This is the best laugh I’ve had in a long time. Kevin Smith chronicles his life with Jason Mewes (Jay, of Jay and Silent Bob fame), his time with Jason and the work of getting him off heroin.

The navigation on his site is kind of clunky, so I’ve included links to the each part of the story here:

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 1

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 2

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 3

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 4

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 5

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 6

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow Pt. 7

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 8

• My Boring Ass Life » Me and My Shadow, Pt. 9 – The Conclusion

My favorite out loud laughing moment came during Part 2:

For months, I’d impressed upon him the importance of learning all of his lines in advance, as this time around, we were gonna have real actors in the flick.

“What, like Ben?” Mewes asked.
“I said REAL actors,” I corrected. “Like Alan Rickman.”
“Who’s that?”
“The guy from ‘Die Hard’.”
“Bruce Willis?”
“No, man the other guy.”
“The ‘Yippie-kay-ay Motherfucker’ guy?”
“That’s Alan Rickman.”
“What’s so special about him??
“He’s British. And Brits invented acting. So he won’t put up with any of your ‘Snootchie Bootchies’ bullshit. He’ll tear you up if you’re not excellent, because he’s Alan fucking Rickman. So you’ve gotta know all your lines. We can’t be asking people to leave the set because you’re nervous, like we did on ‘Clerks’. This shit’s serious – because Rickman will go ballistic if he smells blood in the water. You’ve gotta come correct.”

So naturally, I was pretty nervous when Jason and I sat down for our first, Pittsburgh-based, one-on-one “Dogma” rehearsal, and the boy was script-less.

“Where’s your fucking script, asshole?” I sighed.
“I don’t need it.”
“You don’t need your script for rehearsals. Right. Take mine and let’s get going.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t need it. Go ahead. Try me.”

So I turned to the first Jay and Silent Bob scene and fed him Bethany’s lines, and without looking at my script, Mewes delivered Jay’s lines in a letter-perfect fashion.

“Alright, so you’ve got the first scene down,” I allowed. “Let’s mix it up and try a scene from later in the flick.”

So I fed him his lead-in lines from the church exterior scene, and Mewes spits out the Jay responses without hesitation.

“You memorized ALL the lines in the script?!?!”
“Even the girl parts.”
“What’re you, fucking ‘Rain Man’?! Why’d you memorize the whole goddamn script?!”
“I don’t wanna piss off that Rickman dude.”

I had this image of Alan Rickman dressed as Professor Snape reprimanding Jay for not knowing his lines. Beautiful!

This story is so sad at some points that I didn’t want to finish reading it, but I kept on and so should you. This is a wonderful read!

I’ve thought a lot about the idea of beauty. What makes someone beautiful? Is it the physical attributes? Is it the fact that they look good? Sometimes. What about those people who aren’t so pretty? There are attractive people with faces of trolls that I have loved. What made them beautiful?

I’ll never forget the day that my grandma told me that my grandpa was ugly. We were talking about how my grandma and grandpa met. She worked at Dee’s Restaurant as a waitress, twice divorced. Grandpa used to come into the restaurant quite regularly. He was a bachelor and 35 years old, which is very old to be a bachelor in Utah in 1965. I asked why he wasn’t married yet and she said the he was ugly because of the scars.

What scars?

Before that day, I never saw the scars on my grandpa’s face. He had been in a horrible car accident as a child. He was thrown through the windshield. This was before the safety glass that breaks into a million non-pointy shards. It was the old kind of glass that cut your face to ribbons when you went through the windshield. His face has scars all over it, but even now I have to concentrate to notice them. He wasn’t a scarred man. He was my beautiful grandpa.

What made him beautiful?

When you first look at someone, all you see is their body. It has taken me 37 years to learn that I am not my body. I am a complete package. I am witty. I am the girl who will tell you the truth even when your mother would lie. I am smart. I am fun-loving. I have long dark hair and a little junk in the trunk. I am a complete package and I truly believe that when I take the whole package into account, I am beautiful. I am attractive.

There is good-looking, which is what someone sees within the first five seconds. After that, there is attractive. It’s how you look at someone you perceive as your inferior. It’s how you laugh at a joke and what kind of joke you’ll laugh at. It’s what you say when all hope is lost. It’s how you move when you are happy and how you move when you are sad. Attractive encompasses so much more than visual input and it takes more than a few seconds to evaluate. It’s complicated and messy, but it’s a far more accurate judge on compatibility with a friend or lover than appearance.

If you have been judging people based on whether they are good-looking or not, give it a rest. Give yourself some time to get to know whether they are truly beautiful or not. You might just find a loving and beautiful person behind a scarred face.

This essay was brought to you thanks to Colleen Wainwright at Communicatrix. She started it with her posts that hadn’t been published yet. Then Brandon, one of her readers put his touches on the idea.

• communicatrix » Blog Archive » Good-looking vs. Attractive (A Deconstruction)

• * One Child Left Behind – Brandon Rogers

Communicatrix was able to distinguish one attribute that causes people to be attractive even when they’re not all that good-looking, but she was writing from the point of view of an actor and acting. Brandon highlighted several things in our lives that are either good-looking or attractive, but not both, with no explanation to the why.

So, I thought I’d try my hand at it.

My friend moved to San Francisco about a month ago. He went to the Dore Alley Fair and posted the pictures he took while there.

This picture is the reason that I can’t move to San Francisco (Not Safe For Work):

• Dore Alley Fair on Flickr – Frisco Pig

I want to be able to go to the local fairs and street parties without worrying about seeing something that will burn itself into my memory.

Utah might be a little too conservative for me, but I now know that San Francisco is definitely too liberal for me.

This is what I would look like if I starred on South Park. I never really had a hope to star on South Park, but now that I’ve seen myself, I really WANT to be a character on that show. Is that silly?

If you would like to create your own South Park-styled character, you can do it here:

• South Park Studio Version 2

Via: communicatrix » Blog Archive » Sparky Donatello’s Self-Portrait Marathon, Installation #2

This postcard from PostSecret reminded me of an entry that I wrote a long time ago. The entry has had so many comments that it has a life of its own:

Pick Me! » When Your Best Friend Ditches You For Her Boyfriend

The comments are heart-wrenchingly sad. It seems that girls and boys have experienced this heartache. My entry doesn’t have all the answers and people from all over the world have poured their hearts out on my comments section. Here are a few quotes:

“My friend has just recently done this, and I have felt like saying completely awful things while having to listen through excrciating torture of having to listen to her talk about him!“

“her boyfriend is mean and makes fun of me and she doesnt really care“

“I am becoming 2nd best and it’s really hard to deal with as I am single and feel lonely sometimes and it’s so hard when even my best friend isn’t there for me when I need her.“

“i havent had any friend closer to me than her and it does hurt, believe me“

“It took her three months to place this ‘special someone’ above me, her best friend of eight years.“

“Hey, found this site coz I typed how I felt into Google. I’m a guy as you can probably tell by my name, but the case mentioned above applies to me vice versa. I feel like my best friend spends less time with me and our friendship feels like it has suffered since he got a girl.“

“I dont really get the point of considering someone your best friend when they can just leave you there like trash.“

After reading all the comments over the last two years, I realize that my little entry is woefully inadequate. Some people say it helped them and the many stories in the comments help people realize that they are not alone, but I feel as if my entry just wasn’t enough. We humans are so complicated.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Have you ever gone to a grocery store for fun? Mike and I do all the time. Last week, we wandered the aisles, giggling and laughing.

“Check out these Jesus shirts.”

I pointed to the rack of t-shirts. One of them announced “Property of Jesus” complete with a Jesus fish in the middle.

“I would like that just so I could say that I stole the shirt from Jesus.” Mike said, “Boy, is he going to be pissed!”

We laughed and moved on. The music overhead was periodically interrupted by a female announcer (pre-recorded, of course) talking about the produce. Mike I and I stopped and looked at each other,

“Did she just say ‘Domestic Jesus’?”

“That’s exactly what I thought!”

We listened further. The voice was talking about cheese. She had said “domestic cheeses” but both of us had misheard her.

I am SO busy right now. Today, I have a garage sale planned with my family. I have been collecting our usual DI stuff to sell. This morning I have a few hot hours planned.

I went to the Geek Dinner on Wednesday and took video of almost everyone there. I have yet been able to go through the footage, though. I really want to make an excellent video showing you how fun it was. I hope the background noise didn’t get in the way.

Instead of working on the Geek Dinner video, I have been feverishly working on my new walking video for Starling Fitness. It is the best one I’ve done and I’m really excited about it. Lots of people bought the Swami Beach Walk Video, and I hope even more people try this one out. I’m so excited by it that it has taken up all my time recently.

In essence, I’m REALLY busy right now and it feels so good. I love it when I’m able to accomplish a lot of things. It makes up for those times when it feels like I’m spinning my wheels.

“He can’t see the color red. Like, if something is pink, he can’t see the red in it. It just looks off-white to him. When we were first married, he brought me roses. He said that he brought me these white roses for all these romantic reasons. You, know, like how the white represented our relationship and stuff. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that they were pink.”

“You should register your blogs with Blogher.”

Jory was looking at my business card at SXSWi in March when she mentioned it to me. I nodded and pretended that I would truly consider registering my weblogs with Blogher. I waited for Jory and Evelyn to sign their book when all I wanted to do was run away.

The BlogHer Conference starts tomorrow and it seems that everyone is going to it. Everyone except me. Somehow, the whole Blogher thing just bugs me.

I guess it’s because I don’t consider myself a woman blogger. I just consider myself a blogger. Sure, I’m a woman, but I’m a writer first.

I guess the whole Blogher phenomenon bothers me because it feels like segregation. It feels like it separates women from men. I don’t want to believe that women writers are any different than men writers. I want to believe that we are all writers first and gendered humans second.

Plus, the idea of being at a conference of all women just sounds incredibly uncomfortable to me.

Far Side Comics brought alive by artists! I love these!

• Worth1000.com | Unauthorized Far Side Tribute 7

I wonder what Gary Larsen feels about these…

I wrote about my nail-biting and how it correlates to my bingeing on Starling Fitness:

• Starling Fitness » I Don’t Bite My Fingernails Anymore – Part 1

Today is Pioneer Day in Utah. We light fireworks and barbeque meat. It’s like Independence Day 2.0.

You can find out more about The Days of ’47 here:

• Pick Me! » Pioneer Day

• Starling Travel » Salt Lake City, UT: Days of ‘47

I am going to enjoy my summer day and if you’re not from Utah, set something small (like a match or a candle) on fire for us today.

The last picture I have from that Lagoon trip. It is of my family in front of the fountains. The fountains are still there and the Sky Ride still passes right over them. Around that fountain and other areas, they have large areas of planted flowers. The scent of tulips and marigolds can snap me back to my memories of Lagoon. Yes, it’s true. Lagoon smells like animal poo and pretty flowers.

We all look so different now. I’m older now than my mom was when this picture was taken, yet I feel so much younger because I’ve never had a child. It’s so strange to look at these pictures and wonder what my parents were thinking. They were probably pretty tired.

These are the paddle boats. That’s Uncle Johnny on the left with Heidi. I didn’t get to go on that ride because I was too little. I did get to go on it years later and it was like torture for me. I was completely unable to keep peddling to keep the boat going. My parents were right, I was too little, but I still felt left out.

Lagoon doesn’t do the paddle boats anymore. They have the Tidal Wave and The Turn of the Century where we used to get on the paddle boats. I never really got to ride the paddle boats as an adult or even a teenager, but I think that it would be a fun, romantic thing for a couple to do. I guess amusement parks aren’t about romance.

That’s me on the left with Heidi on the right. We’re on the cars ride which was like a Merry-Go-Round, but with cars. I really felt like I was driving, so I had to keep my hands on the wheel.

I love how classic these cars are. They look like old Chevys and Fords. They look like they burn more gasoline than an SUV. Check out the white wall tires.

If you look in the background, you can see the Shoe (see previous entry) and a white mushroom with a red polka-dot top. Those were free little things that kids could play on without any tickets. It didn’t take Lagoon long before they had the All-Day Pass where I could ride anything I wanted all day long without having to count out tickets.

This picture is of the shoe. I remember it being Old Mother Hubbard’s Shoe, but she’s the lady who didn’t have any food for her dog, so it can’t be that. I think it was the shoe that the Old Lady In The Shoe lived in. You could go in it and climb on in when I was little.

Now, the shoe is still there, at Lagoon. It’s near the concessions stands, but the entry is boarded up and it has been repainted a bunch of times. Last time I saw it, they had painted it pink.

From left to right: Me, Heidi, my dad, and Uncle Johnny. I don’t think I was picking my nose when this picture was taken. I was probably biting my nails or sucking my thumb.

This is the long forgotten picture of the Hall of Mirrors. I told the whole story about this place here:

• Pick Me! » Lagoon: Hall of Mirrors (Part 1 of 2)

• Pick Me! » Lagoon: Hall of Mirrors (Part 2 of 2)

If you look at this picture, you can see my dad on the left (in the turquoise shirt) and my mom on the far right (with the white bow in her hair). I have no idea who took this photo. It must have been Auntie Doris or Uncle Johnny.

This picture shows us riding the “real” helicopters. I find it interesting that this ride is considered a “real” helicopter in my memory. Even now, I look at this contraption and categorize it as a helicopter, even though it has little relation to what an actual helicopter looks like.

This was a really cool ride. You would push the bar away from you to raise the helicopter and pull it toward you to lower it. Every time I rode this ride, it was a fight with the other kid about how we were going to fly. I would always want to fly high, but half the time, I would get stuck with some kid that was scared and wanted to fly low the whole time. That’s my cousin, Heidi, on the left and I’m distracted on the right.

Today I met with Phil Burns about BarCampUtah. It looks like we are going to be able to get this going!

BarCampUtah will be August 26-28th, 2006.

For more information:

• BarCamp / BarCampUtah

• Main Page – BarCampUtah

• Phil B. Burns

• DevUtah

If you would like to help us set up, teach a class or get more information about BarCamp, please fill out my contact form here:

• Pick Me! » Contact Laura Moncur

Music Credit: Atmospheric Royalty Free Music – Variation on Egmont

Update 08-08-05: You can embed this video into your weblog using Google Video: BarCampUtah: Setting Up Camp

In July of 1973, my mom’s family came from Wisconsin to visit us in Salt Lake City. We did a lot of the touristy stuff while they were in town, but my favorite was the trip to Lagoon. Lagoon is an amusement park that is about twenty minutes north of Salt Lake City. It’s so close, I consider it in Salt Lake City, but in actuality, it’s in an entirely different county, so I guess I can’t really claim it.

In this picture, we are posing at the “fake” helicopters. My cousin, Heidi, is on the left and I am on the right. If you look closely, you can see that I have my arm on the arm of the placard. I thought I had to put my arm there just like the picture.

In the background, you can see the entrance to the Animal World Train. Lagoon still has that ride, but I don’t know if they still call it the Animal World Train. I haven’t ridden it in a long time. All my memories from the train ride are scent related. I will smell animal pens and it will remind me of Lagoon. Sad, but true. Lagoon smells like animal poo.

Every year, there is one day when we can throw anything away. ANYTHING.

Sure, they say that they won’t pick up huge items or chunks of cement, but last year, they took the remains of a desk bigger than we could carry and chunks of cement from our neighbor’s pile, so I pretty much figure that they’ll take anything. Probably even a human body.

While this is a wonderful convenience to the residents of the area, it makes for some ugly neighborhoods.

We’re not supposed to put out the garbage more than a week before our designated “We’ll Help Get Rid of Those Dead Bodies For You” Day, but a week is a long time to live with the six-foot piles of garbage that accumulate on the side of the road.

Worse still, I’m continually tempted to pick through the garbage piles of my neighbors. This year, I got Madison’s old Halloween decorations. She put them out there when she moved. I am now a proud owner of seven plywood gravestones and a very convincing witch’s broom (I don’t think it’s quite as fast as a Nimbus 2000, but we’ll have to see).

I also found a nearly intact desk. I knocked on the stranger’s door and asked him if he would mind if I took it. He was so grateful. His daughter had bought a bigger desk and he didn’t want to see the old one go to the garbage, but he had no one to give it to. I can remove the black layers of spray paint, sand out the letters engraved on the side and refinish it. I’ll probably be able to sell it at our garage sale for at least 40 bucks.

Our garbage pickup is July 17th, which is Monday. From now on, I’m only collecting pictures of the neighbor’s trash…

I met Dave Huth at Vloggercon this year. Every video he has posted has been interesting, but this one has an almost religious beauty to it:

If you enjoyed this video, make sure you check his website, 90 Seconds of Dave about once a week to see what new work he has posted.

It looks like a group of about a half a dozen people are working to get BarCampUtah off the ground:

• Pre-planning thoughts for doing BarCampUtah in conjuction with BarCampEarth. – DevUtah

They are meeting monthly at dinners and the next one is July 26th, 6:30 pm at Brick Oven (111 East 800 North, Provo, Utah). If any of my Salt Lake City readers are interested in creating a dynamic geek community here, this is where we need to be. I have left an email with Phil B. Burns, the organizer to see what I have to do to make this a reality.

Not only are hugely successful Geek Dinners already set up, he has set a day for the BarCampUtah conference: August 26th – 28th, 2006. I am so happy that all of this is coming together so nicely!

I’ll keep you posted.

Monster House opens on July 21st, but I was lucky enough to see a pre-screening of the movie on Monday. Here is a trailer for the movie just in case you haven’t heard about this movie:

Just for clarification, this trailer shows the house eating the police car with the police in it. That didn’t happen in the movie.

I’m going to be honest. The animation was unpleasant. They loved to play with the “camera effects” like the opening scene of the movie in which they followed the fall of a leaf from a tree. It made me a little motion sick and felt gratuitious. I guess I’ve been spoiled by Pixar because the characters looked like poorly animated dolls to me. Gravity didn’t seem to work correctly in the Monster House world.

That said, the writing was excellent. There were many times that I laughed out loud at the dialogue. There were plenty of jokes that didn’t make it into the trailer. I liked the character development. The babysitter was exactly how I remember my babysitters being when I was a kid. I loved the scene where his parents leave him alone at the house. The kids are at that strange age between childhood and adulthood. I remember it well and they keep it pretty realistic.

This movie might be a little too scary for children under 13. At one point, the three heroes have snuck in the house undetected and are investigating with flashlights strapped onto water guns. It reminded me of a scary video game that I played. That was pretty intense. The movie takes a particularly dark turn in the explanation of the origin of the Monster House and the kids find a gruesome discovery in the basement. At that point, it was a little too “Silence of the Lambs” for me. Sure, the “eaten” people and dogs show up during the credits of the movie, making everything right in the world, but until that point, we were left with at least three unsolved murders on our hands.

Would I go to see this movie opening week? No. I’d probably go see Over The Hedge again. The animation in that movie doesn’t make me motion sick.

Would I go to see this movie in the dollar theater? Yeah, it’s worth paying a couple of dollars to see the scratched film version.

Would I buy this movie when it’s released on DVD? No. It’s definitely not worth cluttering up my collection. There are so many good Halloween movies to watch instead that this one would just get lost in the pile.

Would I return this movie if I received it as a present? No. It’s good enough to watch a couple of times and definitely good enough to keep instead of bothering with the return process at a store.

If you have seen all the other new releases on July 21st and have an afternoon to spare, I would recommend Monster House just for the witty dialogue, but don’t expect anything beautiful to come out of the screen. You could probably watch Monster House with a blindfold and get 90% of the enjoyment from it.

It’s 7-11 Day. I doubt Mike and I will do anything to celebrate it, but I like to remember days gone by:

• Pick Me! » Happy 7-11 Day!

I have no idea if 7-11 is still giving away free Slurpees on 7-11 day, but I always like our version of celebrating it better.

The banner above is a screenshot of an ad I saw on Home on the Strange. The comic was called “Animal Control,” which explains the animal traps and pest control ads, but if you notice. The Nolan Pest Control ad specifically says, “Solutions for your Utah home.”

That means Google knows that I live in Utah, even though this webcomic doesn’t. Google AdSense is not only gathering information about the website it advertises on, but takes note of where the user is coming from to give directed ads.

This scares me…

I just hit the point where I feel like Google knows too much about me. I just tipped over into paranoia. I have my email through Google. They have scheduling and calendars. They are working on spreadsheets. They can track every websearch I do. They even know which websites I read without using their search engine and send me advertisements for my local community. That’s all nice and convenient, but I really don’t want them to know all that information about me.

All of a sudden, 1984’s Big Brother is looking a lot like a harmless search engine.

I think this is the reason I am working so hard on getting BarCampUtah off the ground:

Click here to see this and other Ballard Street comics:

• Ballard Street: 07-10-06

Since deciding not to move to California, I’ve realized that we need to grow a geek community that I can associate with here. I feel so isolated and alone as far as work is concerned, so I decided to spearhead BarCamp here in Utah.

I am in the process of setting up montly meetings for BarCampUtah. BarCamp is a meeting that started up in San Francisco in reaction to FooCamp, which was an invitation-only party given by O’Reilly. Some of the people who weren’t invited to FooCamp, set up BarCamp.

What I’m trying to create is a geek community in Utah. I want to have a monthly meeting where we can “show and tell” or maybe just “hack together.” This video, created by Ryanne, is my inspiration. I want BarCampUtah to be like Super Happy Dev House.

We don’t have a spot where things can go all night, but at first, I’m just hoping for a few hours where everyone can talk and share ideas. This video, also by Ryanne, shows what our little meetings could eventually evolve into. BarCamp in San Francisco is a full-blown conference with sponsors and hosts and lots of ad hoc sessions.

I have been struggling for a good venue that has wireless Internet and room for us to grow. I think I have found us a spot, but I need to wait to announce it until I get the application back.

In the meantime, if any of you have been wishing for a geek community in the Salt Lake area, we are growing it right now. Please send me your information on my Contact Me form, including your full name, email address and phone number and I will make sure that you are included.

Ramen is smaller now. I know it for a fact.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about the reduction of noodle-goodness. I would never complain about a 17-cent meal. I just eat it gratefully and know that the high starch and fat content is enough.

But Ramen IS smaller now. I know it because the noodles fit in my smallest pan and they didn’t before.

I’ve had these pans since we got married. I don’t know who gave them to me, but thank you. They have lasted longer than the plethora of crockpots we received from everyone else. They don’t have that fancy non-stick surface, yet nothing sticks to them. They have been the best pans I could have ever had.

It used to bug me that the Ramen noodles didn’t quite fit in my smallest pan. Not enough to use the larger pan, but it still bothered me. I considered popping the noodle brick in half, but then they wouldn’t be as enjoyable. No, I just let the Ramen sit in the pan diagonally until they were soft enough to conform to its edges.

But the Ramen is smaller now. It fits easily into the pan. That means I’m getting less noodles, but I’m happy.

Because I’m not the kind of person to complain about a 17-cent meal.

I just feel sick. My first instinct was that Amanda Congdon’s video announcing that she has been asked to leave RocketBoom was a publicity stunt. God, I wish it had been.

There has been a lot of infighting and speculation on the Yahoo Videoblogging Newsgroup:

At first, Andrew said that Amanda’s video was the first he had ever heard about it.

Then, a post was made on RocketBoom stating that Amanda was moving to L.A.

Then, Amanda refuted Andrew’s statement of surprise.

As of this point, Andrew says that Amanda’s For the Record entry is out of context and he’s going to bow out of the conversation.

Finally, Jason Calacanis offered Amanda a job at Netscape, saying that Andrew doesn’t know how to “keep the talent happy.”

This whole thing has become such a drama. Watching it from Utah, it seems like a junior high fight. It reminds me of the episode of The Office when Dwight goes to Jim to form “an alliance.” As far as I can tell, they both need to stand with their noses in the corner until they can play together nicely.

Worse still, I feel this overbearing guilt because I have been so jealous of RocketBoom and the attention it has gotten over the last few months. I know I don’t control the universe, but right now I worry that I inadvertently put a curse on Amanda. I feel like my jealousy somehow caused their self-implosion.

What a drama…

Stacey, Dan, Mike and I went to the Sugarhouse Art Festival on Independence Day. It was better this year than the last few years. I bought myself a new little purse. I tend to change purses about every month or so. Luckily, I don’t spend more than $10 to $20 on a purse. This one was eight bucks, so I’m not feeling guilty at all. It has lots of pockets for my gadgets and toys.

On the walk back from the festival, we were drenched in rain. I worried that the rain would ruin the holiday, but the hosts at the BBQ weren’t scared of a little precipitation. They put up tents and tarps and we sat outside and ate brats and burgers. I should of known that a little rain wouldn’t change their party. They used to work at REI, afterall.

I met more neighbors yesterday than I have in the three years we have lived here. When she suggested a July Fourth Block Party a couple of months ago, I had no idea how well it would work out. Somehow, I thought for a block party to work, we would need to block off the road. Instead, we were all crammed into their back yard, huddled under tarps to avoid the rain. I think I found an enterprising young man to mow my lawn. I met the humans who own the dog, Oscar, in our neighborhood. I even met the new neighbor who bought Madison’s house.

It was all quite social and I’m glad to be hiding, pajama-clad, in my house today.

Scott Fraser shot this awesome video of starlings swarming. They flock to one tree, weighing it down. When they fly, they all jump up at once, bouncing out of the tree with force.

I love the way starlings fly. They act like a swarm of insects far more than a flock of birds. I love to see the black clouds of birds above my town.

Starlings are our favorite birds. That’s why there is a Starling Fitness and a Starling Travel. Everything we do is under the Starling Studios name. When we take off, we all jump up at once and with such force that you can’t help but look at us.

It was a beautiful sunset except the cloud of black smoke coming from the west. We got into the car and drove toward the pillar of thick blackness, but nothing prepared us for what we saw.

This three alarm fire at Central Pallet of Utah was originally called in as a grass fire, but it quickly spread and flames were leaping up forty feet into the air. Mike and I didn’t dare get any closer and cautiously drove by on Bangerter Highway.

You can see the full story on KSL.com:

• ksl.com – Utah’s Online Source for Local News & Information Three Alarm Fire Lights Up SLC Night Sky

Update 07-05-06: The next day, Central Pallet of Utah was open for business. They were able to put out the fire before it reached the business offices, so they were able to start their recovery early. I wish them the best of luck. That fire was so scary that I am proud of their pluck for picking up the pieces so quickly.

Where: Central Pallet of Utah 810 S 4190 W Salt Lake City, UT 84104 Google Map

It started a couple of years ago with my angel. I had a three-foot angel that I had won almost unfairly at a pinochle party about eight years ago. I didn’t really like the angel. I felt guilty for winning it because I had been playing pinochle since I was nine years old and the women I competed against were beginners. After years of placing creepy plastic spiders and skulls in its hand for its plaster mind to ponder, however, I had grown to like it. That was until the Tchotchke Thieves stole it from my front porch.

The next thing they stole was Mike’s bike. It wasn’t really tchotchke, but its another item from our list of belongings that has disappeared from our front porch.

Just last month sometime, the Tchotchke Thieves struck again by stealing my cloud/wind/birdfeeder thing. It was a token that I bought unwillingly at one of those women parties that revolve around shopping. Kind of like a Tupperware party for tchotchke. I bought the wind thing and hung it on the east side of the house to protect my home from strong wind. I had purchased it begrudgingly, but I eventually liked it after owning it for twelve years or so. When I noticed that it was missing, I was fuming.

“The Tchotchke Thieves stole my wind/birdfeeder thingy.” I pointed to the empty spot on the wall of the front porch and protested to Mike. He responded calmly,

“I guess we should take anything we like off this porch.” I quickly gathered the bamboo windchime and the huge green vase where I held the broom.

“Why would someone steal tchotchke? There’s an old lady two blocks down with all my stuff, I just know it! What kind of person steals tchotchke? I don’t even know how to spell tchotchke!”

Mike calmly replied, “T-C-H-O-T-C-H-K-E, I think.”

I looked it up at Websters Dictionary. “You’re right!”

“Yeah, it’s the kind of word they throw out in the last round of the spelling bee.” Mike was the winner for our grade at Kennedy Junior High School, so I believed him.

“I didn’t even know it was a real word. I’ve only heard Strebe say it. I thought he made it up.”

“No, it’s a real word, Yiddish, I think.”

“Yiddish? That’s not fair giving Yiddish words at spelling bees.”

“What does all this have to do with taking down the windchimes?”

“Freakin’ Tchotchke Thieves…”

There are few things that a purring cat on my chest can’t cure.

A couple of nights ago, I got a headache. I took some Tylenol and went to bed. I woke up too early feeling a little better, but the headache came back with a vengence after answering only a few emails.

My first instinct was to feed the headache, thinking that maybe it was a low blood sugar problem. The scent of my microwaving food caused waves of nausea. I put the food in the refrigerator uneaten, choked down some Excedrin and Sudafed and went back to bed.

I had to displace Maggie, my cat. Feeling guilty for taking her warm spot, I called her to lie on my chest. She crawled up and sprawled out. After only a few pets, she started purring. I took a deep breath and immediately felt better. I still had the pain. I still had the nausea, but somehow I felt better.

She stayed with me until the Excedrin kicked in, then she stood up on my chest, stretching her little back and walked to the foot of the bed: her mission accomplished.

Seth is shy and introverted. He saw the commercials for Paxil, promising that he’ll be an outgoing and popular fella and decided to try it. You can read about his journey here:

• Extroverted Like Me – How a month and a half on Paxil taught me to love being shy. By Seth Stevenson

This paragraph scared the bejebus out of me:

“The last few days I’ve considered cutting down on free-lancing and getting a regular job—consulting or something. Previously, I couldn’t imagine a job like this. Regular hours and no creative outlet sounded like a nightmare. All wrong for me. But now, stability, routine, and boredom sounds A-OK. Pleasant, even. An easy way to make a buck and just live my life.”

I had this vision of Paxil being the societal normalizer. I used to work in a pharmacy. I KNOW how much of this stuff is dispensed every day. What if all the innovative people of the world were being turned into boring work drones all for the sake of the promise of popularity?

He went off the Paxil and experienced severe withdrawal symptoms. When the fog cleared, he found something new:

“It’s mercifully over. But a new phenomenon has taken hold. When I get teary-eyed watching a horrid chick-flick on a cross-country flight, I recognize it: feelings. On Paxil, I barely noticed they were gone. Now that they’re back, even overcompensating, I never want to lose them again. Bitterness, anger, jealousy, sadness: They all make me happy.”

I know this drug has helped people all over the globe. It has been a lifesaver for some, but as far as I’m concerned, no Paxil for me, thanks…

Via: kottke.org

Music by: Vortex from Experimental Royalty Free Music

This is what I had for lunch today. Yum…

Eating healthy still. I’m surprised I’m still here. Almost six days without bingeing. If I go three weeks, I’m going to buy myself a Ninetendo DS Lite.

I have been struggling with bingeing since I came back from SXSW in March. It’s just a symptom of a bigger issue.

“I want to be the girl with the most cake.”
– Courtney Love

I’m dealing with the green-eyed monster.

SXSW and Vloggercon were incredibly accepting and loving communities. I felt like I was welcomed when I was there. It was a feeling of belonging and community that I haven’t felt since high school. Of course, along came other feelings that used to lurk around during high school.

I’m not the most popular girl.

It’s true. Every community has their celebrities. At SXSW the biggest celebrities were Maggie Mason and Heather Armstrong. I felt like a fan girl actually meeting them and all those feelings of inadequacy of not being the most popular girl came up also.

After SXSW, I remember reading this entry from Maggie and feeling like I was totally out of it again…

We’re at a panel where Jason Fried is talking about “building small.” Nothing too complex. Reduce the feature set as much as possible. Build as little as you can.
I turn around in my seat, and whisper to Amy:
-Behold! I have built nothing.
-Ha! Someone just sent me that exact message over IM.
-Hive mind. (Adopting robot voice.) I-like-your-glass-es.
-I-en-joy-your-graph-ic-tee.
-Where-did-you-find-those-awe-some-Cam-pers?

Suddenly, I felt totally UNcool. I didn’t have any “graphic tees.” My funny little green glasses are rarely worn because contacts work so much better for me and, worst of all, I had NO IDEA what Campers were. I immediately followed the link she provided and found out they were shoes.

It all boils down to shoes with girls…

I didn’t even know what the cool shoes were. That’s how UNcool I was.

(Enter eating disorder, stage left)

Don’t get me wrong. Maggie was so nice when I talked to her at SXSW. She was very friendly and kindly pretended to have read one of my weblogs. She’s not the kind of mega-bitch all of us had to deal with in high school. It really has nothing to do with her, or Heather or even Amanda Congdon. It all has to do with my messed up head. I have some really screwy competition things going on in my head.

The irony is: IT DOESN’T MATTER!!!

Take high school, for example. I was NEVER the girl with the most cake in high school. Every year I ran for office. Every year, I lost. I never once got elected to office. Losing never stopped me, either. I ran for office every time I had a chance. I gave it my all every time and in the end, I never won. That’s my perception of my high school years.

Then I went to my 15 year class reunion and got a different perspective.

I was talking with a table of people that I barely knew, “I ran for office every year and never won.”

The brunette crinkled her brow, “You didn’t? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Failure tends to do that to you.”

“No. You were Treasurer one year, weren’t you?”

“Nope, that year I lost to Araceli Rojas.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Another person chimed in mentioning class offices that she thought I won. The whole table was convinced that I was among the elite of the school. I was one of the girls who got to wear the special white sweaters with the kelly green highlights. I got to have a “K” on my back and my name embroidered on the pocket. I couldn’t convince them that my experience of high school was anything but privileged.

Who was right? I never won an office, but in the minds of people that I barely knew in high school I was one of the envied ones.

Does it matter that I’m not the girl with the MOST cake? Nope. All that matters is that I bring it, every day.

Time to put down the cake now.