intentions. don't become a mindless coffee guzzling brown-nosing nobody. you have to TAKE your success. my mom's favorite saying is - even if you sell hot dogs on the street, be your own boss.
oh and i finally got that perm. i went with a straight perm - sat in a chair for four hours while they soaked me in chemicals. i now have straight hair! no more crazy afro-woman hair. i like it. i'll probably get tired of it, but it will do for now.
can ya tell we love our dogs? it's sickening, isn't it? well, of all people my mother (who doesn't really like animals) will feed syrus food from her mouth. that's how cute and endearing our puppies are. yes, they can be a pain in the ass when people first come over - syrus will cry he's so happy to see you and bibi will do her happy barrroooo! and louie wil just jump up and down like a dumbass. they have been so spoiled and happy lately because mommy has been home. all they do is sleep, sleep, sleep.
check out the leg propping going on. don't worry about syrus - he has the entire bed to himself....
speaking of beds, ours broke. it's a crappy malm bed from ikea and well, i guess johnny and i were pushin the weight limit on it anyways - but even still it was a crappy bed from the start. now we have to get a new one because this morning johnny's alarm went off at at the same exact time the bed collapsed. btw, this is the second bed that we have collapsed. the first one was a sofa bed at dry pond that was old and i don't think we set it up right but all we know is in the middle of the night there was a loud boom! and we got folded in half.
I forgot to mention that sunday morning the dogs got out of the house. sorry to interrupt this post, but my mom just totally busted me. i didn't tell her about getting fired yet and she just pulled up to my house. so now she knows. instead of getting mad, though she seems OK about it. she wants me to go goodwill shopping with her, so I'm gonna go do that and will continue this post later.
ok back now and had a full day. went to goodwill with mom - turns out tuesday is senior discount day and also her favorite day to shop. and she loves having to prove she's a senior. i got a few odd things for the house - a birdhouse, small wine rack, small heart shaped footstool, and picnic basket. then we had lunch at the indonesian hole-in-the-wall. then she remembered she had a meeting with her broker about listing six flags shopping center for sale (duh! how could you forget that?) so we went to that but had an hour to kill so we got matching french pedi-mani's. it's funny to see my mom in a meeting - i'm used to marathon meetings about spandrel glass, pipes and ventilation but she couldn't sit through her little 1.5 hour meeting about selling her property without squirming. she practically ran out of there then we went to west end so i could take pictures of this cafe she wants to put in. she really likes the fact that i am not working cause she has about a million things for me to do. which is fine. she wants me to go with her to d.c. this weekend but i want to go camping with johnny. then we had pizza at the loop and now johnny and i are at home chillin. i love johnny - he's such a good guy. he's so much happier now that he likes his job. he's going to fix the bed with telephone books again. pretty soon we are going to have a phone book bed. maybe we can sell it on ebay! ok, enough rambling for now. i wonder if anyone (besides vanessa) even reads this shit!
well, i started the site for my thesis. if you care to follow it's progress, here is a link:
http://marslabitat.blogspot.com/
if you haven't noticed by now, i come up with about a million ideas a day. some of them pan out, most of them don't. i guess i'm just still trying to figure myself out. anyways, while laying on the table with about a dozen needles sticking out of me everywhere, i decided that i really do want to finish my thesis. what do i mean by "finish my thesis"? well, i never considered my masters thesis to be finished - even though i graduated. i thought about my project for three years, then when the time finally came to make it a reality i got performance anxiety. that coupled with a not-so-great thesis prfessor and my project, which could have been spectacular, flopped. trust me, the enthusiasm was there but my professor managed to trip me every step of the way. he insisted that i come up with a concept "visual" and so the most natural concept for my project was a livign organism i started to explain how my project was like a tree. well, that wasn't "artsy" or "smart" enough for him so i wasted about 3 weeks trying to come up with a concept visual that he liked instead of focusing on my project. i ended up doing some stupid pastel drawing just to get him off my back about it.
fast forward and let's just say i was less than satisfied with how my project went. i needed more time - something i didn't have. so i just threw everything together and hoped it was enough. it was - but not for me.
there was also the controversy (here we go again with my masochistic need for controversy) about the plausibility and validity of my project which not only pissed me off but added insult to injury. i mean, this was our thesis! we can do whatever we want! and here i was being discouraged by of all people - my thesis professor AND advisor! they both told me to reconsider my project! well, fuck them. i know why they wanted me to reconsider. i'm sure they thought i just wasn't smart enough. bastards. well, i'll be the first to admit that i am not smart enough. i mean, you would literally have to be a rocket scientist to make the project work and i was just an architecture student!
ok, so if you don't know what my thesis project was you're wondering wtf is she talking about? my thesis project was called THE MARS RESEARCH LAB + HABITAT (MRLH for short). it was my baby. I dreamed about it for years. I don't know much about physics, astronomy, spaceflight, or anything that scientific or mathematical. all i know is that i loved to dream up designs for space architecture. and i'm not even nearly smart enough to do that...below is an aerial shot of my model...
despite the negativity i recieved about my project, i decided to continue. i had awesome friends who were in fibers, film, and other majors that were all excited about my project. everyone in studio however, stuck their noses up at me. i'm used to that so i didn't care. i knew what they were all thinking.
well, anyways - freshly inspired by some more info and blogs (1000 days at sea, for example) i decided i really want to continue working on my thesis. i won't be getting any grades or recognition - its just for personal satisfaction. i noticed that i still design survival habitats and bunkers when nobody's looking. maybe it's another obsession. in any case, i will quietly do my research and re-write my book. i won't make any new models (maybe way later) but i might do some new drawings. below is a close-up view of the side with the dome on.....
so i'm thinking i might make a new blog dedicated soley to the MRLH. i don't know yet, it's going to take up a lot of my time.
.....i could probably live without it. yes, it is helping. but no, i don't particularly enjoy being stuck with tiny little needles everyday.
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