music to write cover letters by

i wrote a disco song today

Hot hot dog

the sky will always bring glamour

shine on like a diamond

and go in to infinity

and burn on

whoot-whoot

and then there will be a bunch of disco dancing beats. that's basically it. 

some thoughts i've had today

i wondered about the life of the guy (i've always assumed it was a guy) who buys all the "dragon blood" incense at the wal-mart in dublin. 

when i watered the plants on the deck today i looked down at the droopy lamb's ear and thought, "here's the thirsty little motherfucker" and gave it the most water out of the three plants. then i felt bad for the other two plants.

i wish i had a cloaking device dome thing i could put over my house and yard so i wouldn't have to see/hear or communicate with my neighbors. this would also work as a fence so that's like killing two birds with one stone!

bitching and moaning (but not in a sexual way)

writing cover letters exhaust/overwhelm/suck all the life out of me. i've never been good at pretending to be an extremely awesome individual, and i've never been good at selling things.
i've been sitting here for over a half an hour staring at the last sentence written, "dear ms. montgomery," and then the two broken sentences i began to write to "express my interest in the open position," which frankly, i've always thought sounded a bit on the erotic side... thankfully admin. assistant work is anything but.
i have a lot of work to do around my house that i've been putting off for a while. i've been putting a lot of things off for over a month now.
my car has fucked me over more in the past few months than it ever has. it's almost as if it's aware of the fact that i have so little money and so much free time, so it breaks itself in small but major ways just to keep me at home. it's latest fuckfest is with the brake lights- they're on, and stay on until the battery dies. a little plastic dowel that goes through a part of the brake pedal snapped off. thanks, honda.
god dammit. off to do some laundry now!

it looks like i'm not doing anything for a little over a minute

i'm listening to the fen "dustwalker" album and my back hurts

I lay in my bed and listen to the forever drone of the fan. The faded and cobweb frosted black curtain waves back and forth letting in light intermittently. The dark room I lay in is comfortable in this light. My head feels fogged and heavy so that my thoughts are obscured. The house is a comfortable temperature for now and all conditions suggest sleep.

Outside the rain pours and leaks through my roof and saturates the ground. The rain seeps through the cracks in the layer of shingle where the tar is vulnerable, through the rafters and onto the darkroom table. The rainwater that was once clear is now tainted brown after filtering through several layers of decay. The darkroom trays catch the water and overflow on the tabletop and spill out on the floor. The musty scent of the indoor/outdoor carpet permeates the room. We keep the door to the darkroom shut to keep the smell out. We keep the door to the darkroom shut to keep out the light.

when i looked at my (our) photography blog a few minutes ago i immediately thought, "i shit film." considering there's like, maybe 2 people who view it periodically, i think i'm gonna redesign the layout. i got nothin but time over here!
so we no longer have clovis the cat anymore, she has been gone for about three weeks or so due to unleashing a lake of cat piss on my bed. i put her outside that night and has since vanished. last week, tim brought home a kitten and we're calling it beemo. (or BMO) bmo's pretty alright, aside from the fact she has a pus-y sore eye that's pretty gross to talk/think about while you're eating. she probably has a vet visit in the very near future.
i've been swimming  few times already this year, and that's exciting to me. i just feel like that last sentence made no sense whatsoever, but it's true. i really like to swim and i can swim non-stop for hours, mind you, i'm not one of those "serious" swimmers, i just kinda swim like a frog that enjoys swimming mostly underwater. going to the pool by myself makes me feel kind of awkward, but there's a lot of things out there that make me feel that way so it's not a huge surprise.
i feel that minus friday night i had a pretty good past weekend. saturday was the flea market, where i didn't buy anything but walked around for 3 hours. i later went swimming and began reading best behavior by noah cicero. i finished reading it on sunday, and it was pretty good. i didn't really care much for the talk of politics between the characters, but whatever. tim and i played this game called plague inc. for a huge majority of the day. i finally unlocked "fungus" yesterday but did not have much success. i'm no scientist (no shit) but i don't think a fungus would make a great plague, anyway.

i had a conversation with my husband on the phone earlier about the constant rain we've been having for the past 3 or 4 days. i commented that the weather is strangely reminiscent of when we met in may 2003, when it rained almost every day for what seemed like that entire month. 

when i went to work in the morning it was raining. when i went to lunch it was raining. when i got home in the afternoon it was still raining. when you opened the door to go somewhere after work or on the weekend it was raining. i think it rained so much and so often the water from the sidewalk leaked under the motel door where tim was staying and soaked the carpet. 

i think i'm gonna go back through our photo album to see if i can find some of those rainy day pictures this week. 

i was talking to a friend about starting my next to last previous job and i referred to it as stepping in dog shit and then stepping into a bear trap. 

unemployment week 2: electric boogaloo

some of things i've done since i've been unemployed:

• done a lot of laundry. utilized my clothes line to save $, now it's a necessity for now because i knocked something into the lint trap of my dryer and now i'm afraid to use it. 
• put some photography stuff i don't use for sale on ebay/craigslist. i haven't had much luck with that yet. 
• went to a beer festival (and a bar afterwards) in harrisonburg. i still believe that harrisonburg is a bizzaro blacksburg.
• shot and developed a few rolls of film. almost completely ruined one roll but got some really wonderful pictures of dundy from it. 
• pretty much gotten my fill of stuff streaming instantly on netflix. glad to see adult swim finally got the first seasons of aqua teen & venture bros. on there so i don't have to dig out my dvds. 
• repotted my "work plants." 
• annoy my cousin during her work day on gchat. (excerpt below.)

 me:  i'm sitting on my porch feeling disturbed because there are bees all around me

 Kelly:  Is it that warm out?

 me:  and some honeybees are building a nest in my bamboo windchimes. i've lost that zen-like feeling they give me

yeah it's like 65

 Kelly:  SOB...it does say its 60ish

LMAO...kill em all

 me:  i'll have to creep in all ninja style after the sun goes down

 Kelly:  HAHA...can you kill them with spray?

 me:  or i could burn my windchimes

i don't give a shit

if i let them go the honey's just gonna start oozing out of them

 Kelly:  WOW...hit that dark period already today

What are your plans for today

 me:  eh, it's my nature.

well i was gonna start writing my resume

 Kelly:  YES...do that:)

 me:  i bought a camera and ate some arby's yesterday

now i gotta go find a battery for it and feel like i wasted $17 plus the cost of the battery when it doesn't work

 Kelly:  it doesnt work, or you dont know yet?

 me:  i dunno yet. some idiot left the batteries in it and they leaked a bit which is usually not a good sign. but i thought i'd give it a go anyway. i like taking apart shit and never putting it back together

i had a dream last night that i was still working for my old company but on a different construction project that was a lot like the one i was on and it was my last day at work. in the dream i couldn't remember the name of the company i worked for when asked by some of the other trades working there after i told them it's my last day. i remember feeling really stressed out because of that and also because i was given the task to plant a bunch of other "work plants" that were going to be in the new tenant's offices & outside (at my former job i was not a landscaper, btw.) when i had all this other work i had to do. sleep stress!

well, open office has been installed so i guess i better get started on that resume...

a big shout-out to the idiot who stole my debit card #.
thanks a lot, fuckhead.
apparently this fuckhead wanted to buy $600.00+ of some shit from a fur shop. (possible furry? eww.)
anyway, i hope you die or get cancer or aids or the plague or a combination of the three and then eventually, die.

some driving to work thoughts

i looked at myself in the rearview mirror this morning and immediately thought, "i have anne frank hair."  i'm only basing this off of the picture that was on the cover of "the diary of anne frank" when i read it long ago, but the resemblance is somewhat eerie. i even got a barrette thing going on.
hearing the rush song limelight is a good start of the day, a definite 7:30 a.m. song. i like singing along in a geddy lee-esque voice when i'm alone in the car, even though at that time of the day i'm still pretty croaky.
sometimes it makes me sad when i see a school bus stop at someone's house even though there is no kid there to pick up. maybe the kid is sick, or moved, dead, graduated, who knows? but i think that for some reason it makes the school bus sad when there's no one there to pick up. fuck that bus driver.
i'd also like to thank and nominate the gin blossoms as being every grocery store since at least 2006's number one band on their store muzak playlist. it also kinda makes me sad that they have their own youtube channel, but then again if they saw my blog it'd probably make them pretty sad for me too. they are alcoholics, you know. it's all in the name. you should feel bad for them and their shared disease.
i also saw a car accident a few blocks away from work, and i can't exactly figure out how it happened. a maroon toyota corolla (most likely piloted by a college student, it did happen right in front of virginia tech) hit a light pole facing the opposite direction on the wrong side of the road. i saw them putting the dude on the stretcher. the car and pole didn't look all that messed up but i wonder what caused all that? shitty start of the day for that dude.
by the way, i had an initially terrible day at work. by 10:30 a.m. i cried briefly at my desk. (alone, i would never do such a thing in front of people.) once my frustration-induced sobbing subsided five minutes later, i went outside for a smoke and felt numb for most of the rest of the day. i had a few laughs at other people's expenses towards the end, and i felt better. i left at 6:15, bringing the work plants and what little personal effects (2 pairs of headphones, my glasses, 2 things of chapstick, a choose your own adventure book, ansel adams' the camera, and a decibel magazine) home with me. it feels good to look at the plants in my own habitat. :)
tim also bought a "new" chair today. thinking about it made me want to sit in it, and i must admit it's much better than the pea-green rough as sandpaper awful chair we had before. we gave the old one to the neighbor kid who really seems to love it. hope he loves vacuuming all those old tortilla chip crumbs up from under the cushion. (or not.)
i don't want to go to work tomorrow, the next day, or the day thereafter. saturday will be a day of relaxation and will start the feeling of impending doom until i find another job. so with that in mind, let's go to bed!

lame confession... i love 80's music.

i've gotten into this kick of listening to a lot of 80's music lately. not like, in the "oh it's so ironic, neon and dayglo and hot stix and nintendo" nonsense, but one of my most favorite songs on the face of the earth recently is this one: crowded house - don't dream it's over .
this song is also featured in the made for tv series "the stand" featuring molly ringwald, rob lowe and gary sinise. and also the blonde retard guy from coach that can only spell the word m-o-o-n.  (that spells MOON.)
so in addition to this i've been adding to the pandora arsenal some cure, the smiths, and whatever else i find that makes me feel like i want to die an 80's sort of way.
here are a few of note:
psychedlic furs - love my way
the church - under the milky way
the cure - pictures of you, love song, and a few other songs i can't seem to remember the names of
aha - take on me (one of my favorite songs ever as a child moreso because of the video)
joy division - les bains douches (the full album's on youtube, i enjoyed it very much. i guess it came out in 1979 so that doesn't necessarily make it to the 80's.)

you should know this song.

deftones - needles & pins

FREAK ENCOUNTERS... CHILL, BRO. GEE WHIZZO!!

watching a dumb tv show on netflix called "freak encounters" where a girl tricked her fat guy friend into thinking there was an alien hybrid in a lab there or something, and it was fake (duh) ...why is this television?

if i were there, i'd probably stab him in the hand with a fancy ballpoint pen, and then i'd find out it's really a dude, and then i'd get an assault charge or some shit.

my cat is nearing her cat birth gestation period, so i should have some kittens in the house soon. that's gonna be weird and messy. yuck.

i had another "spring bird" in the house today. every spring, birds somehow find their way into the house and fly around and scare the shit out of me when i get home from work. if i find them, i yell, "SHOO, SHOOOO"   towards the nearest open door and usually they fly out eventually. birds that are too close are scary!

the second to last time i found a bird in the house we got hit by a tornado, and i'd heard somewhere (old wive's tale) that it is bad luck to have a bird in your house. needless to say, we lost some shit but not our entire house in 2011.

i have t-minus one week left of work. i actually wish it was less because i'm so damned tired.

btw, scott mcclanahan's crapalachia was awesome. even though some (or more than some?) of it was fiction, it reminded me a lot of being that age and living in haysi, va., when i lived with my dad. i guess the virginia/west virginia lifestyle isn't really all that different, even though opinions vary. (i guess it might also count that i didn't live that far away from wva and ky... maybe it's the same for some folks in kentucky, too.)

i'm trying to start 1Q84 but i've been too busy. i guess it's supposed to be a good book, we shall see.

maybe i'll just say fuck it and dig "do androids dream of electric sheep" out of the basement. i was thinking today about how if i ever dressed up for halloween again (which i haven't done in over 10 years) i'd be rachael from blade runner. 

here's some humorous excerpts from gchat with "someone":

me: well, hello.

 K**y: I was about to say the same! Good morning

 me: i wish i were dead.

 K**y: why

 me: or just in a coma

 K**y: thats no good

8:19 AM me: so i could sleep for a LONG time

 K**y: just because you're tired?

 me: i think being in a coma wouldn't be too bad.

 K**y: I wouldnt mind it

 me: yes, lol

me: yes indeedy

9:55 AM i woke up this morning and cracked a seltzer

 K**y: mmmm seltzer

 me: sat on the couch and looked out of the hole in my blinds at the snow

 K**y: Ever seen the new girl?

  not sure if you'd like it

 me: and the first thought that came to my mind was, gee whizzo.

  no

 K**y: gee whizzo

  haha

9:56 AM me: yeah, it took me a minute to remember who used to say that

  (it was my friend r***e in ct)

  and i laughed

 K**y: oh...yes, I bought the new New NKOTB cd...

  Line...

  from donnie

 me: ok

 K**y: Chorus

  Girl I really miss you

9:57 AM Wish that I could kiss you

  but he had mad issues

 me: (i wonder if he's talking about me..???)

 K**y: they kept poppin up like tissues

 me: WTF

  hahahaha

 K**y: I know, right.

  they're like 45

9:58 AM me: that's a sick rhyme

 k**y: I know...fo shizzle

 me: maybe if i get drunk enough tonight i might youtube it.

 K**y: you miss ct dont ya?

 me: i do.

9:59 AM K**y: They just passed some serious gun laws didnt they?

 me: yeah

  i haven't read about them yet

 K**y: I just got my new concealed permit:)

  me either

 me: awesome

  it was already hard enough to buy a gun in ct

  now i'm sure they've made it twice as hard

10:00 AM *** had just gotten his pistol permit (yes, you need a permit to buy a handgun there) right before we moved

  and it costs like.. $250, plus they do a full background check on you

10:02 AM gee whizzo

10:03 AM K**y: LMAO

 me: brb

 K**y: I'm going to use that

10:07 AM me: back!

10:08 AM when i think of gee whizzo, i think of it as a person. named "g. whizzo," who's an old italian man who wears a monacle and carries a cane, even though he doesn't need it to walk

  and wears a vest with a pocket watch on a chain

 K**y: LMAO...YES

10:09 AM 

me: i told r***e once that "gee whizzo" is not a real phrase and it's something she made up and that she should stop saying it so much

  

and then i told her about gee whizzo as a person and she couldn't see it.  

so that's today's story. you should go to your local library and find a scratch-n-sniff book that i got at a "friends of the library" book sale as a child that was ALL scratch-n-sniff shit. even had the smell of cut grass and the smell of smoke, which was awesome. i remember the color of the book's cover being blue, if that helps.by the way, donnie was my favorite NKOTB, which explains why i said what i did earlier.goodnite.

here's some pictures i found that i drew on my kindle last year when i was unemployed.

dundy as a pig-dog

weird shit

a dundy baphomet, a.k.a., the "true" dunder mifflin.

upcoming prints for SALE

if you are a local to the NRV (or new river valley, for those not in the know) look for some prints made by tim of some of our photos at pulaski bikes. the prints he has made thus far are 8" x 10"s in a matted frame, $30.00 / ea. they're made in our home darkroom, using a beseler 23c ii enlarger. most of the prints have been developed using rodinal. to view scans of some of the prints, see tim's flickr. he's pretty specific with all the developing/printing details. tim and i do a lot of our photography here in town travelling by bike and mike (the owner) is a superawesome guy and agreed to let us post up some of our framed prints for sale in his shop. the shop is located in the restored town depot, (which is picturesque in itself) and is right at the start of the new river trail in downtown pulaski, va. so come on by and take a ride, (or walk) or if you don't have a bike on your person you can always rent one... check their site for rates. we hope to have several framed and up for sale by the end of the week.

some black & white shots from this past saturday

more on my flickr.

one of my photos from this weekend. shot on portra 400 in my rolleicord iii.

just woke up from a dream i had where i was working with mulder & scully from the x-files. (not sure why i dreamt about that show, considering i haven't watched it in almost a year.)
anyway, we were dealing with a race of aliens who were able to shapeshift to look like regular people. there was a ufo that was hovering over some small town that had a cloaking device (or could shapeshift, whatever) to make itself look like a cloud.
once we found the one alien that was causing all the problems (not really sure what those were, but we found him anyway) we confronted him and cornered him inside a school or something and i ended up stabbing him in the hand with a silver ballpoint pen. (i guess to subdue him??)
i then said to him, "why do you guys always fuck around with our galaxy, find another galaxy to fuck with!?" and he replied, "i know, right? i mean, there's so many out there to choose from but for some reason we always end up here!"
that's basically when i woke up.
i'm scanning some negatives now and they look like dick so i'm gonna try to go back to sleep for a couple more hours before i have to go to work.

i'm tired from the copious amount of trespassing we did today, but we did get some good shots i think. i didn't find my tripod quick release plate, which i will now need to buy.

we came across an abandoned (maybe ?) norfolk southern engine with a few cars attached. we couldn't find a way inside it, though. we also found our way into a scrap/junkyard full of old cars mostly from the 40's-60's. i shot one roll of porta 400 and another roll of arista.edu ultra 400 in my rolleicord iii.

i'm too tired to even develop my film, but i might anyway.

i found my wacom tablet in the basement tonight and screwed around with it for a little while, it's been so long since i've drawn anything. i drew a cartoon hedgehog/elephant creature that i should've saved. 

i stayed home from work on thursday and went to the library to get an assload of books:

• o. winston link - life along the line (one of my favorite photographers; most known by his photos of steam engines taken in the mid 1950s to about 1960. a lot of the photographs were taken in the area of virginia where i live.)
• psycho usa: famous american killers you've never heard of. (eh, it's o.k. kind of like one of those serial  killer books you get at the middle section of barnes & noble.)
• the wind through the keyhole by stephen king (for tim, i've already read it on my kindle.) and the roots of obama's rage (i thought he'd also enjoy that)
• and 2 choose your own adventure books: master of karate and behind the wheel. i've already read behind the wheel and had 2 bleh outcomes. 

friday at work i downloaded  crappalachia by scott mcclanahan. should be a good 'un.

i've changed my mind about processing my film from today. maybe if i have a couple decent shots i'll post them here.

i had a dream early this morning that i was a room (presumably my kitchen, in the dream anyway) with some other people i don't know in reality, but i'm assuming we were assembled there for some sort of club meeting. (?)

anyway, as this older guy with a grey goatee was going on about nothing i started to lose interest and stare out the window instead, it was dark but there was a small light on outside the house and you could see it was raining.

so i continued looking out the window at a heap of random shit underneath a deck, there were pieces of a broken swingset, a couple of pallets, and some other unidentifiable shit because it was dark. what caught my eye was a very dead kitten, in fact, it was the siamese kitten i had a few years ago i named shi no numa.(it was an outdoor cat that "mysteriously" disappeared.) of course i was shocked to see the dead cat there, and i suddenly said to the people in the room- "holy shit, my dead kitten is laying out there rotting on top of a pallet." the guy who had been giving the lecture or whatever says to me, "of course it is, it's been out there all along and you knew that. you should call it by name." for whatever reason i did as i was told and called to the cat, "nuuumaa," and before my eyes the pile of rotten cat started to give out a sickly meow and was reanimated, (!) trying to move around with broken limbs with bones sticking out and legs going the wrong way. 

upon seeing this i let out one of those NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO screams often found in movies, then i woke up.

happy first blog post.