Skiving

Recently my dear sister started a blog, skiver.wordpress.com, which is dedicated to expanding and gaining widespread acceptance for the ancient and powerful art of skiving, aka avoiding work at all costs.

Inspired by my dear sister and a complete lack of customers or work to do here at my job, I am enjoying some skive-time by googling images for ceramics and blogging about the process.

Basically, I just wanted to share with any and all interested parties the fact that when I searched for "carnivorous plants" on images.google.com there were 12,300 results. Such websites exist as www.bestcarnivorousplants.com, www.hungryplants.nl, and www.extremeplants.nl. God bless the internet. now I have thousands of images to inspire my china painting. Thank-you, Google.

"I'll Beat Her Up For You"

Bonjour, my dearest blog, how I have missed thee! It was quite a rough semester, hence my lack of postage (haha, see, it's funny because I worked at the UPS Store, and often sold postage. Ok, so that's not funny. I tried, man, why don't you cut me some slack?).

Arguments with the blog aside, it was an adventure of a semester. Somehow I managed to work, survive bug infestations, get through 23 hrs of classtime a week, have an art show, be Chair of CS, sleep a little (and I do mean a teensy bit), hold on to a boyfriend, and still see a small few of my friends, coming out feeling only as downtrodden and used as Belgium in WW2. Poor, poor Belgium. The Germans only wanted you to get to France.

But the semester ended, and I returned to my glorious, beautiful home state of Colorado! Despite the travel adventures of this holiday season, I am downright, GodDamn PROUD to be a Coloradan. In the last three weeks we have had upwards of EIGHTY inches of snow where my house is, and that is pretty damn cool. I might just choose to block out the miserable days trapped in close quarters with my anxious and lunatic mother in hotels and stranger's apartments, and just remember that hey, we got a lot of awesome snow. Who needs reality, anyway?

And now, the holidays are over, and I am left with my mother still, in a house that couldn't be big enough for the both of us if it had been built by Bill Gates. As it is, it was built by a fellow named Robert Holman, and he didn't have the sort of financial resources Mr. Gates would have. But a positive attitude and anger management can be wonderful things.

I have one week left here in Colorado, and I'm going to do my best to enjoy it fully. That means trips to Lakewood, seeing friends, and, come hell or high water, the celebration of Sabrinah's 21st birthday! WOOHOO, let the booze flow!!! I may choose to blog again soon to fill you in about these thrilling events. In the meantime, Ciao, Bellos!

(And if your wondering about the title, it's because around the time this window came up, I was offering to beat up Jason's ex-girlfriend for him. This is why I'm not allowed to take kick-boxing classes.)

alright, alright already

I'll update. But I'll do it properly, which means not now. In the meantime, check out such adorable websites as kittenwar.com and stuffonmycat.com. I particularly recommend:

http://www.stuffonmycat.com/media/2/20060825-POKY.jpg

And if your sense of humor is sufficiently crude, check out catsthatlooklikehitler.com.

I'm so sleepy....

... and for once I don't mind. Probably because my sleepyness is boy induced... oh boys. How I adore them. And oh how I'm becoming fond of one in particular.

I am really loving this not having to go to class thing. Last week I went into the studio a couple times, worked out a bit, played some tennis, ate far too much expensive food and got to see a lot of Jason. I'm even getting my laundry done, and my kitchen is on its way to being clean. Whoa. Crazyness. It's kind of necessary, though, since on Friday we (Anika, Matt, Eric V., Alison and I) are leaving for San Diego, and Eric Law is coming back Sunday night. This of course means that my place needs to be all cleaned up for Eric before I leave, in part because I want him to help keep it clean but I can't expect that of him unless I can do it first. Oi.

So, I'm starting to get a little worried about this fall. I have a lot on my plate, and I'm hoping that I'll have Jason to worry about fitting into my schedule. Between classes, kiln firings, working out, eating right, Camp Sparky, tennis, swing dancing, Jason, a job (hopefully!), and having some variety of social life still, there's a hell of a lot. Already occasional trips to the studio and my social life are keeping me busy! Yikesabee!

So if you see me looking stressed this fall, pat me on the head, and remind me that I knew it was coming.

Bowling Queen

Everybody loves a Bohemian, Rhapsodic Bowler.



Oh my god, I love you guys so much. Don't ever leave me. I nearly cried for joy.


Now, I found this quiz on Anika's LiveJournal, and I don't like the answers it gave me:

If You Ruled the Land . . . by wackyweasel
Your first name:
How you gained your rule:	Military coup, of course! They never saw it coming . . .Walked in and took the throne while they were at lunchRightful heir!!Strategic poisoning . . .Mind controlAsked for it really nicely, 'pretty please'No idea . . .
Your title is:	The Awesomest One
Your symbol is:	the eagle, for grace, power, and big freaking wings
You rule from:	a cloud castle - so fluffy . . .
At your side is:	your unicorn steed, Sparkles
Your enforcers, troops, and guards are all:	just regular, run-of-the-mill . . . cyborgs
Your most popular law is:	"National Pajamas Day"
Your least popular law is:	Pinky swearing equals a binding contract
Your worst enemy is:	Ringo Starr, but you can't remember why . . .
Your popularity rating is:: 29%
Your chance of being overthrown is:: 17%
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Now, you may be wondering what's so wrong with it, and I'll tell you. First off, The Awesomest One? That's all well and good for here and now, but if I were to really have taken over the kingdom by mind control (by which I really mean subtle manipulation which makes me appear to be completely awesome), then I think I would be known as Eleanor the Benevolent, or perhaps as Eleanor the Benign- you know, something which makes me sound completely unthreatening and loved by the masses. Also, a cloud castle? That's all well and good for a singing princess like Snow White who wants to be cut off from the real world in her castle with her hot prince, but if I'm to rule by staying between one and ten steps ahead of my enemies, then I need very open routes of communication. By that, I of course mean that most of my spies will be the fake kind that the enemy knows are there and feed false information. They, however, will be carrying encrypted messages from my other, real spies, which they will pick up before coming to me in the palace. The spies themselves won't know that they're just for show, of course- they'll think they're carrying messages from childhood friends or secret lovers. In other news, I'm ok with having cyborgs, the eagle as a symbol, and with having a unicorn named Sparkles (the last is good for my benign image), and I think it's awesome that I can't remember why Ringo Starr is my enemy.

Super-Fun-Happy Bonding Times!

Aw, look how cute we all are!



So, last weekend Matt, Alison, Anika, Eric and I went camping up Payson way. It was pretty much the best weekend ever. We got up there late on Friday night and just pulled over at a turnout which turned out to have a nice little campsite right there. I've never seen anything like the sky up there- I've seen the sky seemingly full of stars, but this was the first time I've seen it anything like that, and the first time I've been able to say with absolute certainty that I could see the milky way. It was even better in some ways the second night- I saw my first satellites (2 of 'em!) and a couple of shooting stars. Yay! It was such a beautiful warm night that we just sat around without a fire and drank Fat Tire to our hearts' content. There was much guitar, and much playing of Never Have I Ever. I lost. A lot. It was such a lovely evening, that we didn't go to bed until 3am.

We went and splashed around in a creek and in a waterfall, lounged at Bear Lake, took great pictures of ourselves on a cliff, and came back on Saturday evening to find our sleeping bags soaked, a thunderstorm over the next mountain, and a forest fire over the ridge. Oh my chickens. We did our best to dry the sleeping bags, and had a lovely dinner complete with smores cooked over Eric's camp stove and more of that wonderful Fat Tire. There were only two sleepingbags which were dry enough to be useful, so we ended up spreading them out on the bottom of the tent and sleeping on top of them. Body heat is a wonderful thing- I am so glad I was sleeping next to Eric and not someone I hate and/or am repulsed by. It is, however, insufficient for someone such as myself who is lacking in, you know, metabolism, so after I woke up in the middle of the night I had to go walk around outside to get my blood pumping again.



Overall, it was a perfectly lovely weekend, and I totally enjoyed getting to know those crazy kids better.

In other news, I finished up with o-chem this week (oh god, oh god), and movie night last night was, shall we say, a rousing success. *giggle*

Alright, that's all folks.

Returning to Reality

So... I've had a fun week.

Nick, you'll be happy to hear that I succumbed to my meat cravings. My body is none too happy about it, but damn it was tasty.

So... I maybe sorta kinda drank six nights in a row. Wow. It started at movie night last Thursday when Jason and I polished off a bottle of wine. So tasty! Friday night we celebrated Alison's return from afar by having too much. I hadn't meant to drink more than a little, but Jason ended up picking me up, so I wasn't driving. Oh, dear. We played Scrabble, harassed Hayden's mom who was amazingly patient with the drunkards, and watched Demolition Man (hilarious! Thank you, Sylvester Stallone, for saving the day!) and there may have been drunken good times with Jason chez moi. Saturday night despite being tired from having slept on the couch and gotten up early, I spent the afternoon swimming with Anika and we went over to SAL's and played Dirty Minds. Hayden and I were a team, which was hilarious, especially since between us we polished off a bottle of wine.



Next came night four- Sarah M. just moved into a new place with Cory, so she had a little housewarming wine and cheese party which was supposed to be pretty sober- almost everyone was supposed to work in the morning or go to class. It, uh, didn't really work out that way- exactly half the guests, including me, ended up passing out there. My glass just kept being refilled with the most delicious wine! I eventually switched to water, but I couldn't reach the coffee table, so when I would ask for my water glass, Eric would hand me a mixed drink instead. Well, you know, I can't resist a tasty drink that's already in my hand, I mean, that'd just be silly. :-P I probably got equal parts water and long island iced tea. Chickens. I ended up wrestling with Eric, which is hilarious since I really had planned on having a fairly demure evening, and especially since it wasn't so much wrestling as him getting my elbows pinned behind my back and me being extraordinarily stubborn about conceding defeat. I cracked up the next morning when I got home and discovered all the bruises from his fingers- there were at least seven, some of them in an obvious hand-print. God, I'm stubborn. Anyway, it was a really fun evening. It was great getting to have some girl-talk with Sarah and catch up on everything, and it was nice seeing Ben, Cory and Russell again.

Now let's see... Monday... right. Power Happy Hour at Casey Moore's. That's right, $2 pints and free food. I love that place. It was a really jovial group that went, and we sat around for quite a while. Afterwards Matt, Alison, Don and I went over to Anika's and watched The Labyrinth (David Bowie in all his glory). I was feeling really fidgety, though, because I was too tired to be sitting still, and people kept calling me (first my dad, then my brother, then Lindsey). After the movie and while I was out on the porch talking to Lindsey, folks decided to watch a 9/11 documentary, and I surprised myself by leaving. I just wasn't in the mood to sit still and get depressed, but I usually don't know when to say no and/or excuse myself, so I'm still surprised. Before I'd gotten very far, Eric called with the offer of pool with him and a friend, which I gladly took (so much better than getting depressed about terrorism). I <3 pool. Seriously. There just isn't enough of it in my life. We played for a while and then Eric and I grabbed some edibles. All around, a successful evening.

I know I'm boring you if you're actually reading this, but by now you should be seeing a trend of a complete lack of doing O-chem. Oh god, oh god.

So then came the 4th of July! In the early afternoon I went to a potluck/BBQ/viewing of the movie Independence Day. Classic. "Up yours, you alien assholes!" Yay for Jeff Goldblum. After losing a round of Skip-Bo, I headed out, and later went over to Matt/Ben/Taylor's party. We weren't there for long, though, before departing to go watch fireworks from Papago Park. We left really early, and it was a good thing, because traffic was horrendous. All the roads up there are one lane in each direction because of construction, and it made things more than a little difficult. We made it out to a nice spot in plenty of time, though, and the sleeping bag I sat on did something to reduce the uncomfortable nature of sitting on stony ground. The show was kicked off by some parachuters who were spewing sparks out behind them, and it would have been more exciting and dramatic had the fireworks started right then instead of, like, ten minutes later. C'mon, folks, seriously. The show was really cool, but unnecessarily long. I actually got bored. Now, I will say that the finale was quite dramatic when it came- night turned to day for a few seconds there- but I would've been content with a much shorter show.



So, I know what you really want to know is the juicy tales of awkwardness. Well, I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but despite the fact that both Jason and Eric came with me, there was remarkably little awkwardness. When I told Matt that both of them were coming, he laughed out loud. Now, it's true that technically there shouldn't be any awkwardness. After all, I'm only friends with both of them. This was, however, the first time I'd seen Jason since he'd spent the night at my place over the weekend, and I wasn't sure if he would want to like, talk about it... or something. I don't want to date Jason, though (which might be a mute point)- at least not right now. He's a really fun guy, but it really doesn't feel right to me. Regarding Eric, our friendship (and specifically how we relate to each other in person) has finally gotten back to where it was before our little... snafu... (You may remember the "Oh god, I got drunk, exhausted, and the most hormonal I've ever been in my life and I now believe the worst things about Eric [which I have since realized were COMPLETELY wrong] and totally went off on him" incident). Anyway, things are finally back where they were, and I don't intend to do or say anything I oughtn't. Overall, I'm friends with both of them, I'm happy being friends with both, and so I'm glad that nothing TOO awkward occurred last night.

Holy crap, this is a long blog.

Anyway, I'll leave you with the Plain White T's lyrics I was trying to remember during the show last night:

"'Cause I know, you know
It can't get much better,
Fireworks fly whenever we're together,
I know you know that I know you love me."