there's an ambulance in front of my house

... so I poked my head out of the window to see what's going on, and realized the EMTs are playing catch in the church parking lot.


with a mitt and everything.

must be a slow night.

pretty, curvy, long, tall...

Are all accurate descriptors of roads and girls and the last seventy-two hours.

So this real pretty new girl showed up in my life, and she's smart and she's funny and she plays with ponies, and she doesn't seem to be expecting a damn thing from me. I likes her. We played Iron Chef Utah, and she was witness to my singing of rugby songs, and she still let me spend the night.

I spent nine hours cleaning my house and rearranging furniture on Friday. It was exactly what I needed, and felt amazing.

And then there was a drive to Moab, playing tag with a Z4 (he caught me on the straightaways, I smoked him in the corners) followed by a nap, a hot tub, a bottle of wine, and adult-style frolicking in and around said hot tub, with an amazing view of the stars. Sigh. Moab was good to me.

I came home yesterday via Colorado, and it was one of the best laugh-out-loud drives I've ever done. It really made me want a motorcycle and a certain pretty girl to hold on tight. Maybe someday.

(Timm's driving music was perfect, by the way.)

Now for canine dinner-time, a shower, another beer, picking up remnants of koala innards helpfully strewn about the house by the terrier, and something creative for dinner - Brussels sprouts, anyone?

For the curious, I'm showering these days using mint soap with NO FAKE CRAP (per the packaging) that makes me smile whenever I see it.

Also, I stopped by the tuner shop today to find out if Mr. Q can be chipped. The answer is no. Guess I'll have to spend that money on something else, then.

Also again, tomorrow I have to call Parexel back and turn down the monitor job they keep trying to offer me. I'd rather be poor and happy and weld stuff, but I'm feeling strangely bad about that decision.

... I think that will suffice as an update for now.

Kraut

Here's my story:

I went into the cd store today - orion's music - to see dear mister tim and snack on a tasty treat.

It's so beautiful and sunshiny and gorgeous here right now, and warm enough that I'm comfortably wearing shorts and a 'beater; to do service to the glorious springtime-y weather, I asked tim for some open-sunroof-drive-to-moab music... he selected this bizarre and obscure compilation disc called "In-Kraut" that's absolutely perfect.

So that's my new soundtrack. Late 60's German funk music.



Also, Dale set up the slackline at work today between the forklift and the dumpster. OSHA would not approve.

Few things are as entertaining as watching a 40-something welder dude named Sanchez try to stand on a slackline....

welders should definitely hang out with hippies.

Ha!

boxes of rocks!

... that's what I welded today. and other big metal planter boxes with holes in them.

and I made a branding iron.

and I have a leetle bit of a burn from the UV on the inside of my left elbow, and it's ouchy.




i

heart

welding.







the pony's doing well, too.


I have a date on saturday with a woman described as an "older butch top" - just what I've been looking for.



perhaps things are looking up.

functional art

yep, got the job.

starting monday, i will be a welder of gigantic planter-boxes and other cool shit.

check out the site: www.orecontainers.com

it's better than a poke in the eye.

Oh, the places I've been

here's an interesting exercise...

i was thinking this morning about all the jobs I've had (so as to figure out what sort of job makes the most sense next.) I can't come up with any logical trajectory - can you?

Girl Scout camp counselor
Horse-shit shoveler
Barn manager for a bunch of crazy Arabians
ESL tutor for eastern European refugees
Dishwasher in college cafeteria
Futon mattress builder and delivery person
Nanny
Telemarketer for non-profit group
Itinerant shit-shoveler (again)
Girl Scout Waterfront Director
Maintenance person for section 8 housing complex
Caterer / professional cheese-cutter and fruit arranger
EMT in inner-city emergency room
Night janitor at a hospital
Receptionist for vague biotech company
Mail order sex-toy salesperson and answerer of sex-toy related questions
Houseboy for professional dominatrix
Writer of consent forms for drug studies
Kitchen gadget retail whore
Apprentice pipefitter / forklift operator / material handler
Case manager for HIV-positive men of color
Girl scout leader for high-risk teenagers
Database manager for orthopedic research
Recruiting, receptionist, and regulatory affairs for medical research
Symbolic logic tutor to brain-injured college students
Question-asker for smoking cessation training research
Counter of shoes and arranger of backpacks for specialty outdoor retail shop
Director of Quality Assurance for pain research outfit
Arranger of paperwork for cancer research coordinating committee
Nude model for artists

...

This afternoon I'm going to try to add welder of gigantic planter-boxes to the list.

Oh where oh where is that knight in shining armor... Fuckin' slacker.

So thanks to the universal conspiracy against me, academic bureaucracy and general ill-temperedness, I am out of work *and school* as of this morning. Also, the welfare system in this state is asinine, and the unemployment office is reviewing my claim in their own sweet time.

Stupid fucking fuckhead fucks.

This means that I get (have) to figure out what to do with my life.

I don't feel like deciding for myself (since all of my decisions have turned out terribly lately), so I think I'll leave it up to you folks.

Ready? Choose from the following options (or write in your own) and report back.

I'll be making the final decision no later than Thursday.

First choice:

1) Stay in SLC

2) Leave SLC (the question is, then, where should I go?)

Second set of choices:

1) Keep trying to get into colleges, with the ultimate goal of getting that damned doctorate. In the meantime, work at some shit job that barely covers the rent.

2) Join a union and learn a trade (Women of Steel, anyone?). Maybe later go back to college, once I can afford to eat.

3) Suck up to the pharmaceutical industry and go back into regulatory affairs. (ditto the maybe later part from #2)

4a) Drop out of society and develop a drug habit.

4b) Drop out of society and become a hermit (without the drug habit.)

5) Institutionalization. I hear the food's pretty good at some of the psych wards around here.

6) Sabotage. Whatever happened to the Unabomber, anyway?

7) Attempt to convert to Mormonism, find a man to marry me, have some babies, and take a whole lot of nice anti-depressants like the rest of the women around here.

8) Attempt a coup d' etat.

9) ________________________


Thank you for your participation.