Go, go gadget arms!

I tend to overextend myself. And overextend myself. And then suddenly snap. Because I am both extremely efficient and a consummate procrastinator I often think I can handle just about anything thrown my way. I always get it done in the end, right?

Well, this theory is about to be tested, along with the outer reaches of my limits, because I have signed on to do freelance work for a fashion Website. In addition to my 45-hours at work per week and my daily commute of 1.5-2 hours, I will now be cramming in about 10 hours a week writing copy for this semi-startup. All of which has to be done on the weekend.

I really, really wish it was the fall and not summer, a time that I like to spend generally lazing about during my off hours. I wouldn't have taken the gig if it weren't for the fact that I could really use the experience. Fashion copy opens up a whole new world of options for me in the future.

So there it is. Always feast or famine, right? At least I'll have extra money...and no time to spend it. So we'll see how long I last.

Hope for America?

The American public finally voted for the right guy last night on American Idol. Instead of putting the predictable, simpering, vanilla crowd pleaser on the throne, our fellow citizens voted in the scruffy rocker. For some reason this gives me hope that Obama could actually win. Maybe our country isn't completely lost. Maybe, underneath the layer of fat and excess, ignorance and greed there still beats the collective heart of a people who desire a true leader.

God, I hope so.

You have questions, I got answers

What are five things on your to-do list for today?
1. Edit shit.
2. Write shit.
3. Call people back.
4. Answer e-mails.
5. Look up marshmallow recipes online.

What are five snacks you enjoy?
Bumble bars, clif bars, string cheese, pears, broth.

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Pay off my house and my sister's house, and get houses for probably 10 to 20 other friends, preferably right by my house. And set up full-paid college funds for all of my friends' kids.
2. Give each of my family members a million bucks.
3. Buy a house in Mexico and Hawaii and let my friends stay there whenever they wanted.
4. Give a lot away to Habitat for Humanity, The Evergreen State College and whatever charities I felt like supporting on any given day.
5. Get massages every single week, have a personal trainer and on-demand chef and go to dinner at Tilth at least once a month.

What are five of your bad habits?
1. Picking at my teeth in public.
2. De-wedgifying myself in public.
3. Swearing in front of children.
4. Leaving used tissues places other than the garbage can.
5. Correcting people's grammar/pronunciation.

What are five places where you have lived?
1. The house I grew up in, Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle.
2. The dorms, Oly
3. The moldy Westside apt. I shared with the Midget in Oly
4. The nice Eastside apt. I shared with the Midget in Oly
5. Hombrelibre and my apt. by Turtlebread in Mpls.

What are five jobs you have had?
1. Bagging groceries at QFC in University Village.
2. Canvassing door-to-door for WashPIRG on the clean air campaign.
3. Painting apt. buildings
4. Selling cameras
5. Doing phone interviews with people living in Alabama who had chronic health conditions

What three people do you want to tag?
The Midget, Knitsybitsycycler, Chipmunkvs.finch

Needle Stickin' Daddies

I've been giving some thought lately to getting acupuncture. I'm into all that hippie/alternative health shit and with my lemon of a body I figure it's good to try anything that could be even somewhat helpful. Want me to drink aloe vera? Done. Take probiotics? Of course! Choke down fish oil, chromium picollinate, multi-vites, l-tyrosine and milk thistle? Every frickin morning! I'm beyond drug cocktails at this point. I've moved on to full-on drug highballs.

So poking a few needles into my face or wherever else they want to stick them sounds pretty reasonable. Hell, it sounds downright exciting. At least it did until I talked to hombrelibre's mom this weekend and she told me about her recent acupuncture experience, which was positive and all until she caught herself going postal on people at dinner parties from the heady rush of having all those emotions released.

I'm a little shaky on the whole principle of acupuncture but from what I understand it's supposed to unblock energy flow in your body, and essentially remove those impasses. Which is excellent for releasing emotion, but bad for tourette's syndrome-like outbursts. And as anyone who knows me will attest, I am somewhat prone to the outbursts. I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for water to wash my foot down with. I even once had a boss who made me put a post-it note on my desk saying "Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said now?" Suffice to say, I'm scared of releasing any additional blocks. What little blocks I have seem to have kept me employed and barely passable in society. In the land of the giant mouth, I am Queen.

On the other hand, I have been stuffing a lot down lately in the ol' emotional barrage that's been my reality. Seeing as how I moved and had two friends die in the course of two weeks I've had to compartmentalize a lot of my feelings just to keep chugging along. I'm no physicist but I cling to the theory that an object in motion can't fall.

I said I was no physicist.

So maybe some unblocking is in order. Maybe I should woman up, toss back a few, have a stranger slap a few needles in my temple and get ready for the crying catharsis to begin. And if you get a drunken-sounding phone call from me rambling about the beauty of life and how much I love you, just indulge me.