Wow, I've had a weekend so far, but a good one! Yesterday we went to lunch at Red Lobster for Deni's birthday and she got to eat her favorite crab. She also got a new nightgown, four new games for her playstation, and a new french fryer that she's wanted for a long time. Today Monica and Claudia came up from Tampa to spend the weekend here, and they took us into Gainesville for pizza at the Mellow Mushroom. We followed it up with frappuccinos at Starbucks, and Monica wouldn't let us pay for any of it. She and Claudia got Deni two sets of new sheets for her bed, a $50 gift card for Best Buy, a $50 gift card for Barnes and Noble, and a $50 gift card for Red Lobster. And Deni's friend Dianne sent her a $100 visa gift card. I felt really bad that I didn't have any money to get her anything, but she got so much that I'm happy. I don't feel so guilty, and I'm so glad that everyone else was really generous to her. She deserves it and it makes me feel good to see it. Tomorrow we are going with Monica and Claudia to Hooters for chicken wings. We ADORE their wings, and only get them on special occassions.

I feel so spoiled, to go out to eat 3 times in 3 days, and to Starbucks, I feel like a normal person, like I used to feel back when I lived in Tampa and had a life...lol.

Claudia was so funny, she kept staring at these guys at the pizza place today, especially one guy. She even took a pic of him with her camera, but in a way that he wasn't aware of it. I told her I would go ask him his name and she said "No you won't!". I said "Don't dare me, child! LOL". On our way out I walked over to their table and said "Hi guys", and they just looked at me and said "Hello". Then I said "My little neice over there (ok she's not my neice, whatever) thinks you're cute and dared me to ask your name" (to the one guy). He said "Umm... it's Eddie" and I said "Ok, thanks. Have a great day guys!" and I walked out with Monica, Deni, and Claudia all laughing. Claudia was beet red and so embarassed, it was cute. She has yet to learn not to dare me!

We spent the day talking and laughing way too much, trading iPod songs, listening to music, and watching Rocky Horror. We're teaching Claudia all the rude things we used to yell in the movie theater. (If you've ever gone to see RH, you know what I mean).

I wished we all lived closer. It does Deni good to get out and feel like a normal person like we used to. To socialize and have fun, and it does me good, too. It's so nice to see Monica and Claudia, we all have so much fun together. Oh and Monica also gave me a new book about Anne Boleyn, (we both like her), and she also gave me a beautiful new journal made by Juicy Couture. I might use it as an art journal.

Monica brought her laptop computer to have me work on it. She doesn't know how to do most things on it, and it frustrates her. I had it for 2 mins and I had it recognizing the wireless network here at the house and I was surfing the net. Her laptop is SLICK. I told her she's like someone that has a Mercedes and barely knows how to drive! Hopefully I will eventually get her to learn how to use the thing!

Deni has already gone to bed, completely exhausted, and I'm not far from it myself. We have another full day of fun tomorrow and my bed is calling me. I've also had a full pint of Smirnoff Ice Green Apple Bite and taken a vicodan for a pesky tooth, so I will definately sleep well tonight!!

I'm so glad my Deni is having a great birthday weekend!

You are the best sister in the world, and I love you!!!! You deserve EVERY good thing that comes your way!!!!

If you know my sis (siennaleanna) then go tell her Happy Birthday!!

Went grocery shopping with the parentals today. They had like a million errands to run, thank god I had my iPod.

I must have played this song 20 times at least. Can't get it out of my head, and I love it.



When I wasn't playing that song, I was playing this one. Hard to believe this is Lindsey Lohan's little sis. Good song!



So tired tonight, gonna dance off to bed very soon!

PS. It's almost my wonderful sister Deni's birthday!!! At midnight tonight she will be one year older, and we are going out tomorrow to lunch with mom and Heather to celebrate!

When I get a new library book, if it looks relatively new, I'll open it halfway and smoosh my face into it, running my nose down the inside spine while I inhale deeply.

Heaven-ly. I LOVE the smell of a good book. Smells like the libraries when I was little. Smells like imagination, smells like happiness.

These things also smell good:

Tires at Walmart. OMG are they good!
Gasoline....YUMMY!
The nail salon. Makes me borderline nauseous, but I like it.
Vicks. Don't leave home without it.
Markers aka highliters.
Fresh zerox copies. Ever see Fast Times? That part where all the kids lift the photocopies and smell them is SO true.
Onions mixed with truck exhaust. Smells like the State Fair.

I could SO be one of those homeless street kids in Brazil that sniff glue all day.

Okay guys, here's the new one. I didn't mean to tease for so long not showing it, but I couldn't resolve the background. I would have shown it last night, but my internet was down. So without further ado...

( Clicky for a beautiful boy. )

That's all, folks! Thanks for looking!

Can you have a crush on the painting you're working on? I do. This is the first time I've EVER done a painting of a guy, and everytime I look at it, I think "Woof! He's hot!".

We have a hurricane out there in the Atlantic. Here we go.

Something tells me with the way the universe has been slapping everyone around this year, I have a feeling the hurricane season won't be as light as last year. I hope to god I'm wrong.

I haven't written lately because I've been in a slump. Actually, I think my whole life is a slump. Sometimes when you don't have a whole lot of positive things to say, you just say nothing. Especially when the depression has been bad and money troubles are constant. I've been trying to cut back on stuff, scale down spending, but when you start with almost nothing, there's not a whole lot you can do. This economy so totally sucks, I know many more people are hurting than just me. Mom says things are only going to get worse, and I believe her. She figures even if we get a democrat into office, we're still looking at another year of bad times, if not more. I swear, I don't know how people lived through the great depression. I know it was many hundreds of times worse than this. I guess you just do what you have to in order to make it through.

I've been looking at some stock tonight, trying to get motivated to do some art, but nothings working. I ask myself, if I'm not making art, am I still an artist? Does that term only apply when my creative energies are in full working mode? If I'm not an artist, then what am I? WHO am I? Sometimes I just feel like a big dissapointment. I was supposed to be a successful freelancer by this point, and I can't even get a commission other than Christmas time. I've been checking online for jobs in my area, even jobs in clerical, but there's nothing out there.

Ugh. No matter what my intentions, this entry still ends up with me whining about stuff. Oh well.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I asked you all to post what you're listening to, and Amy (toeknuckles) was the only one who did it. So ya'll suck. Suck suck suck. Suckage. Suck it. Pfffffffffft.

Anyone who has had rude comments aimed at them about their weight should watch this video. I love this woman, we should ALL have her attitude.





If you want something uplifting to watch, check this next video out. This is Matt Harding, who travels the world and dances in each location. There's actually more to the story than that, and he has loads of info on his website, including a video lecture that's pretty cool.



I was watching that video and wondering why it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, and I realized that our current culture is unique. We now have a global culture, where before we didn't, at least not this much. The internet enables us to immediately connect with someone on the other side of the world, and gives us an idea of who we are as a planet. Sure, television and telephones did that before, but this is different. This is almost like letting us see each other from the moon, or some solitary place in space. And as much as we are different, we are even more alike.

Everybody understands a dance.

I yanked this idea from Rob (archanglrobriel). What's on your iPod this summer? What are you listening to, what are your favorite songs or videos right now? I love seeing what other people are listening to, and I thought I would share mine. So here goes!

1. Marie Digby - Say It Again = YouTube singer hits the big time!



2. Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl



3. Metro Station - Shake It = Miley Cyrus' big brother and his band, LOVE this song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpU78IeTx_c


4. Coldplay - Viva La Vida = This man just gets better and better



5. We Three Kings - Check Yes Juliet



6. The Ting Tings - Shut Up and Let Me Go



7. Lifehouse - Whatever It Takes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iawro7IfoCM


8. Lights - Last Thing On Your Mind



9. Tigerstyle - Nachna Onda Nei



10. Rob Dougan - Clubbed To Death = This is probably my favorite song on this list, and my favorite song right now. I found it while doing my Chernobyl research and I came across a video of Pripyat and Chernobyl set to this song, and I loved the music so much that I went and found it. Now it's permanently on my iPod. It seems to pefectly display the tragedy of what happened, and the inherit danger of it happening in the future. The video is awesome too, I suggest watching it.




Now it's YOUR turn! What are you listening to??? C'mon, I wanna know!

I just got done watching 'The Happening' and let me tell you, it rocked! If you've seen other M. Night Shamalan movies and you haven't "gotten" it, or didn't like them, then don't bother with this one. If, however, you've loved his other movies, then you'll love The Happening. I love the way M. Night's mind works, and the ending of this movie, like his others, was great. I won't ruin a bit of it for others, I'll just say "See It!!". I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

"Blog Like It's The End of the World" is over, and boy was it a good one!! As you all can tell, I bit the big one early on. If I could have a do-over (next year, maybe) I'd do things a bit differently, perhaps with a bit more humor, like some other people did. Much thanks to elf_fu for posting early and thus enabling me to get in on the fun. She also made some AWESOME posts over the day, keeping me heartily entertained. I spent hours on the BLITEOTW map of the world, visiting many of the people that posted their locations, and I was laughing all day. Some people were putting zombie movie quotes by their location and user pics, and I had a great time with them. I'm a sucker for movie quotes. So I decided my movie quote under my user pic would be "It's nice to see you've all bonded through this disaster". A great quote from the 2004 "Dawn of the Dead" movie by the character named Steve (one of my favorite movies!). Another person's quote was "Just shoot 'em in the head!" which also comes from Dawn of the Dead. My favorite one was someone who had "To the Winchester!" and it took me a minute to remember it. It was from "Shaun of the Dead" which is another of my favorite movies. So much fun, and such creative funny people!!

The best part was seeing how different people in different countries all over the world could come together for a fun thing like this. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside... until I got my brains eaten, that is.

Brains.... BRAINS!!!

Everything on tv is all about the zombie virus, no one can talk about anything else. I'm scared... terrified really. Although I live out in the woods, every little twig snap, every tree branch scratching against the windows makes me jump in fear. It's full daylight out, and yet I feel as if my heart is beating triple time. I can only imagine what the dark will bring. My family is talking about all of us staying in one house tonight for better protection against whatever might be out there. My dad has a gun, and some tools, and I think we can arm ourselves better with them. One thing, though... I will not leave my cats alone, and yet I don't have enough cat carriers for all of them. Do zombies eat cats? I don't know, but I don't want to find out the hard way. I think if it comes to leaving them and saving my own life, I will stay. They are my children and I just can't bring myself to do that to them.

My god, I can't even believe I'm talking about this, thinking about this. This is just unblievable...! How can this happen?? There IS no such thing as a body reanimating once it's been declared dead, and yet.. it's happening! I just don't understand. Is this some cruel joke? Is this

....DAMN! Sorry I just heard something big outside and I ran to the window. I didn't see anything, but now I'm about to cry. I want to wake up, please someone wake me up from this! My hands are shaking, and the stories on the tv are getting worse and worse.

Crap my power just flickered and it's not even raining!!! What the hell??????

Another huge bang outside and I'm about to scream! What is out there? What if i t dfh'k'IAhff g jj

Well here I am sitting over at Mom's house, all alone, blessedly quiet, but it won't be that way for long. Mom went to take my stepdad to have outpatient surgery done on his back, he has an infected cyst. Heather went to take the boy to his swimming lesson in Lake City. Once they are done, she'll bring him back here for me to watch until my mom and stepdad get home, while she goes to school. So I'll be busy with the boy. Just thinking about it makes me tired. Oh and the phone guy is supposed to come today, which is why I'm here now. So I'll probably be here for a few hours today. I hope my dad's surgery thing goes well. He's been trying super hard to be good lately, but he does have moments where he backslides, but most of the time I can talk to him without getting lectured. Deni is back over at the house by herself but she calls me because she gets lonely. I get lonely without her, too. Anyone ever see Sixteen Candles? There's a part where they go to the school dance, and two of the boys get separated, and they stretch out their arms towards each other and whine "Waaaaaaah!". That's me and Deni, attached at the hip. We're always together so it feels weird to be apart.

( Disturbing talk about bodies and things ahead. Don't click if you are easily upset or if talk of graphic images bothers you. You've been warned. )

And that's just my two cents.

Deni has been saying I sleep too much. Sleep, sleep, sleep, that's all I do. So she wakes me up. I'm awake. Then SHE goes to sleep. Now it's 4am and I'm awake and alone with nothing to do. Tv sucks, my art sucks, nothing to watch online, my book is underrated. I'm bored and awake and I'd rather be asleep.

Depression is descending on me tonight like a warm blanket, promising comfort and safety, but I know once I'm wrapped up in it, it will turn cold and icy and bite at my soul like flakes of ice. So I fight it, kick and scream at it, try to hide from it in the closet, but just when everything's gone quiet and peaceful, and I can catch my breath again, it jumps out of the darkness and grabs me. It is a war that I fight, and some days the war is bad, other days, not so much. I use the things around me to fight this battle; my books, music, art, movies, the people I love, my cats, this journal. But there are some times when even those sturdy metal shields can't hold back the foe. Tonight the foe is strong, laughing maniacally behind me as his talons sink even lower into the backs of my shoulder. But the simple fact that I'm using this journal as my outlet is proof enough that I have a candle here with me in the dark, and no matter how many times the foe tries to blow it out, it's like one of those fake birthday cake candles that just stay lit. You're wasting your breath, I'll get through this, and the light will not go out.

Curiously enough, it's at these times that I feel myself more of an artist than ever. One thing many artists through the centuries have in common is this emotion inside, this thing crawling and clawing to get out, to show others how we FEEL, how we THINK. To COMMUNICATE. Really, there are not enough words to describe this "thing" inside me, inside us, we artists. A loneliness, yet a constant reaching out, like a lifeline, like a blue body reaching up towards the light as it sinks down into the ocean. At times like these I KNOW I am an artist, because I am miserable in that way that only artists can be. I am tortured, and I can't even explain why. Maybe most of the famous artists in the past have had depression. Why is it that artists create more successfully when they're horribly depressed? Maybe we're all just crazy.

I saw some new art tonight and I wanted to share it.

This person's use of light just blows me away. No details, just light. Amazing.

And this picture does more for the word "joy" than just about anything. If you stare at all the little details, the flowers, the dots, the eyes, everything... you'll hear it singing to you. Can you hear it?

i want to sing. I want to make people sing, make them cry, make them gaze at me in wonder and ask how I expressed something so utterly perfect. I want to let off the pressure in my soul before it backs up and explodes. I feel like a pianist with no fingers.

I am screaming in the dark. Can you hear me? Does anyone?

I just saw the new Indiana Jones movie, and it was everything that The Other Boleyn Girl was NOT. It was great, critics be damned! It was so NICE to see Indy again, and Shia fit in perfectly as his son. I can't think of a better person to play his son. If you haven't seen it yet, see it!!

I spent all of last night watching the Eurovision competition song videos on YouTube. I hear that Russia won, and well deserved. Now I will watch it every year!

Deni and my's friend Monica (the one with the daughter Claudia) sent us an email tonight with some pics in it and said "Gosh aren't we old?", so I wanted to share them.

This one is Monica and Barry inside the studio in Miami. I think this was when she and Deni went to Miami to meet Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb (and Andy!). Deni got caught in the studio lobby talking smack about the group "The Eagles" only to turn around and find Don Henley and some other band members sitting there scowling at her...OOPS!! LOL. They've met so many famous people over the years, I can't even remember them all. Anyways, Monica got this pic with Barry. God, he was one beautiful man!!!



This next one is Monica and Deni with Wes McLeod, who was a soccer player for the Tampa team, the Rowdies. We just ADORED those men, and went to all the games. We knew all the players and even babysat for some of them, they were such a great group of guys! My love of soccer continues to this day because of that.



This last pic is my favorite, of course, because it's me! The cute hunk of a guy with me is Steve Wegerle, another player for the Rowdies soccer team. I had a MAD crush on him. I was all of 16 in this pic. Wasn't I cute?? I was convinced I was fat and ugly.



I've just had a thing for Steve's all my life. My first boyfriend was a Steve, then I eventually married (another) Steve.

Anyways, I just wanted to share these. Pics from the past are so fun to look at!

I'm feeling fiesty. Here's the letter I just wrote to my hosting company.

Ok guys, this isn't the first time that you've forgotten to bill me this month. While normally I wouldn't complain, you have a history of billing me on the WRONG DATE. What date, you may ask? Who the hell knows?? You've billed me on all kinds of dates and I never know when you'll bill me. You're SUPPOSED to bill me on the 5th of the month, but you don't always. Now you haven't billed me once again, and I know that as soon as I get a low balance in my account, you'll bill me on a totally unexpected date, causing my checks to bounce, just like before. So I'm contacting you to tell you to BILL ME already. Ok? Honestly, if you cause another check of mine to bounce, I swear I am going to switch hosts. And I mean it this time. No, really.

So bill me. Please? Like NOW??


So what do you think... too much?