blogging like a maniac

Blogger has changed their formatting a little and I was surprised to find I have 51 blogs on here and I have others on different email addresses as well. No wonder I feel like I'm never caught up on my blogging! Have mercy.

A New Family-Oh No

I got home last night and was too tired to do much of anything.

While I was out of town a new family moved into the front duplex. Logistically speaking, my computer/office is in the back bedroom and the only thing between me and the the patio of the house in front is a brick wall. So I literally hear every footstep in their backyard. And it sounds like the new family has a lot of kids who have spent the entire day screaming in the backyard. I sure hope some of them are school age because I'm not going to be able to work with all that noise.

Last night they were hammering on the wall opposite my bedroom until late in the night...like maybe 2 AM. Why are people so inconsiderate?

The last family had chihuahuas that barked around the clock. I was hoping to get a nice quiet elderly couple with fish.

The Witch Dream

I had the most amazing dream last night. I was my ideal and perfect self.
I lived in a college town and artistic community. I was dressed in a floor length black lace Victorian gown. And I was a witch. I rarely walked on the ground; I pretty much floated everywhere. And I danced a lot. I would fly up into the air and spin and twirl around. A group of goth college students wandered by and I tried to blend in with them, but they were all younger than me and doing role-playing so I didn't really fit in so I slowed down and they wandered off without me.

I was about 30 years old, and I wasn't overweight. And I was a very happy person.
I didn't have a wand but I carried a magic paintbrush. It was always full of clear liquid and I used it to repair fabric. I wonder if I could have used it to repair cuts and scars.

At one point I ran across a bunch of Christians having a revival of some kind, and one of them, who was a Native American came running over to me to try to convert me. I told him he needed to go back to the teachings of his peoples before Christianity poisoned his mind.

After that I was sitting at a table with friends and I was reading this little boys palms. His hands were black as ebony. He had a very strong head line and heart line and I asked him if he was considering psychology or psychiatry as a career. Because you have to use your head and your heart in a career like that.

And there was a lady in yellow lace that accused me of ripping her dress so I used my magic paintbrush to fix the tear. Only she said she didn't want it fixed with magic and she huffed away.

And there was a group of girls all dressed in fancy clothes and they had a headmistress teaching them manners and they were reciting some essay or something and this one girl just floated into the air. She got yelled at by the headmistress and told to come down and act normal at once, but I just smiled and clapped for her and shouted out,'Well done.'

Much like in real life I was a complete loner and though I kept trying to find an equal or a peer to hang out with, I never did. I helped people where I could, but in the end I was still alone. But I was happy because I was true to myself.

Idealism V Perfection

Pause for a moment to ponder the difference between idealism and perfectionism, because the first opens up the world to amazing possibilities, and the second is a coffin on a dead end street.

I am perhaps the queen of imperfection. I read all the Nancy Drew books as a child too and some of them as an adult.I feel like all the books have the underlying thread that Nancy is the thin hot chick and Bess is somehow the fat frumpy and none too bright one. What a horrid message to send to girls everywhere.

When I see a mistake in my paintings, I deliberately make it bigger and bolder. It adds so much life to what could have been an overly thought out perfectionist bit of blandness.

Better to dance an imperfect dance than never dance at all.

In my idealistic world, women love each other even if some of us are fat and lumpy. Kinkaid paintings get collaged over by Picasso's and Dali's. Hand puppets do politically incorrect things. I'd be bored to tears in a perfect world.

Ghandi was an Idealist. Martha Stewart is a perfectionist.

I predicted today's Quake

About 30 minutes ago I heard that warning Emergency broadcast tv thing beeping in the living room and my first thought was LA area earthquake. So I ran in there. But it was just one of those stupid practice warnings.

Then we really did have a quake. I dove next to my bed, and both cats were right with me. Rocky made it under the bed first, and I tucked wallop in my arms and we waited it out.

When I went in the living room the water was sloshing in the aquarium. I checked on the neighbors and they had run outside.
5.8 in Chino Hills CA.

Just heard from my boyfriend. His office building in Santa Ana was evacuated. All okay now.

Damage reports from the epicenter are sure to follow. Tune in to your local news stations if you are in the LA area.

Map of Chino Hills, CA.

Update: My dad always said that people act like idiots during earthquakes. Sure enough the only injury report I heard so far was when some people running out of a building trampled each other.

Also, everyone they interviewed said they dove under a desk, or ran outside, two things you are NOT supposed to do. Don't people watch those 'triangle zone' info shows? http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=91315&sid=a52616a0c79bde445eab9a6cf8d80d4f
See #1 and #6. People who rely on antiquated information will die. Memorize this, it could save your life.

Stop Reading and Go Do

Yesterday I was chatting to a person in the Etsy chatroom. And it became obvious that he's very enamored with new age self-help books. So he kept telling me, "You should go read this book and you should go read that book." I kept saying I already read that (most of them I read years ago). Finally I told him don't be a baby bird sitting in the nest all your life, go out and fly. He didn't understand what I meant at all. I meant that though reading can be a wonderful thing, it is no substitute for living your life. You come of an age where you need to switch roles and become the mentor and the teacher and the writer.
Case in point I asked him if he wanted to see my psycho telekinesis video where I'm doing fork bending. So he starts going on and on about Uri Geller and how he's a psychic who now works for the FBI. The other person in the room asked what we were talking about and he says, "She's talking about Uri Geller." And I said, "No, I'm talking about me and my fork bending video." Evidently I don't exist because I haven't written a book on it and I don't work for the FBI. Shrugs. I think we forget that authors are people too and while books are important, at some point we have to put them down and go apply the knowledge. Otherwise we become like the guy in the chatroom that has a booklist as long as his arm and no life experience.

Surprise

I woke up to the romantic phrase," You might want to get up. A swat team in full attire just went to the apartment upstairs."

Did I mention I hate this neighborhood?