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