January 29, 2007
Protected: How An Obsession Begins
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January 18, 2007
I hate Personal Transport
I could probably write a novella about why I think the idea of personal transportation is inefficient and ignorant, but I’ll try to stay focused. I woke up to some drama this morning that solidified in my mind the idea of never having a vehicle again.
Ring, ring! Sup guys, your RV is being towed right now. Throw on pants, drive fast, arrive as the whole fucking street is blocked off in order to tow my 36′ motorhome. Cop gives me the South Dakota registration rigmarole and tells me to call the towing company. Sigh. The rest of the day was spent securing an advance on my credit card, borrowing money for the 4 days it will take for that money to be deposited, making the registration be legal again, and scooping up the RV and parking it further away. Goodbye $1,000 that I don’t have. Hello new credit card debt (that I was already planning on using to get a laptop)!
Well, at least we managed time to blog. *insert genuine LOL* It’s our day job, after all.
I began to think about all the aspects of vehicles and how EVERY SINGLE ONE is a scam.
Registration: Mis-allocated funds (more so depending on the state) and an excuse to further help Big Brother.
Smog: Depending on the state, the rules can be thicker than the smoggy skies. SUVs and old beaters (like my car) get breaks, but even in “stringent” California, we still don’t have any real standards. But we still have to pay a lot to get them tested so we can pretend we give a crap about the environment.
Insurance: Never once needed it, but making a claim often raises your rates and you get to try to bust through red tape and get what’s coming to you, something you probably already paid for out of pocket. over time Oh, and it’s state mandated, too. Why can’t I just have a savings account, jerks?
Gas: That one’s quite obvious.
Repairs: Unless you become your own expert, mechanics are only too happy to charge you like they’re performing rocket science. It kills me that caveman technology like the combustible engine is so expensive to fix once you turn the task over to someone else.
Have I missed anything? Yah, I’m sure I have. I just remembered how much publications like to charge for listing your vehicle for sale. And autos as status symbols. And parking. And traffic. The list could go on forever…
I’m down to one scooter, one old car, and the RV. The latter 2 are for sale, and I hope to be down the one lovely red scooter ASAP. And then, I’m never going back. Scooters and maybe motorcycles, but never anything bigger. Life’s too short to mess around with this life-dominating mechanical beasts. We decided to stay in the heart of the city so it would be easy to live that way. I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so I can roll up my right jean leg and hit the streets on my BMX bike…
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January 17, 2007
Protected: Hiphuggers & Trauma
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January 9, 2007
Sick Days are for Amateurs
There is a Kids in the Hall skit called “Work Pig” (ep #401) where Bruce McCulloch plays a workaholic businessman named Don. Not too long into his morning at the office, his heart stops. There is a surreal sequence wherein he removes his heart from his chest, pours coffee over it, and yells “Get back to WOOOORK!”, inciting the heartbeat to return. He then places the heart back in his chest, smooths out his shirt and tie, and gets directly back to business.
There is absolute dedication, and there is over dedication. I’m trying to find the balance between them in my work. It’s been confounding in my search for self to see an apparent drive toward constant work and yet still be such a big fan of indulgent pleasure. The two never seemed to fit together. Only after years of living can I see with hindsight that my true pleasure is usually work. The times of mindlessness and absorption in physical pleasure seem to feed on themselves, driving me further in hopes of never going back to the real world. But nearly every single time I wake up the next morning, I find myself voracious for the opposite. “Get back to WOOOORK!” the inner voice screams, and I obey with excitement and renewed focus. I am theorizing that my extremes in these areas are causing the dichotomy. Overwork (despite how it charges my inner batteries) begets overconsumption, and vice versa. Perhaps I’ll cut down to just 12 hours of work a day?
I’m fighting a cold, which is probably more of an ego dasher than an annoyance. I pride myself on the quality of food and other substances that I put in my body and in my environment. I rarely get sick (two little cold per year usually) and when I do, I feel betrayed by my body. “Look, I break the bank giving you organic, whole, raw foods and cootie-free products, so how the fuck did you let some generic cold virus in?” Stress, is the reply. “As soon as you chill with the worrying and get back to Tae Bo, we’ll talk.” Oh, bother. Back to work.
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January 7, 2007
2006 recap
As much as I plan and envision my future, it’s always a surprise! According to plans made just over a year ago, I should be in Hawaii right now waiting for the 6 month quarantine period to pass so that I could head unfettered to New Zealand. 2006 was supposed to be about travel and exploration, and in a way that did happen, but just in a totally different way. Rather than driving around the US on greasel fuel, we stayed in southern California and kept our diesel usage to a hilariously low amount. Instead of new states we learned about our families and the varied lifestyles of southern Cali. We spent the winter/spring in the High Desert (Phelan!) and summer/fall in San Diego County (Carlsbad and SD proper). We lived with dogs (a novelty for us), stayed in the middle of nowhere and then directly next to a major freeway, became frighteningly broke yet almost never ran out of healthy food and shibby, spent hours and hours at the beach (even one nude beach!), stayed 100% self-employed, went clubbing in LA and SD, made a couple CSS only sites, reached the end of my wits and came on back again. I even met my darling Russ for the first time since e-meeting years ago, in LA of all places. (Alabama next time, most def.) And Kate! I’ll have to write about her in a Top Secret entry.
This year was, despite all the change and surprise, really hard. My patience, sanity, and faith were tested to the extreme and I faltered in every case. I’ve learned, though, and will continue to make the best of my lessons and mistakes. I started seeing a chiropractor (via barter!) who also does Neuro Emotional Technique, and he’s helping me dig up some of my buried hurts so I can stop making the same mistakes. It’s fascinating and I’m really thankful to have Dr. B in my life.
After all the time I spent with my large family (4 other kids still at home, ages 2-16, and 2 parents) and Sean’s mini family (1 teen + mom) I also realized the importance of human relationships. It may have largely served to strengthen my decision never to reproduce or add to our human family, but it also inspired me to become the guardian of a teenager. My 16 year old sister Alison will be living with us in less than a month. Wow, I never saw that one coming.
Perhaps the only mistake I made this year that can’t be reversed was the damage done to my hair by OptiSmooth. It’s this chemical process that can be done “cold” to reduce kink and accent curls/waves (this was my obvious goal) or “hot” to produce stick-straight hair. Somehow I ended up with the latter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve just started sobbing when I look at my hair. On top of the 100% WRONG results, it’s lasting way longer than it is supposed to. 4-5 months is the estimate, and it’s been over a year now. It can be hidden OK, but I’ve got about 5 inches of curly-wavy roots and another 6+ inches of very straight ends. It’s bad news and I hope no curly girl ever tries that hideous OptiSmooth shiz. For my birthday, I’m wishing for better hair in 2007.
I seem to have reached the end. No other words are leaping to my fingers. Time to move the MF-ing RV. Someone please buy that thing so I can really put 2006 behind me!
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