busy busy busy

Lovin the new job. Lots of training but I couldn't have gotten luckier with respect to coworkers and a boss.

Tha apt has turned out to be a bit buggier than I would like. It is surrounded by oak trees and situated in a forest more or less so lots of big "palmetto/water " bugs are hanging out. A bit of spray should take care of them and at least they aren't scary german cockroaches. I wonder how many of those I ate in my sleep as a child. Uggh.

My neighbors are about as wierd as me. I talked over my potential role as a stalker with several friends. All conclude that while I may be nosy-I attribute it the childlike curiosity-I am not a stalker and not out of the norm for nieghbors. In any case I moved all the plnats around back in my little yard so I can enjoy them and hung up a curtain across my front window. That way they don't have to worry about others observing thier comings and goings. What are they drug dealers or do they hold S&M parties there? Seriously, why all the concern?

Anyways I decided to save a cat recently. It was because he kept screaming at me. He is this scrawny black and white oriental. At first I thought he was starving. He is underfed and really skinny but he also appears to be a fashion model of the cat world. He is buitl like a siamese my sister had awhiile back. All legs, ears and tail. I can fold him in half like a bendy toy. He is so wierd looking. So he crawled out from under my sister's house that she was moving from and yowled at me. I thought he was dying. Nope he always yowls like that. I originally named him shiva as I am a big fan and thought that maybe shiva made me feel bad for him and take him home. Then I started calling him skelator as he is quite skelatal. Now he is stinky. God almighty he stinks to hell and back. It seems his digestive tract is rather sensitive to odd foods and unfortunately he loves to eat human foods. He is also kinda dumb and didn't seem to understand when I moved the litter box, that he needed to place his unpleasent items in the new location and not on the floor where the litter box used to be. That twice in a row got him turned into an outside cat. I took him outside and three times he ran into the door trying to get back in. Twice he jumped up on the window screen and mewled trying to tear his way into the window. He was such a happy indoor cat. He loves affection-starving for it I would guess-and sleeps beside my head at night. He so wants to be held and loved. I stuck with the outside cat for two days and then let him back in last night. He is so pathetic. Now he stays out during the day but comes in at night and we jusrt keep the doors to the bedroom shut so he doesn't leave us unpleasent suprises. Not hard as we are still in the living room on the futon.

Things to think about:
castles on the hills-why do we want them
animal love/programming/domestication
genetic human personality traits

black sheep

Away from entertaining nieghbor stories and day to day junk and back to randon thoughts. before I end my son's life. he is driving me bonkers.

What makes a black sheep of the family? What qualities and patterns of behavior lead to whole braches of family being neglected, left behind, classified as no longer worthy of inclusion?

When I was small I knew we were poor and that we had what I thought of as rich relatives. They were all my great uncles and they would come around and visit on the big holidays as my G Grandmaw lived with my Gmaw and they wanted to see her. They would stop by and chat and be social but we really never talked at any length with them. Later , it turns out, they often told my grandmother and mom that we children would never turn out to be anything other than white trash. We, being small and fond of santa claus, didn't know what that meant.

As I traced my family history it seems I am descended from the balck sheep of every generation, most being women. The men, ustable or entertaining depending on how you look at it, married stable women who took care off them. Their children were raised in stable families and grew up to be a risky, somewhat qualified version of okay.

The women being of a somewhat sensual, slightly manic, decideldly out of the ordinary nature, married men who were even more "interesting" than themselves. They were in a search for a certain type of mate which when they found it lead them into trouble. Men look for a stable mate to raise the kids. Women look for a strong mate

my head is shaped like a brick

I got my proofs from the photographer yesterday. Some of them were really neat-several very abstract shots of my torso-no legs or head just torso. Also several of my back and front but without much face. It was the ones with my face in them that freaked me out. I swear my head looks like a big square brick. I don't think its possibly to have a bigger fatter head. I look like a weightlifter or something. Plus seeing my face in mirror imgae is always odd. I guess everyone goes through that but not with a brick for a head.

My mom in law always tells me that I could be a model-well a real model -not just figure studies. At least some portion of the male population thinks I am attractive as well. It seems to be a hit or miss thing. Either I am not at all interesting to them or they stare a bit obsessively. Foreign guys love me. Guys in my high school wouldn't ask me out. Then however they voted me the best looking girl in our class. How does this happen? I have few to no dates all of high school, yet it turns out somebody thought I was pretty. I was so pissed too. Not "most likely to succeed, or smartest, or sweetest" no I was the good looking one. It bugged me as looks take no effort. You are born a certain way and there isn't a lot you can do to change that. Inside of you is very different. You grow and change and if no one ever looks past your face, they miss what you really are-the important stuff. All they ever saw was the outside of me. They never saw what I was like on the inside. With a brick for a head too.

It is the native american heritage coming through. I am somewhere around 1/64 to 1/128 native american, uncertainties arising due to anglo surnames being given to pure or half indian children. You'd think this'd leave me looking like a plain old white person, but we can't seem to lose the chin in the family-well the face in general. My son looks just like me, with his dad's eye color (and his aunt's backhair). I look like my mom but actually more like my grandmom. My mom looks a bit morelike my GGmom. We all favor my GGGmom as to the face and eyes. Her mom is in the same picture but there is the jaw. The picture is her with her ten daughters and her poor beaten down husband. The girls are all in thier twenties or thirties. One of them might be lacking the jaw. Her face is more triangular. The rest of them have the brick head appearence. Most of them are prettier than me as they tend to have higher eyebrows and more open eyes. Mine are lowset and I seem to look sleepy in all the pictures I take-seriously drugged sleepy.

The strangest thing is that I think I forget what I look like sometimes. When I was very small, in my mind when I pictured myself, I was pale with long straight red hair that I wore in a ponytail. My favorite barbie looked like that and I thought it looked like me. One day I realized that I look nothing like my mental image. It was sort of a shock and was so sad as I didn't think I looked very pretty the way I was. That was when I was four or five. Now I think they same thing happens sometimes. I tend to equate my appearence with TV maybe. I see the avarage brunette on TV and I guess I morph my mental picture of myself sort of onto that. Then I actually see myself and am put off by it as I don't look the way I think I look. It isn't bad or anyhting just very different from what I expected. The way my body looks is very reasonable because I see it all the time, but my head catches me by suprise now and then. As strange as it seems that is the most interesting part of the photos is seeing what I really look like. What do I look like when I am not peeking at myself in a mirror. What is it that other people see. It isn't what the perfect model on TV or magazines looks like. It is very different and that really bugs me. I have to force myself to look at each picture for awhile to get over that initial yuck feeling.

The funniest thingis that I think most models are so damned boring looking. Scrawny, steroetyped faces with too much makeup. I can't tell brittney spears , cristina aulara, and that jessica simpson girl apart or madonna for that matter.m They are just generic blondes. They all blend together and nothing about them makes me want to look again. I claim to think thet angelina jolei is beautiful but sometimes she blends as well. The pretty red head om "pretty woman" is different. Her features are so beautiful and her smile is so full of joy.

So what I wonder-my husband very often comments that this girl is fat and ugly or that girl is nasty looking. I don't see what he is talking about as I think they are jsut normal people. Do we Americans all have this problem of thinking we should look like something from TV? Do we get such high expectations of ourselves and our mates appearences from it? What did pretty mean when you lived in a small village all your life? What would the world be like if there were no mirrors to stare into? The people I find most interesting are the ones who have something really interesting about them that catches my eye and makes me want to look again. Even if that something is a long straight distinctive nose or eyes that may be a bit bugged out but make that person look very unusual. Will our culture ever get tired of what the TV tells us we should like and instead develop individual tastes? My husband is my little miner's canary of what the avarage person (a doer not a thinker) is thinking. He seems to indicate that he likes the steoreotypes look. (He also thinks Kerry will win the election)

Well my brick shaped head is weighing heavily on my neck and my tummy is demanding food.

More thoughts:
stick figures
prostitution

art fair

It is that time of year again. So hot and sticky and about 100,000 people
come to town for art fair. The booths are spread up and down all the
streets for several blocks. Little white tents that house painted ,
scultped and knitted treasures. It isn't like I can afford to buy any of
it. Some of it is really beautifulk though. There is one guy who paints
pictures of water. Being water is my greatest phobia, they sort of freak
me out. They are beautiful but empty scenes of a neverending ocean.

Last night I had a water dream again. I was walking with a group of
children. One of the little girls, a beautiful little black girl with
pigtails fell in the water. It had been raining and the waters had risen
and flooded everything. I jumped in the water and grabbed her hand and we
were both pushed uot towards the entrance of the area we were in. Out the
door I could see the river, vastly overfilled running very fast into
drainage tunnels. I was barely holding on the the wet concrete rim that
kept us from getting pulled into the river. The children were screaming.
I saw one pulled past me into the river but I couldn't grab her as then I
would have let go of the other little girl. All I could see was the water
gushing into the drainage tunnels. So fast and relentless. I knew if I
got pulled in there I would never get out. I realized I was dreaming at
this point and fought to wake up. I actually started biting my hand to
wake up. When I was awake, I realized I hand my hand in my mouth and I
had bitten it pretty hard.

Later I had another dream that made me wake up sobbing. I was an
adventurer. I was climbing things and jumping far and fast. I had an
enemy chasing me with his helper but they were no match for me. I had my
little helper and we were so cool, so good at what we were doing. My
enemy came up behind me and I think I stabbed him in the chest. He fell
off the thing we were climbing up and died. Then his helper climbed up.
His helper was just a little boy who looked very sad. I pulled him close
to my chest and hugged him and told him that we would take care of him and
love him. He started to cry and thought that he had died. I told him no
that he was still alive. Then he said something like, this must be heaven
cause I have never been so happy, except I thought I'd have lazer eyeballs
in heaven. I guess it is one of those things that make more sense when
you wake up all groggy. I cried because it made me so sad thast the
little boy had never known anyone to love him. I loved him so much and
wanted to take care of him forever. I guess however that in a perfect
world, all little boys would like cool superpowers thus the lazer
eyeballs. I think dumpling has professed a desire for lazer eyeballs once
or twice.

Another funny thing dumpling said once: He thought cows peed out milk. I
said no, it comes from thier boobs. This (as opposed to the pee idea ??)
totally freaked him out and he wondered around disgusted by the idea for a
couple of days. He also in all seriousness thought that brown cows have
brown milk. He was little of course-about four.

So back to the art fair. Herds of people-hundreds and hundreds of them
wonder around in the hot sun/pouring rain (both of course are required for
a good art fair). The merchants sit at thier booths piled high with
whatever stuff they happen to be selling. Entertaining stuff-crazy
lifesize super realistic scultptures of peopls. These things are so
realistic as to be disgusting, moles, wrinkles, pot bellys, all the
imperfections we as humans possess. Yuck. Also twenty foot tall metal
animals-two ponies, last year there was a spider and other stuff too.
Some really pretty work with nudes. I guess I like that stuff myself as I
think the human figure can be really beautiful. One lady had taken nudes
and then messed with the negatives to get make pictures where all that was
left was color and an outline of the original nude. Very abstract but
quite pretty. Another guy had very neat stuff in which he took photos and
cropped them into pieces and then overlayed them and replicated them.
Like you put the nude and some furniture in a blender and out came this
sort of wierd yet cool picture. Very nice stuff. Lots of digital
manipulation in the photos as well. I saw one other booth with some
nudes but I wasn't as enthused about them. They were mainly of two very
pretty, very thin models, taken outside in a variety of locations. It
seemed wierd to mix the extra detailed complicated network of trees and
clouds and outside stuff with the simplistic symmetric/antisymmetric
figure studies. It just didn't fit so well together. But then again what
in the hell do I know about art! :)

The booths remind me of when I was small at the flea market.
Every weekend I'd help mom and grandmaw set up thier antiques-mostly
grandmaw. We'd get up at six, drive out and get donuts, then drive to the
flea market. Off would come the sheets and she would turn on the lights
and put all the jewlery in the cases. Suddenly a tiny piece of a big grey
sullen cattle barn where the flea market was held became a tiny department
store. Little maniquin heads wearing sparkling jewelry, a lady' head
planter turned into a pin cushion to hold amazingly elaborate hat pins. I
would help grandmaw on Fridays when she moved in the tables and boxes and
unpacked most everything. I think that is why I am so good at moving now.
You cram all these items neatly into a small space and have to quickly
pack and unpack them. Fridays we would set up big card tables, and put
nice table clothes down. Then all the stuff would get placed on the
tables, artfully of course. We would cover it with sheets and go home to
return bright and early the next morning. I would uncover the items and
turn on the lights and once grandmaw was up and running I was free to
explore.

I have no idea how I didn't become a child abduction statistic. I
wondered around alone in isolated scary places for most of my childhood
just seeing what was there. What's around the next corner. I vistied all
the muesuems in the area-then the life science mueseum was free. The
Kimbell was really dull-how many cowboys can anyone person want to see. I
got asked to leave the modern art meusum as I was touching the paintings.
I was only about eight and there was this amazingly big pink one with
gradients that ran the length of it. How could you not touch the silly
thing?

I spent the most time however at the horse show facility next to the
cattle barns where the flea market was. I saw the Paso Fino, appalossa,
palamino world shows. The arab regionals. The welch pony world shows. the
paint horse youth world show. I saw hunter/jumper stuff and a bit of
dressage. I saw the world cutting horse championships four years running.
Lots of reining and quarter horse events as well.Quite an education for
the horse obsessed girl. The entire time I wondered around noone ever
asked me to leave ( well except when I was shoplifting at the home and
garden show across the way from the horse barns-my brother started that).
I would just wonder from stall to stall peering in at all thses yummy
smelling horses and everyone took for granted that I was supposed to be
there. In retrospect I think I was like a little shadow that just ignored
the people and thus they ignored me. A tiny little something that is
behind the scenes and belongs. I was so alone with myself and I really
didn't mind so much. How odd.

chaos

Everything is so chaotic at the moment. I feel like every post is just a
blurred continuation of the previous random post. My days are filled with
a bit of anxiety and fractious, unchannable energy. At night my sleep is
so upset. I toss and turn and dream all night-solving problems in my
sleep
again. Leaves my days feeling so upside down and sleepy. I manically
attack my house to little to no avail. Clothes are evrywhere, trash is
everywhere. Need Focus! The move date is rapidly approaching and I feel
unprepared.

Finish the giving post-
buddhists
car
north
money
the more you give the more you get. Does that include bullshit?

proofs
tomatos
art fair
spelling

giving

I am almost finished with the packing and throwing out phase of the move.
Originally my intent was to rent a uhaul truck. Four years ago it cost us
800 to move her from Texas. To move back would cost us 1800. It turns
out that there is much more demand for the trucks going north to south so
I guess they have to pay someone to return the trucks after people take
them down. Seeing as all of my household belongings combined aren't woth
1800 I am not going to pay that much to transport them.

We decided to rent a trailer and haul it behind the truck when my sweetie
comes down in Augsut and I'll just fill the minivan till it bursts. This,
however , means purging our home of much of the crap we have. Clothes are
easy to get rid of. Since dumpling is with grandparents, toys are a
cinch. I called him and said that I had packed the legos, yugioh cards,
and transformers and did he want anyhting else. Being that he inherited
my short term memory he just said he wanted the legos, transformers and
yugioh cards. Simple enough. He had no idea what else was actually in
his room. I am a mean mom.

I gave the stinky escort to my nieghbor. I cleaned it up and it actually
looked pretty nice. I wanted to donate it to a car charity but so many of
them seem really shady. I started talking to him over the fence as he was
wanting to give me some watermelons. I asked him if he knew of anybody
that needed a car. He said he did and wanted to buy it from me. I told
him, no it wasn't worth much and he could just have it. Instead of
finding a charity to give my car to the poor I just located a poor person
myself. He is a good ol' guy. He drinks a bit of beer and lives with his
wife with a bunch of

When the truck's a rockin...

So we finally bought a new truck on Monday. We were planning to buy one
in Texas but I realized that once we moved we'll both have new jobs and a
new residance and while it'll still get financed, the interest rate will
be painful. We decided on a toyota tundra as they are rated really well
by consumer reports and after our minivan fiasco with the honda and the
windstar I have to say I trust them.

The salesman was the biggest prick ever, such a greasy nasty individual.
He was bug eyed and just rude. I wanted to go ask the nice old guy to
sell us the truck but being from Texas and having some amount of manners,
it seemed rude to switch horses in mid stream.

The truck is this strange grey glittery color-really ugly I think until
the sun sets and then it picks up all the orange and red and looks really
beautiful. I can't summon much excitement about the truck as-well it is
just a truck. My husband however is absolutely enthralled. He loves the
truck-more than me I think. Well maybe not but he does love it.

Last night I had showered and crawled in bed and was snuggling up to go to
sleep when he came in and pounced on me and started giving me kisses. One
thing led to another and before you know it we were being exhibitionists
in our new Tundra-and back behind the house. We live right up on a main
road and are askling to get hauled off to jail but I guess at least we'll
entertain a person or two before we go.

It is really amazing how excited my husband gets about running artound
naked outside. Not only does he love our back porch and truck for the
obvious reasons but he thinks it is funny as hell to run around in front
of the windows naked or outside in boxers. I keep yelling at him beacuse
he feels the need to take a leak out our back door off the porch. He just
laughs.

I get back to nature by hiking and yoga, trying to reach deep inside
myself to maintain a sense of wholeness. My husband just wants around
naked
outside. He does look pretty cute though ...

Found a job maybe-at least a phone interview. In the right town and right
field. Now if we can only get Dumpling in the charter school we were
hoping for. It is a school based on multiple intelligences and professes
to be flexible. He needs it. He is a genius, especially spatially. He
tested at the 97% overall IQ but at the 99.6% spatially. Unfortunately he
really needs help with his social skills. He needs a teacher who can keep
an eye on him and recognize when he is upset and help him finds ways to
resolve it without having a breakdown. He does some of the same stuff I
did when I was little when he gets upset. I would bite my hands and bang
my head in the wall. He tends to yell a bit more, but will bang his head
on the table and the wall sometimes. It's funny as my little niece from
my perfect sister-in-law is about a year old and not only bites kids,
teachers and mom but will also bite herself.

I feel bad for dumpling and her because they have so much overflowing
emotion that they don't understand how to express or society forbids them
to express it. For dumpling at least that's the case. Even now
sometimes, if I argue with my husband, I will find myself knawing at my
hand. This really freaked him out at first and he would harrass me about
it. I think he figured out it was a way I had of derailing irrational
anger and then became much more understanding. We actually never fight
anymore. Every now and then we will disagree but almost always apologize
in a couple of minutes. He is such a wonderful, amazing mate. I Love
him.

limits of infinity

So scheduling getting an IUD is kinda like taking the limit of an infinite function as it approaches infinity. It just keeps getting further and further away. You think you have almost reached the appointment only for them to cal and postpone it again. The first time they had me scheduled with the wrong Dr, then they had to order it (3 weeks!), now they haven't gotton it in yet. It isn't thier fault as they can't control the shipping time but I am leaving the state in a week and will have crappy health insurance after that. Health insurance that won't cover the cost of an IUD. It seems like such a simple solution. Perhaps I can get them to give me the stupid thing or ship it to me and I can find a dr who will insert it in Texas. I can't have any more little ones right now. My poor husband. After this week he won't see me for almost a month. Unless he drags home a little sororiety girl, he will be lonely. And now for the next week, I have to use condoms or that terrible spermicide for birth control. ewwwww.

We celebrated our two year aniversary the other day. We have been together for almost four years plus two from before when we broke up. I am glad we didn't get married the first time around. We would have beeen quickly divorced. Rather we both went away for awhile, found ourselves and realized what we were missing. When he first wanted to get back with me, I was very frustrated and didn't want any part of it. I am very independent and strong. I hate being made to feel guilt and don't want to rely on others at all. I wanted to be alone and be free of any obligations to a man. I had my tiny man of course but he is a special case! I pushed him away for several months. We would have dinner, agrue about something and rather than being sweet and apologizing I would just leave-free. Within an hour he would call me and say how sorry he was and that he loved me and wanted to be with me. I didn't mean to change him or make him whiny, but I refused to deal with his previous self. He had to learn that he will not always get his way and that things will at times go my way. If I am going to be invoved with a person as odd as he, I have to have some level of control over the relationship.

In the end it worked out. He moved with me across the country from friends and family to a place he hated. The first year we fought a lot. Sometimes over small things, but mostly over dumpling. My little dumpling, it turns out has ADHD and always has. He got kicked out of two daycares and finally went to regular school which is much harder to get kicked out of. He is doing really well now since we understand how we can help him florish, but back then it was so hard to know what to do. So me and my mate fought like banshees about what was the right answer.

After about a year we stopped fighting, we would go off in a huff and not speak for a couple of hours. Now mostly I give him nasty looks for about three minutes and he then proceeds to tackle me and tickle me and tell me that he is sorry and loves me and doesn't want to fight. I then apologize and we cuddle and figure out what to do about whatever the disagreement was.

After two years in the artic tundra, we got married. He was out riding his bike, fell down and busted his nose open pretty badly. He came home and we butterfly bandaged it together and I told him not to go to the hospitol as they can't do much with a broken nose till the swelling goes down anyways. I think. Anyways, his insurance sucked and mine was really good. I told him that since he would likely need surgery on his nose, we should get married so it would be covered. We Stomped down to an Ohio courthouse and got hitched. Our minister was this funny little black preacher who took our little disposable camara and in between asking "Will you take this woman" snap snap of the camara "to be your lawfully wedded wife" snap snap he took pictures. Then we went to bennigan's for lunch. I am far happier with this courthouse-crazy minister-absentee bridesmaids wedding than the traditional wedding. Now my husband tells everyone that we got married after he recieved a head injury.

My three friends knew they couldn't come to the wedding due to my delightfully asocial husband so they threw me a bachelorette party-without me there. They went to Target and bought these three pretty blue dresses and then made me a beautiful bouqaet. They also got totally trashed it seems and appointed AX to be my maid of honor. She raised her wine glass and gave a drunken speech-they showed me the pictures-later they returned the dresses to Target. Tacky maybe but fun all the same!

I have such great friends and am blessed to have a wonderful husband and a naughty silly little dumpling. I don't think this week can get any better. A new, good job, dumpling is in the school I want him to go to, I will have an apt surrounded by trees, I got beautiful photos taken of me and had a great time BBQing for my friends who came over last night. Plus, it looks like the stupid project at work is finally going to successful. My tarot card was the World on this little quiz I took and it sounds very appropriate.

I was nekkid

I got to pose for the photographer today. It was really fun but now I am very tired-languid I suppose. He had me work with a few gauzy shirts I have and then had me do a bunch of shots with backbends in them. I gues in a normal day or yaoga I do about five minutes of backbends altogether. He had me doing about twenty minutes worth. Plus the extended time holding some of the poses is making my legs ache. No running or yoga today. I think I have worked hard enough! It was so odd because I thought I would be more self concious naked in front of a strange guy, but he was so nice and professional that it didn't matter at all. I just stood about butt naked while he adjusted lights and sheets-it was kind of funny. I wanted to take pictures with my tomatoes but by the time we were done I was too tired to worry about it. I have to say the lighting pasrt of photography is an art-science. Lots of measuring.

Twitty kitty came back this morning. I was outside eating breakfast and he sauntered up and started rubbing against my leg. Last night we heard him fighting with a big white cat and then he took off. We put out the live trap with tunafish in it but I must have disabled it when I moved it because this morning there was no tuna or cat. It was just sitiing there wide open. I was so glad to see poor twitty. He looks a bit skinnier and had some burrs in his coat, but doesn't seem too bea6t up or anything. It was funny the way he wondered up all nonchalontly, just happened to be in the nieghborhood and wanted to say hi. I bet he is sick of getting his butt kicked and living in the rain and just wanted to come back home without losing his feline dignity. I think he must be sleeping down in the basement right now as he didn't even say hi when I came in the house.

Never use nair on your underarms.

Never. ever. ever do that again.

I found a job! Gainful, payed employment. The job is where I want to be, dumpling goes to the charter school I want him to go to, and it actually looks like a fun job that will match my personality nicely.

It is a tech type job that requires customer service skills. You spend most of your time helping customers work through the probbels they encounter with the technology and developing new ways to use the technology. Perhaps I'll put off law school a bit if I like the job well enough. On top of everything else it actually pays really well-about 10K more than I was expecting. I guess my MS wasn't such a mistake after all. The best bonus is that it seems like my boss is a really great lady. She sounded laid back but enthusiastic and very friendly and outgoing. She also said " we don't usually get in till around nine or so" yeah!


Twitty the kitty escaped outside yesterday as I was moving boxes in and out of the car. He has spent the last year and a half plastered to the window watching the outside world and has gotten more and more brave about the door. I guess at some point he slipped out as it was closing behind me. We tried to catch him for about thirty minutes last night but he would run away from us a few feet , then turn around and stare. This morning he was nowhere in sight but he had left us a very fresh dead mouse minus a foreleg. We put his food in a live trap by the tomatoes so hopefully he'll get dumb and go eat there.

Stupid cat. I am really worried about him.

more funny things dumpling said

God loves geographic engineers

how do you defeat milk?

Ow these butterflies bite! (I put butterfly clips in his hair)

What are these little balls under my wee wee?

I feel bad eating animals, but I like to eat sausage and pepperoni. If we
had holographic pigs we could cut pieces out of them and eat them instead.

In a letter he wrote from grandmaw's house: The cat is probably going
ballistic.

questions

What are your long term career goals?

I would like to transition into a position of responsibility. One that
allows me to interact with others in a team and achieve commom longterm
goals of the comapny. I would hope to valued for the unique gifts I can
bring and help improve customer service and use of the products
manufactured.

Then I would like to be a fish.

I'm sorry what did you say?

A fish. I would like to then transition into a fish. A pretty yellow one
with blue stripes that swims around the coral reefs. Like this one on
this book here. It looks so happy so carefree! Weeee, what a happy fish
I'd be. Look there's my little pink buddy.

Um, that's very interesting. Do you think they would be an achievable
goal here at wifgits inc ?

I think widgits spirit of employee support and understanding of employee
needs would allow me to thrive in any area I chose to pursue. Your long
history of workers rights and excellent benefits makes me think that
widgits would be an ideal place to pursue my goals. And there is that
ponf out front.

The pond?

Yes. I mean granted the fish thing will take some time. Daily immersive
baths to begin accomadating the scales I'd guess. Gills can't exactly be
easy.

why the car smells like a dead person

I love the car. The ford escort. little, grey, well behaved, cheap to
fix car. It is a five speed and is actually fun to drive. Well until the
day. The shopping day.

Kroger seems like an okay place to shop. Relatively cheap, easy to
navigate, as polite as any other store. So I shopped like normal. I put
all the groceries in the car (sweet little grey car) and drove home. The
inverse occurs when I get home. I unpack the groceries out of the car.
It seems however that the milk is suddenly much lighter than it used to
be. The seal popped and now, in the docile, domesticated little ford
escort, there is almost a gallon of milk absorbed into the back seat.

Hummm....

So my first thought was to try lysol. In theory (form my micro class)
the reson milk will smell is that bacteria in the milk start growing and
breaking the milk down. In theroy, I kill the bugs and the car won't
smell. So over a gallon of lysol also gets poured on the seat.

hmmmmm....

So within two days the car is an absolute demonic place of residence. The
milk of course smells to high heaven, yet now it is tempered with a
disgutsing sickening sweet, vomit like lysol odor. It is, of course,
Summer in Texas, so with the windows rolled up, the car becomes a little
bacterial oven, further comingling the fine, delicate smells to a
horrifying extent.


After the fourth day I start leaving the windows rolled down, to at least
dissapate the baking. Now in the morning when I come outside I realize
multiple, huge, hairy flies have taken up residence in the escort. They
know that somewhere there is a plethora of nurishment buried in the seats.
I never saw any fly children as I guess they couldn't penetrate the high
quality foam ford uses.

yuck.

On about the fifth day I went for the carpet cleaning approach. I bought
mountain berry smelly foam carpet cleaner and two bottles of extra
strength febreze. What a fine blend I have created. On the finest of
purfume palettes could now pick out the true origins of the filthy, vile
stench that pervades the poor undeserving escort.

All this time, I have to still use the car for transportation, so me and
dumpling keep gallevating around in the stench home of demons. I think it
was the carpet cleaner that finally broke him out in hives. Big quarter
size whelps all over his legs and thighs. So we took a few days off from
the demon mobile and bought some bendryl.

hmmmm...

So at this point I started focusing on maybe less covering of smell and
more absorption of smell. I bought six boxes of baking soda and dumped
them all over the car. Fine white powder all in the carpets of the
escort. It is possible that this did help some with the smell-at least
till I dumped a cup of coffee over in the passenger side floorboard.

Yummm....

Milk-lysol-mountain cranberry-febreeze-baking soda-coffee smell. All
cooked over slow oven raosting coals of the blasting Texas summer sun.

I finally resorted to taking the car to get the carpets vacuumed. I
watched as the mexican guy cleaning the car starts pulling all the other
car wash guys over to my car to show them what hell truly is. They
laughed-for about ten minutes they laughed.


So the car was a bit cleaner but the smell lingered on. For the next four
yers it lingered. By the second year it was only really bad during the
summer. Now you hardly notice it unless it has set closed up for a long
time in the sun. A faint odor drifts past your nostrils. One that makes
the sulferous fumes of hell seem pleasent. Or it could be that the ever
worsening exhaust leak in the manifold dilutes the milk smell out. My
husband said that upon getting another vehicle to drive my son's and my IQ
should raise significantly as our brains recover from the exhaust fumes.
I don't know-is IQ really worth the rotten milk smell?

hmmmmmm.....

my beautiful mother

This morning my mother held me, wrapped around me with buttery, flowing
moist kisses. She filled the air with glowing radiance, making the sun
scatter and disperse around her volumonious tendrils. Her hands were full
of life giving foilage sucking up her wet, sweet affection. , her arms
made of gritty branches, bugs crawling who won't have to drink again for
days. Her breath so
moist, saturating my skin leaving a sticky, sanctimonious layer of debris
that no amount of AC can fix. It was really humid.

test

test

drowning kiddos and other thoughts

Last night I dreamed my dumpling fell in the water. We had been swimming and he suddenly wasn't above the water anymore. I dove under and found where the water dropped off. He was there trying to grab my hand. I pulled him up but he was unconscious and not breathing. I calmly put him on the ground and begain breathing into his mouth to try and revive him. Dribbles of water poured out of his mouth and he coughed and then was okay again.

It reminds me of a very similiar dream awhile back, with a purple goo ocean instead of water. I was standing waist deep in it with drowning children all around. I was methodically plucking the babies out of the goo and reviving them then passing them off to someone on shore.

I think it is my way of controlling the things that I fear. I am worried about a lot of things in my life-I endlessly try and plan how to take care of them. The water is always my 'fear' and I guess in my dreams I get some practice controlling it by saving the children from it.

I am going to start some modeling for a guy who advertised in the paper. Mostly nude but tasteful work from his portfolio. It doesn't pay really well but a bit of extra cash would be really useful. It will be fun too I think. I really thought my husband would protest more, but he seems to think it is fine. I believe inside his fairly animal male brain, that the fact that his wife is modeling reaffirms social hierchy in a wierd way. A beautiful mate makes him a stronger more desirable, worthy man. The fact that someone would want to photograph his wife reffirms the fact that others think she is beautiful outside of himself. By saying-my wife is modelling-it submits all types of odd social messages. In reality I think the photographer will pretty much take photos of anybody willing to pose for him. He did ask me if I have any corsets though... corsets are kinda cute.

Started yoga seriously again. It does such amazing things to my posture after just one session. By making my back ache, it reminds me that the muscles that give me good posture are there. Throughout the day I find myself engaging the muscles there and making my posture better as to not slump so much. My mom has an extra vertebra in the region where they connect to your ribs. I would guess this means she has an extra set of ribs as well. Not nearly as uncommon as you'd think. I am built almost identically to her so likely I have one extra as well. Makes stregthening my back really important as with an extra vertebra you introduce lots of weakness.

Trying to meditate as well everyday. I am also reading more about Kashmir shavism as it is enlighteneing but complicated. Found an interesting blog sight where lots of hinduism in discussed. It makes me reflect on what I have learned and as always readapt and rethink.

My project at work finally started working. Two years and something finally worked. The day after I find out I am getting another job likely, I find out the project might actually go somewhere from here. Likely I'll get an authorship but it just the success at last that is so satisfying. I in no way want to stay and finish my Ph.D. but it makes me feel good about my efforts.

employment is heavenly

I may actually have a job! Perhaps. I'll have to see in a day or so.

Funny stuff my kid has said

If the four horseman come, he wants to be on thier side. His dad will be the fifth horseman.

He compared childbirth to getting your neck chopped into with an axe-blood everywhere.

He tried to be a lawyer for his friend at school and give him legal advice on how to avoid getting into trouble.

Buddhism is not right. He is going to worship video games. He knows that he doesn't know that, he doesn't know that, he doesn't know that buddhism is not right.

He bulit an amzing gun out of bathroom trash while I was on the phone. Toilet role tubes, paper towels and used tampon applicators he dug out of the trash.

Insisted that buddhists like hip hop music and that I am a buddhist. Said buddhists are actually buttists and like butts a lot and are all from India.

Once when smal he stuck an entire frozen package of guacamole into the vcr slot then tried to use a spatula to retrieve it. He finally says mom "I can't get the vcr to work" I wonder why.

On another occasion my 3" floppy drive was not working on my computer-it said my administrative assistant was not allowing me access to the drive. It turns out my "administrative assistant had inserted my driver's license into the drive

the tomato forrest

My tomatoes have taken over a portion of the front yard. I planted them in tires placed out in the grass so I didn't have to dig up more grass. At the time they seemed so little. They are all almost four and a half feet tall now. The grape tomatoes and yellow pears will be ripe in a couple of weeks. In a month I'll have german striped ones and purple plum ones and I think some of the green and yellow zebra striped ones as well. The cucumbers are also huge, growing out of a wheelbarrow, with squash, strawberries and red and white wave petunias. My house looks like a crazy person's. Not that I am at all crazy. I am perfectly normal. Totally. Really.

I mowed the lawn with my little electric grass fondler today. My husband came home and wanted to know if I had missed the patches of clover and little weed flowers on purpose. Of course. I have this one patch in the back where I let the little purple fey flowers grow up. Whatever plant that is has basically taken over there and now I have groundcover rather than a lawn. My poor landlord. He is such a nice little greek man. My neighboe kindly offered to cut down the overgrowth that is on the fenceline for me. I laughed and told him I was letting it grow for the flowers. I offered to cut it if it was bugging him but he didn't seem to care too much. He has four broken down cars in his front yard. I don't think my flowers matter too much.

Dumpling is with his grandparents for the next couple of weeks. It gives me lots of time to do whatever it is that people without kids do with thier time. I guess I'll figure it out as I go. Lots of reading, posting in my blog and job hunting mostly. Also the evr present yardwork which seems to be a framework for my life. I have been running a bit more as well. Made it up to ten miles on Friday, then six yesterday. I could keep going but tendonitus in my hip acts up a bit and lets me know I need to cool it. It is amazing though cause I am not out of breath, or feeling any muscular pain at all. I could really keep going for quite awhile. It is my summer time mania kicking in. The longer days give me extra energy, just like the shorter ones take it away. I can't wait to get back into a more southern location. This place is too damned cloudy!

Trying to meditate more. It is tough as I am a pretty lazy pig :)) It is easier to go run ten miles than to sit still and be without thought for twenty seconds. If I could try and be mindful while I run it might be okay, but my thoughts are like the wind. I get such a high and come up with such neat stories and fantasies while I run. It makes me happy.

Trying to read more about shiva and such. New learned thing-consciousness in the shiva thought is not quite the same thing as the english translation. It is cit in sanskrit. This means sort of oneness. I'll find and write down what the translater said he thought it was closest to.

Told my husband I am actually hindu. He thought I was a buddhist. He lives in his owm little world sometimes-okay mostly in his own world. We love each other so much but really talk so little about anything. I am actually happy this way. I come up with my own ideas and act upon them. It leaves me being very private and protective of my internal feelings and emotions, as I don't really think he could deal with what I really am like. He sort of knows and lets me run rampant with my excessive, insane yardwork, christmas scuptures, statues all over the house and wierd craft ideas. As long as it doesn't mess too much with what he likes to do, he doesn't really care and is supportive. When we actually try to talk about politics, religion, raising kids or anything at all contreversial we often argue. I feel the need to think in depth and he is a lazy thinker with very set ideas about is right. So we just talk about that stuff at all unless we ne3ed to. We end up being good roomates who have sex alot-good yummy cuddly sex-raise our kid the best we can and do what we can to make each other happy. He does really silly things like take in the groceries for me and carry the fishwater to the fishbowl and I love him so much because he takes the time to care enought to help me. My liberal friends think he is a total ass, but I think we have a really great committed working relationship. They want a guy who fits some book ideal of perfect. My guy is a total nut at times but we make for a good match I guess.

Alright I am going running! Too much energy!!! Ahhhhhh, runn runn runnnnn

so sick

Oh, I fell yucky. I keep running a fever and getting all sweaty. My stomach hurts and all the antacid in the world isn't helping. Last night I couldn't sleep very well as I kept having these stupid repetitive nightmares about stupid things like mispelling words. Ugggghhhhh.

Ibuprofin helps for awhile. I took some yesterday and felt better then went running. I ran close to ten miles and felt fantastic. About two hours later the yucky feeling hit and I realized I must have been running on borrowed drug induced energy. It was great-I felt so energized and glowingly happy. I think this summer, when I am feeling a bit better I am going to plan my own personal marathon. I have a six mile route but I would like to expand it to a 24 mile circle-along roads and such so if I drop down into a coma at least they'll find me at some point!

Read a book about the origins of the devil. Turns out the "devil" figure was invented in zoastorism about 600 BC but that the personal "original sin" and damnation of your soul without intervention from the priests was actually a sumerian (babylonian) invention. All the guilt and fire and brimstone seems to trace from those guys. Originally they were indoeuropean so why they jumped the gun and got all angry seems to have to do with the desire of the kings to be absolute rulers. In such an enviornment that means anyone else outside the king was nothing but garbage. To maintain powere it is essential that to be "saved" you have to please the diety-ruler. These guys make the catholics look lighthearted with all the ceremony, confessions, guilt, and need for forgiveness for little trespasses they had to endure. Don't quite get it all. Will have to read again later at a less sick point. Many things I want to write about but I need a nap first.

the nature of punishment

Should all people receive the same punishment for the same crime?

Did previous cultures hold all members of society to the same standards?

How do you account for the effects mental illness or personality have upon the likelihood of committing a crime?

Is it fair to punish someone becuase thier innate biology wires them to respond in an manner that society considers incorrect? (God-judeocristian seems to think so)

How would you implement understanding of the fact that different people are different ?

At what level does a biological difference truely begin to impair judgement to an extent that a person should be awarded a differential punishment?

Logic applies easily when a group of things are identical or easily classified. Of course if they are equal, then the all receive the same treatment. How do you (or do you) modify logic to account for the fact that your group is actually nonhomogeneous?

Will there eventually be a way to quantify personality on a genetic basis, with the understanding that it is niether wrong or right, but rather just different?

How do you teach others to embrace the things that make them different and make others different as gifts or talents rather than abnormalities?

As a society are we moving towards greater or less homogenaity on a personal level?

How do the three families that the "boy book" discusses play a role in how homogeneuos our population is?

Would it be good to identify/type persons at a young age so that as they grow, thier specific personality needs could be better accommadated?

How do you keep this typing from becoming Gattacca or big brother?

What is the point of punishment?

Does retribution really work to prevent future recidivism?

How promptly and painful must the punishment be to render the desired mental lesson?

Is it better, sometimes, to structure punishment as a lesson or as service to others? Does community service really teach anyone anything?

Last night I dreamed I had to go to a little jewish village where my sister bought the most delicious bread, because I was the only one who could save them from the demons invading the town. The demons looked like normal people. I beat the crap out of this little old demon woman. Before that dream I was waiting tables again. I was doing okay till John the bartender got behind on one of my drink orders. He is so tempermental and I didn't want to leave without the drink. When I got back to my section all the tables were rearranged and they were all looking at me in need of various items. I haven't waited tables in six damn years.

keeping track of thoughts

Where did my I hate scientists post go?

I guess it wasn't meant to be. I ranted about how obstinate all of them are and it seems I didn't save it. I don't really hate them after all I guess.

Things to think about: boys vs. girls, tomatoes, siva, types of meditation, patterns

Water dreams

when I was small:
1. My dag was traPPED IN THE BOTTOM OF A 55 GALLON DRUM covered with water.I could see her but my arms were too short to reach her.

2. My grandmother was trapped in a puddle of water with a piece of metal netting over her. I could see her hands but nothing else. I knew it was her becuase she had on her copper bracelets.

3. My brother had fallen into a crack in the drainage ditch we always walked home from school in. I could see his hands reaching up from the bottom of the crack under wtare but every other part of him was stuck underneath the concrete.

As of late:

A dream about living on an island-hawii like but nightmarish. We had been conquered by outsiders and rather than give up I had decided to die. I jumped in the water and the currents pulled me away from the shore and down into the depths. While I was afraid I was also embraced by the water. It was so strong around me, comforting me while I was sorrowful.

I was visiting a camp of some sort and the children had gotton too close to the water and fallen in. I grew to be very large(tree size) and reached down and plucked them out. I also made the water go away and as it receeded there were the most amazing creatures hiding under it. They were brightly colored and monsterous but not scary as they rightfully belonged in the water and we were invading thier space.

Almost all my dreams have water located in the proximity-an ocean with strong, yet lulled waves, a calm green pond, Sometimes I have to lull the waves to make them calm down or make them stay away from the "dream space"

a water dream

I dreamed as always of the water. The water was surrounding our house and we had all ran to the top floor to escape it. I was in control because I could protect my family. Common sense and rational thought are what is needed in a time of crisis.

I left them and was running away from a man who was chasing me. I wasn't really afraid because he couldn't hurt me. Since I started taking martial arts, people in my dreams don't frighten me anymore. Anger yes, but fear no.

I ran away from him down a long road. I had left the flooded area and my family safe behind. As I ran ahead I saw the ocean. I stopped by the edge and turned to face the man. I sort of stepped out of the dream at this point a bit miffed as I always dream about water. I asked him point blank "Why do I dream about water all the time?" He told me that I dream about water because I am afraid of it and that I like what I fear. That I like to be afraid.

He took my hand and we began to have sex at that point on the gray, gritty beach. Then the alarm went off, which sucked as dream sex is alwasy entertaining even if it is gritty beach dream sex.

Anytime anything tramatic happens to me I dream about it and I very often remember my dreams. After the fire I dreamed of fields on fire. Now when I dream of fire, I put it out with my mind. Whole fields will be ablaze and they just sputter out. After the tornados, I dream about being surrounded by tornados. Seriously, hundreds of them. In my dream we all go sit in the basement and watch them all go by. In another dream they went by in lines circumventing my house because I didn't want them there. After 9/11 I dreamed of planes just falling out of the sky at random. I mean it the damn things were like rain. Now I catch them and help them land smoothly. They sometimes fill in the background of my dreams but they don't crash anymore.

Water is all that's left. In almost every dream I have it is there. I am not really afraid but rather mistrusting and wary of it. I can control it some but the fact that it doesn't go away fascinates me. Sometimes I swim in it-it is so dark and deep and pours over my body engulfing me. It is where I am safe, like a mother's womb. Sometimes I have to save people from it. It is a scary friend that, kinda like the planes, is often in the background of whatever dream I am having. It does scare me.

continued

What is the point of supressing all the fluff and noise our minds constantly spew? It seems that either through prayer or meditation, this supression has been pointed out again and again as a way to become something more or realize something more than what we are.

Better even, where does all this noise come from in the first place? In an ADD mind the noise is louder and faster, manic in intensity. However it also seems to be a wellspring of creativity and an amazing aid to brainstorming. Being an ADD mind, when I take meds, the flow is eased and a quiet takes over. It becomes more difficult to be the random idea generator. Brainstorming and random creativity are supressed while at hand task awareness is enhanced. Global understanding is more difficult whereas step by step processes become much more reasonable to perform.

When I don't take meds, patterns fall into place and I come up with entertaining ideas like putting lighted up Shiva in my front yard and building my own lightup raindeer for christmas. I also become much more artistic. Feelings are more important as well.

I am getting to the point(is there a point?) Where, anatomically, is this flow occuring? It seems to be 30s event-perhaps as small as ten s in the ADD population. The chalkboard holds an idea for 30s-or remains blank-then feels the need to switch ideas. The old thought are pushed aside by the new thoughts.

Like a pumping-a heartbeat or a pulsing of neural networks. I need to find out what event in the brain might occur at these intervals. Ahh, brain anatomy all poured out of my head. I need a refresher course.

Thoughts:
Creativity arises from the convolution of these mental flows. The ability to attach them to past memories and recognize patterns subconciously.

Flows are stopped during meditation, deep sleep.


Flows faster in the ADD population-slowed upon stimulant administration.


Shiva, beautiful shiva, I am sorry not to think more about you. I feel your glow when I meditate sometimes or when I walk or sit. My whole body is lit up and I can't not smile. How odd to be in love with god. I wish that you were something tangible to touch and taste. Sometimes I imagine that you sit in front of me or actually inside of me. When I do I can feel the blood rushing through my hands and legs and feel my heart beat. When I think of you, my lips are soft and my cheeks are flushed. how odd.

uggghuuuugggggggggggeiiiiiiiiiiiiii

job hunting is so depressing. Interview in Dallas went very well. Lunch in Austin went well, however temp agency lady is sort of hopeless. A month in advance I schedule the interview, and two days before she cancels. She then rescedules for four days off, only to never give me a time/place/paperwork. I drove to austin but it turns out she was in sanantonio. She didn't return my calls and I finally called her only to have her say "can we schedule a phone interview?" I could have done that without driving 1900 miles. Seriously. Now back at work with no definite prospects in the future. I picked a terrible time to job hunt. All the BS students just left school and are job hunting leaving me quite unemployed.


On to happier thoughts. Started meditating again yesterday. It really helps to quench the flow of thoughts that rip through my silly noggin all the time. I was so tired yesterday that I think I was really sleeping sitting up but all the same, it counts as trying.

I have been thinking a lot about the point of meditation. It seems to be developing "one pointed focus" What does that really mean? I think, it may be to utterly stop, quench, supress, the "flow of conciousness" . I recently read part of a text on conciousness by a prof in England. She did her PhD in ESP research and realized it was a bit unrealistic and now teaches courses on the nature of conciousness.

It made me think back on what is conciousness. Conciousness seems to be the flow of information/sensory/past experiences through our working memory. We sense it as a continous run of thoughts and ideas that are convuluted. merge. processed and mulled over. I guess our working memory either is or is next door to the "chalkboard" where all the chewing occurs.

The aim of meditation seems to be to empty the chalkboard/working memory. A blank slate. A blissful empty canvas. It is nature's abhorrence of a vacuum that makes our mind fill that space the second it empties. Meditation is hard becuase we are supressing our mind's desire to fill the gap.

Blah, I am lazy

I am so lazy today. Finally have a few job interviews. I had to tell them I'd work in two weeks, they wouldn't have to pay me to relocate, and I work cheap. At least they called.

I have decided when I go down to visit Austin, I will go to the one place I really wanted to work, and I will take 200 copies of my resume with me. Then I will put it on every car in the parking lot. Then I will strip down butt naked, Write the name of the company all over my body in permenant marker and tape as many copies of my resume as I can to the building windows....until the police show up of course. I also considered getting the name of the company tatooed across my back, stomach and both my legs.. I would have been a dedicated employee.

In a very scary way.

At least one interview is with a temp adjency in the area and some positions are with the company so perhaps it might work out okay in the end.


uggg. gruuuu. blugggggg. I do not want to work today. I am so lazy.

Funny, reading the myersbriggs description had me and my pal in tears. It is so accurate. I seriously can't stick to one topic before I bubble over into something else. am exceptionally random, Like a random number generator a physics or math guy would use in a computer program. It just randomly comes up with the next number. I am a random idea generator. I am alittle NF girl lost in an NT world. If I go to law school they'll just be a bunch more little NTers to drive me bonkers. I have decided I want to be at the first percentile of my law school class. We figured that you can't be at the zeroth percentile, so theoretically the first percentile ispossible. And you know it almost sounds good at first glance "the first percentile". I don't know if law school GPA matters much, but by the time I get there I will be a wrinkled up old prune with half a brain left compared to the cute little ones, so hey the first percentile isn't such a bad deal. What do they call the med student who was last in his med school class? Dr.

myersbriggs personality type

ENFP

"The Champions"

Extraverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceiving

General:
ENFPs are both "idea"-people and "people"-people, who see everyone and everything as part of an often bizarre cosmic whole. They want to both help (at
least, their own definition of "help") and be liked and admired by other people, on both an individual and a humanitarian level. They are interested in new
ideas on principle, but ultimately discard most of them for one reason or another.

For ENFPs nothing occurs which does not have some significance, and they have an uncanny sense of the motivations of others. This gives them a talent for
seeing life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil. ENFPs strive for toward the authentic, even when acting spontaneously,
and this intent is usually communicated nonverbally to others, who find this characteristic attractive. ENFPs, however, find their own efforts of authenticity
and spontaneity always lacking, and tend to heap coals of fire on themselves, always berating themselves for being so conscious of self.

Social/Personal Relationships:
ENFPs have a great deal of zany charm, which can ingratiate them to the more stodgy types in spite of their unconventionality. They are outgoing, fun, and
genuinely like people. As they are warm, affectionate, and disconcertingly spontaneous. However, attention span in relationships can be short; ENFPs are
easily intrigued and distracted by new friends and acquaintances, forgetting about the older ones for long stretches at a time. Less mature ENFPs may need to
feel they are the center of attention all the time, to reassure them that everyone thinks they're a wonderful and fascinating person.

ENFPs often have strong, if unconvential, convictions on various issues related to their Cosmic View. They usually try to use their social skills and contacts to
persuade people gently of the rightness of these views; this sometimes results in their neglecting their nearest and dearest while flitting around trying to save
the world.

Because they tend to be hypersensitive and hyperalert, they may suffer from muscle tension. They live in readiness for emergencies, because they have this
facility, they assume this is true for others. They can become bored rather quickly with both situations and people, and resist repeating experiences. They
enjoy the process of creating something - an idea or a project - but are not as interested in the follow-through. They are typically enthusiastic, and this is
contagious. People get caught up and entranced by an ENFP. While ENFPs resist the notion of others becoming dependent or having power over them, their
charisma draws followers who wish to be "shown the way". ENFPs constantly find themselves surrounded by others who look toward the ENFP for wisdom,
inspiration, courage, leadership, and so on - an expectancy which, at times, weighs rather heavily on an ENFP.

ENFPs are characteristically optimistic and are surprised when people or evnts do not turn out as anticipated. Often their confidence in the innate goodness of
fate and human nature is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

ENFPs are friendly folks. Most are really enjoyable people. Some of the most soft-hearted people are ENFPs.

ENFPs have what some call a "silly switch." They can be intellectual, serious, all business for a while, but whenever they get the chance, they flip that switch
and become CAPTAIN WILDCHILD, the scourge of the swimming pool, ticklers par excellence. Sometimes they may even appear intoxicated when the
"switch" is flipped.

Work Environment:
ENFPs are pleasant, easygoing, and usually fun to work with. They come up with great ideas, and are a major asset in brainstorming sessions. Follow through
tends to be a problem, however; they tend to get bored quickly, especially if a newer, more interesting project comes along. They also tend to be
procrastinators, both about meeting hard deadlines and about performing any small, uninteresting tasks that they've been assigned. ENFPs are at their most
useful when working in a group with a J or two to take up the slack.

ENFPs hate bureaucracy, both in principle and in practice; they will always make a point of launching one of their crusades against some aspect of it.

ENFPs have a remarkable latitude in career choices and succeed in many fields. As workers, they are warmly enthusiastic, high-spirited, ingenious,
imaginative, and can do almost anything that interests them. They can solve most problems, particularly those that deal with people They are charming and at
ease with with colleagues; others enjoy their presence. ENFPs are outstanding in getting people together, and are good at initiating meetings and conferences,
although not as talented at providing for the operational details of these events. Once projects or peoplel become routine, ENFPs are likely to lose interest;
what might be is always more fascinating that what is.

ENFPs make excellent salespeople, advertising people, politicians, screen or play writers, and in general are attracted to the interpretive arts, particularly
character acting. One study has shown that ENFPs are significantly overrepresented in psychodrama. Most have a natural propensity for role-playing and
acting.

People-to-people work is essential for ENFPs, who need the feedback of interaction with others. ENFPs may find it difficult to work within the constraints
of an institution, especially in following rules, regulations, and standard operating procedures. More frequently, institutional procedures and policies are
targets to be challenged and bent by the will of an ENFP. At times, ENFPs demonstrate impatience with others; they may get into difficulty in an
organization by siding with its detractors, who find in an ENFP a sympathetic ear and a natural rescuer. In occupational choices, ENFPs quickly become
restless if the choice involves painstaking detail and follow-through over a period of time. Variety in day-to-day operations and interactions best suits the
talents of ENFPs, who need quite a bit of latitude in which to exercise their adaptive ingenuity.

ENFPs like to tell funny stories, especially about their friends. This penchant may be why many are attracted to journalism. I kid one of my ENFP friends that
if I want the sixth fleet to know something, I'll just tell him.

ENFPs are global learners. Close enough is satisfactory to the ENFP, which may unnerve more precise thinking types, especially with such things as piano
practice ("three quarter notes or four ... what's the difference?") Amazingly, some ENFPs are adept at exacting disciplines such as mathematics.

Friends are what life is about to ENFPs, more so even than the other NFs. They hold up their end of the relationship, sometimes being victimized by less
caring individuals. ENFPs are energized by being around people. Some have real difficulty being alone , especially on a regular basis.

ENFPs sometimes can be blindsided by their secondary Feeling function. Hasty decisions based on deeply felt values may boil over with unpredictable results.
More than one ENFP has abruptly quit a job in such a moment.

Extraverted iNtuition
The physical world, both geos and kosmos, is the ENFP's primary source of information. Rather than sensing things as they are, dominant intuition is
sensitive to things as they might be. These extraverted intuitives are most adept with patterns and connections. Their natural inclination is toward
relationships, especially among people or living things.

ENFPs consider intense emotional experiences vital; when they have these, however, they are made uneasy by a sense of being there but with a part of
themselves split off. They strive for congruency, but always seem themselves in some danger of losing touch wiht their real feelings, which ENFPs possess in
a wide range and variety.

ENFP Family Life
As mates, ENFPs tend to be charming, gentle, sympathetic, and nonconformist. They are not likely to be interested in the less-inspired routines of daily
maintenance and ever will be seeking new outlets for their inspirations. As parents, ENFPs are devoted although somewhat unpredictable in handling their
children, shifting from role of friend-in-need-rescuer to stern authority figure. They may not always be willing to enforce their impulsive pronouncements,
but leave it to their mates to follow through. A mate of an ENFP can expect charming surprises: extravagent generosity punctuated by periods of frugality.
Independent actions regarding money on the part of an ENFP's mate are not ordinarily welcomed, and the mate may find him or herself in an embarrassing
situation of having to return purchases. ENFPs generally are the ones in charge of the home, and a conflict-free home is desired, almost demanded.

mowing the lawn

I mowed my prairie of a lawn today. My poor husband worked on the old lawnmower for weeks, however it ended up needing a new carborator which we didn't want to pay for. So I went out and bought a new lawnmower. Funny, when you let someone who has never mowed a lawn buy a lawnmower. I bought the coolest little electric mower. My lawnmower is the most amazing little thing in the world. It wieghs about 2/3 of the weight of a normal mower, starts when I push a lever, doesn't stink of gas, and has a sweet little purr instead of a deafening roar.

It is so the girly lawnmower.

My husband hasn't stopped making fun of me yet. He says my hippie mulching lawnmower doesn't have blades. Instead it has little gentle hands which slowly massage the tops of the grass off. I love my lawnmower!

I enjoy mowing the grass and watching it all level off evenly. So easy to do and it is so perfect and flat when you are done. Plus it stays that way for at least a week or two. Very unlike housework. Mowing time is also thinking time. I like to think, far too much, as sometimes I forget what my hands are doing as my mind is far off thinking. When I mow, I just have to touch base now and then so I don't mow down my son or the cord, and otherwise I can think.

Today I thought about, well stuff I shouldn't mention, hah, hah, That's why I looked so happy mowing the lawn. But outside of inapproriate thoughts, I also tossed around thoughts about society and such. My grand, impressive theory of what is worng with society. For me, being a scientist, most everything falls down into evolved patterns of behavior.

other stuff
NT,god,siva,driftwood,sm

Almost all of our behaviors were developed over five hundred thousand years or so of evolutionary pressure. Our minds balloned enormously. We developed the capacity to speak Some skills helped us find food or find mates, but many of the "personality" traits that we have now evolved as a means to maintain intact small social groups. We lived in small tribes/packs which required intense cooperation to exist over long periods of time. I think of these packs like small towns. You know everyones business and they know all of yours. You grow up surrounded by the same packmates, watch the old ones die, the new ones born. You have a reasonably well established place in the social hiarchy. You know where you stand.

If you become injured, at least in the short term, the others assist you-the origins of empathy. If you help others they most likely will help you in your time of need. A very necessary component of a social group. Each of you gives food, shelter and care to others in the group for the same things in return. While in a small town, you may hate it because you can't be anonomous, for the same reasons, a lot of people return to small towns to have kids. You want your offspring to be surrounded by others who care for them and at keast in some fashion comprise members of a social net, to catch them in case of trouble. We all search for a clan of sorts that will take us in and embrace us. We spend so much time searching for this "group". In the form of fraternities, religion, geneology, PTA, the in crowd, a club of people who do what we do, or gangs for that matter.Or race or my favorite the goth or punk kids who are outcasts and thus part of a group, Even blind patriotism to a country/state/city or sports team qualifies as finding a "group" When we find it, we feel the need to attack others who aren't in our group, as a way of boosting our own self esteem/social standing/survival rate. (if we feel better about our selves we project that externally, and others may percieve us to "better")

These groups and the need to belong to one seems like a double edged sword. On one hand it seems to be the source of most wars that we fight. On a tribe/pack level back in the days of prehistory, it makes sense to have evolved a blind allegience to your group. Your group keeps you alive, and it seems that attcking other groups also keeps you alive. If the "others" don't survive then it makes more room for your and your group's genetic contribution to be carried on. That may be pushing it a bit-definitely in the BS range :) , However blind loyalty to the group and the extreme need to be in a social group was a very selected for trait for highly intelligent, yet highly vunerable pre humans. No matter what your group-giving you security, food, affection,-is put ahead of all others. Your offspring was part of that group-you insure they survive and that your Genetic contribution gets passed on. Now days that blind group loyalty and the intense need to be part of a group gets us into all types of trouble. What is it that you identify with and how willing would you be to fight for it? religion and patriotism seem to be the big ones. How many of us Americans quit eating french fries just because they are french? Why is it worse when one american dies as opposed to one iraqi? It's becuase he was one of us! How dare you kill one of us! You can only hope folks stop and think a bit more before they make snap choices. Sometimes you have ignore the gut feeling because it is grounded in animal instincts. They work well mostly, but the larger the "group" becomes, the harder it is to deal with irrational animal instincts. If nothing else, recognize what you feel , recognize WHY you feel it, then make a choice.

On the flip side of the groups. We need them. As the group gets too large, we feel lost, alone. We no longer have the feeling that someone is there for us if things go bad. If we are "injured" or "hungry" metaphorically or literally, will there be someone there unconditionally to help us? In a small town, quite likely. In a big city, likely not. As we, at least in America, move large distances away from our families and early childhood friends, we , at least subconciously, loose the net/group. Even worse, we never have the group in the first place. Single parent families (I was one for several years) and a collapse of "raising the child by the village" , drug and alcohol abuse by parents, and on and on lead to an apathy of sorts. I see this in my family, the "white trash" approach to life. Why should we bother helping anyone else (not littering, not stealing, mowing the lawn, smoking around our children, roadrage.....) when no one will help us. Our group has been decimated and so we no longer feel empathy for how our actions will effect other members of our group. Who cares. it's not my problem... Or perhaps, external stressors (bills, debt, terrible jobs) leave us so energetically drained that the necessary mental and physical energy needed to feel empathy is totally absent. We can't care about you becuase we can't keep our own heads above water. Perhaps in a group, your actions that hurt other members of the group would leave you outcasted. Now days we have become used to not caring about others and made our group so tiny,

Rates of "induced" mental illness have increased quite a bit over the last century. By induced I mean Depression /alcoholism/drug abuse/stress induced exacerbation of more permenant disorders like bipolar/ADHD. In almost every mental illness the traits that in extreme make it negative, can be seen in a positive evolutionary light. They served a role. Now as we have lost our group, we are much more prone to developing mental and physical disorders. It used to be that psychsomatic meant you were imagining it. Now days it means that you feel physical pain induced by a mental condition. If being a bit loopy is grounded in biology, than the same biological "flaw" can cause you to feel pain or become sick. Stress makes all these things worse. As we become richer, "happier" and more independent we become more miserable.

What is true happiness? How do we recover a group without being idiotic and letting our blind faith in the group lead us into trouble? How do you teach folks that it is this group idiocy that leads them into war? How do you recover our ability to work as a group and feel empathy for each other? Interesting book called emotional IQ that addresses how, at least, to teach social skills to kids. Perhaps it would be a start. Boy, long winded today. Gotta go plant the flowers now. In the driftwood of course ....

Dumpling is playing yu-gi-oh with buddha

election year

Dumpling is running to be his second grade class president. I helped him outline his speech in which he said that he felt the community center needed more trash cans as the class was very messy.

His slogans:

1. I don't bite ... please vote for me
2. vote for me ... services free (ie my mom will pay for field trips)
3. please vote for me (with a flag on the poster)
4. It's like a cookie ... just voting

He'll make a good politician some day.

water

The sky was incredibly blue. So deep blue with amazing puffs of white that drift along floating by. In resonance with the clouds, I bobbed up and down in the water, water that had that weedy mud smell that resovouirs seem to have. My little orange life vest hugged me and I bobbed with hair a mass of tentacles surrounding my head.

Off to one side giant cliffs of white limestone rose out of the water. lines of interspersed color splahed along the surface of the limestone. At the top of the cliffs, trees peered over to see us down below bobbing in the water. And of course always present was the buttery, golden, baking sun, an unchanging feature of the Texas landscape.

Funny thing about Texas. We only have two real lakes (so I've heard.) The rest were reservoirs created by damming up the ever flooding rivers that crisscross the state. It was amazing when I moved up north to see houses built right next to big broad thick rivers. In Texas our rivers are puny little dried up creatures. People throw trash in them, or fish out tiny rainbow colored perch, but certainly there are no barges or boats or drawbridges for that matter. And certainly no one builds houses next to our rivers. Our little puny rivers are caged by massive hills a hundred feet tall and at least a quarter of a mile on either side of the river. These massive hills surround a tiny puny dribble of a river-at least until it rains.

Within minutes during a big storm, the puny rivers becomes frothing, brown monsters. Before the hills in ft. Worth were built my grandmaw said she saw the entire downtown area flooded to the forth floor of the montgomery ward building. Downtown Ft.Worth was a lake just for a bit. If you ever drive through Dallas or Ft. Worth you will see the hugs hills that bank the various branches of the Trinity River. If you drive along 30 from one city to another, you'll encounter Arlington, shopping mecca with more retail establishments per square mile than any other city in America. Then you hit this empty zone. The highway stands out above it and it is kinda flat and empty of houses and such. When it rains you understand why as the whole place becomes a big mud puddle.

So at any rate, the rivers, and water itself, are slightly more menacing for the avarage Texan than say for the New Yorker or Michigander. Thus the resoviors were born, as a source of energy and a way to control the flooding rivers.

Funny thing about a resovior , is that far underneath the surface, you still kinda have a river. It comes in one side, and if the dam is open it goes out the other side. A bit like the jet stream only far below the water.

So there I sit in a resovoir, surrounded by family, both human and my Texan family made of rock sun and water.

My aunts are there. I don't know them very well. They like horses and I love horses so I think they are neat, but from a bit of a distance as I am really a very shy kid. My two cousins are there, floating in my vicinity. They are funny and friendly. Joy who is a bit more restrained and Marlina who later became a buety pagent contestant and laughed a lot. But they aren't laughing. They are crying. I can't find my dad. I know he is around somewhere, but you know how life jackets are. They push your head forward so it is hard to turn, especially when you are little. My sister is somewhere but I don't know where. She is smaller than me but I love her. Off to the far line of my vision my aunts fiance is in the water too. He was the first place I ever learned the word fiance. He seems very sick but I don't understand why.


Ahhh, the family reunion. It was the family reunion. The ever ubiquitous green bean cassarole, fried chicken, blood red beets and a never ending assortment of pasta and potato salads. All on the shores of the beautiful lake whitney, grateful resovior to the sweet Brazos River. Only one of many I assume. My dad loves boats and cars. He comes to pick us up from my mom in his blue truck mostly, but sometimes he comes in his white cadillac convertible. We always stop at Dairy Queen and get ice cream cones however. The ones dipped in chocolate. Mom said he would spend hours and hours in the old garage working on the cars. When they would fight, she would scream and scream, and even throw things at him. Off he would go to the shed to work on the cars, till she simmered a bit. Eventually she dumped him for some other guy who was more exciting.

Today my daddy brought out his new boat. It was white with red inside it. The last boat had been brown with blue interior I think. He had traded and borrowed to get the new boat, as I guess it was better. We run around the family reunion meeting all the odd, unfamiliar people. So many relatives. Then we all go out on the lake in the boat.

When you are in a boat, you fly across the water and if you hit the rough spots, where other boats have left wakes, you bounce up and down a bit. Always surrounded by the muddy resovior water smell. Funny thing about resoviors is that they just fill in the big valley around the river. They don't cut down the trees or move anything thing that is there, they stop the river and wait for the valley to fill, So sometimes, especially near the shallow areas, you see trees coming out of the water. Skeletal and dead of course but trees all the same. Seems on that day, that butter yellow family reunion day we might have met up with a tree. No one ever really knew.

Flying along in the water, but there was water by my feet. The floor was coming apart-into pieces. The square floorboard pieces were floating and we were no longer afloat. Soon we were all bobbing in the water, confused and enclosed by white rocks, blue sky and muddy grey blue water. Seems like my dadddy shoulda got a better boat. I vaguely recall the boat sinking below the surface. Only vaguely.

My daddy had been holding me while he drove. So he held me while we sank. At first as we bobbed he was behind me. That's why I couldn't see him. The water was in my mouth for a bit and I choked as I went under, then I popped back up. Somebody had their hand on my foot.

We all sat and waited. For what? I am far to little to know. I am scared but my family is close by and they will take care of me. The fiance is choking and gagging on the water. Turns out he wasn't wearing a lifejacket. He was lucky . he almost drowned. His mirror fiance held him up as she was wearing a lifejacket. It apprears that the river running under the surface of the lake was a bit close that day. It also turns out that Lake Whitney is well known for it's victims, like sacrifices it pulls them down, into the murky darkness, so calm and peaceful there.

A boat arrives. An old silver fishing boat. They pull up the drowning fiance first. Then we, being the future generation, are pulled in one by one, little soaked dolls with sraggely brown and blond tendils clinging to us. Another boat comes and gets all the aunts. So we all return to shore. They are crying and sobbing, which I don't understand. We have been saved, by the silver fishing baot. We are out of the water. Later it seems , upon counting heads thrirteen went out but only twelve returned. The cousins, the aunts, the sister and the fiance were accounted for. It seems the only two had been without lifejackets and one had a fiance to hold him up. The other only had a tiny little smidgen girl, in a tiny little lifevest only meant to hold up fifty pounds, not two hundred. When the river under the water came alive, and pulled at our feet as we sank into the water, all the swimming imaginable was useless.

What goes through your mind, in those slow, lightening fast seconds. You sink and you hold on to what will keep you afloat, realizing, you will pull it down with you. Maybe only a few feet, enough to save you as you kick and splutter to the surface for the occasional breath. It however doesn't understand and would need more than an occasionally breath. So you begin to release it and it pops back to the surface, inces higher as you sink inches lower. Do you decide to let go or does instinct (or the opposite of instict) take over and make you release her? What do you think as your hand runs across her toes and she rises higher while you are pulled lower? You sink down so fast and of course struggle to get back to the surface. How long before you can no longer hold your breath. Not very long, as you are very upset and your body demands oxygen. The water rushes in and fills your lungs, and you should cough, but how do you cough when every breath is filled with water. How long do you suffer with pain as you can no longer breath before you black out and are claimed by the beast river. What are your last thoughts as this happens. Do you realize that you are going to die and give in or do you fight till the last second. Do you think of us bobbing high above you? Do you even have time to consider us in those last few moments?

I often wonder, do you watch over us, do you exist somewhere else, keeping us out of trouble. (Watch that little sister-she needs more help than me I think.) Even with crazy mum, it seems we will end up okay. We miss you, even the dumpling who never knew you. I never understood how much you loved me until I held my son one day, close to me. I knew that this was the way me dad felt about me, an intense, powerful urge to give everything to keep me safe. You felt joy to watch me walk, and talk, and felt sad when I cried. Now I cry so many years after the fact, because I miss you.

interview questions

What is it that you could bring to our company?


Hunger. My drive to succeed is directly proportional to my desire to eat. I like food. If you hire me I can eat. I think we'll be a great match. Of course you might also want to keep me in a state of semi starvation to keep up my work ethic, however don't we all want to look like supermodels?

What is your greatest weakness?

Choosing the challenging, interesting, difficult, adventurous path over the boring, easy, routine, straightforward path just to see if I can do it. Sometimes I can't!

tomatoes

I am so lax about posting in the blog. I think to myself that I would like to write but I get caught up doing other things and just don't get the chance.

I am writing from work and I just want to note that my UNIX sucks ass. It seriously has given me a window two inches wide to type into. On many web pages I get messages about "your browser does not meet basic internet standards". I tried to get a new netscape however it seems that nobody likes UNIX anymore and no new versions have been made in years.

The dandelions have been mowed and returned as tall as ever. On a wierd side note many of them seem to have undergone a very odd mutation developmentally. The flowers will grow on a stalk an inch wide and four flower heads will be morphed together into a single wide flower. I was going to make dandelion jam, however I am a bit scared that I live on a nuclear waste site. Wonder what the tomatoes will look like?

Interesteing non plant, semi plant observations. I can't keep my mind quiet. On ritalin (for ADHD), it will sit there quiet when I try and meditate. It observes my surroundings but there is little internal "talking"-you know the voice in your head sort of talking. Off the meds, the voice never stops. Idea after idea pops up and they merge and split. It is like a vast web of chaotic colors all blending together. Like a toddler given two pieces of a puzzle. It bangs them together over and over again in different ways, till something fits. My brain does this with ideas. They get blended and churned and brought to the surface over and over again.

At night when I dream this is most obvious. On meds I sleep like a rock. It is so funny that I take a stimulant and I sleep so deeply. I still dream but can't remember it. My guess is that it enhances, not REM sleep, (perhaps supresses REM?), rather the periods of deep sleep that surround REM sleep. If I drink a big cup of coffee or take sudafed before bed I also sleep much more deeply. When I don't take meds, I dream all night long and almost always remember my dreams. It is very easy to interact in my dream stste as I usually know that I am dreaming. If something scares me in my dream , I can choose to calm down and move away from it or morph it into something else. I can also see the same blending of ideas occuring in dreams even more than when I am awake. My brain will take unrelated ideas encountered during the day and force them to be mixed. It will sometimes get stuck in a rut and hash the same idea over and over again till I get up because I can't stand lying there dreaming about it anymore. It actually becomes mental draining after awhile.

Is it good or bad? When I meditate not haven taken any meds, my mind runs crazy, jabbing for a few minutes. I finally quiet most of the verbal chatter but I can feel it bursting from under the surface. It is like an ocean that is very wide and deep and dark, very calm, with little ripples now and then that perturb the surface. The funnest part is that if I just keep sitting there, all the energy that must be constantly being burned up by the chatterbox mind and spastic body gets refunneled. After a few minutes my whole body starts to glow, metaphorically of course. I have had the same experience doing katas or in yoga. I am blissful, spastic and still all at once. I also want to giggle-he hehe.

This same glow often comes to me during sex, or when I am in really painful yoga poses (awwww, the back bends) Perhaps it's an endorphin rush.

I feel close to god then, not jesus or god mind you, but siva. I feel closer to understanding what I am about and what the world is about.

Funnily enough, like in Siddhartha, I don't know if I can explain it to anyone else. However I see the same thing in my dumpling. He will run and dance about spastically and I see the glowing bliss-silliness all over him. He couldn't stop if he wanted to. I guess that's why he is ADD. Mental illness or mental advantage? I may never be rich but I can roll in the grass and feel siva around me and inside of me. I guess all those normal people miss out on that.