I am a mom, entrepreneur, occasional blogger, and creator. I recently launched Here Comes the Apocalypse, a self-paced disaster preparedness system with a dark sense of humor. My team and I make up Artsy Geek, a top-ranked Bay Area branding and digital agency.
You have stumbled on my little corner of the internet. Thanks for coming by.
is that when you’re a smoker everyone knows.
they can smell it, they see it…you can’t go four hours without a cigarette!! Everyone knows.
but you know…we all have addictions. Alcohol. Sex. Chocolate. Video games!
So what’s the big deal?!
Cancer?!
A macrobiotic diet has been known to cure cancer. So I’m cool. I gotta plan. What’s yours?
I should have seen it coming, and I didn’t.
I know I deserve it, but it still sucks.
On the bright side:
1. I’m busy.
2. I’ve successfully moved my mess of a life from one location to another. Almost.
3. Every cloud has a silver lining. Duh.
I have a dome.
I live in a dome.
My dome will one day soon contain a treasure dome, my cat, and my bed.
I had convinced myself that it was possible to live a block from the freeway and not hear it. Ha! Ha!
But to live surrounded by my most valued possessions, and my sister!! I don’t know how I ever got so lucky. And in an amazingly character-ridden apartment, none the less.
I have a buzzer. I’ve never had a buzzer before, and I’m still not quite sure how to use it.
We asked our mom what she thought of the place, and she responded, “Well, I’m looking…” That was yesterday, the first day of inhabiting our dome-icile. Today she remarked, “it looks like you’ve lived here for years.”
And that’s the beauty of it. It’s always been our dome. And it always will be.
Thank you, Alex.
I took the last sip of Zach’s PBR from last night and it was disgusting.
I somehow expect other people’s advice to form the necessary backbone for my life. And that’s disgusting.
Frosting a cake in a parking lot is somewhat less disgusting that I’d thought it might be.
Today was Thursday. g’s birthday Thursday. And everything is okay.
August 15, 2006
1. Two weeks is too long for a birthday.
2. To release a jello mold, first soak the mold in hot water for a few minutes. Then place a plate on top, and quickly flip the mold and the plate so the jello lands centered on the plate. If the jello isn’t immediately released, soak it again in hot water for another minute and try again.
3. One can bake in the microwave!! But first one needs the Tupperware Microsteamer.
4. Work doesn’t do itself. My body doesn’t feed itself. Mail doesn’t read itself. Blogs don’t write themselves. And problems just don’t resolve themselves, no matter how much you might wish they would. Ooooh, but what if they did??
Perhaps he wasn’t.
But either way, he fucking bailed at the first mention of compost.
“Are you a tree hugger?!” His eyes were wide. He hugged the space between us. I recalled the time in my life when I–in all actuality–hugged trees. And kissed them even.
“Aren’t we all?” Referring, of course, to the tree hugger within all of us.
And he’s gone. Something about more jello.
I’m a big fan.
Now google, it’s my birthday today, and you know what I’d really like for my birthday? Not a pony or even a set of kitchen knives (which I really do need). For my birthday, I’d really like a Google Tasks. Each task would be a bubble on a blank page. They’ll resemble the appointments on Google Calendar, but you’ll be able to move them around and change their size and color to organize them in whatever way is intuitive and relevant to the tasks at the time! Like mutable magnets on a refridgerator, you can put the important ones on top–or in the middle–I’m going to use bright red to represent IMPERATIVE. And when you double-click on a task, it will open up a fresh refridgerator for decorating with all that task’s subtasks. And let’s also be able to put in pictures and websites as subtasks. Some of my tasks are websites. Like www.comcast.com is a subset of the Bills task. My Bills Google Calendar is brown too.
I’d really appreciate your immediate attention to this matter. Google Tasks will be the last major tool I need to live my life powerfully and efficiently–in this, my twenty-sixth year and for each year thereafter. You see, I’d program it myself but it’d take me sooo long–even though I’m sure it’s just a bit of object oriented programming and a slick interface. Not that y’all aren’t geniuses, but you totally haven’t thought of this yet. Oooh, I know! I’ll throw in a discount on some tupperware? How about a chip bowl with a little salsa container that hangs on the side?
And you don’t even have to give me a precentage for using my idea. Just the convenience will be enough. And a share or two, of course.
Cooperatively yours,
Susie J.
P.S. Can you also help me create that my new dome-icile is available a week earlier? That’d be great.
we found a place.
And boy have we been looking. Combing craigslist ads. Visiting multiple houses or apartments a day…stretching from West Oakland to El Cerrito. Our standards were: 2 bedrooms, (way) under 1500.
I’d almost given up hope.
I’d almost hoped to give up hope. My house is so comfortable, so familiar. I recently planted the flower boxes, and my life has been consumed with new job and annual festival of my existence. I turn 25 this week.
This morning my life was flashing before my eyes, in a way it never has before. Yesterday g. and I crammed a weekend’s worth of activities into one day and were hardly awake enough to appreciate it. Unrelated, perhaps, but my mind found today a challenge beyond any other. More apt than running around would be to lay in bed remembering what might have been and what was never likely. Such a glorious and romantically depressing endeavor.
Today, life had me. A coffee shop had me, my bed had me, and then this place had me. And we’ll take it, thank you very much. With its amazing curved ceilings, skylight, fireplace and endearingly small kitchen. It’s one bedroom, lofted second bedroom and tricolored walls. A co-op apartment with more character than any co-op apartment I might work to support. We had no choice.
I had no choice. I can see my cat happy there, fat. Lazing around on its cat bed, disturbed only–and vastly entertained–by the moving lights our mirrored chandelier will one day provide. The yard is fenced; he’ll have feline friends. I see him, I see me, I see my sister. And we are a happy and contributing portion of this strange dome-shaped cooperative-like apartment building a lovely walk, bike or bus ride away from 19th Street BART.
And I just can’t wait.
and I mean sigh.
Some days, the world confronts you. (Previously mentioned, admittedly.)
I can’t explain–nor do I want to explain. As per usual.
One loosens the ducts…moves the log, or whatever…broaches some subject. It’s over. And the effects can be disastrous.
Or everything can be alright.
A classmate shared with me about the death of a family friend. She learned of the death on a Friday afternoon, but her and her husband were intending to go out that night. The death was of his best friend.
They went out anyway, as upset that they were. And when people asked how they were, they told them, straight up. “Well, we received some bad news…” And the story.
It was surprising, she noted, to see strangers and friends open and empathize–to share similar experiences. It was reassuring.
My interpretation: Life’s okay. Just the way it is. But regardless, sometimes you don’t see it coming.
