Scribble Nation

Black Snake Hormone

Yesterday, Bobleo's brother, Chris, and SIL Liz, welcomed their first baby into the world! Lucas Fisher was born at 10:32 AM, at 7 lbs, 12 oz. We're going to meet him for the first time tonight and I can't wait!! Oh the babyness! The tinyness! The darling-ness of it all! I’ve been pestering Bobleo constantly, saying in my best James Earl Jones voice, “Luke, I am your UNCLE”. I don’t know why he doesn’t think it’s as funny as I do.

The baby fever is killing me people. IT'S KILLING ME. I actually told Scott we could get a beagle puppy the other day during a moment of baby-itis induced weakness. I'll have to retract that sooner or later. I really don't need to be chasing a little furry pee machine around the place. Unless of course the little furry pee machine was sharing my DNA. Beagles might be cute, but they do not make good replacements for babies. I need to snap out of it, beagles ain't babies!

I’m also being overcome lately with insane desires to get married. I can’t shake it. I keep having these deluded daydreams of elaborate wedding plans. I even made a wish list on Macy’s the other day of everything I would register for if I were to get married. It must be some kind of turn of the quarter-century female instinct. Plus jealousy, I think seeing all of his friend's getting married just reminds me of that crumby feeling that he'll never want to marry me, ever. He loves to make jokes about it, though. They're SO hilarious. They don't make me want to KILL HIM or anything, honest. What’s five years of close friendship, 6 years of dating, joint bank accounts, and completely intertwined lives even MEAN anyway? Jeez. We’re only living the complete married life without any sort of perks (ex: big party, gifts, and commitment). That just puts me into some kind of crazy rage!!

Who does he think he is being married to me without being married to me? WTF?! Makes me want to split our money back in half, and make him a hire a personal assistant instead of keeping me as his personal banker, chef, and life coach.  I guess in reality, BOBLEO is getting all the perks of marriage, while I get squat! RRRrrrrr - hormone rage imminent!! Hulk ANGRY!!!

Ugghhh... I feel like I am fighting off some kind of female fever. Somebody get me some testosterone, STAT!!  I’ll take steroids, HGH, anything, just make this irrationality end!! I’m not getting babies, weddings, or even promises of these things anytime soon so I just have to snap the hell out of it. BUT I CAN’T!!!!!!!!! And meanwhile I am just surrounded by more weddings and babies!! I think Bobleo had better reconsider moving to Maine so he can get me out of this estrogen ground zero, or I might just snap.   

I Am Freaked Out

Bobleo and I went to see I Am Legend last night. It was pretty good, but really scary. Well, scary to ME. I don't know how scary it would be to a normal person. There is something about these end of the world, survivalist apocalypse type movies that just really REALLY gets under my skin. The idea of everyone you know dying, and being left all alone in a world full of monsters scares the everliving crap out of me. Zombies, vampires, aliens, whatever the case, I find myself severely upset for days after watching movies like these. I think the older I get, the easier I am to frighten and shake up.

I suppose that makes sense as a natural part of getting older, right? Lots of things feel real to me that never did before. Things like: death, loss, mass disaster, war, science getting ahead of itself, human irresponsibility, human error. While I know the exact circumstances that these movies portray are not likely to occur, we do know for a fact that the world is changing. It is changing quicker than animals can adapt. Polar Bears are drowning at sea, bees are disappearing in masses, even the massive Barrier Reef, one of the largest groups of organisms on planet Earth is just a matter of degrees from total destruction.

How long can human beings keep up? How long can we adjust at the rate of change that we are creating? How long before world transit and import become things of the past, before the everyday luxuries we are accustomed to become to costly to be everyday occurrences? By the time our kids are grown up, will this country have created sustainable communities to supply the essentials, such as food, shelter and heat? Will it be self sufficient, or will it have wasted its time of prosperity on SUV's, processed food and entertainment?

I hope that we have a plan. I hope that technologies and change are implemented in time to avert disaster or collapse. I hope that our leaders do the right thing for us all, if things ever come to a head. I hope that the people in charge are mature enough to realize that any success, global or personal, can only come from lots of planning and lots of hard work. I hope that they realize they are the ones who will have to do that planning.

When I was a teenager I smoked cigarettes and watched horror movies with ease. Death, horror, disaster, were not REAL things to me. The reality that these things could happen to ME, had not entered my mind. Every day, when I see people fly down the break down lane on the highway, cut in and out of moving traffic, or ride inches away from my bumper on a busy road, I am reminded that death, horror, and disaster is STILL a fantasy to many other people, older and younger than I am.

I guess my real fear is that the people in charge, like lead foot teenage drivers, are zooming toward personal success without sensing the global responsibility that is on their shoulders. Money can blind anyone, success can distract, but nothing hurts the world more than the childlike idea that someone else will save us when things really get bad. We look to leaders as if they were the parents every kid dreams they have, saviors who will bail us out when we are in trouble, back us up if we are in doubt, and save us the day when we panic. When you grow up you realize that your parents are just people. People who make mistakes, lose control, and are imperfect just like you. Seeing your parents for what they are is a tough part of growing up. Seeing your leaders the same way is borderline traumatic.

There is no one at the top with a plan for every disaster. They didn't even have a plan for a hurricane. Do they have a plan for the change that will occur throughout our lifetime? This is what keeps me up at night. This is why apocalypse movies bother me so much. It's not that THAT particular scenario could happen, it's knowing for a fact that something is about to happen, and that something could go horribly wrong if its not handled correctly.

The moral of this story? Don't watch apocalypse movies.

Maine Pictures

I am sooo lazy, but I finally uploaded all of my Maine pictures into an album. There are some really beautiful shots in here. Enjoy!

West Branch Penobscot - July 2007 (Complete Collection)

The Small Business Blues

The other day i was thinking about a lot of things; carbon footprints, climate change, ethical consumerism and came to the conclusion that I've been missing something big. As much as I love the adorable style and low prices of Target, the convenience of having a Kmart 5 minutes away and the ubelievably low prices of Walmart's generic brands... I'm supporting big business every time I go there. In the meantime small business struggle to make ends meet, unable to compete with the mass buying power of corporations. Not to mention the massive resources that are being taken to fly all this junk all over creation so that Walmart can save a few bucks. There was nothing for it - I decided the best thing I could do was to start buying locally. Sure, things will cost more. I'll just have to buy less stuff, a decision that I 100% support anyway. I'll be supporting small business owners and local economy. I'll be eating seasonal food, grown locally which is fresher and higher in vitamins and nutrients. Viva Local!! End mass production!! Woo Woo!! I was all hot about it.

Then the other shoes dropped. This morning laying in bed daydreaming the plan for the day ahead of me. I recieved my wooden soap mold in the mail this week and am getting ready to make my first batch of homemade cold proccess soap that will hopefully (cross your fingers!!) begin the backbone of my inventory for selling at local fairs and markets. I need a stick blender. No problem I'll just head over to... to... Oh shit. Where the hell do I buy a stick blender locally? OK, what's next on the list... Scott threw away the toilet brush when he painted our bathroom. It SERIOUSLY needs replacing... shit shit shit. They aren't going to sell toilet brushes at the farm down the street. Nor will it be easy to find micro-fiber towels, cooking thermometers or hiking shoes!! What's an ethical consumer to do?

I eventually came to a compromise with myself and decided to axe the following stores: Walmart, Target, Kmart. (Sorry Target I'll miss you so!! OH the pain of it all... The one spot!!! How can I live without you!?!!?)  That's a pretty good start. In the meantime I will have to continue shopping at the inbetweenies like Bad, Bath & Beyond, Bobs and  the like... For groceries  I'm going to try and get my produce from the farm down the road and the Farm Market that comes every Tuesday and is also down the road (the other direction). The rest I haven't figured out yet. The three places that sound the most sensible would be Bethel Food Market (owned by a local family - but about twenty minutes away) and Stew Leonards (another family owned chain that is about thirty minutes away.)

I foresee many many many pains and annoyances from this experiment of mine. I don't know how long it will last or if I'll really be able to keep it up. I'm not even sure if Bethel Food and Stew Leonards will have the groceries that I buy. So we shall see how this goes. Wish me luck everybody!!

Oh You Sweet Sweet Son of a Gun

Has anyone else has a Dark Chocolate Snickers yet? These things are fan-god-damned-tastic. Oh my god. If you have not had one yet I urge you to harass your nearby candy shops until you get your hands on one of these things. They are supposedly for a limited time only but I think if we all got together and let these Snicker's people know how delicious these things are they might make them PERMANENT. Oh Snickers, I have been a big fan of yours for a loooong long time. But you have really outdone yourslef with this Dark Chocolate thing. Mmm mmm mmm. I didn't think there could ever be anything better than a Snickers but this has proven me 1000%  WRONG. Oh baby.

When The Going Get's Tough Scream for Help Through the Internet

So.... Let's count it up shall we? Since the New Year began:

1. My shitty car shits the bed while driving down the highway in the freezing rain at 3:00 am on New Years Eve. (Headlights went first)
2. My cats have begun spraying everything in sight and my house smells like some kind of feline sex musk altar. The cats proceed to ruin all fabric bearing items in living room - leaving us couchless. Eating dinner standing up is very unpleasant!!
3. Scott and I finally got them neutered after the THIRD time getting them into their kitty carriers and driving them to various vets all in an attempt to use our free kitty snip snip vouchers (long story) only to be charged $239.50 in extra costs. AHAHK!K!
4. Scott and I discover that 3 people, 2 horny cats and 1 needy dog makes for a very crowded home.
5. Insane rumors about me begin to fly around my workplace...
6. Money is low, tensions are high and 5 out of 6 stomachs are in danger of growling.

Think things around casa de Scribble Nation were as hairy as they could get? Think again, Socrates we're just getting started!!! Scott quit his job today. He does not exactly have another job. So he is more or less unemployed as of now. Heh heh heh.

Luckily for all involved the big bad hand of fate wasn't counting on lucky number seven:

     7. Mary has spiritual awakening and will use this newfound insight to woo all natural forces to her beckon call, thus freeing at least five of six household beings from the cursed cycle of agony!!

That's right people, I've got a PLAN now. And you're in it. Here are Scott's credentials - The name of the game is find Scott a job. A new job, maybe even a better job? It could happen!!

Scott

Personality:
25 years old - Able bodied - Funny, lovable, very very smart. Loves to work with his hands - would prefer something creative, outside, or anywhere where he could learn something - especially about woodworking. Good with kids, ladies and other men. The only people who don't like Scott tend to be snippity snooty petooty sissy types. OR people who can't stand little jolly buddhas that get all the attention without trying to. He is a great guitar player and secret songwriter. Loves animals and the great outdoors. Thinks on his feet  - good problem solver.

Skills:
-Short order cook, waiter and all around restaurant fella from age 15 to 18 at local greasy spoon.
-Landscaper from 18 to 21 and off and on since (snowplowing as well)
-Warehouse at liquor/beer distributor from 20 to 21 - left to travel Europe with his sis
-Worked on home restoration, painting, building, windows off and on
-Age 22 began working building conservatories, orangeries and glass rooves as a sub contracter. This is where Scott learned most as far as building, carpentry etc.
-Has played guitar since he was a kid. Is quite good at it (although he wouldn't say so himself)
-Has big red truck

Scott is extremely intelligent and is good at everything he tries. It took him a while to figure out what he really likes to do but now he thinks he has found his calling in building, woodworking etc - What he really loves is getting to be creative, planning and problem solving. We live in Newtown, CT and Scott would be able to commute up to an hour for the right job. Even if you know about somehting that may just be a temporary fix we'll take it! We need to find him something pronto, even if he ends up having to move on from that fairly soon.

Thanks everybody !! I know you can do it! Just email me ( greendreams.mh@gmail.com) if you think of anything.

Here's my Story Morning Glory and I'm Stickin to it

Ahhh... I have been away for so so long. The last month , like so many before it has been filled to the brim with drama, catastrophes etc. (Unexpected roomates with unexpected problems, my car dropping dead 3 hours into 2007, my job changing drastically and the scramble to become aquainted with a whole new side of a business.) Pretty much one problem after the other. It's been like chain smoking bad luck one gravity hit at a time.

The one big difference? It has also been filled with a whole helluva lot of me time. I've been sewing, drawing, painting, singing and writing every free moment I get. I was going to say, "I feel like I earned some damn me time" but when I stop to write it down I notice that that isn't how I feel at all. I don't feel like I've earned anything becuase I don't really feel like you can earn things like god given rights. They are yours from the start - you just have to allow yourself to make use of them.

The pursuit of happiness is an uphill battle. Falling rocks, mudslides and avalanches are just a matter of fact. You dig your heels in whenever you meet solid ground on the way and if you're not careful you forget where you were headed in the first place. It's terrifying to leave that little patch of solid ground you have found and go back to marching. So terrifying in fact that you begin to convince yourself that your little miniscule patch of packed mud is actually pleasant, comfortable, worth fighting, working or maybe even dying for.  If you're really a good illusionist you can even convince yourself that this very patch of earth WAS your final destination. You can put the top of that mountain out of your mind and just go on and on and on. But what if one day you woke up and realized that the only person keeping you where you are is you? You've been through mudslides and avalanches before. After all, how did you get to THIS patch of mud anyway?

I've been remembering a lot lately, and I'm starting to remember where I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be happy. I've been obsessing for so long over career and family and marriage and all of that stuff. And all of that stuff I can one way or another find fault in. Go to school? Nah! Too hard, too complicated, too late. Have a baby? Not now! We have no money and what if I'm a rotten mother? We're not ready anyway. Marriage? Sounds fine but what difference will that really make? Besides Scott isn't ready. All of these make believe changes and goals don't matter unless I keep my eye on the real prize and I had forgotten it quite a while ago. I don't want anything in particular - no object or accomplishment or ceremony will ever come along and make me feel whole and alive and all that. I just want to be involved in MY LIFE. I want to be HAPPY and curious and ALIVE. I've been so consumed with keeping my little patch of mud paid for that I had forgotten that there was somewhere else I was supposed to be!!! So I'm leaving!! From this point on I am only making choices that are instrumental in the pursuit of happiness. This doesn't mean I am dropping everything and racing off to live on a beach in Thailand (tonight.  Although I am starting to remember that I AM free to do that if that is what I really wanted to do) - it just means that if I want to paint flowers on a dustpan instead of cooking dinner thats OK. If I want to work really hard at work to play the game of business like Siddhartha did that's OK too. What I want is to make myself happy. It sounds selfish at first but think about it. Being selfish doesn't make you happy!! Give all you want but don't be a martyr and give yourself up along with your charity.( That's a bad deal. ) The idea is to be honest with yourself about what makes your REALLY happy and satisfied - not satiating unhealthy cravings like revenge or caddy bullshit. Being TRULY self serving actually makes the world a better place for everyone!

I feel like I'm coming back to myself after a long time in a very different place. I can even remember now how I got started on this path in the first place. 7 years ago I was eighteen years old and my whole spirit was dedicated to a burning curiosity for life and the mysteries of this "is" etc... (And having the time of my life having fun with my favorite people on earth, my friends) I was studying these mysteries with a person who I saw as a master - and so at that time, he was one. We explored how moldable this place we spend our waking time in really is. We bent it and melted it and played with it. I felt like we were on the edge of some giant canyon of truth and I couldn't see over the side from behind my velvet rope. One day he unhooked the rope and asked me to dive over the edge with him. I thought that if I went over there then I could never really come back here. There was something in this place that I was not willing to leave behind - love for my family and my friends. This was a very painful decision for me but in the end I decided I wanted to live here with them. I thought you could only love what was in front of you. Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong - there are still big pieces of love that are a mystery to me. Even if I could learn to love all as one instead of one at a time - who loves me back? Who do I cuddle up with at the end of the day? I had spent two years with my teacher and I felt that I was close enough to the great secret to taste it but I turned it down. That day I chose a life of work and play, ups and downs, money and automobiles and shopping malls - but the most important thing to me was that it was a life with personal love and freindship. I wanted to do all those fun human things like work and have a family etc.

Now, five years later I have gone so far into that life that I was actually making myself sick. My body was rejecting the life I had forced on it. I am not a creature that is meant to be boxed into a life without choices - and so I am NOT boxed in without choices after all. I just had to remember I wasn't. I'm not jumping over any cliffs of knowledge or anything, but like I said, if I want to paint flowers on a dust pan than so be it. I'm free after all and I'm free to come and go as I please. To love and stay or to fly off into the sunset. I am in this chair typing this long winded - probably not to be understood - post because I want to. dammit.  And I am so happy to have woken up that I could cry.  The TRICK is to remember to remember where I actually am even when the play of life gets intense. It's so easy to forget or be distracted from life by life. But some things do not change. Do you think the Dali Llama ever forgot where he really was and found himself overcome by the waking world and its crazy demands? I betcha he did.

Anyway - I know this shit will sound crazy as hell to a lot of you out there - just bear with me. I'll get back to glue gun sculptures VERY soon. (In fact I've got some STYLIN'  dioramas just itchin to be seen by the  mass eyeball of the interweb)

My Michelle

Dolphins Make Me Smile

        Scott and I have just returned from a week long journey to good old Florrduh. All in all it was a very pleasant trip. Lots of sunny nice weather and lots of yummy food that we ate WAY too much of, and lots of dolphins. They came into the canal in my parents backyard twice that week and we got to watch them fishing from all of 5 feet away. Oh! And lots of crafting. I knit half of my hourglass sweater in the 6 days I was there which is a knitting RECORD for me. I'm slow, REALLY slow. It's not that I actually knit slowly, it's more that I don't knit often enough to make much headway unless the project is really small. :) I also sewed myself a new knitting bag, helped Caity sew a purse and embroider a patch for it. Also, needle felted a rainbow lion . I've got to ask Caity to take a pic of him. He was uber cute.
         My Dadoo took a scuba dive that week which got me all hot on the idea of snorkling. Unfortunately, during the beginning of the week the ocean was REALLY cold. Like 60 degrees. Now it's not all that bad if you have a wetsuit, but having none I was a big scaredy cat and passed up the chance to snorkel an ancient wreck under only 15 feet of water. (And its only 20 minutes down the beach!!) On the last day we finally got brave and went to the beach. Within 5 minutes I got up the gusto to brave the water and dove in. And you know what? It was actually pretty nice. Dammit. We had a lot of fun body surfing with my dad while my Mom sat on the beach watching us and watching the 2 pods of dolphins further out jumping around and eating their lunch. Their new pup Lucy, ate sand and later threw it up. Dogs are freakin wierd. After an hour or so the dolphins started jumping within 10 or 15 feet of us and that was our cue to leave the water. Dolphins = fish. Fish = things that eat fish. Thus, the rule of not swimming too early in the morning or anytime too close to sunset. Scott and my Dad had gone surfcasting (fishing from the beach) a few days earlier and the water was swarming with fish, dolphins and from the looks of Scott's fish, quite possibly sharks. He reeled one in and it was still dripping blood from being bitten clean in half. Yikes. Granted, it was more likely a dolphin than a shark, since dolphins and sharks don't generally "hang out together", I'd rather not take my chances.
         My Dad is actually going to a shark feeding later this month!! Crazy! Get this, they all dive in the water with scuba tanks, then they drop in a bunch of bloody fish and wait for sharks to arrive. Then they watch the sharks eat (no cage, mind you.)Then at the end, after the sharks hopefully wander off, they dive to the bottom and collect dropped teeth. Intense. Anyway, it was quite a nice trip and apart from missing my dog and getting a bit stir crazy I was sad to have to come home.

A Wish is a Dream your Cart Makes...

...when your shopping for Xmas. Don't you always find that you remember all the things you SHOULD have put on your list WAY after the fact? Like when you're shopping for other people? I do. So here is a list of afterthoughts.

A compact, yet stylish dayplanner. One I could actually carry around in a good sized pocketbook. I've actually go quite a lot of things to remember nowadays.

A watch. I've actually got places to be at certain times nowadays. Nothing fancy now. I'll probably just drop it in t he toilet eventually.

An Adam Broderick gift card. (enough for a stylin new haircut, MEOW!)

Venus disposable razors. Seriously, I can't afford them. And Scott is beginning to wonder if he's living with a yeti. AND I smelled my armpit the other day. WEEEOOOO. I've never had B.O. before but let me tell ya, it don't smell like roses.

We Love Katamari for PS2 (the second Katamari game!!) MORE things to roll over. Weeee!!

Yarn, wool felt, roving, and/or gift certificates to joannes.