How To Give A Perfect Cocktail Party

Use persuasive signage to draw people in from the street.

The language should be fresh and have a sense of imperative.

If it has a charming element of child-like innocence, even better!

(Translation of text: Come in now!)

The novelty of such raw new language will make everyone want a drink instantly.
(Translation of text: Are you gonna come in or not?)

Everyone knows that repetition really gets a point across.

Post a child at your thresh hold to lure women in. Women always fall for the dubious charms of rowdy sugared-up sassy loud boy children.

See how well these methods work? You can barely move around in there it's so full of people. In fact, it's so full you can barely see anything at all which is why it appears to be empty.

But it's not! See, there's my mom, Philip, and our friend Jim.

Jim and his wife Ericka just moved to McMinnville in December. He's one of those people who will help you move heavy furniture before you've even exchanged names. We know this because when we were moving into this location Jim saw us moving and since he didn't have anything else to do he offered to help. I didn't know there were people like that around. So it's only fitting that he would happen to be passing by last night and have the time to let us ply him with vodka tonics. It was great having a chance to get to know him better which having the store has made difficult. We've had no time to cultivate new friendships.

I found out that Jim and Ericka like to can food!! One of Jim's passions, besides doing fine woodwork, is cooking. So you see, we have to get to know them better. Plus, they have a garden going with lots of fresh herbs and flowers, and vegetables. And they love beer.

Plus-Jim's a Capricorn like me.

Dominique and Stephen* also came by to enjoy the "party" which I would now call a gathering of friends rather than a party. I'm not going to be all coy and say I was disappointed that no one from our mailing list came to drink with us, because I've already told you how much I hate parties. It ended up actually being quite nice.

Although, truth be told, there was a brief few minutes where it got roaring load with just us and I started getting panicky and wanting to turn the music off or have us all not talk for a minute.

We did get a few walk-ins. We got this funny couple from Vegas who loved our shop and especially wanted Chelsea's mini dress forms that I won't sell, and a super cute couple from Portland who had bicycled down for a couple of days. Damn, they were cute in that way that I wish I could have put them in amber to preserve them for all time. If they read this they will be forever creeped out and avoid ever coming in contact with us again. But I mean it in a good way. They were charming and the girl had the cutest outfit on and a headscarf, and...and...I wish I could rewind my life a little and preserve my own spot in that amber. I guess that's what photographs are for.

I think I'm going to have to put an ad in the classifieds and on Craig's list to unload the extraneous things in our shop.

I also think this is a sign that we don't have the magic retail touch. If Found Objects had a party and a big sale they would be swamped. Nancy and John know how to promote themselves and they have what it takes to get it done. We don't. We don't have retail magnetism. This doesn't make me feel bad about myself. Why should it? We aren't retailers; Philip is an artist, I am a writer and designer.

What's coming next is going to be better. A whole season of canning and gardening and writing and designing. Getting my house in order and charmed up at last. (Unless Philip doesn't find enough work and we have to sell it. I don't really want to think about that, though.) A whole lifetime of having my week-ends back. (Unless I have to get that job at JoAnne's. But I don't want to think about that either.) A whole lot more time to concentrate on getting my body and health back.

Life is about to open up again. That's always a good thing.

*Stephen is also a Capricorn but is still coming to terms with the fact that this means he has to be like a brother to me. He want to deny the kinship. I will prevail!

A List Of Happy Things

Chick finds it very challenging to sit still for portraits. My camera finds it real challenging to snap a picture when I ask it to. It seems to need to think about it for a couple of seconds first, by then my subject has spied a very tempting bit of detritus or heard some curious noise which needs instant investigation.

If you want to fit in here in Mac, there are a few things you absolutely must have in your yard: a hanging basket, a droopy red Japanese Maple, and a well tended lawn. My mom has gone native and gotten a couple of lovely hanging baskets for the yard. Now we will really fit in. I mean, if we ever mow the lawns and trim them, fertilize them, and water them. Which we won't. I feel like I fit in without these fine horticultural trends, actually. But I never tire of looking at pretty flowers.

I am deeply in love with the night shade family of plants which include: potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants. Not to mention Bella Donna. Which I have no interest in due to the fact that I have no desire to tweak my brain unless it's getting tweaked to feel more normal, not completely hallucinogenic, which is what it feels like to have a nervous breakdown accompanied by auditory hallucinations. I'm not really sure what the charm of a tweaked brain is for some people, but I suppose it's a question of novelty?

Anyway, my favorite foods are: potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant. All nightshades. All feared at one point by one group of people or another. I would go into permanent shock if I was ever told that all my life's problems could be laid at these foods feet; that I had an allergy to any or all of them. I would rather give up cheese than any of these.

Although, cheese tends to pair very well with all of them. Life without cheese? I think I might be breaking out in hives right now.

The pretty husk of a tomatillo. I'm excited to make some tomatillo sauce with these babies. I am new to them and anticipate much fun in uncovering their culinary secrets.

This is the single largest tomato blossom I have ever seen. It belongs to a "Hillbilly" tomato plant and is surrounded by lesser lights. It looks like a sunflower. Incidentally, for anyone worried about the bee situation here in Mac, I'm happy to report that my garden is absolutely buzzing with them. Both honey bees and bumble bees. It's heartening to have so many of them visiting that I actually register worry about accidentally stepping on one.

While my blog is where I unload my mind, whether I'm spilling all it's ugly, or simply making an inventory of what's hanging out in it, and consequently there is quite a lot of dark content here, it's my philosophy that light must always accompany dark. One of the reasons I didn't commit suicide as a teen, and stopped hurting myself, and the reason I was able to get so far without therapy and medication, is largely thanks to my skill in giving myself pep-talks and in recognizing the very small and many things that make me happy. The secret is in constantly pushing the darkness back with great swaths of light and fresh air.

This can be quite challenging when your mood is like thick smoke and burnt to charcoal coals. It's like a spiritual practice. It's about having faith in both yourself and in life's infinite capacity to achieve balance. I suppose it's like maintaining a faith in God for those who are religious. I am not, but I think it's similar. While I am now happy to seek both counseling and take medications to support me in my desire to live a good rich happy life, finding the positive-no matter how seemingly insignificant- is always important. Medication can't do that for you. It's something you must always be practicing for yourself. A therapist can't do this for you either. It's something you have to always be doing for yourself, like brushing your teeth, like breathing.

So here it is; a list of things that make me happy no matter how minute a joy they bring:

Kissing Max's cheeks and temple. He's now old enough that he won't let me do this very often, but I still sneak some in. I inhale him because even though he's developing that little boy scent that will one day be a full on man-stink, I can still get a whiff of the baby he used to be. Of the flesh that I made myself from a little genetic information. Just as sweet as summer morning air.

Staying up late to excitedly discuss everything from politics to art with Philip. This is how we have stayed connected even when life has been dishing us out some really mean twists. He's my favorite person on earth and a great debater. Staying up really late at our age is pretty pricey in the health department, but worth it.

Touching herbs in the garden and smelling my fingers afterwards. Or when I accidentally step on my mint patch and the scent rises lazily and reaches me in a delicate wash of freshness.

Taking a slow tour of my garden to investigate the state of all things living and growing in it. I do this frequently and it gives me a very microscopic view of everything. Minute growth, pollination as it is happening-the pollen dusting on leaves, the pests I see in infancy and either let the good bugs deal with or sometimes dispatch myself. I almost see my plants growing in real time. The garden tour is a small ritual that grounds me and delights me.

Cooking food. Soup is the foundation of this joy because it was the first thing I learned to make all on my own. It is infinitely variable and therefore fertile ground for the imagination. I love to master new methods; new meals. I love that cooking is an opportunity to give something to the people you love (including yourself) that has incredible intrinsic value. It's the ultimate love because without it, we all die.

Cleaning my house. But only if I can play loud music and everyone is gone so I don't have to think about them, hear them, worry over them, or be interrupted by them. This activity is deeply cathartic to me. I am not good at keeping my house tidy, we're messy people and I'm always far too occupied to pick up socks all day long. So cleaning my house is like cleaning the slate. I love any activity that feels like cleaning the slate. Because life is so damn messy. I enjoy the rhythm of cleaning; seeing the dirt disappear under the rule of a sponge or mop; putting everything back in place like neat little soldiers waiting for orders. Afterwards I always realize how shallow my breathing has become and in the cleaned up house I am able to take big lungfuls again. For at least ten minutes.

Taking showers. Or baths. I like getting clean. I'm like my house though, I like a great big scrub down, but I'm careless about upkeep. I spend so much time in the dirt that even when I'm trying to keep myself presentable there is invariably some dirt under my nails that I can't get at, or my eyebrows develop renegade old-man hairs that stick straight out, or the heels of my feet are dry and ugly. Life is a dirty business and I love hot water and soap. Natural good smelling soap that helps to wash away all the dirt and make me squeaky clean and clear my head with the aromatic steam. If I go a day without a shower I generally feel like a warty toad caked in mud who should be living under a rock.

Clean sheets. I've said it before and I couldn't possibly say enough what a pleasure it is to crawl into bed with clean sheets. Cool, crisp, unsmelly...HEAVEN. I am not fond of body odors and sleeping on sheets and breathing on pillows will impart odors that I'm not fond of, so clean sheets once a week are imperative. With our crazy life lately I've gone two weeks without changing the sheets and I have to say that it is one of those little things that adds to the panic. Honestly, I'd change my sheets every couple of days if I could pay someone else to do my laundry.

Grocery shopping (by myself). When I was nineteen years old, freshly moved into my first apartment without a room mate, I was experiencing life post-epiphany. The epiphany came a year earlier and was when I decided to piss or get off the pot: either have done with myself and kill myself off or pick myself up and stop torturing myself physically. (I had not been suicidal for a couple of years but replaced it with cutting). Life doesn't suddenly change color just because you've made an important decision. You still have to work at realizing a new direction. Not cutting myself, and committing myself to living the best life I could meant discovering all the good things about it and embracing them no matter how small. That's when I started to really learn to cook.

A component of cooking is shopping. Before, I just shopped for desperately cheap food, but now I was shopping for ingredients. I started shopping with fresh eyes, seeing the myriad choices in things as common as salt and taking pleasure in weighing my options. I probably scared a lot of people, I know I spied people edging away from me occasionally. I talked to myself A LOT in those days. OUT LOUD. I learned to relish the act of carefully choosing my food. It seemed, and still does feel, like an act of self love. A person who cares about themselves cares about what they're feeding themselves. Taking care to choose those things feels like caring about myself. And now that I have a husband and child, it feels like caring about them too.

The sound of trains. I don't know exactly why. The pleasure it gives me lives somewhere just of to the side of my consciousness. If I had to say why I loved it, it would be something about the passing of time, the hopeful inexorable movement towards the future, and a living link between old and new industry.

Snow. It makes me laugh and dance and releases that swooping rising euphoria that children feel and express in sudden bursts of energy-breaking into a sudden run while whooping and hollering nonsense. I am not saying I want to be buried six feet under snow, nor that I want to see it six months of the year. Take it as a simple declaration. Without the boundaries of circumstances. I love snow. It makes me happy.

There are so many other things that I can add to the list, but the morning is getting away from me fast and there's so much to do today. Now, I am not one to start memes or demand that anyone participate in a group effort of any kind, but I would like to say that it would be absolutely enjoyable to see what makes all of you happy. So if you feel like indulging me, write your own list on your blog!

My list is bigger than yours

Our internet connection has been out at our house since 8am yesterday morning. It's fine here at work, but I can't upload any pictures to posts from here. I guess we're involuntarily cleansing our photo-palette.

Today calls for a list. Unedited. Because I love to share my stress:

1. Call the psychologist back to ask intelligent questions and possibly make an appointment.

2. Try not to put head in oven

3. Put all the sale signs up in the store

4. Put bright stickers on all sale items

5. Go through the back room of store to find anything that should be on sale

6. Call the credit card services to notify them of our change of phone number

7. Call Verizon to tell them they suck that we don't need to pay them a fortune for a business line anymore

8. Put a classified ad in the paper for the furniture and retail fixtures for sale

9. Buy a lot of Vodka

10. Locate a cooler for ice, try not to pay for one

11. Buy tons of limes, tonic water, regular water for teetotalers, snacks of some sort

12. Start packing up the back room

13. Clear out space in the garage for sewing things

14. Rent a storage unit for the rest of Dustpan Alley detritus

15. Remind Max that he has a mother, even though he never sees her

16. Try not to get too weary of talking to people about why you're closing the store, also try not to bite their heads off like a rabid dog.

17. Try not to think of certain downtown personpeople feeling smug about us leaving. Try not to think about how they will believe we're leaving because we've failed.

18. Try not to think about who is going to happily replace us in this spot.

19. Breath deeply

20. Start clearing out the studio

21. Rip out the built in 1970's desk

22. Sandpaper the walls to prepare for painting

23. Organize the cupboards in garage

24. Visit flooring store to find an alternative to the disgusting oatmeal carpet that is trying to choke me to death with it's dust and filth.

25. Don't fall down again

26. Try not to worry about starving to death

27. Stop fantasizing about insane asylums because you can't afford to be admitted to one when you don't have any work. Besides, there's no such thing anymore. Now they just put you out on the streets for some bracing "outdoor living".

28. Take our old cranky dangerous cat to the vet

29. Call Dad in Tiburon and find out if he's had a wedding without me

30. Buy plastic cups for cocktails in store

31. Notify the Secretary of State of our change of venue

32. Notify the Federal Government that we are moving our business back home

33. Cancel retail insurance policy

34. Oh god. Deal with all the paperwork that is multiplying on every surface like tribbles at an orgy

35. Clean the bathroom in the store (or blackmail Philip into doing it)

36. May as well let the California State Board of Equalization know that we stopped doing business in California a year and a half ago.

37. Call the Downtown Association to find out about a table at the farmer's market

38. Read the book "How to talk so your kids will listen, and listen so your kids will talk"

39. Stop growling at everyone

40. Try to act sanguine about everything

41. Write a sample column and send it to absolutely everyone with a letter explaining how if they don't hire you to write a weekly column they will regret it for the rest of their days when you become a syndicated writer that everyone will wish they had discovered themselves. Yeah, you tell them! (Because braggarts are always so well loved, surely this approach will win someone over.)

42. Try not to worry about everything that didn't make it on this list

Panic Rising

So we're having a "huge" cocktail party at the store on Friday. I put "huge" in quotations because, honestly, I have no idea who will come, how many will come, and all I can hear in my head is this question:

What the mother lovin' hell have I done?

I hate parties. The bigger they are the more I hate 'em. Having to make small talk with more than two people I don't know in one evening is just enough to make me want to crawl out of my own skin. If you've ever seen me in action at such an event, you will surely be dying to say "But Angelina, you seemed totally comfortable and were talking to everyone. I can't believe it's as bad as you say." That is the single most frustrating thing about normal people, they assume that everyone wears their discomfort on their sleeves. I have spent a life time trying to blend with the crowd and not seem completely batty. I've gotten very good at it.

Seriously. I'm very good at making you believe that I am totally comfortable when what I really want to do is pull out my arm hairs one by one*. Some might call that a very fine ability to lie. I call it a well honed ability to appear completely at ease so others aren't made uncomfortable by my discomfort. It is very self serving as making other people uncomfortable just makes me feel more like an outcast.

Here's a really fine example of my small talk skill: I'm sitting with a married couple I have just met an hour ago and I ask "So, how long have you guys been married?" They've been married for twenty years. So I say "Wow, That's awesome!" Pause, while a worrisome thought occurs to me which I spew out "Hey, you aren't about to get a divorce or anything, are you?"

Exactly one hour into meeting them and I'm already asking them something considered by most standards to be off the charts personal. Right above "So, have you gotten a boob job recently?".

That's what happens when I'm actually comfortable socially. I spew stuff. Random stuff. Chilling thoughts. All kinds of dark alleyways in my conversations open up and suck us into party-worthy discussions such as "How do we define ourselves sexually and at what point are your sexual practices a matter for public concern?"

When I'm uncomfortable I tend to seem like a breezy person capable of inhaling an entire bowl of chips while I pretend I'm in my element. Snacking helps ease the burden of being sociable. Another indication of my true state of mind is in my hem twisting.

Never heard of hem twisting? I'm sure tons of other people do this too, right? RIGHT?

I twist the hems of my shirts around my fingers quite often. Really hard, so that my shirt hem becomes a finger tourniquet. The more uncomfortable or anxious I am the more constantly I twist my hem around my fingers. I often don't know I'm doing it. If anyone else has ever observed this habit, they've been kind enough not to point it out. I work really hard every single day of my life to control this compulsive habit. It bothers me that I do it but I've been doing it since I was a kid and it hurts my head to not do it when I have the urge to do it. Which is most of the time.

So we're having a cocktail party on Friday and I don't want to come to it. Can I bail on my own cocktail party? I only decided to do it because it's what most people would expect. Some big send off with a big sale. It's what at least five different people asked if I was going to do before we decided to do it.

Isn't there a back door in my life that I can just slip out of quietly?

There's a really long list riding on my shoulder too. I'm doing my best to ignore it but it keeps throwing peanut shells at my head.



*This will especially impress anyone who's seen my arm hairs which are plentiful and long.

Sunshine and button love

Between the buttons I got at Schoolhouse antiques and the lovely collection sent to me by my blog friend at Zanthan Gardens, I have been able to indulge in button love for the first time in a long time. I realize that it sounds kind of kinky, but you wouldn't let your dirty mind think things like that if you knew just how boringly unkinky I am.* I have been dumping out my collection in moments when I'm feeling dull and stressed and laying them all out to be examined. I find it soothing and uplifting. Buttons are the ultimate in functional objects that double as decoration.

I realized that I need to scour the earth for more of these treasures before they become so collectible that I can't afford to buy any more at all; before the rest of you amazing crafters out there gather them all up for yourselves. So I returned to Schoolhouse Antiques and bought the second smaller bottle of buttons and looked around a little harder for other button treasures.

Look what I found!! About thirty carded buttons. They aren't necessarily really exciting examples of button design, but there are some great colors, some really sweet tiny buttons, and a few really interesting ones. They weren't exactly cheap, but they were less expensive per card than most buttons you can buy at JoAnne's. What a score!

Yesterday, while walking the dog, I tripped and fell in front of some people. I didn't just stumble. I sprawled myself out on the pavement at which point my dog got very confused and excited and made it almost impossible for me to get up again because she was tangling her leash up around herself (and me) and kept knocking me back down. I don't actually think of myself as being particularly klutzy. I know I don't walk this earth with great grace, but I'm not always bumping into things or falling all over myself. But the last time I fell down I broke my hip.

So you can imagine that on top of my humiliation at having been laid out for all to see in a mess of dog chain and sidewalk, I kind of felt like maybe I should just stay inside where it's relatively safe and never go out walking again. I didn't break anything. I did scrape up one of my knees though like a 37 year old kid.

This kind of stuff doesn't happen to people wearing Armani. I think we need to make enough money so that I can wear some Alexander McQueen outfits. I wouldn't ever scrape my knee or break my hip wearing clothes like that, right? Don't clothes like that impart a certain grace that prevents these little public demonstrations of humor?

By the way, in case anyone was asking themselves "I wonder what Angelina thinks of Karl Lagerfeld?" I'll tell you: I think he's a living skinny scab of a human being who not only doesn't design anything I like, but has been quoted as saying "You can never be too rich or too thin" which is not only not very original for a poncy gay man** to say, but also shows that he's one of those awful people perpetuating the idea that skeletal is somehow desirable. I think he looked way better before he lost so much weight and started wearing skin-tight black jeans. He now has a head so big in proportion to his body that he reminds me of a jack-o-lantern in really stupid sunglasses.

I am going to take a moment now to say something I've been meaning to say on this subject: one of the reasons why it's so attractive for designers to perpetuate the whole stick thin phenomenon is because it is much easier to draft clothes for people with no breasts, hips, or asses than it is to design attractive clothes on a person who is curvy. So a lot of designers out there would find their work much more challenging if it became popular again to have a figure with something to grab onto. All the skill is in the curves. Donna Karan, though I don't always love her style, is one of the few designers who is already known for her ability to design clothes that look good on a curvier body. She designs for women, not for prepubescent teens.

Which is why I hate the fact that she hires such bean poles for her ad campaigns just like all the other designers do.

Until I see all runways with size twelve models on them, I will not be impressed with our current line-up of designers. This is the litmus test for good design, in my opinion: if you can send a size 12 model down the cat walk looking sexy and smashing, then you have skill. After all, a size twelve isn't particularly large.

It's getting warm out so I had better haul myself out to the garden to water my plants. I tried to find sun screen at Safeway yesterday but they didn't have any from less toxic companies than Coppertone, so I'll have to check in at the Health Food store to see what they have on offer. Last year I used Aveeno sunscreen and was very happy with it. Since I go out there in the sun unarmed, I suppose I better be wearing my hat at least.

I just had the most uncomfortable thought- have any women out there who like to bake themselves in the nude ever gotten a bad boob burn? Yikes!

On that happy note, I hope you all have a great Tuesday!

*I am very happy being sexually unexperimental, just so you know. I like sex without accouterments or role playing, or humiliation to either party. I like it just fine without being turned into a circus act. That is more than anyone needed to know, but I just wanted to set the record straight right now. But don't worry, I mostly don't judge you for enjoying a little "French Maid" outfit every now and then.

**Just to be clear-I have no objections to anyone being gay, but I do object to them being scabs who are insufferable and so full of themselves and so stupid that they could actually believe that saying things like "you can never be too rich or too thin" makes them fabulous, especially when the person who says it happens to be both too rich and too thin.

Baby Lettuce: Cuter Than Kittens?

My lettuce patch has become choked with growth. I scattered the seeds and raked them in. I thought that would evenly distribute them and I couldn't have been more wrong. Those seeds stuck together like immigrants on a ship to a brand new mean life. The idea is to thin them for an early summer baby lettuce salad. Although I spent a good half hour carefully rearranging the density issues in my lettuce patch, it doesn't look any different than before.

Yet I removed enough for two big salads. Tender, sweet, delicate, fresh greens. That just makes me salivate. My mom has pointed out that now is the time to scatter seeds in the bare spots of my patch to stagger the harvest. Good point. That's the kind of thing I never get organized enough to do.

I can't leave the potato bed alone. My deep wisdomous inner voice says to let them all get bigger because the more you mess with the plants the greater the chance I will interrupt their growth by damaging them. One of the services my garden provides is something to pick at and on that isn't myself. That may sound strange, but I tend to pick at things: my skin, labels on bottles and jars, loose threads, the hems of my shirts, my blog.

In the garden I can channel this nervous need to worry at things by providing endless weeds to rip out or hack down, snails to find and feed to the hens, fussy staking jobs, an opportunity to check on it's progress every hour of the day without feeling like a total crazy person because things like lettuce tend to grow so much you really can see the progress. And of course: the chance to dig around for tasty tubers.

So here we have the basis for a wonderful Sunday night dinner. We used beets and tomatoes from the farmer's market too. Here's what we had for dinner:

• Baby lettuce salad with feta cheese, pine nuts, avocado, and the first cherry tomatoes of the farmer's market season.

• Cooked beet greens with sauteed shallots and butter.

• Roasted root vegetables including: beets, potatoes, onions, whole garlic cloves, and yams.

It was so good, and as usual, reaffirms my dedication to eating fresh food. Not everything was in season and that's something I keep trying to work on but sometimes I just can't resist what I find at the grocery store. One thing that will never be in season here in the Pacific North West is avocados. I could eat two of the good kind every single day. I love them that much. Not only would I never get tired of them, I am sometimes willing to pay in gold ingots to have them.

I have avoided eating beet greens for years because I have suspected that they would be tougher than chard. Although I love swiss chard, I don't enjoy a mouthful of iron-ladened greens that have a tough finish. The cheery fresh faced people at Oakhill Organic Farm back my mom up on the assertion that beet greens are delectable and I am a fool to avoid them when they are more tender than chard and sweet, and everything good....seriously, they waxed poetic just as much as my mom does who's been trying to convince me to eat them FOREVER.

Apparently, there's a good reason for their rhapsodies. Beet greens are so tender, so sweet, so fine...they almost melt in your mouth. Damn! I have been missing out on a really good thing all because I'm afraid of a mouthful of bitter tough greens. Even though I rarely eat green things for breakfast, I could really go for a plate of beet greens right now.

So, have any of you ever gotten a butt burn?

Yes...yes I did say BUTT BURN.

Remember way back when I was mentioning how I had possibly shown off my butt-crack to all my neighbors? You don't? (How lucky for you). Well, I was out in my garden for an hour yesterday removing weeds, thinning those greens, and getting my hands covered in dirt and trying to see if I could go fifteen seconds without a thought. It wasn't particularly sunny so I didn't think about putting sun screen on.

Besides, who puts sunscreen on their BUTT CRACK?

The answer: PEOPLE WHO GET BUTT BURNS IS WHO!

And that includes me, apparently. Because right above my ass is a swath of lobster red painfully burnt skin where my pants pulled down and my shirt inched up. Shit, as if I don't have enough to be embarrassed about already. How did I find out about this burn?

BECAUSE I HAD TO SCRATCH MY BUTT LIKE A MAN AND FELT A SEARING PAIN WHEN I DID.

I SCRATCHED MY ASS LIKE A MAN.

I'm going to leave you with that dainty image. No need to thank me for making your day.


Peace Apron Update: As soon as I find out where to send the check, I'll be mailing out my first check to Moveon.org! It's only for $24.00 so far, but every bit counts and I want to thank all of you who have bought Peace Aprons and have made it possible for my poor sun-burnt ass to donate some money towards the peace efforts!

Mainlining the American Dream

Right now I have the urge to jump on my sleek Vespa and head out of town. Or perhaps just to drive in the country. Or just to leave. My scooter has no name because in spite of the fact that I tend to relish naming things, it seems too precious of me. Most people name their vehicles but somehow I just don't want it to do it. It's the only motorized vehicle I have ever owned or had a license to drive. Philip doesn't own it. He doesn't have a license for it. It's mine.

Having a vehicle and getting the urge to get in it (or on it) and hit the open road is so quintessentially American that I feel like perhaps I'm pretty much your average Jane after all. It's all about having a perennial escape route. Being unfettered enough to get up and go. To guzzle as much gas as you want. I have to say that writing that down makes Americans sound like paranoid gluttons. Which we are, actually.

Part of me has been happy to rest my Vespa in the garage for the past seven months while trying to track down a new headlight bulb because it's forced me to ride my bike around in the sun, wind, rain, and snow. Yes, snow. (The snow was fine, it was the ice that almost killed me.) I certainly haven't gotten fitter for doing it because I live pretty close to my work, but I did feel better not using another vehicle. We use the car to go to Portland and to see our friends in other towns, but around here, most of the time, we walk and ride our bikes.

It takes no oil to use our legs or our bicycles. I feel good about that.

Yet I have to admit that I missed riding my Vespa. I don't really need it to go grocery shopping with, because I can fit almost anything in or on my bicycle baskets. I didn't miss the convenience of it. I just missed the fun of driving it.

Now I have it back and I want to ride it all the time. Unfortunately, in the time I haven't ridden it the gas prices have gone up quite a lot. Gasoline is becoming prohibitively priced. It cost me over five dollars to fill up my tank which holds about as much gasoline as my bladder holds pee.

I had the chance on Friday to go out for a ride in the sunshine by myself and I chose not to. Later I missed the feeling of the wind rushing by, of turning smoothly down unknown streets, and of hailing the pasture cows as I fly by like a super-bird. Next time I'm just going to take off.

Under-tattooed At The Lovli Craft Fair

On the left is Pearly Grey Designs owner Jen Nowak-Miller who designs and makes accessories for stylish babes using lots of retro fabrics. My favorite item? The onesie with the skull on it. How I wish I had found her six years ago when Max was born. I did my best by dying a bunch of onesies and knitted caps black, but skulls on babies? WAY TOO COOL.

On the right is Alisa Timmerman of Zeldaloo Studios who designs and makes all kinds of wonderful stuffies including a mermaid who is so soft it kind of feels dirty to touch her because then you can't get your hands off her tail. Alisa is closing her own brick and mortar store, just like I am, to concentrate on her designing and creating.

Have I mentioned lately how hard it is to run a store?

This is Shannon Conrad or rubygirl. I didn't intend to take a picture that makes it look like she's wearing a big light bulb, but I'm somewhat shy about taking people's pictures in a public venue which is why I'm not a star journalist, so I find it hard to ask them to scoot around posing until I get the perfect shot. I'm sorry Shannon, but I still think this is a good picture of you.

Shannon's jewelry is amazing. I wanted to buy several pieces but didn't because I feel weird about buying jewelry at a time when I'm not sure how we're going to make a living next month. But her jewelry is a wonderful mixture of delicate craftsmanship, bold design, and vintage touches. I want to drip with it. (How do I keep managing to sound so disgusting today?)

This is my mom with her new Rachel Wyatt painting, and that's Rachel Wyatt herself agreeing to pose here so I can fumble with a camera and interrupt their happy conversation.

Here is everyone packing up to go home. We loved this little craft fair.

Some notes on our visit:

• Attending this fair made us feel a little old, a little under-tattooed, and a lot less hip than we used to be. One thing it didn't make me feel? Fat. There were stylish people of all sizes there. A lesson: get over it woman. Yes, polka dots on a fleshy curve is not a bad look at all!

• Amazon women look surprisingly good with feathers sprouting from their hair.

• I never knew you could make a stiff shawl out of beads, but now I know. It looked almost as warm and comfortable as a horse-hair chastity belt.

• Portland is a very confusing city to drive in. One almost wonders if it was required of the planning commission that they eat magic mushrooms before designing those twisty sudden convoluted and misleading freeways tangling above the city. Because driving through them makes me feel like I'm on drugs myself.

• It was energizing to be somewhere filled with creative people making really cool things.

Today is the Etsy Craft show which I can't go to because I have to work in the store, and tomorrow is Crafty Wonderland at the Doug Fir Lounge which opens the second Sunday of every month in Portland. My friend Lucille told me about this a long time ago and I have never had the chance to do it. But I'm hoping we'll go tomorrow.

What is wrong with my wee little seedlings?

See how the stem of this beet is growing? Why does this happen to my seedlings? You should know, before you answer that question, that it is growing in a spot that gets sun almost all day, the seeds were planted about a half an inch deep, and have been regularly watered. I've had this problem before. Did I not bury the seed deep enough?

They droop over. The stems aren't rotting off though. It's just that the shoulder of the plant is too high above the ground. I've been mounding soil around them to stand them back up.

My dill is doing it too. But it isn't as bad because dill doesn't grow a swollen root for me to eat which sounds really disgusting.

It bugs me. It bugs me to not know why this happens.

Isn't that the most cheerful thing you've ever seen? The first fruit to develop. There are actually a few more but at this point they all look exactly the same so I'll spare you the five hundred pictures I was tempted to take.

The eggplants aren't far behind. The nightshade family ROCKS!

My caserta squash (Mexican zucchini) is getting large. I actually have a few of these plants. While common wisdom is that you will always have way more zucchini than you can possibly eat and will become the pariah of the neighborhood with all your baskets of free squash, I have never found this to be the case.

Look who showed up late for the party.*

Random thought ten minutes ago:

I wonder if I put too many plates in this cabinet, will the whole cupboard fall off the wall? And if it all came crashing off the wall, am I standing too close to it to avoid being crushed?

Random thought fifteen minutes ago:

It's been a long time since I went across the street to check on Max. I wonder what they would do if I just left him there until it's time to go to Lisa B's house for dinner? (vision of them dragging my kid across the street to dump him back at home where he belongs, with his hag of a mother who leaves him at the neighbor's house for two hours without checking to see if he's still alive.)

Random thought twenty minutes ago:

I wonder if everything in the vegetable garden is going to die before I get to eat it?


There is a blessed silence in my house right now. It will end at any moment. Right here on my blog is one of the best ways to enjoy the complete absence of all other people in my space. Complete silence, except for the constant flow of random thoughts in and out of my mind.

Here's another one happening right now:

Does anyone ever achieve silence in their own head without trying? Does any one out there go around without any thoughts at all? What would that be like? Is it peaceful or eerily empty feeling? How could that be possible? Do thoughts in other people's heads sound like a personable narration, as it does in mine, or is it less like talking to themselves and more like...like what?

Warming up to my theme:

What would it feel like to be a person with no thoughts in their head, ever, and then suddenly they get a lone solitary thought that pings into their brain...would it scare the shit out of them or be a pleasant change of pace?

(And just when you thought it couldn't get more interesting):

What if that one thought was: I sure would like to play ping pong. ? How weird would that be?

Actually, that kind of sounds like fun right now.



*That's asparagus, in case you didn't recognize it.

Ten Great Things About Being Mentally Ill

1. You have a heightened awareness of your body and are always on the alert for the slightest problem. This is annoying to doctors and maybe some family members, because often you are sure you are going to die from things like cuts that don't heal as fast as normal...but the great thing is that when the cut turns out to be just a slow healing cut and not the first bend in the road to death by AIDS, you are able to rejoice in your new found appreciation for life. Since this is likely to happen frequently, you are reminded to enjoy life more often than people who go through life not being afraid of every new freckle.

2. Life is more exciting when you have unpredictable mood swings. Who knows how you will feel about things from moment to moment? Not knowing how you will feel about things from moment to moment makes life feel more like a suspenseful movie and less like a mind numbingly routine walk down a perfectly paved road.

3. Other more dangerously crazy criminals are less likely to attack you. Most people living in cities have to learn to exude a crazy aura to fool the world into thinking they are tough and unpredictable and therefor not easy prey. It's hard to fool crazy people into thinking you're crazy when you're not. (They can always tell.) But if you're already crazy...you don't have to even try.

4. Many crazy people are so attuned to the vibrations in the air that they can see danger coming a mile away. This allows them to avoid bad situations. Example: On Cinqo De Mayo, many years ago in San Francisco, Philip and I were waiting for a muni on 24th and Mission street. Suddenly I got the feeling that it was imperative that we get out of there immediately. All the munis that were coming by were already crammed with people, but I told Philip we had to squeeze on the next one no matter where it was headed. So we did. The next morning in the paper, Philip read that on 24th and Mission there had been a small riot and at least one person had been stabbed to death. Right where we had been standing, about five minutes after we left. See what I mean? It's a little bit like being psychic.

5. When your brain doesn't operate quite as smoothly or as well as it is meant to, then you don't see things like everyone else. Sometimes this makes you into a shunned freak. But the great thing about it is that it also means that your brain is more easily bent to new ideas and to seeing the world differently. This gift makes us into fantastic artists, musicians, and scientists. So the thing that makes you different can also make you an incredibly valuable human being to the rest of society. Assuming you live long enough to use your gifts.

6. Being different your whole life gives you the opportunity to develop a strong empathy for all other living beings. Having empathy is sometimes a tough gift to have but everyone needs some empathy in their lives. I can only imagine that this is why so many mentally ill people become therapists and psychologists. Not all people with mental disorders are suited to this kind of work or are capable of expressing empathy if they feel it. I think Jeffrey Dahmer was somewhat lacking in this department (as he obviously was in many departments).

7. You always have something fun to say at parties. Seriously, there's nothing more fun than stunning a room full of people by sharing some of your random thoughts out loud. I've done this quite often and while it isn't actually fun for me, it gives everyone else something really interesting to talk about when I leave quietly through the back door.

8. When you're mentally ill you are constantly doing social work just by existing. I realize that often, when you're crazy you actually need social services for yourself, but just by talking about yourself to people who aren't feeling that great about themselves, you are able to instantly make them feel glad they aren't you. That's a great service to offer.

9. While going through a period of depression can curtail our productivity, the periods of time when we're not sitting in a catatonic stupor is so precious that many of us learn to make the most of every sunny minute. This helps us appreciate the good times even more than the average non-crazy person because we never know how long it will last or when we'll get that energy and clarity again. This makes "Carpe Diem" an easy motto, and who doesn't want to spout out Latin cliches at every possible chance?

10. Having a mental disorder can be a very serious and sometimes life threatening condition, but it comes with gifts if we choose to use them. Many people with mental disorders are able to concentrate on tiny details that the average person cannot for amazing stretches of time. Some are able to see from unexpected angles and uncover facts that others could never see. Some of us are able to get inside the human mind and understand how it works. Some of us have the heightened awareness and lightening reflexes it takes to be an extraordinary athlete. So many gifts come with this whole mental package. Here are the people with whom we share this sometimes heavy, but often wonderful legacy:

Abraham Lincoln
The revered sixteenth President of the United States suffered from severe and incapacitating depressions that occasionally led to thoughts of suicide, as documented in numerous biographies by Carl Sandburg.

Virginia Woolf
The British novelist who wrote To the Lighthouse and Orlando experienced the mood swings of bipolar disorder characterized by feverish periods of writing and weeks immersed in gloom. Her story is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.

Lionel Aldridge
A defensive end for Vince Lombardi's legendary Green Bay Packers of the 1960's, Aldridge played in two Super Bowls. In the 1970's, he suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for two and a half years. Until his death in 1998, he gave inspirational talks on his battle against paranoid schizophrenia. His story is the story of numerous newspaper articles.

Eugene O'Neill
The famous playwright, author of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Ah, Wilderness!, suffered from clinical depression, as documented in Eugene O'Neill by Olivia E. Coolidge.

Ludwig van Beethoven
The brilliant composer experienced bipolar disorder, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb.

Gaetano Donizetti
The famous opera singer suffered from bipolar disorder, as documented in Donizetti and the World Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century by Herbert Weinstock.

Robert Schumann
The "inspired poet of human suffering" experienced bipolar disorder, as discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.

Leo Tolstoy
Author of War and Peace, Tolstoy revealed the extent of his own mental illness in the memoir Confession. His experiences is also discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Inner World of Mental Illness: A Series of First Person Accounts of What It Was Like by Bert Kaplan.

Vaslov Nijinsky
The dancer's battle with schizophrenia is documented in his autobiography, The Diary of Vaslov Nijinksy.

John Keats
The renowned poet's mental illness is documented in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Broken Brain: The biological Revolution in Psychiatry by Nancy Andreasen, M.D.

Tennessee Williams
The playwright gave a personal account of his struggle with clinical depression in his own Memoirs. His experience is also documented in Five O'Clock Angel: Letters of Tennessee Williams to Maria St. Just, 1948-1982; The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams by Donald Spoto, and Tennessee: Cry of the Heart by Dotson.

Vincent Van Gogh
The celebrated artist's bipolar disorder is discussed in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb and Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Van Gogh.

Isaac Newton
The scientist's mental illness is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb.

Ernest Hemingway
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist's suicidal depression is examined in the True Gen: An Intimate Portrait of Ernest Hemingway by Those Who Knew Him by Denis Brian.

Sylvia Plath
The poet and novelist ended her lifelong struggle with clinical depresion by taking own life, as reported in A Closer Look at Ariel: A Memory of Sylvia Plath by nancy Hunter-Steiner.

Michelangelo
The mental illness of one of the world's greatest artistic geniuses is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.

Winston Churchill
"Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished," wrote Anthony Storr about Churchill's bipolar disorder in Churchill's Black Dog, Kafka's Mice, and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind.

Vivien Leigh
The Gone with the Wind star suffered from mental illness, as documented in Vivien Leigh: A Biography by Ann Edwards.

Jimmy Piersall
The baseball player for the Boston Red Sox who suffered from bipolar disorder detailed his experience in The Truth Hurts.

Patty Duke
The Academy Award-winning actress told of her bipolar disorder in her autobiography and made-for-TV move Call Me Anna and A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness, co-authored by Gloria Hochman.

Charles Dickens
One of the greatest authors in the English language suffered from clinical depression, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb, and Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph by Edgar Johnson.

Note: this list was taken from the NAIC. For more information about mental illnesses, this is a great resource. There are many more famous people who have been known to have mental illness such as Billy Bob Thornton (admits to OCD) and Steven Fry who has talked about his struggles with Bi-polar disorder.

100 things you might not know about me and probably won't be improved for knowing.

One Hundred Things:

1. I love the winter best of all the seasons. Especially with a little snow fall. I almost always plan my travel for the winter, not the summer.

2. I can't eat goat cheese because I hate it.

3. For my whole life I have suffered from major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and various other interesting shadings of mental illness such as "personality issues". But I only got diagnosed officially four years ago. I am not at all ashamed to be mentally ill.

4. In fact, most of the coolest, smartest, most creative, and world changing people have been mentally ill, so I feel privileged. Sometimes.

5. I take Welbutrin and Paxil and have been doing so for four years. Because I spent 19 years not taking meds or getting therapy, I can say with great confidence that the meds and therapy are the only things that have really improved my quality of life. I have no intention of ever coming off them and dislike it when people assume I haven't tried St. John's Wort or that I haven't done enough yoga (see #98)

6. I don't have a driver's license and I would like to die not driving a car. I do have a Vespa though. I love riding my scooter.

7. The squeak of cotton balls makes my stomach turn.

8. Because I like to ask questions about everything, and examine the minute details of life, I sometimes come off as judgmental. Which I am. Because that's one of our species best strategies for staying alive. The women killed by Ted Bundy could have used better judgment. However, I am actually quite open minded.

9. I've been married for 14 years and love the man I married. Even though we sometimes drive each other crazy. I can't see being with anyone else, ever.

10. Giving birth to my son was not what I would call "miraculous" or "beautiful". The only thing more traumatic than labor was being abused. Although breaking my hip was pretty fucking awful too.

11. I love my son so much my bones kind of hurt when I think of what an incredible human being he is.

12. Philip, Max, and I build the best Lego space stations, space ships, and super hero labs EVER.

13. I am not religious.

14. Though I do believe in the power of nature, the order of the universe, and have a deep understanding that I am just a cell in a larger being.

15. I love the sound of train whistles at night. Which I'm hearing right now.

16. I have terrible nightmares about my teeth. Losing them. Or finding deep black holes in them. Or having my jaws clamp shut so tight that all my teeth splinter apart. I have teeth issues. I have a lot of nightmares, deeply disturbing ones in which I get murdered, I watch other people get murdered, or find murdered bodies in garbage bags. Bathrooms also figure quite largely in my nightmares; bathrooms with broken toilets.

17. I have a very healthy self esteem.

18. Except for my feelings about my body which are very negative.

19. I am extremely uneasy being around couples who bicker and say mean snipey things to each other.

20. When I was 16, until I was almost 18, I frequently cut up my arms, legs, and stomach with razors, steak knives, and metal shavings. Only a couple of my friends ever knew about it. I hid it well from the rest of the world until I got healthier and started wearing short sleeves. While I am very open about my mental illness, this cutting issue is one I still find kind of painful to talk about because so few people understand it. Talking about it makes me feel like a very sick human being.

21. I was a virgin until I was 17 years old. I found losing my virginity to be pretty underwhelming.

22. I order the same thing every time I go to the same restaurant.

23. I call myself a prude a lot but that's only because I know that's how a lot of people have seen me. It isn't actually true but it amuses me to say I am.

24. I can watch a favorite movie an infinite number of times without getting tired of it.

25. I am not impressed by virility or armpit hair. I don't get off on the smell of man-sweat either.

26. I have five chin hairs.

27. I think I can still play one song on the accordion.

28. I am not very sentimental.

29. I am extremely empathetic though.

30. I absolutely adore my five hens: Dot, Pinny, Henna, Flower Bud, and Pearl.

31. I don't like going to bed. Even though I really need to sleep.

32. My eyelashes become less distinct with each passing year.

33. People often make the mistake of thinking I am naive.

34. I once got punched in the face by a very drunk skinhead on Haight Street. (Ah, the good ol' days.) (That was sarcasm in case you weren't sure.)

35. I can't read the newspaper because I get vivid nightmares from it. I always regret it when I break down and start to read it because it also depresses me.

36. I've passed out from panic attacks.

37. I am fascinated by Mormons but am in no way interested in following their faith which goes hand in hand with my not being religious. I think Mormonism is cultish and weird.

38. I think the best, most beautiful, strongest, and smartest people are those that come from the greatest mix of gene pools, especially when more than one race is involved. Diversity is strength.

39. I don't lie well. But I am able to divert attention away from the truth. Beware of my talents in this direction.

40. I was mugged in San Francisco but got away unscathed except for a rip in the silk pants I borrowed from my mom. I was so angry I actually started screaming at my attacker and in the end I think I scared the pee out of him. I have rarely truly yelled in my life and when I do, I am a little bit like hell unleashed.

41. I hate getting heat rashes.

42. I have prejudices but none of them are racial.

43. I don't like going to parties, it causes me a lot of anxiety.

44. I love fashion magazines and gossip rags.

45. I can't spend much time in museums because I get over stimulated very quickly and get panicky and sometimes angry.

46. Busy restaurants make me nervous. If there is a line to get seated it's not my kind of place.

47. I have a hard time saying no about some things, but I won't say which things.

48. I frequently fantasize about going to live in a cabin in the woods away from civilization and all interaction with other people. However, I'm afraid of getting ticks.

49. I also frequently fantasize about going to live in a monastery. I would really like to be Cadfael. Living an austere existence is appealing to me because I find the messiness of life very challenging.

50. I believe you have to be flexible with the outcome of life in order to be happy. Also that it's dangerous and unhealthy to pin all of your happiness on the condition of achieving one particular dream.

51. I don't understand the desire to have lots of children.

52. If you can say about a film that it's an "art" film, it's almost guaranteed that I will hate it. It's safest not to recommend movies to me.

53. My ability and willingness to hear other people's points of view often fools them into believing that my own is easily influenced when in fact my mind is not that easily budged from it's own ideas.

54. Being a very open person allows me to hide a lot of myself in plain sight. You are warned.

55. I am extremely anti war and always will be. There is only one instance where killing another human being is warranted and that's in self defense. Even in that instance it isn't exactly OK, just excusable. It is never self defense to enter another person's home or country with weapons. I am absolutely inflexible on this point.

56. I don't have rhythm and I don't dance. Except for with Max in the privacy of our own complete silliness.

57. I don't like chunky jewelry.

58. I really like diamonds and pearls and white gold (or platinum) a lot. I would love to have a few art deco diamond jewelry pieces.

59. I don't think I'm better than you.

60. Unless you are a serial killer. Almost everyone is better than a serial killer.

61. I'm not a lesbian or a swinger.

62. I don't want to be the boss of you.

63. I think beer is the best drink in the world. This wasn't always the case and I still can't account for how I came to love it so much.

64. I love all three of my parents very much and I'm not sure they always know it because I don't call that often.

65. I hate making phone calls.

66. I am a risk taker.

67. The best job I ever had was being a housewife.

68. "Piss or get off the pot" is a secret favorite sentiment of mine. I'm not a very patient person.

69. Putting tremendous value on the idea of innocence is incredibly annoying to me. Deep sorrow at losing innocence is also annoying to me. Life happens. Innocence is over rated. Children are also a lot less innocent than adults generally like to believe.

70. I eat candy in very specific layers.

71. I am extremely particular about the pens I use to write with.

72. I have vacuumed a lawn.

73. Buffets make me really nervous.

74. Sudden changes in plans makes me panic.

75. I am incredibly distrustful of people trying to sell me stuff. Even if I really need the stuff. I won't buy anything or agree to anything over the phone unless I sought it out myself.

76. I have a deep seated fear of ticks and may never recover from having had one crawling across my neck, even though my friend Chelsea flicked it away and scoffs at my fear. I may have to avoid grassy sea-sides, the South, all forests, and fields for the rest of my life to reduce my chances of encountering one again.

77. I am not agoraphobic but can feel the kernels of it living inside my head waiting for the perfect opportunity to bloom into lush life. Right now I can say that my favorite place is home, but I worry that someday I will have to admit that the only place is home.

78. I don't shock all that easily.

79. I have definitely inhaled but have never done any drugs that require a pipe or a needle.

80. I loath school fundraisers in which children are encouraged to hit up all their neighbors and relatives for money in exchange for garbage in the form of huge vats of mediocre cookie dough or giant candy bars that cost $5.00. Why not just ask the parents for money? I'd be more comfortable with that. But, of course, I don't have any. To not participate in these awful little fund raising contests is to deprive my son of the opportunity to win some horrid piece of shit toy for selling everyone he knows absolute junk. Ah, the American dream in action...

81. I hate carnivals. I hate the circus. I hate amusement parks. All of them are creepy and depressing.

82. Clowns make me painfully depressed. I don't understand why anyone still thinks they're hilarious. If you think they're funny and wonderful I'm going to have to love you a lot to overlook that blaring flaw.

83. I love dirt.

84. I love reading and used to devour a book every few days. Ever since quitting smoking, however, I barely read at all. I associated smoking with reading for so many years it's hard for me to pick up a book and not want to settle down with my smokes at my elbow. I have no desire to smoke anymore but haven't gotten past this psychological road block yet.

85. Before we had a kid I loved to travel. Traveling with a kid freaks me out. I get almost blinded by stress while traveling with Max. I went to New York with my mom and Max when he was three years old and it was so hard and so stressful that I have avoided talk of travel with him ever since. I want to point out that it isn't Max specifically that makes it challenging, he's actually not a bad traveler, it's traveling with kid needs and kid calamities that makes me want to crawl under a hole.

86. I love rain.

87. I don't think tans look good on people. A little bit of sun from gardening can be very attractive, but baked skin always looks unattractive to me. Naturally brown shades of skin I think are beautiful, and naturally pale shades of skin are beautiful. Some people, George Hamilton and women mostly, get so incredibly tanned that I almost yelp with fear when I see one unexpectedly.

88. I have a problem with involuntary violent images flashing through my brain. When it got really bad I had to go to therapy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy really helped with this. It got so bad I was afraid to go in my own kitchen. This is not something I talked about with other people much.

89. I have about a hundred uncomfortable thoughts a day. I share only a fraction of them on my blog.

90. I simultaneously love and deeply fear the ocean.

91. I intend to become a master at tart baking. I'm pretty good at it now, but haven't remotely reached the level of skill I would like to.

92. I really really really want to like figs raw. But I don't.

93. I would love to have a farm but not have to make my living at it. I would like about two acres of good land with an orchard, a barn for a few farm animals, a ton of chickens, and lots of room for growing food and wild flowers, dahlias, and roses.

94. My farm would obviously not have a single tick on the premises.

95. I would like to die before my husband does.

96. My greatest hope for my son besides hoping he'll live a long good life, is that he has the capacity to create and experience happiness.

97. I hate dry wind. I only like wind in a wet storm. Wind makes me angry.

98. I always injure myself doing yoga.

99. I have continued to try meditation in a traditional way for most of my life (my mom and dad had us trying when we were kids) but the only meditation that works for me is cleaning my house to music so loud it drowns out the revolving words in my head or by hanging out with my vegetables and flowers in the garden.

100. The taste, smell, and feel of raw cold butter makes me want to throw up.