July 28

i am exhausted, but the kitchen is painted!

(no, still no pictures of that - not til it's DONE!)

instead...

using my cell phone to take pictures of the tv

while watching my favorite movie

proved to be at least somewhat interesting.

July 27

happy birthday to me!

i am 35.  (halfway to 70, as ryan keeps pointing out.)

today has been perfectly lovely.

i even got hit on by a fortune cookie:

July 26

because ryan will be in cincinnati on my actual birthday,

we went to dinner to celebrate it tonight!

the melting pot, chain or not, is fantastic.

i love love love it.

i ate a ton of delicious food.
happy, round, and almost halfway to 70!

July 25

July 24

we worked on the kitchen all day today.

countertop is dropped in.  cabinets are 1/2 painted.  

i'm not posting any pictures til it's all done, though!

but i'm really psyched with our progress.

so much so that i'm stopping now and doing nothing the rest of the night.

oh - and i think rocko was right.

i've been drinking gallons of water (and peeing gallons of pee)

and i feel considerably better today.

still not GREAT... but better.

July 23

i know i haven't been taking pictures lately.

sorry about that.

at least i'm still making sure there are posts every day.

so that's something.

July 22

i've been, like, slightly ill all week.

some days better, some days worse.

today was B-A-D!  i actually left work, which i hate doing!

i have no idea what's wrong - i'm just generally nauseated ALL DAY.

(and no, i am NOT pregnant, thank you!)

tried for hours to find a doctor and make an appointment.

total waste of time.  see, i figured that since last time i had a primary care doctor,

i just picked her off my insurance website and she ended up being totally useless, 

i decided to ask for recommendations from friends.

the EARLIEST any of those recommended doctors (that were actually IN my network)

could see me is august 12th (coincidentally, this was also the only person who

was NICE to me at all when i called, too).  

cool.  if i'm still nauseated by then i'm probably dying.

even when people said "my doc does walk-ins" or "my doc will get you in the next day"...

yeah.  maybe if you're not a new patient.  new patients are the bastard step-children

of the medical world, apparently. 

when i finally gave up on finding anything sooner,

ryan got out the challenger and took me for a drive.

we went down to the metroparks and walked around a little.

i still felt terrible, but it was sweet of him.  something about the fact that

i just don't "get" a place like that made me sad for a minute.

sure, it's beautiful, but i just don't get it.  it doesn't appeal to me.  the idea of driving

to a place so you can stand around outside is just totally bizarre to me.

i WISH i was into that, but unless there is some other reason or stimuli, i'm just confused.

i have to assume that my sickness is stress/anxiety related.

i wish i could calm down.

i wish i had no obligations.

i wish i had a big bag of money.

i wish i was already out of here...

July 21

today, karen, ryan and i sat on the porch and talked about the death of

rock-n-roll johnny, and his replacement... corporate johnny.

oh, johnny.

those were the days:

i suppose we all grow up.

it's just sad that he had to.

July 20

one week until i am 35.

i remember when my mother turned 35.  her mother had just turned 70 a month earlier.

that half-her-age thing really stuck in my head.

now i am about to turn 35.

my mother isn't even 60 yet.  if i had a child now, we would be further apart in years

than my mother and grandmother.

my mum and i were (and are) so close, not just in age but in everything.

ryan calls us the gilmore girls.  without the speedy witticisms.

i'm ok with that.

i just can't believe i'm turning 35.

30 barely phased me.  35 is fucking with my head.

i feel like i have nothing that my mum had at this age.  i feel like a child, still, compared

to the functional, successful adult she was.

but you know what?

it's all ok.

because i am happy.

and i am healthy.  and i am safe.  and loved.  and appreciated.

i am creative.  and intelligent.  and every so often, even beautiful.

it's idyllic to say that age means nothing or that it is a state of mind.

but right now, as wigged out as i am about this upcoming birthday...

right now, at this very minute - 

i feel wonderful.  and i haven't a care in the world.

July 19

some days, it's just a better idea to stay in.

July 18

what could possibly have been my last taste of tremont.

what could possible have been my last boys from county hell show.

extremely anticlimactic.

July 17, No. 2

because i know she needs it,

and because i know she sometimes reads this...

i'm sending my mum a big fat hug.

(it's a year old, but i don't think it's stale or anything.)

July 17

sometimes it's hard to let go of things...

i took these pictures to post online of some vintage chucks and docs i had finally decided

to let go of.  and i kinda like the pictures!

they all found new homes, my lovely old shoes.  hooray!

July 16

i was finally starting to feel less like a troll and then BAM...

it takes SO MUCH to pull me out of feeling awful about myself 

and almost nothing to bring it back.

July 15

now available for sale:

dot. dot. dot. by stolen from rockos blog | Make Your Own Book

July 14

oof.  today was no good.

July 13

today, i bought new glasses that i absolutely could not afford.

i rationalized this purchase by telling myself that i HAVE been looking for glasses 

for a year and a half.  AND my insurance gave me a 50% discount on it all,

so it really only ended up costing me about ONE week's pay instead of two...

BUT - they are SOOOO MEEEEE!!!!!!

i have never loved a pair of specs more.  not even my old ones

with the red leopard print sides.

these are better.  they're HOT PINK on the inside!

and they're chanel.  snazz-tastic!

i WILL be having an online art sale to try to earn back the bucks to pay for these beauties.

it will be posted on facebook, possibly etsy, and here.  probably tomorrow.

maybe even later tonight...

July 12

work. errands. home. grill. book. tv. rain. porch. beer. sleep.

July 11, No. 2

the photos...

joe's boat (well not HIS boat... but you know what i mean):

there is a lot of rope involved in a tall ship.

i really enjoyed this girl up here doing... something.

more rope:

i liked that even as a bunch of yahoos were traipsing through their boat on the tour,

somebody had left their (awful thomas kinkaide looking) coffee mug

sitting by the big, old compass:

after i found joe, i got to go down HERE (because life is ALL ABOUT knowing the right people).

um.  more rope.  clearly, i enjoyed the rope aspect of the tour.

("You and your fuckin' rope.")

not sure what this was, but you probably tie a rope to it.

and you clearly tie several ropes to THIS.

oh... and here's joe, finally!

and that, my friends, is that.

July 11

so, something like 5 or 6 years ago, i acquired, through somewhat dubious means,

a penpal.

he was a sailor on the Pride of Baltimore II, and was looking for someone

to send him postcards while he was at sea.

being a fan of postcards, and of men in chest-high rubber pants

(which he was sporting in his ad requesting said postcards),

i graciously accepted and was not turned down.

so, joseph thaddeus lengieza and I became penpals.

we wrote each other for maybe a year... i don't even remember how long it was.

but we never did meet.  he had, as he put it, "hit the ground running" when

his ship docked in cleveland for the last tall ships festival.

we stayed vaguely in touch via email and facebook after the no-meeting-incident.

christmas cards and pieces of art were exchanged.

friendship remained intact.

i got married.  he got engaged.

(not that there was an overt romance to our postcard exchange...

it was just funny that we DID find one another via a bad online dating forum.)

and then finally, on friday night, we met.

went for drinks.  chatted about everything.

joe is awesome.  i think he and ryan might be a little in love with each other.

i think it's the beards.

beards love beards.  (this is the basis of zz top's awesomeness, i believe.)

anyhow... TODAY, i finally made it to the Tall Ships Festival again.

this time i got to see the ship joe is NOW on... The Niagara.  WOW!

it was fucking cool as fuck.

i'm going to post all my photos from there in a July 11, No. 2 post, 

because i want to end THIS post with one of the postcards i MADE for joe

when we were writing years ago...

because after all this time, it is STILL one of my most favorite collages

i have ever made.  it's completely perfect...

July 10

today i cleaned.

i took down a bazillion pictures, spackled a bazillion nail holes,

touched up 5 colors of paint, rehung a tasteful number of pictures,

packed, cleaned, and cleaned some more.

i love my dresser when it's clean.  and my art room floor... when i can see it.

July 9

for the first time since i started working at bonfoey...

chip cleaned up his area.

it's amazing how weird all the moulding looks when there's not a bunch of crap stacked in front of it.

July 8, No. 2

things that are also awesome:

3. penpal and tallship niagara second mate, joe (no picture - i am a retard)

4. the harp