Can we just get May and June over with. They are going to happen and it might be awful but the only way I will get through them is knowing eventually they will have to end.
My vacation starts in July.
It will be so beautiful.
Afterwards, I will begin research into how much money do I need to start building my Earthship.
An Earthship is a home that operates "off the grid." It supplies its own power, water, sewage. I will have a garden and figure out how to grow my own food. There is an entire community for this in New Mexico.
I would like to have the boy for companionship. My hope is that we will be happier off the grid. Failing that, the cat comes with me.
Shelter, food, companionship. There is nothing else we need in this world.
I will never have to use Microsoft Office again, and it will be a happy, happy ending.
I did not get that other, not blue, bike. Partly because they no longer had it in stock, but mostly I took the leap of faith and got the road bike because the bike guy said it was "less effort" for commuting and we are all about less effort.
And, it is blue.
And, I have a mountain bike in Maryland that I also love (no, Mom, please do not sell the bike in the garage), and one day I will figure out how to get said mountain bike to Houston (one of yous is going to ride it here; you just don't know it yet) and then we will have OPTIONS. By the time that bike arrives maybe I'll have a house with a garage for storing bicycles.
The bike shop only has it in black and they are pretending like there is no blue version to be had.
Mindy, please tell me that it does not matter what color my bicycle is.
(I want the blue one.)
Why is Yao Ming wearing a suit instead of his uniform? I know I am johnny come lately to this Rockets thing: what did I miss?
The blue one!
P.s. Oh my GOD! The President's body man played for DUKE with bumpy headed Battier. I read a profile on that guy and he sounded pretty great but this is completely unacceptable. I have changed my mind: I want a red bicycle.
YES, you internet jerks! I quit smoking. I have not had a cigarette for 15 days and even though the world is like, "oh yeah? here are some stressful things to test you with," I have not even really been tempted to smoke a cigarette. Maybe I will be tempted tomorrow but if I can go from almost losing half a million dollars today due to a clerical error, to getting it back in a teary, embarrassing, hands-and-knees episode, and not smoke after that, then I really feel like I am in the clear.
And it is so strange because I know I have "tried" before -- certainly it is documented and I remember in my head when I said I would stop -- but I did not and I don't believe I ever stood a chance. In 2007 I wrote:
One time, during a quitting spell, I went to the Stop and Go across the street and the store clerk mentioned that he hadn't seen me in awhile. "That's because I quit!" I beamed, purchasing my Starbucks drink. A week later, before the Pride Parade, I went with a friend and we bought cigarettes. "I thought you quit?" he asked. "Special occasion!" In all the resulting trips since then, he's said nothing and instead reached automatically for the pack of preferred brand. He has not ever said: "Hey, lady, WTF is wrong with you? Don't you have any willpower at all? I'm not going to sell these to you. Here's some gum on the house."
No one trying to sell you cigarettes is ever going to say that.
And yet when it finally happened I wasn't really even trying. I just stopped. Yes, I downloaded a hypnosis thingy. Certainly, it played a role. But I'm convinced that the greater impetus was that you hit a certain point where you realize: I am too old for this bullshit.
So here is what has happened amid the stressy not smoking: instead of smoking in the car on the way home from work, I really, really, REALLY, look forward to having a drink. Obviously this is a situation to monitor, and I am, but I am not overly concerned and here is why: 1) having a drink no longer makes me want to smoke; 2) having a drink does not lead to having multiple drinks.
And perhaps #2 is because I'm working so late that I don't have time for multiple drinks, I barely have time for 1 before I want to be in bed and asleep because that alarm is going off at 5am rested or not.
Still, monitoring.
The other must-blog moment came yesterday on the road, when I found a recently-purchased, though long-neglected Ani DiFranco album and wound up playing this song over and over:
To understand why, we have to go back to last week in the middle of all this bureaucratic nonsense leading up to today's episode. It's Wednesday and I am exhausted, and my co-worker reminds me that we signed up for a "business etiquette dinner" because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I look terrible. Great, I say. Ok -- off we go.
And the presenter, who is a lovely and well-established Houston woman, and who tells us we should not EVER discuss politics or religion at a business event but then makes it pretty clear that she hangs with Republicans, anyway she tells us that the 30-something women she knows, they are concerned about looking old. "If you are developing a facial situation..." she tells us, "You need to do the Botox or whatever it takes. You must look friendly and well-groomed." And we are all laughing and later in the mirror I'm thinking, hmm, I've had these lines in my forehead since *5th grade* -- I have these deep set worry lines, in fact I even wrote a poem about them. I wonder how much Botox costs, anyway.
REALLY AND TRULY, these are my thoughts. I want so very much to get ahead in business or at least be successful.
So when Ani is singing to me and reminding me of a time not so long ago, but long enough, and she says "there's nothing wrong with your face," I can't stop laughing and I'm like, rewind, tell me again.
So that is how I listened to this song 26 times yesterday.
Do you remember two years ago when the day after I hit "send" on my taxes (in mid-February) I recieved a tax form from the Corporation for National Service regarding my supposed "income" and I was like 1) you're too late and 2) this is hogwash: you people paid my university student loan and I never saw this money? And pps you're too late? And do you remember how you were like, Mary, pay your taxes. Is this coming back to you now? How I was like, let them come get it?
So anyway. They'd like some taxes on that money, please. They could have just asked me, two years ago, by the end of January, like they are supposed to.
I do not think it is a coincidence that our president doubles AmeriCorps and I get audited. No sir.
"The proper basis for a marriage is mutual misunderstanding." ~ Oscar Wilde
"One should never know too precisely whom one has married." ~Friedrich Nietzsche
On June 13, 2009, The Art Guys will marry a live oak tree (quercus virginiana) in a public ceremony. The wedding will take place in the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston with a reception immediately following at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. The tree will subsequently be planted in a public ceremony and will be installed with a bronze plaque commemorating the event. The date and location of the planting will be announced at a later date.
The ceremony is sponsored and presented by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston as part of the exhibition "No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston," May 8 – October 4, 2009.
The Art Guys Marry a Plant, first conceived in 2004, is the latest in a body of 'behavior" works by The Art Guys wherein the perceived boundaries between sculpture and performance, art and life, philosophy and action, are blurred to the point of being indistinguishable.
The Art Guys Marry a Plant is a work that will take place in several stages and will have several components. They are:
Plans and preparations: The Art Guys Marry A Plant will be conducted like a typical American wedding ceremony except that the participants will be The Art Guys and a live oak tree sapling. Engagement announcements were sent via email in January, 2009. Invitations will be sent closer to the date. Wedding announcements will be posted in newspapers (if allowed).
In conjunction with the upcoming exhibition No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is publishing a new multiple by The Art Guys. 'The Art Guys Marry A Plant Wedding Cake Topper," 2009, produced in an edition of 12, is a small sculpture commemorating the performance The Art Guys will present on Saturday, June 13, 2009, in which they will marry a live oak tree in a public ceremony.
The exhibition The tree which The Art Guys marry will be on display from May 8 through October 4, 2009 at the Contemporary Arts Museum as part of the exhibition 'No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston."
The ceremony The Art Guys Marry A Plant ceremony will be conducted in the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston with a reception immediately following at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. The ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM and will be conducted by Ed Cooper, ordained minister. Other wedding ceremony details are being arranged at this writing.
The future The live oak tree sapling from The Art Guys Marry a Plant will be planted in a public ceremony at a location to be determined. The tree will be accompanied by a commemorative bronze plaque to mark its significance for future audiences.
Published online only at www.HoustonChronicle.com.
