only plants speak to me this week.

Looking for a reason to leave the house today. Yesterday, I did not leave home at all except for a brief trip to the post office to send a package for my house mate. Today, I've spent most of the morning in the yard, weeding while trying to avoid touching the numerous sprouting poison ivy. I'll be out to pull as much of that up as I can while wearing gloves and long sleeves later. Saw the first pod on the snap peas that I planted in February. The tomatoes I started are still tiny plants that haven't done much, possibly from lack of rain. I'm thinking about popping the rest of my tomato and chile seedlings in the ground today or tomorrow between the showers that are forecast for this week. I'll probably do it after the ground is wet and soft. The cilantro I planted is doing better this year than it has before. The planter box in back has leeks and carrots on either side of an enormous parsley that survived the winter and is about to flower. I know I should probably cut it back but I haven't had any need of it since I haven't been cooking much this week. Might be time to make chicken piccata or sauce for pasta.

I seem to have worked my way out of any role I might have had in the latest film by the Twins and I suppose that's okay. I've recommended people and resources to them that have proven to be very useful. I wish there was an official job title for that.

As usual, I really need some work to keep me happy and busy.

Looking at the weekend

Still waiting for a reason to shower and put on clothes today.


Tomorrow, I should be busy finishing the small freelance job I have putting together a brochure for a client in Texas, of all places, who found me on CraigsList. I don't know what the chances are that I will be paid for this (I have reason to distrust small clients and the news feed has me distrusting Craigs List) it is still a very good opportunity to be active and keep things up to date and in memory.
I also have a haircut appointment with a new stylist, which has me feeling a bit anxious, on Saturday afternoon. It's a thing I can't really get out of because I've paid in advance for a flock of haircuts at this salon, which saves me money, and my regular guy has left the business. Wish me luck with this new girl.
In the evening, I will probably be on site for the film trailer shoot of the project created by The Twins, unless I am chained to a computer, working.


Sunday, I am honored to be invited to an Easter Bonnet Brunch with friends so my Easter holiday should be quite nice.


Meanwhile, I found and tried a good recipe for vegan German Chocolate cupcakes. German Chocolate is MonsterMustDie's favorite cake and, with his birthday and the Goth Potluck happening at el Rancho de WereMonster on April 28, I need to be prepared

Happy Rose

We had just enough rain Friday night to make everything spring into bloom.

quiet life

The song in my head when I woke up with this morning was Death Or Glory by The Clash.

I had dreams of a gigantic stone mosaic in a Japanese sculpture exhibit. It was nearly three stories tall, made of granite and marble in various shades of gray and the image on it - was a chair. It was an enormous monument to a mid-century modern chair.

My life is too boring lately.

Tonight, after juggling events and friends, I have plans to attend the neighborhood ladies Bunco game. In celebration of Spring, I am bringing roast asparagus wrapped in pancetta with a side of meatless roast asparagus. I hope the ladies like it.

Vernal Equinox 2012

As it turns out, I did get a bit of activity last week. Started with having a photo gig fall through that was immediately replaced by two all-night extras gigs that paid more. Followed that with one entire day spent mostly sleeping. Housemate said he was starting to become concerned about my 24-hour nap after the 48-hours of activity. I was kinda okay with having two days of nothing after that.

Saturday was Saint Patrick’s day and it was spent at two different birthday parties for friends.

Sunday was spent recovering from Saturday. Mostly, MonsterMustDie needed to recover from being a little too drinky on Saturday. I put more of the tomato seedlings I started in the garden as well as leeks that I decided to try this year.

Monday, I had an evening production meeting for the short film project I am a part of.

Today, I'm back to really wanting some more activity. The morning was spent thus far weeding the front yard a bit, trimming back the “monkey grass” and listening to music loudly while considering the future. I really need to live more in the now - the future just makes me anxious. Now, by afternoon, I've decided I've spent enough time outdoors with the temperature climbing and the second or third day of record-breaking pollen counts. Fortunately, the pollen has not bothered me at all yet but I don’t think I should push my luck, despite not being allergic.

bad week

I had a good dinner with several friends on Sunday evening at Rose of India. Seems like everyone has been having a bad week. My little problems have been small compared to what else has gone on around me - embezzling, suicide, death (by natural and unnatural causes), etc. Crazy things were going on this week.

I thought I had my federal income tax filed that afternoon but by the evening I had an email that my form was rejected for having the wrong birthdate. The IRS had my birthdate wrong. They also wanted to know where I was born and I have no public record on my birth place. I was told I would have to go to an office with my birth certificate in hand.

Monday was full of complications. I went to the IRS downtown to deal with the issue of my birth certificate, full of anxiety, and was fortunate enough to have very little wait before being helped by real human beings on the other side of the counter. After that, I phoned MonsterMustDie to let him know that things were presumably worked out on my relationship with the IRS and he insisted that I should go to the SSA office, on the 28th floor of the same building, to be certain that my Social Security account was okay. So I walked back inside and up the elevator for a longer wait to speak to someone at the SSA office. The woman behind the thick glass had a severe speech impediment. Between her way of speaking, the acoustics of the room, and probably my own old rocker ears, it was a bit like a Monty Python sketch understanding what she was saying and then waiting several minutes while she peered at a monitor in long gaps before the next question would arise. All I know is she said I was okay and a new card would be mailed out to me. Then my time was up and she was on to the next person waiting. I didn't get to ascertain that the card would come to my post office box and not my very insecure street address at the midtown condo, where my voter registration still resides - and where I might return some day. I know Elena will let me know promptly if I get any mail there.

Storm clouds but no storm here today. Just a drizzling now and then. The forecast has tomorrow being very warm with a high in the 80's. I'm feeling anxious tonight with nothing lined up for tomorrow.

T shirt for sale

First  prints of the T-shirts we will be selling to raise money for making Zombie Crush, a short film made for kids by kids.

rant

Forgive me for complaining. Please look away if you don't want to be brought down. I just have to get this out now and then.

I hate living in my current situation without the steady income that would give me the freedom to live independently. It's like living alone without any of the benefits of shaping my own life. I miss the freedom to come and go as I please and take part in things that really interest me. I hate living without love or sex or shared activities that I feel should be part of a relationship. I hate feeling like I am always on a leash. I hate the feeling of impending doom from my withering savings. I do not want to be here.

All of this was made especially painful today by the fact that I have no prospects at the moment and no temp work this week. I had a bit of work editing photoshop files for friends last week, which I am very grateful for, but that work has already run dry and I don't see anything else coming to me any time soon. My room mate is more controlling as time goes on. My taxes still aren't done and that is hanging heavily over me and the room mate, who said he would do them two weeks ago, still has not touched that job and I don't have a CPA to do it for me.

Lack of money affects how I socialize, how I eat, how healthy a lifestyle I can keep, my appearance, my ability to travel. I don't qualify for any sort of college loan and no real college will let me start classes with out a guarantee of a loan. Even if I do find a way to go back to school, I am apparently too old to be hired by anyone so I still have to fend for myself regardless of whether I have a new degree or certification of any sort. I am over qualified to be hired in anything simple like retail and I have no recent retail experience because I have worked so long in corporate or specifically skilled jobs.

My 401k and retirement funds disappeared when my father died and my brother said he had no idea where they were. I suspect that I have paid a large part of my niece and nephew's college education. When I changed jobs, I let my father handle moving the 401k to my mutual funds account. My father put my brother in charge of my funds before he died. It was not a huge fortune that would keep my for the rest of my days, but it was a substantial amount that might have funded classes, new equipment, and independence. The only income I have these days is the rent I get from my condo. I'm not sure if that small amount is worth it by the time I pay my half of the rent here. It keeps me afloat but just barely.

Anyway, life would be happier if I had at least one or two of these things I lack. A job would solve most of my problems immediately. I always seem to be tied down by one thing or another in this life. I run from captivity into a box. I form relationships with people who move to places I can not follow them to. I pick the wrong industry to make my career in.

Billboard in Sandy Springs

I don't think this is a good recommendation for choosing a dentist.

Favorite not-quite inlaws

Here's a list of favorite boyfriends’ families. This does not mean the boyfriends were my favorites necessarily but I really liked and still sometimes miss their parents and siblings, who were lovely.

Family:

• Stuart Olsen
• Carlos Loret de Mola
• Mark Bregger
• Brad Stein
• Murray Sabloff

Mothers:

• David Khalil
• Scott Burns

I generally liked everyone's mothers and got along well with them. The mothers and I had the same goal - to take care of their sons and keep them out of trouble or danger, so we were united in our efforts. Some mothers, I felt closer to than other, of course.

Offspring:

• Spike
• Ray

I never try to be motherly with other people's children. They already have mothers. I only hope to be viewed with respect and possibly (in the very best long-term circumstances) as an equal in their father's house. For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around why anyone, male or female, would be in competition with someone's children or replace their ex.

repeating sync

Odd. Looks like half the mommy-bloggers I read and friends with very young children are going through divorces now. At the same time. I wonder what gives and if it has something to do with the pressures of this economy - perhaps a lot of couples just need one less concern or feeling of responsibility while they are trying to hold their lives together. Maybe they need to lift some of their burdens. Perhaps fathers are running away now from the tether of it all too as this economy makes everyone feel trapped. I just find it curious.

It reminds me of an old family story my grandmother told me years ago. When my mother's family was going through the hardest part of their lives economically, my grandfather split. What they told the family was that he had gone out of state to look for work but in reality, he was fleeing the burden of a wife and children and had taken a mistress in another town. My grandmother saved herself and her children by absolutely refusing to grant him a divorce. Her family, who were very proper and had a lot of public servants and ministers in it, let it be known that they did not divorce. Period. Eventually, my grandfather returned and they stayed together the rest of their lives. I do not think that tactic would ever work today and I do not think most women would think they had to live in an unhappy marriage to survive today.



One thought leads to another.

The marriages of both sets of grandparents I had were based much more on survival than on affection by the time I came along. None of my grandparents slept in the same bed and they had their own rooms. They got along and were polite to each other but there had not been a relationship between them in long time. That makes me also wonder if we expect too much from our relationships or if our grandparents expected too little.

It's still a man's world, financially, but things are much better than they were for our grandmothers and mothers. Married men still far out-live single men but single men seem to embrace chaos. More women seem to require order. Nature or nurture? That said, I do know a few very together single-parenting fathers and it is interesting to note that there are few men in this world more attractive to women than the responsible, nurturing, single fathers. I wonder if they know what rock-stars they are in the eyes of a lot of the women I know because they seem rare and extraordinary. Single mothers are never viewed the same way by men. Women usually have to protect their children from the men in their lives. Men see the mothers as potential financial burdens and steer clear of them. Being a single parent seems like the ultimate independence and the greatest measure of how responsible you are or not. It also makes the extended family of grandparents, aunts, and uncles much more important. Most of the people in my family - in multiple generations - would never have survived without the help of sisters, parents, and grandparents.

sick

Everyone but the cat has a cold this week. MonsterMustDie is taking a second day off work, after getting up this morning and deciding he feels worse than he did yesterday morning. I am on the mend, but producing glorious amounts of mucus and trying to to speak and/or cough. Mostly, I am worried about the room mate because this is the first cold he's had in a very long time. The last time he had a cold, things went very very badly for him.

time

I am kicking myself for wasting time that I should be spending my job search. Not being very productive today. Talking in squeaks. Voiceless with a cold. I can't get motivated to send letters and resumes out today. Feeling poor and woebegone while waiting to file my income taxes. I also need to put myself in a news blackout, since everything I see and hear gets me down. It makes me feel like my job search is hopeless and that I will eventually die homeless, in the street, bereft of family or friends. It's a downward spiral that begins when I hear or read about anything social, economic, political or environmental.

On a more positive view, the warm moist weather outside is causing a bit of Spring fever in me as well. I want to rake leaves and plant seeds now. Ladybugs have been swarming the house for weeks now and I have no idea where they are coming from. I've never seen them is such numbers here before but they are inside and outside the house. I can look out the window and see them flying around the bushes and look at the doors and windows and see them coming inside the house. Mostly, they seem to be coming into MonsterMustDie's office. Every corner around his desk is littered with ladybugs.

Der Biergarten

One should only go to Der Biergarten to drink and not to eat. We had been there only once before, when the German restaurant was newly opened, and our experience was not as bad then as it was last night.

I ordered the Gegrillte Forelle mit Senfsauce (grilled trout), which was over-cooked and so charred outside that it was inedible, even after removing all of the skin from the fish (I was starving and desperate for a meal). Wasted my money on that dish. MonsterMustDie ordered the Wiener Schitzel (veal) and left more than half of it on his plate. Later, he told me that half of it was too dry to eat and had the texture of cardboard. This tells me they probably prepare everything in advance and reheat it in a microwave or on the grill. Awful food. The only thing I liked was the smoked salmon that sat on top of the hard-as-rock potato pancake. This makes the $72 price tag on the meal for two - where all we enjoyed were his beers and a few slices of lox - especially heartbreaking.

As the cherry on top, the parking lot across the street was supposed to accept validated tickets from the restaurant. It did not. And apparently the credit card reader was not working for anyone either, so we had to dig for every spare bit of change we had to pay for "free" parking between $5 to $10 for everyone.