train of thought

do you think if trains hadnt ever existed we wold still call it a train?

so sometimes when im bored i like to think about my thoughts. i know it sounds weird so bear with me. i have never been able to meditate to the point where my mind felt completely clear. so i tried to go the other way with it and acknowledge each thought that zooms through my head. it is really enough to drive me crazy. ill try to give you a little sampling, but even typing it will be too slow and my thoughts will have wandered by the time i finish another thought.

still with me?


my foot hurts. im tired and possibly getting sick. i wonder if im bleeding internally and am just not aware of it yet. i should webmd it. i think i have dried snot on my nostril. would someone here tell me. her shoes are loud. i hope she doesnt come talk to me. i wish my coworker would call me back. i really really like my glasses. they truly live up to the expectations i have had of them all these years. i wish thanksgiving would have gone better. i wonder if i should- now my foot itches. should i take the short ride but long walk home or the long ride short walk home? it IS raining but the long rise is always crowded and smells like pee. why do people going to the u district always smell like pee? restoration hardware is apparently in the u district. there was- wait, no i mean u village. is u village in the u district? there was a store i wanted to go to there but i cant remember anymore. the craft fair is sunday. i wonder if it will all be expensive. im short on cash right now. stupid electricity bill. even though i didnt pay it. why AM i short on cash. i need to take the bus to work more often. especially now that the free parking is gone. i like my handwriting. i think my fingers are dislexic. how do you spell dislexic? dislixic? its all spelled wrong according to my spell check. i wish illustrator had automatic spell check. i gotta update my moms site. wow the day went fast. and my desk is so clean. i love that. i wonder how long it will last. i think im a slob. i wish today was winter solstice. i want to go see kara and the new baby. can the guy across the way see me work when its dark out? i cant wait until they put up that new building. im so gonna look in the windows. my foots asleep.

ta-da!

hi toshi

its nice to finally meet you.
congratulations paul and kj!!

current mood: apathetic

meh.

im in that phase where i dont really want to do anything. maybe its the change in the weather.

im not so into my job lately. i have to travel next week to defend work we did (actually, work a previous employee did, but i still have to act like we played a role) and im just not feeling like doing it. my boss is getting ready to go on a trip and as a result is driving everyone crazy. i had a dream last week that i got another job offer. i think im just getting to the point that im ready to do something else. i just dont know what yet.

i started running again. i still dont like it. but i know its good for me. i think i just get bored and would rather be comfy on my couch watching a bad movie. perhaps one with sandra bullock in it. lake house anyone? saturday i complimented my VERY slow seven mile run with a trip to tae kwon do. i like that. its expensive, but fun. in the end though, my couch would win the battle every time, though it IS fun to know i could beat a lot of people up.

i dont really feel like calling anyone to do anything. though i did have a fun quick date with beth at the movies3:10 to yuma. you can put anyone on horse back and film them in slow motion and i would be attracted to them, but that is especially the case for russell crowe, whom i dont find attractive in real life. i think i was born in the wrong century. i digress.

anyway. im hoping this mood will pass. i should be doing a lot of work right now but im jsut not that into it.

practicing words i can never type correctly on the first try

jsut jsut just just jsut jsut jsut jsut jsut just jsut just jsut just just just just jsut just jsut just just just just just just just just just just just just jsut just just just jsjt jsut just just jsut jsut just jsut jsut just jsut just just just just jsut jsut just jsut just jsut just just just just just just just just just

the the hte the teh hte teh teh teh teh teh teh the the the hte the the the the the teh the teh the the teh teh the the the the the the teh teh teh teh the the the the the the teh the hte hte the teh
the the the the the the the the teh teh teh teh the the hte the the the the the the the the teh teh

morgan morhan moragn moragn morgan moyran morgan morgan morgan morgan morang morgna morgan moragb morgab morgab morhan moragn morgan morgan morgab moragb moragn moragn morgan moragh morgan moragn morgan morgan morgna morgan morgan

im realizing my typing issues might stem from an overzealous left hand....

vegas baby

i hate flying.

i had a really bad dream and an anxiety disorder*** that made the task incredibly daunting. two years ago i was in a position at work that i was traveling a lot and i was the only one from my office that did what i do. then i sat next to this awesome guy on a smaller plane who decided to tell me every flight horror story he had as we were speeding up to take off. i heart him. i got to my hotel for the night and i went on a flying hiatus.

ive flown since then but only for personal reasons. very VERY infrequently... maybe twice (this is round trip of course). but even then it was not without a bottle of xanax tucked away. (truth be told, i never took any of the xanax for flying***. it was just nice knowing i had the option).

the lack of traveling has been an imposition on my coworkers and has openly hindered the progression of my career. so three weeks ago when my coworker called me and told me we were required to attend a meeting in vegas, i refilled my xanax prescription.

but it was a good trip. surprisingly.

my coworker travels a lot. as a result hes got mvp status with the airlines. mvp=upgraded seats. we rode in style all the way down there... free drinks, and hot nuts... ... ... and a plane crash seems less horrific if youre in first.

then we checked in to THEhotel at mandalay bay. the pretentiousness that comes along with the title is well deserved. i had a suite to myself and room service being taken care of by the client.

the meeting was pointless. i said a total of two things in 7.5 hours. and even then i think they allowed us to speak because they realized they made us come down for no reason. but we got to eat a nice dinner and had a fun night gambling (read playing the penny slots. i actually like to play the tables. and id really like to learn and play craps, but the antes were all too rich for my blood, so wheel of fortune with some nickels it was).

i got room service this morning for breakfast. they wheeled in a little cart and uncovered my food. i felt fancy and grown up. and it was gooooood.

the flight back (to come full circle) wasnt as good as the one there. "leavin vegas is always bumpy" i heard later. a little warning would have been nice. but everything was fine and our steward was the best- think retired old man who LOVES waiting on first class people.

its nice to be home though. i think im gonna get jason to wheel in carts of food for me.

***footnote: i dont take the xanax because im totally against medication for "chemical imbalances." i took paxil for a long time. i gained weight, had no feeling other than content and yawned ALL the time. then i weaned myself off and went through what i imagine heroine addicts go through- fevers, shakes, dizziness.... awful. im better now. the running helped that. i still yawn a lot though... but gma says that its because my brain is cooling itself off. if someone yawns when you are talking to them you should take it as a compliment.

ok i need to stop now. my tangents are getting away from me.

why cant i hear the music? why is the beer garden so crowded? am i standing in piss?

wiki:
block party: n. a block party is a large informal public celebration in which many members of a single neighborhood congregate to observe a positive event of usually local importance. many times, there will be celebration in the form of playing music and dance. Block parties gained popularity in the United States during the 1970s.

yeah, well this one was sponsored by camel, monster and e-surance** and cost 20$ at the door. then you get to stand in a really crowded beer garden (at $5 a beer) and listen to , at most, 20 bands which, to be honest, should sometimes be playing for free.

and compare that to a $40 bumbershoot where the lineups are abundant and ripe with talent and dont disguise themselves as COMMUNITY block parties.

im completely over it. 3 years ago it was free, more like a farmers market meets garage band. i respected it then.

**all important footnote: i learned friday afternoon that e-surance is sponsoring events like this to relate more to a younger, hipper audience. i also learned that the owners of e-surance are a über right wing conservative couple set on pushing their agenda.

beng beng beng

if you know me at all you know that while i enjoy a nice show every now and then, the thought of going to a crowded venue to stand and look at the stage and nod my head is not my idea of a good time. at least not that often- there are exceptions to this rule...

you should also know im musically illiterate. im not one of those people who can talk intelligently about good or bad music. i have paris hilton's version of "stars are blind" on my ZUNE! right next to the mountain goats. and i am not ashamed to say i like them both.

so you can imagine how i felt when jason told me about this guy i hadnt heard of and his band playing at the showbox. >>>insert eye roll and yawn<<<

for starters no one in seattle dances. i hate this fact. apparently the hipster movement grabbed an entire city by the balls and told it that its just not cool to move anything more than neck muscles. maybe its because the skinny jeans are restrictive. chucks dont offer arch support? i dont know.

secondly i knew i was going to be sober thanks to a weeks worth of antibiotics. both my pharmacist (i say it like we have one of those close relationships you see on tv- the one where they will come to my house and cut my pills for me) and my doctor took the time to seriously warn me that ANY drinking would make me feel awful and could lead to heart problems (and again, if you know me, you know my anxiety is acutely focused on the well-being of my heart).

thirdly i am fighting a head cold, or a really obnoxious sinus problem. either way, it leaves me feeling pretty cruddy and tired. (im also not sure if im tired bc my friend, the pharmacist told me the medicine might do that to me, or if im tired bc im run down. im easily swayed by professional opinions).

well, add all those things up and a night out at the showbox was not sounding great.

but i could not have been more wrong!

we went to see femi kuti.

i dont know if people know about him or not, as i, as previously mentioned, am slow on the musical uptake. if you dont know either, hes an african singer by way of london (or is it london singer by way of africa?). he is following in the footsteps of his late dad, fela kuti, with whom he also performed growing up. political, sexy music.

the show was amazing. i cant explain it in any other terms. the entire crowd cheered and danced... almost like we were in another city. my tired, sober, sore feet didnt care. the entire band played an exceptionally passionate show. a friend said "they come out like a firehose in the mouth," and while im not sure i understand the phrase completely, it seems an appropriate description. the backup singers danced through the entire show... and i dont mean that synced sway from side to side. i mean D-A-N-C-E-D. the whole time. it was incredible.

so for one night, the seattle music scene redeemed itself. and while its sure to disappoint in the near future- probably the capital hill block party- for last night it was totally worth it. i highly recommend if you havent seen him. i would gladly go again.

mmmmm. spaghetti

i like thursdays.
thursdays always mean good primetime programming (except in the off seasons)
thursday is the day before friday and friday is the start of the weekend. while tomorrow isnt saturday, there is something calm and easy going about friday... and thursday is the second best "leaving the office" feeling at the end of the day.
thursday is spaghetti day downstairs. oh.my.god. its good spaghetti.

__________________________________________

they are doing construction across the street and its fascinating to watch. we thought we would be annoyed by the sound but its actually kind of soothing. not as much jackhammering as you would anticipate. there is a guy in a back ho (heh heh) right now moving dirt from one pile to another, and then from the latter pile to a truck bed. i think he can see in my window... 5 floors up. maybe he just has those eyes that follow you- like the busts in the haunted mansion. but every time i look out i think hes looking at me. and while part of me is annoyed, the other part stares back flattered.

i think im getting a zit on my chin. its one of the painful ones beneath the surface but hasnt reared its ugly face for me to pick and claw at. i am TOTALLY a picker.

riley was the cutest little mofo last night. im completely enamored.

i need to figure out what to get my nieces for their birthdays. they were months ago. but i called them and said i had their presents but i hadnt mailed them yet. now i have to hold true to that promise. otherwise im a sucky aunt. im a sucky aunt anyway. but im just following the family tradition of not making an effort.

i think jason has RLS. i need to talk to bill about it. i also need to go swimming with him- bill not jason. though jason can come too. (hott)

somehow i need to motivate myself to go to the gym. or do some sort of physical activity. i think i dont like my gym because its filled with young in-shape people. jasons gym was better. it was all older people (because its practically a mortgage payment to go there)

mmm, even though im sickeningly full, ethiopian food sounds good.

i guess i should work.

well, since you asked...

i had a fantabulous birthday week!

there are those years where you just dont feel as special or loved on your birthday as you had hoped. it has nothing to do with gifts, or cake. its just the general feeling. that particular person didnt call, or the day is going as all other days normally go- nothing really magical about it.

this was not one of those years.

i got flowers, presents, balloons, flowers, drinks, flowers, presents, dinner, breakfast ( a PHENOMENAL breakfast btw), a kayak trip, birthday cards, dinner, a karaoke night, lots of beer, more presents, cake, a harry potter date and some popcorn. there were lots of people who sent me emails, or myspace messages or called. people babysat so other people could come out to celebrate... i just felt very loved.

sigh...

it was also one of the worst birthdays ive ever had.

kayaking for nearly 5 hours had left my arms very very tired and i figured i would hate life the next day. little did i know i would be hating life that night. there were sharp aches in my arms while singing my heart out- i busted out some tricky by run dmc though, lemme tell you. they got worse as the night progressed until it was time to leave. by the time i got home i was weeping. ive never in my life experienced a pain like that. and i know you moms out there can contest that you have felt a pain far greater. i dont deny you that. i havent been there yet, so achy arms is what i get to bitch about... it wasnt muscles. it wasnt even joints. if bone marrow could be sore, thats what it felt like. no. if bone marrow could be kicked in the balls... yeah, a little like that. i laid awake on my couch until 5am that morning in agonizing pain. (jason tried to take care of me, but to karaoke he had to get a little (read a lot) sauced, and eventually passed out). i finally fell asleep for a few hours and when i woke up- completely better. no soreness at all. its like i laid around all day the day before.

go figure.

my coworker chalks the quick recovery up to my being young. at which i enjoy the irony of it happening on my birthday- the day i turn a year older. im still very much a young'un of course... just with an old soul. and apparently old marrow.

tomorrow! tomorrow! i love ya tomorrow!

in the narcissistic spirit of continuously talking about my birthday and how much i love it, i give you this:

i have some really vague memories of this movie, but loved it because the year i saw it, my birthday was slated to fall on a saturday. (i think i have also convinced myself that the year i was born the 14th as also a saturday, but im wrong there. after further investigation, it was a monday).

i know the movie was a comedy spoof, but i was young enough that it was still scary to me (what isnt, really?) and had believed that friday the 13th is bad luck, but saturday the 14th, whoa buddy! you better watch out! in fact, until finding this poster, i thought the tag line for the movie was "you thought friday the 13th was bad. but saturday the 14th is waaaay worse."

wow.

(i am realizing as i write it that its almost like going back and reading a paper you wrote in grade school. one you were really proud of and still kind of hold on to some of that pride... only to reread and realize you sounded like a complete douche)

anyway. i should see it again. i bet its an amazing piece of cinematography that i did not fully appreciate in my youth...

btw, this is what those illustrated representations of benjamin and paula look like now:

have a happy weekend y'all. ill see you on the flip side another year older :D!

birthday week

in case you didnt know, this week, and more than likely, next, is my birthday week.
to celebrate, i got a bouquet of balloons at work!

the axe

is ax usually spelled with an "e?" also this is one of those instances where it just doesnt seem right to put the punctuation INSIDE the quote.

i digress.

a coworker of mine was fired yesterday. i cant say it was a surprise. he wasnt doing his job and was making work harder for everyone involved. but you gotta feel bad for the guy. he is a nice person.

ive never been in an office, or anywhere for that matter, where someone was fired- save the hole in the wall bar i waitressed at, but that seemed different. a few people knew what was happening yesterday and when it was going to happen... which made things worse. i liken it to being at the top of one of those drop rides- lets go with the tower of terror. you know its inevitably going to happen, you just dont know WHEN.

tangent: did you hear, btw, about the little girl who lost her feet on one of those rides?! it sounds like there should be a punchline after that, but theres not. poor little girl. i wont ever ride one of those again, i can assure you. the last time i rode one we got all strapped in and up to the top and i panicked. i was grabbing for the belt to release (panic is not good for clarity). i just wanted out. then it was over. never ever agin.

and back: so he packed up his stuff and left last night. i had already left to catch the bus, but got a play by play via text as i was riding home:

"i can hear him putting things in a paper bag."
"someone just went over to talk to him."
"they are changing the codes tonight."
"he seems pissed."
"i think he left. he didnt say anything."
"oh, no, hes still here. what's he still doing here?"
and from the person that had to do the firing who was told to make herself scarce afterwards, "im hiding in the lunchroom until he leaves and need many many drinks."

and that is my experience of being in the office when someone was fired.

catch up.

in the last month and a half:

jason went to china for work. we are pretty conviced he has sars. he also brought me back some elephant candle-ettes (they are so cute and tiny), a chinese book on calligraphy (written IN chinese) and a calligraphy set ("i dont know how to use it," i say. "read the book," he responds). he was the most excited about the knock off louis vuitton purse and wallet he got me. im on the fence on this. its a cute purse and a cute wallet- if it didnt have a logo all over it. but hes so excited and proud of it. i guess he was in a store and they knocked on the wall. all of a sudden they were in a secret back room. ive carried it a few times. im curious what kind of person people think i am with that bag...

jasons parents came to visit. we had a good time with them. his mom cleaned our entire house. apparently the surface cleaning we did before they came did not suffice. we went to a nice dinner. i pulled a move my dad LOVES to use- get up to go to the bathroom and pay the bill in secret. all in all is it was a good visit though i am still convinced parents come to visit to remind us why we moved out in the first place.

i went to san francisco to see my friend lisa (sorry kc!). i havent been down there since i moved almost 3 years ago. it was like i never left- after i got over saying "I cant believe im back in san francisco" i mean. there was a lot of drinking and shopping involved. we went to the north beach festival on saturday. i drank too much and i had to wake up for the super shuttle at 4 am. turbulence and a hangover are NOT friends. fyi.

we went to a beer festival last weekend. i learned i like barley wine. jason learned he cant hang out at a beer festival all day and then come home to tall glasses of whiskey and coke. who knew?

wednesday was the 4th. it was filled with kebabs (not shish, because as i learned that day shish refers to lamb) pasta salad, sangria and cornhole. we built our own set. we are currently "discussing" how to design it. so far we have some vertical stripes. i even sewed the bean bags until my sewing machine broke. it was exciting to introduce our friends to the game. the fireworks were perfect from our deck, but a little awkwardly long.

in the meantime work has been crazy. ive been getting in at 645 am each morning and going all day long and well into the night. i see a light at the end of the tunnel. but its a really really long tunnel.

and that brings us t up to speed.

next weekend is my birthday. i LOVE my birthday. really, i love anyone's birthday. if it werent for that day, that person wouldnt be in your life. its exciting. and its nice that everyone has at least one day during the year that people celebrate them. i know it sounds a little fluffy, but its true. and next weekend is MY day :D well, mine and a few friends who share it, along with matthew fox from lost and france's independence day (aka bastille day).

the end.

a couple of things

1. good god it was beautiful today.

2. how has no one commented on the funniest video ever?

Tag

my friend shell-i tagged me. this means you lucky lucky readers get to know 7 random things about me... in no particular order...

1. my mom splurged and got me an american doll when i was 10 or so. my brother told me she looked like chuckys sister. i slept with her until i was 14 so she couldnt get away in the night. my mom thought i just loved her. i gave her to my niece as revenge on my brother.

2. i was born on 7.14 and weighed 7 lbs 14 oz. i think thats neat. i share my birthday with a lot of people in my life. and ive always hated that. i also hated that i had a summer birthday and as a result, was lumped together at the end of the school year with all the other summmer birthdays. but i liked that my birthday was bastille day and have always felt somewhat french because of this.

3. i am, to this day, proud of the valentine box i made in the 5th grade. it was a one-eyed, one-eared flying purple valentine eater and the valetines went in his mouth. i was a creative genius then.

4. my 18th great uncle was miles standish (captian of the mayflower). when i was 12 i found a beautiful shell bracelet on his beach and automatically thought it was his gift to me. im sorry for whoever lost her bracelet.

5. careers i wanted before i became a graphic designer: math teacher, orthodontist.

6. if i could have one superpower it would be to breathe underwater. i remember being jealous of the highlander when he was underwater. and looking back, im not sure if that really happened in the movie or if i imagined it.

7. speaking of dreams, i used to have 2 recurring dreams as a kid. the first involved a kid named kevin who liked me in second grade. he would come over to my house while we were packing to move.. once i let him in he would turn into a werewolf and run upstairs to steal all my toys. the second, i was always waking up in the middle of the night to look for my parents. they were always asleep in my brother's old room downstairs. i would find them and then head back to my room, but i would step on a rock on the way. the rock would turn into a witch and chase me up the stairs and back to bed. i think my dad let me watch too many scary movies. to this day i look behind me as i go up stairs.

ok, your turn. tag, youre it:
beth
billy
aggie

hahahahahahahahhahah. i feel for this guy though. seriously.

mr bento

this:
is a mr bento.

an old classmate of mine got one as a birthday gift, and it got me researching.

its essentially a thermos with some fancy tupperware inside. but its got a fun little name. and the containers are itty bitty and fun to fill with lunchtime goodness.

theres also a mr bento porn group on flickr.com. people take pictures of their bento lunches. i took my first one today. im sure ill upload it in a few weeks... but so far i recommend it.

mine came with a spork... theres actually something really soothing about having a metal spork. id only experienced them in plastic. its like my childhood, bronzed.

i dunno. i just know everyone should have a mr bento.

my bike to work team needs your help!

http://www.cbcef.org/contest/vote.cfm?contest=8

our team name is gang green. and we can really use your vote! (dont worry about registering). while some, i hesitate now to say, FRIENDS have pointed out that they like other names better, its more of an obligatory vote so we can bask in the glory of greatness. help me bask.

thank you in advance for your love and support!

camping!!!

like those people who try to have a bbq when its still freezing out and end up bundled up on their couch with a paper plate full of grilled chicken and corn on the cob, we are going camping prematurely in honor of jasons bday. woohoo!

and the only reason i write this is so that the last post on my blog for 5 days isnt the picture of me. because while im very narcissistic, i dont want to APPEAR that way.

see you in a few days bitches.

my hair

it looks much more like a bob in this pic than it actually is...
and thats miles. hes one of the many seattle babies. and hes cute.

dear capitol hill parking

fuck you.

haircut

im thinking of getting this haircut:

but you have to imagine it with this face instead:

im getting an extra bottle of wine to help the efforts in darfur

we decided to start no tv tuesday yesterday, and thought it would be a good idea to go out for some dinner. the driving factor for dinner was that yesterday in seattle was a dine for darfur event. what a great cause. 25% of your dining bill goes to a relief aid...

but wait a second...

im going to go spend $100 on a swanky dinner. (well actually, JASON is going to spend 100$ on a swanky dinner because i accidentally (but conveniently) left my wallet at work- it caused a problem with drinking while waiting, but it all ended up ok) ANYWAY. $100 on dinner translates to $25 in aid... so follow my crazy logic for a second... wouldn't it be better if all those people who were out there doing the right thing just GAVE the entire amount they were going to spend on dinner to the effort. my thinking is out there... i know.

i realize the fact that most people DONT do that. and so something is better than nothing. and maybe you catch a few diners who waited in the god awful lines at the handful of restaurants participating who DIDNT know about the effort...

but still...

all these people were gathered round waiting for tables, connected to one another in their effort to help. and the comraderie was nice. but the slight smell of smug that hung in the air seemed so soulless.

all this ranting is hypocritical of course. we are those people who DONT donate our money. we went out the the select restaurants and did "our part." we dont have souls.

its just the principle.

t.g.i.oh fuck it.

im at work on a saturday and it sucks.

at least its not sunny and warm out, so that all you lucky bastards who DONT have to be at work right cant COMPLETELY enjoy the day.

in honor of my saturday sucking the following is a list of all things suck...

-having to work sunday too

-chapped lips

-being the janitor who comes in saturday nights after a shitstorm of work during the day... do you like how i related janitors and shitstorms?

-dry skin right after a zit has healed (because you know you picked it), where you cant pick it off, but trying to conceal it with foundation only makes it more noticable

-trying to compete on a dancing show with one leg and having to wear those god awful lycra pants with hideous bellbottoms

-papercuts

-tuesday morning hangovers. at least you got to make up for saturday

-how blogger keeps trying to automatically log me in with my gmail account.

-getting almost sone with the saturday workday only to realize you have to reprint the 4 copies of the 122 page book and rebind them... nuts.

alright, im over this post. ive been here too long.

only because kc! said so

check this AMAZING link out...

http://www.wefeelfine.org/

this is their mission:
Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles' properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

i feel its an amazing thing... see look, i made it on their site just like that.

i also feel like kc! can shut the hell up now :)

la la la

my tongue hurts after eating a cookies and cream skinny cow ice cream sandwich.
it may be, however, from eating handfuls of sour patch kids.
i stayed home from work today because my stomach hurt.
go figure.
really though. it did/does hurt.
i will spare you details but i have a feeling it relates to friday night... of overly hydrating that night, and then the massive dehydration that followed as a result.
friday night was fun.
i realized in my state of drunken euphoria that seeing the mountain goats after a year is like exhaling... all that carbon dioxide built up for a year finally getting to escape.
and the company seemed right.
i got all teary eyed and i love you man-ed out while toasting bill and beth. the last time we saw the goats was when beth was 5 or so months pregnant. youve gotta be proud of people that can have and keep someone else alive and manage to do it with some panache. and by panache i mean coke and lots of irish car bombs... i kid i kid... about the car bombs at least.
i also almost got all teary eyed again when i came back from the bathroom to see the bill. but then i realized i have a sugardaddy so all was right with the world again...
i havent been that pleasantly drunk in a long time. there was no drama or fighting- just good times (well, except when i was yelling at jason at jack in the box, but thats because im a mean drunk).
anyway...
on a different note, the mayor of swelltown (see previous post) found my blog and left me some comments. you better bet that has added fuel to my celebrity gossip fire.
i should go to bed...

cake.

i think i want to bake and decorate cakes for a living. im more passionate about the decorating part, but it would be nice for someone to be telling someone else that didnt know me, "omigod. you have to try her pomegranate, mint, bacon fat cake. it sounds disgusting but it is to die for."
yeah. something like that...
ive been tired of design for about 6 years now. im pretty sure its worn out its welcome.
cakes make people happy. logos, not so much.

celeb stocks

i am a celebrity gossip whore.
and this is my new addiction:
www.swelltown.com
i post this in hopes that some of you are secret celebrity whores too. join me in the greatest obsession.
im amorgan714 on there.
find me.

the secret

so theres a positive thinking vibe sweeping the nation. oprah was talking about it once before and had the speakers on her show on friday. learn more here:
http://thesecret.tv/
ANYWAY. the gist is to think positively about what you want to happen in your life instead of thinking what you DONT want.
sounds a little granola but it makes sense. you go in to a situation with the expectation that it will be wonderful and it normally will. go in with the expectation that it will be hard and horrible and its probably going to be shitty...
so i decided to test it.
jason and i were playing battleship. im pretty fucking good at battleship to start with so it may not be the BEST example. but we were playing the first game, which i won... but it took a while and was pretty close. he sunk three and was on his way through my fourth when i took down his fleet. of course he wanted a second game.
thats when i put my plan into action. i kept thinking "i want to win this game. i really want to win this game. im going to win this game. i will dominate." losers guess first in our house, and his guess was a miss. my first guess? a hit! of course there were a few misses here and there in trying to figure out the orientation of the boats, but once i sunk the battleship- the battleship no less! the first boat i sink in my path of domination is THE battleship. so once that boat was eliminated, my next guess? a HIT! i sunk three of his boats one right after another jsut like that. he managed to find only one of my boats as i took him down. he still claims i cheated, and i guess hes right. he doesnt know about the secret.
i plan on watching the movie. im curious and excited to see what the effects of this positive thinking will be in the more important parts of my life... like cranium and scrabble.

dear centrum a to z multivitamin

please stop with the gassiness.

its making me think you arent worth the daily supply of vitamins a to zinc.

the only thing we have to fear...

can we talk a little bit about this? have you seen or read the news this morning? in boston there was much ado about this little guy to your left. apparently he is a circuit board device that blinks, batteries exposed. essentially a light bright used a guerilla marketing. very clever in my opinion. but not to the bostonians.

people there were running around like the sky was falling. the city went into high alert. kids were left abandoned in school yards. subways were shut down. i saw video of bomb squads remote detonating this thing as if it contained vials of the plague coated in tuberculosis wrapped in lyme disease.

people. C'MON. we have a problem.

did you think it was very tongue in cheek of the terrorists to make a bomb that flips you off before it kills you? did you think that little angular, pixelated guy was some sort of islamic symbol for martyrdom?

i was flipping through a book that had winning design entries for the year and i saw a book design that had graphic journal entries based on news reports for the last few years. i noticed (which i think was the point) that terror was always the lead in each news day.

sure, the chances of getting hurt or killed in a terrorist attack in the u.s. are probably higher ever since g.w. has thrown our hat into the century long religious war ring, but being higher really only means a what? 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance instead of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000?

it just seems silly. bad things happen, yes. and sometimes they happen because of malicious thinking, but lets get real... there are better things to be scared of:
parrot influenza
salmonella on my kitchen faucet handles
the dark
hantavirus
ghosts
demonic possession
lou gherigs
mice
parkinsons
robbers
brain tumors
plaque causing me a heart attack
.
.
.
but not terror.
and not the little cartoon network guy. in fact, i want one. so if you happen to see a bomb squad moving in for the kill, can you just run in and grab him for me. maybe wear a hazmat suit for good measure though.

i think i might be lazy...

i have to pee right now, but i REALLY dont want to get up. im not even all that comfortable. just lazy.
i dont like getting my own drinks. i will sit here thirsty until someone comes into the room. and at that point they are already up, right?
guests are told to "feel at home" but really its just because i dont want to have to keep refilling their cups. its a bonus if they get mine while they are up.
if it wasnt unhygenic i would skip the tooth brushing part of my night. 2 minutes on a sonicare is just too long.
there are probably more things that prove my laziness, but lets face it... im too lazy to write them.

things that suck

hot yoga
dead fish
dead mice
semi dry laundry
fat days
black things in my teeth during client meetings
holes in my pants
hot yoga
5 day work weeks
7 day work weeks
american idol this season
right wingers that keep fucking with obama and then apologizing
quad pain
laundry
7 am
scuffed shoes
momoneymandy.blogspot.com
hot yoga
mountain goats show being a MONTH away
bad bites of meat
dust bunnies
marcel
lint on hang-dry clothes
my second crush in life getting married
overpriced frozen strawberries
coworkers who demand a lot and do little
flying
hot yoga
dry feet
chipped nail polish
squeaky axles
pillow styled hair
static electricity
puddles
hot yoga

all seems to be right with the world

billy burned me a mountain goats cd a long time ago that i listen to religiously. but i still dont know which tracks are which... i know grendels mother is #4 though.
so tonight i started with that.
then i wanted to hear no children. boom. first try.
then i clicked #17. i have no idea what the song is called but its the "never going back to cincinnati" song. its exactly the song i was looking for and everything seems to be right with the world tonight.
(which instantly leads me to believe i'll die in my sleep because ive heard things always go perfectly before you die.)
but im going to bed happy...

what i did on my martin luther king's day weekend

it was an eventful uneventful weekend.
we didnt do a whole lot. thats us most of the time anyway. but this weekend a few things happened to spice up our laziness.
friday night we saw a mouse making a dart for our coat closet. we had seen said mouse (or one of its brethren) a month prior, just before christmas. my dad set traps in the laundry room (read the farthest room from the coat closet) but we didnt catch anything. surprise surprise. so we still had the traps, unused. apparently you can reuse them, but you find me the person with the balls big enough to release the corpse and reset it. i can tell you that peson does not live in our household.
we set the trap when we saw the little bugger run into the closet. then we shoved a towel under the door so it couldnt run back out. we checked the trap on saturday to find the little guy had eaten the peanut butter with a feather touch. we set another trap. and once again he ate it without triggering certain death. then he snuck out past the towel barricade. im all for little creatures living in harmony with us, but i was warned of hantavirus and mass colonies of rodents. i was still pulling for this little guy until he started fucking with us. so we researched how to set the traps... and learned we were putting the food in the wrong place- well, not wrong, just not secure. within the hour we had caught one. by the next morning jason was throwing out another corpse. (he did not do this without complaint or girly shrills however).
the landlord sent over a maintanance guy to caulk our mouse hole (hott). i think we're ok now.
whew.
in the midst of all of that we found our 80 year old neighbor on the sidewalk at the bottom of his cement steps. he had been taking his recycling out 30 minutes prior and slipped. we helped him up and tried to call an ambulance for his bleeding hand and lack of balance but he was very adamant that we didn't. we picked up the recycling to find it weighed at least 60 lbs. hell, id fall too. jason helped him back in the house and we contemplated the value of his house versus our cumulative time taking out his recycling. i kid i kid.... kind of. he has a lady that checks on him everyday, so we let her know (in a very round-about way) that he had fallen. and i think we'll take his recycling out from now on.
we watched lady in the water. it was eh. i was into it because i liked the fairytale aspect of it and i have always wanted to be little and live in a fishtank. a pool is kind of the same thing. but it was cheesy, and not scary at all. not even jumpy parts. but we watched in hd, and that was awesome. its worth renting, but not worth late fees. return it on time kids.
we also joined the mages guild and have considered taking on a quest to cure vampirism but dont know if we should invest the time.

because i dont have anything worthwhile to blog about...

30 unknown facts/secrets about yourself:

1. When was the last time you shaved your legs?
Wednesday, but before that... maybe New years?

2. What were you doing this morning at 8am?
Putting on my makeup, watching my girl Diane Sawyer on GMA and reading my celebrity gossip sites.

3. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Reading friends blogs, myspace stalking a few people and figuring out how many points are in a bowl of chili.

4. Are you any good at math?
yes i am. i wanted to be a math teacher. or an orthodontist.

6. Do you have any famous ancestors?
miles standish is my 18th great uncle.
and my crazy grandma is conviced we are related to the queen. she also thinks she was pregnant with her neighbors baby, but we'll let that one slide.

7. Are you mad at anyone right now?
president bush, anyone who "accidentally" referred to barak obama as osama in hopes of slandering his name, and your mom.

8. Do you know the words to the song on your MySpace profile?
i know the first verse.
second verse same as the first but a little bit louder and a little bit worse.
thats not it. i just felt inspired.

9. Last thing recieved in mail?
my dental bill and val-pak!

10. How many different drinks have you had today?
i had a glass of water. i thought about hot cider. then i had another glass of water. coffee sounds good. but im currently on my thirsd glass of water.

12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine?
not always. sometimes i like to phone stalk too.

13. Any plans for tonight?
happy hour and then a quiet night tending to a sick domestic partner.

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
no. i draw your moms name.

15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had?
i really cant stand having impreassions made. its not exactly painful but having all that goo in your mouth...
>>>insert "goo in mouth" comments here<<<

:(

fuckin buckeyes

parrot fever

that's what my coworker has been diagnosed with.
essentially the bird flu. but its a different strain- not the "gonna kill everyone on the planet" kind. its mixed with chlamydia. yep. the clap. my coworker has the bird clap.
part of me still thinks he's faking it- im a skeptic and he doesnt have the worlds best work ethic. we know our kind.
and apparently he must have some sort of parrot fetish. *shudder* *blush*

"..."

where does the punctuation go?!?!

...and i said "ok."
OR
...and i said "ok".

?

i cant remember. is it ALWAYS inside the quotation marks? even if the sentence isnt entirely the quote?

lego + star wars = heaven

buy
this
game.

or just come over and play it.

happy 2007

welp. here we are. somehow 2007 isnt as exciting to me. it has nothing to do with what the new year has to offer. its just the numbers really. somehow 2006 is a much more exciting number than 2007. im looking forward to 2008 as well. something sexy about that 8. and its not just the evens. i mean, i liked 1999. but maybe i have the artist formerly known as prince to thank for that.
anyway. 2007. what should we do this year? last year my resolution was to run a marathon. check. so maybe ill take this year off. we'll see.
we rang it in right though. thanks to you kids that toasted the akward fireworks with us.
hope the hangovers aren't as bad as they should have probably been.