sPin city

howdy folks. this is gonna be a quick one. of the 2 of you that check this blog on occasion i think you both already know what's going on, but for any happen-to-stop-by-ers:

i packed up my santa cruz life and moved to vegas! just kidding. i did pack up my shit and i AM in vegas - but only for a month or so. my bro needed some kind of emergency sorta help and once again i being the UNEMPLOYED and SORTA FLAKIEST family member, was an obvious choice to come help out. my tone there sounds words than i feel, actually - i am totally psyched to spend time with die bruder - i just wish he lived in .. tahoe or hawaii or durango.

anyhow - i will write more later, cuz i'm about to go venture out of town by myself for the first time since i've been here. apparently there's a LADIES mtn bike ride starting at 10am in boulder city - riding around what is meant to be some "epic" (according to IMBA) terrain - Bootleg Canyon. I've just had my giant bowl of red river cereal (thanks sven & amanda!) and am about to get ready - but just wanted to announce that, at summer's suggestion, i have created a NEW flickr account. it goes a little something like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jtothez/ they only allow you to upload 20mb of pix a month, so i'm afraid i might be done for the month (does anyone know if the month ends/begins on the 30th/1st? if so, i'm hosed - cuz i just uploaded them all yesterday, the 1st.

alright, more soon. having a lot of feelings over here. as usual. i can't believe i haven't worked in 4 months - surreal. ok, more luego!

partytime

fun night. fun day too, in a wierd way. i QUIT the flush/cleanse/fast - and started the return-to-sugar party pronto. they recommend you break your fast with juice for the first day and then gradually work your way up to salad two days later (?!?). i went straight for the chocolate peanut butter bar that my sister sent me in the mail (along with the running clothes that i'd accidentally left at her house in jersey. it's like one of those target ads: junkfood. running clothes. junkfood. running clothes.) yum. and then i baked THREE desserts. "to bring to a party." but really i just friggin MISSED PREPARING FOOD and was makin up for lost time. i love LOVE (!) preparing food. and eating food. and sharing food. etc. ILOVEFOOD. so quitting was a good start to the day. then over to a dinner party hosted for some friends who are visiting from vancouver. i was the only single person there and only one of three individuals not attached to a kid. that's cool.

oh yeah, for the record, i made:
1) peanut butter cookies with choc chips - they are so delicious and the recipe is SO easy: 1 cup PB, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp bkg soda, 1 egg. THAT'S IT! [okay and i add choc chips]. bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
2) coconut cardamom rice pudding. that was good, first time i made it.
3) nasty cupcakes. that i didn't bring with me. they're still in my fridge (along with leftovers of the other 2!) if anyone wants some...

alright so then i went downtown to see if any movies were about to start at the Nick and saw Shortbus. have you seen this film? i walked in a minute or two after it'd started, down the (nearly full) theatre's center aisle to a huge image of a naked guy doing what was basically a yoga plow pose - the one where you're on your back with your feet over your head - straining to get his penis to reach his mouth (eventually he succeeded!). i felt a little like a perv walkin in to a peep show, by mySELF no less. there was more hardcore sex in that movie than in any i've ever seen. in a theatre. it was very interesting and the characters were engaging and the dialogue was so natural - really well written, but there's a part of me that does think the sex got a weeeee bit grauitous. or maybe i'm just a prude. [not that i didn't enjoy it - but you know how it is when it feels like a director is just jerking off a little in his choice of scenes? and i do mean that figuratively in this case] anyhow. i hope i get to talk to someone about that movie soon. i'm gonna read some reviews now. it DID inspire me to build some dioramas, in a wierd way. they had this cool NYC cityscape that was made out of cardboard or something - that made me so happy every time they'd show it, i don't know why. but i thought that would be a cool thing to build: miniature cities. alot of work though, for sure. but hey i'm unemployed, what else am i gonna do. peace out.

call me Master

ok i'm doing THE CLEANSE. the MASTER cleanse - after hearing random folks and friends and relatives talk about it for the last 10 years. all i drink (or eat) is water with lemonjuice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper in there. and then i can drink licorice or peppermint tea. and i'm supposed to drink salt water in the morning and herbal laxative tea before bed. for 10 days this is supposed to happen. but it aint gonna. i'm tellin ya right now. i'm on hour #4 or so and i'm about to crack. i came into this coffeeshop and ordered my licorice tea and felt instantly MALIGNED that they now (suddenly) carry the best vegan cookies in town (by Black China Bakery, FYI) - they're shortbread cookies tha are heart-shaped and half-dipped in chocolate with crushed pistachios stuck to the chocolate. YUMMERS. anyway, i can't have that. cuz i'm gettin all CLEAN.

it's funny how instantly you realize the strength of your relationship to food. lord howdy. and for that matter - your (my) relationship to EMAIL. it is another sort of sustenance in a way. i sat here drinking my tea all happily, checking email - and as soon as the email was done/gone, i instantly thought about getting a snack. hmmm...

so physically, as a point of reference for this fast and its effets on Ye Younge Body that i inhabit, i would like to note the following conditions as of today:
*severe pain in right shoulder/neck/rhomboid
*consistently-threatening headache -- which is to say, a fair amount of sinus pressure. really sore occiput and pretty tender forehead and top-of-head
*CRAZILY tight hips. for quite a while now
*pretty depressed mindset, to be honest. total feeling of directionlessness. that's a bummer.

yeah - i do NOT know what to do next. i'm trying to be "open" and let my heart answer these questions - cuz god knows the craziness in my mind can't figure this important shit out... although as i just left my friend's house in the mountains, i DID say out loud, to myself "i want to live in the country." so there i go, i suppose. that's a start, i guess.

happiest girl in the world

today i am so happy. it's one of those days (honestly, couple of days now) where you think "is this even possible? isn't there something i should be worrying about?" (surely we're the only culture that worries about having forgotten what they should be worrying about.) yeah, i'm so... excited and i feel FULL, in a wierd, awesome way. like, i read a book in bed today at 3pm until i fell asleep - and i had no guilt about it. this is something i don't recall having been able to do in the past. there was always something nagging me, disrupting my full-on enjoyment and giving-in to the luxury of it. maybe it's just that i'm in a new town, and that i'm completely in love with my new job. this is new for me, folks. i don't believe i've ever uttered the phrase "i love my job" in my life - it honestly feels too good to be true.

sorry, by the way, about my absence, if anyone's been checkin in. i've had a helluva month since i quit bell. wait no - it's only been 3 weeks, is that possible? so much has happened!! holy crap! the day i quit, we had drinks out, it was crazy, i was exhausted from all the crying, etc. the next morning, i had bkfst with some friends (2 of them coworkers) and they got up at 9 to shove off to work and i got freaked out. ran around town getting stuff to bring with me on my roadtrip (a trip which, until that day at 9am, had not had one thing planned about it, by the way) and i got in my car at 2 and headed north. i think the mini freak-out at bkfst when my friends got up to go to Bell and i wasn't joining them- is to be credited for inspiring me to actually get in the car & go. i had to do something, all i felt was loss at that point.

headed up to Portland (spent one night in Mt. Shasta)

and quickly the sense of loss faded and all i felt was possibility, hope, aliveness. my time in portland was incredible. i connected with my dear friend lisa's friend up yonder and usually those things can be kinda awkward - but she is the coolest and it was actually quite a bit like hanging out with lisa directly! every neighborhood in that town was cooler than the next - crafts and cool shops and fun, open people all over the place. PLUS i got to go on 3 runs right in the city ON DIRT TRAILS. not lame paths through mown municipal parks - FULL ON WOODS with TRAILS! i feel like that city was built for me. AND, i haven't even mentioned (though most of you already know, i'm sure) that it's about as progressive as a city can get (with the exception of the Oregonian, i hear). awesome animal rights magazines come out of there and there's free public transport in the city center and two awesome hostels (i recommend the NW one - so amazing!). ANYHOW...

i drove up to Vancouver to see some friends of mine who used to live in santa cruz - awesome couple that lives such an inspiring lifestyle. he's german and she's canadian and the way they live (riding their bikes to work, recycling/reducing/REUSING every possible thing they can, eating sooo healthfully, etc) totally inspired me to lower-my-impact as well. maybe it's a european thing, i dunno - but it kicks ass. so i had two of the best, cheapest (like $5 US!) sushi meals of my life there - very easy to be vegan in that town as well - and i went on what was hands-down the most intense and awesome mtn bike ride of my life up there (Ned's Atomic Dustbin? anybody?) it was the stuff they have in all the CRANKD movies and in the Banff Film Festival - crazy ramps and 10ft drops way deep in the woods and dry creek beds and ROOTS EVERYWHERE. really challenging and so damn fun. i went over the handlebars twice and i think i'll actually have a little scar on one hand to remember the ride by :). thanks amanda! :) these 2 are also incredibly gracious hosts - making you feel not at all like an imposition (which i fear i do to people who visit me) but seeming completely thrilled to be able to show you around. awesome quality - yet another which i hope to acquire.

ok, sorry this is long. AND THEN i drove back down, with one night in portland (and another incredible meal there - there's also awesome food in that town, for real!), and then hauled it in a day down to santa cruz, totally refreshed & stoked on life. i felt so damn free on the road - you know the feeling - just me in my car with some stuff and i can drive anywhere, meet anybody, do anything. life is good.

so my sisters came to town to run the big sur marathon as soon as i got home and they KICKED ASS!!! beat their last year's time by nearly 30 minutes. who does that!? superstrong, superbeautiful awesome women. check em out.




my folks and my niece and her boyfriend were there - and our time together was so killer. i love those people!

alright - my sister stayed in town for a few more days, we ran around, went wine-tasting, tried to celebrate my bday on the beach but got kicked off by the cops (that sucked), went on a few of my favorite runs together, ate yummy food, hung out and chatted - i was so damn sad when she left. i felt like my heart was broken. i've had to call her everyday since. i love that girl.

okay, and finally, alas, forsooth and anon --- here i am in lovely norfolk VA - where the people are even way lovelier than the architecture and the weather, which is sayin somethin, honestly. my job is knocking my socks off. i cannot BELIEVE i can get paid to try to help animals. AND i get to use some fun skills i've gained over the years in these efforts. it is honestly the best job i can imagine, at this point in my life. i wake up smiling (literally). and i walk home after work grinning like a scared chimp [they are actually scared when they grin, i didn't know that until recently.] oh yeah, and i feel myself quickly becoming indoctrinated, i hafta say. i came in going "Now listen up folks, your shock marketing tactics are only losing you credibility and we need some change around here!" and i'm already going "Right on! more naked protests! more lesbian make-outs in times square! whatever it takes to get people interested in the organization and clicking through the website!" AND, to be fair, i'm starting discussions about initiatives that are a little more in line with the attitude i came in with [i'd say more, but this IS a public venue, i just remembered, and i don't want to give anything up to the ENEMIES.] okay, this is a ridiculously long blog. if you made it this far, you must really love me. cuz it wasn't that interesting! thank you! i love you too!

the deed be done

so i did it. i cried when i did it, but it's done. after depositing my check (i told you, i wasn't taking any chances - i'm gonna be a PO NONPROFITER!), i asked my (KILLER!) boss if we could chat - and then proceeded to, through shaky voice and welling up (ok yes, and spilling over) eyes, tell him i was giving my two week notice. he couldn't have been any cooler about it.

now it's been 5 days, and most everyone at my work knows i'm going. it is so strange. truly feels like leaping off a cliff. i'm feeling so hopeful about the future - this one that has as its new "centerpiece" a job that i took ONLY FOR MY HEART. this is a new thing for me. i've expressed it to a few friends - but i'll say it again: this is the first time in my life that i've sought out employment at a SPECIFIC PLACE rather than simply taking whatever job was offered to me. this is the first time my life truly feels directed - by me. i have taken over as captain of the SS Jennysue and i feel like a whole new world is opening up for me. i feel like anything could happen. i'm planning on driving to portland and vancouver next week after i quit - a little adventure before my big adventure. i feel hopeful and trusting. this whole knowing-what's-in-your-heart/recognizing-what's-true-for-you thing, well it did not exactly come naturally for me. and this just feels like a major step toward (a belated, i grant you!) adulthood. it's cool, and i'm stoked.

in other news, a crazy guy ran a red light at about 40 mph only 2 cars after i'd passed through the green light perpendicular to his path. he rammed head-on into a stone wall and then went running into a hotel which police surrounded within 5 minutes. scary - timing is everything. i hope that guy is alright. santa cruz isn't that hardcore a town, but it's true - our own mini ghetto is where all the wierdest shit goes down. alright, scrubs is about to start and i need a bowl of icecream. thanks for being you!!!

tomorrow is a big day...

seriouslY? why WHY do posts get deleted? as you can see it takes a lot of effort for me to actually ENTER something in here - and then when i do, all that heart, all those emotions, all those misplaced-not-where-i-wanted-them-photos -- GONE. so i start again. as i was SAYING... tomorrow is purported/reported/expected to be the day that we receive our long overdue BONUSES. which is to say: it is the day i quit. friends were suggesting a simultaneous handoff of bonus check and resignation letter ("aaaaand SWITCH - i'm out!") that is a funny image, the big arm-X between us. i'm not nearly so ballzy though - i'm gonna hoof it over to the bank, cash that puppy and then come back to drop zee bomb. it's a hard thing to do; i don't remember doing it before (though i know i have) so i guess that means it's never been terribly traumatic. the thing that truly IS traumatic, you see, is that i'm conFLICTed about all this. i know the move is one closer to the real me/my heart/what i really care about and all that - and in fact i DO know that this is the right decision - but shoot it is hard to give up what i got goin on here, people! take this, for example:

this from a mtn bike ride on one of my favorite twisty, crazy-turny trails behind my work (where i run, too, if i'm feeling extra-energetic.) i mean, this job has been GOOD, honestly! i've learned how to develop & market product from knowing NOTHING at all about such things; i've worked out of a Hong Kong office and smelled the toxic manufacturing in Chinese factories firsthand, er...nose (?); i've laughed more and harder in my office than probably anywhere else EVER (and that is a lot of laughs, i'm tellin you); i ride bikes or run in the beautiful redwood forests every single day at lunch. oh yeah, and i live in a great beach town with a great job with a steadily advancing careerpath and mo' money every year. i sometimes feel like a crazyperson for leaving. (and i sometimes just plain feel like a crazyperson, but that's another topic.)

i guess, though, it's kind of like a death. like, it's got to be good to mourn things when they go away, right? it doesn't necessarily mean it's good for you or that you should stay, if you're sad to see something go. emotions get confusing sometimes, for me. luckily, i have the tools (the horrific PETA videos that RUIN ME for DAYS, for example!) to remind me why i would leave the wonderful world of giant-bikeseats-for-walmart. oy. something to bring some clarity when my emotions are all over the map. i've made lots of money before - and the only difference it made was that i paid for gas on roadtrips with my ex-bf and i paid off my car sooner. that's all. money is nothin. it's my PEOPLE that i'll miss. waaaaah.

be prepared for some lonely-ass, regretful-sounding entries over the next few weeks/months while i mourn this loss, mmmkay? [i've just scared off the one reader i have, i'm sure!] wish me luck!!!

lordie

so. recent events here in the lovely beach town have made me revisit the question, yet again, of WHY I AM SO AFRAID OF RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. and it turns out - its not even religious ZEALOUTS but just religious PEOPLE about whom, before you know their clean little secret, you might even be saying to yourself "MAN this person's cool" or "what is so different and refreshing about this person? i can't quite place it..." and then it comes out, somehow in some way, that they're intensely religious - on some not-so-obvious-at-first level. i have no idea yet why i still freak out at the use of the capital H in "doing His will" and "serving Him" (the gender thing? what, no female gods? wtf?) - but i think i'm getting closer on the whole general-fear-of religiosos issue: Since no one on this earth can say with any certainty exactly what or who God is and/or how any of us really got here, etc. - anyone who declares their god as the ONE god and who judges those that don't follow theirs, kinda instantly becomes an a-hole. don't you think? seriously. i swear humans LOOK for ways to distance themselves from others - to turn other humans (with whom it's an unfathomable miracle you even share the same TIME on this planet much less that you share geography and a language, blahblahblah) into the strangest strangers possible. i think i do it too. OR, there's the urge for us to make everyone else just like us. that's, i guess, the flip side. it's bizarre. how did *different* come to so naturally mean "scary" or "wrong"? we're wierd. and i'm kinda wierd for posting this on a saturday night. but i feel some small obligation to keep this blog occasionally-updated, and this is what's on my mind tonight. oki doki? okay then.

me leave you long time

sorry about that. i've been BUSY yall! but i was just inspired tonight by the newly-established blog-of-a-friend (started in a library!) and now want to get back to posting myself. having just read through my most recent post, i have some updating-you to do:
1. i am about to sign an offer letter with aforementioned animal rights organization.
2. still vegan, though a sometimes cheatin' one. (the cheatin vegans have GOT to be a band already, don't they?)
3. i'm getting nervous about leaving my work/my people - and a little bit: good money & a burgeoning career.
4. i'm done running marathons for a while and i'm feeling like a porker. my friend (former friend that is) at work today called me Gorda. that wasn't funny.
5. my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in vegas last month.
6. i went to hong kong, china and taiwan for work two weeks ago for 10 days and my head exploded.

details on a few of these: 1 is self explanatory - i've got 6 weeks till i start and am hoping to get to Peru to see a travelling friend-i-never-met-yet before i start. that will be interesting, travel always rules. nothin more to say on 2 - oh, except that i think i'm the only vegan in the history of man to actually GAIN weight after givin up The Cheese. oh yeah, and i discovered a friggin DULISHUS (!) soy icecream tonight from traders - holy crap. 3. ooh, 3 is a big one. see, i'm a social kinda gal - like, a REALLY social one. working with my CATS from HOME will have its benefits - but it also freaks my shit out. i laugh (and hard!) every damn day of work, i'm not exaggerating. these people are awesome. you know who you are kittens - you are the Wind beneath my Wings. okay, that seemed funnier when i was singing it to myself. anyhow - wait, this deserves a paragraph break - this is (i think) a thought which i want to concentrate on by itself:

change is effing hard. maybe b/c life is CONSTANTLY changing - that the world NEVER stops spinning, the light of day is FOREVER changing, plants/animals/people are growing/changing/dying/etc and it seems logical that, as a species, we would look for some consistency - some ritual, yeah? i love ritual. i'm nothing without my coffee-in-a-coffeeshop before work, by the way. anyway - my new mantra is (oh and it's a doozy, an original, prepare yourself): Change Is Good. even change JUST for the sake of change, i think. - but even moreso when it's pointed, directed. and dammit it's hard to lift yourself (myself) out of my current situation. but (!) - i've found a little trick to get me back on track and excited: whenever i think i should continue making bike seats (and holy crap, now that i've been to the chinese factories where they're made, it's easier to see i should get out of this business - but still, i have moments - okay days - of weakness) , i envision an elephant doing a handstand in a circus. or a monkey stuck in some weird machine. and i remember. okay. i'm done. where was i.

4. who cares. there's fat-times and thin-times and no one else ever fucking notices a difference anyway - so that's a supreme waste of energy. 5. that was bizarre. awesome AWESOME to see some fam members i haven't seen in years - i'll try to attach a pic of my much-adored nephew henry and me. (my parents renewed their vows in the shopping mall at the Venetian!?!? and rode the gondola!?!? i'm tellin you, my last month has been SUR-REAL. 6. HK was rad and crazy and i realized i can never live in an enormous city where you literally cannot walk a straight line hardly anywhere. yikes. china scared the crap outta me. i have a lot to say about that, but i think this post - she be gettin too long. i'll let it lie there, yeah?

thanks peoples! xo