cathedrals

I love this song. So does The Shamana. It's "Cathedrals" by Jump Little Children.


In the shadows of tall buildings
Of fallen angels on the ceilings
Oily feathers in bronze and concrete
Faded colors, pieces left incomplete
The line moves slowly past the electric fence
Across the borders between continents
In the cathedrals of New York and Rome
There is a feeling that you should just go home
And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is
In the shadows of tall buildings
The architecture is slowly peeling
Marble statues and glass dividers
Someone is watching all of the outsiders
The line moves slowly through the numbered gate
Past the mosaic of the head of state

(chorus)In the shadows of tall buildings
Of open arches endlessly kneeling
Sonic landscapes echoing vistas
Someone is listening from a safe distance
The line moves slowly into a fading light
A final moment in the dead of night

the hanging of artwork

I spent most of last night hanging artwork at Plant Zero, where tonight The Richmond Show (the biggest advertising awards show in the region) will take place. It was a long night . . . didn't get out until around 10:45, but it was a lot of fun.

Against all odds, I did not get lost finding the place from work. This was the Achievement of All Achievements. Now, finding the art space where they were hanging work WITHIN Plant Zero was a different story. You see, there are a ton of galleries and art studios at this place and when I walked in, there was an art show going on in one of the front galleries and I was like "Hmmm . . . I have no idea where I'm going." I tried to walk around and look like I knew where I was going (admiring the art work, etc.) but I really had no clue. I think the people at the art show knew, too. They were giving me interesting looks. I tried to call my friend, the VP of the Ad Club, who was running this whole thing, but he didn't answer his phone. Eventually, though, I decided to explore the building and found the art space that I was looking for.

So here was the setup team: 3 Ad Club Board members (including me) and five or six VCU advertising students. And we had massive amounts of work to hang. The space had a pipe & black/white panel decor and we were supposed to hang the work by fish line and binder clips from the top of the pipes. This task required a ladder as tall as the Empire State Building and some very delicate hanging and clipping sensibilities. I met two very cool VCU boys and we became a team. One of them I shall call Green Eyes.

Green Eyes and I became fast friends and he decided, after knowing me for about 3 hours, that he had license to mess with me. For example, when we were cutting fishing line, he would pull on the line so hard that I lost grip on the spindle and it would go flying 10 feet away - something which he found really funny. Of course, I did not feel bad laughing at him when a woman walked in on him in the unisex bathroom.

When we were leaving, we noticed two cats in the building and a litter box. Apparently, the owners of Plant Zero own two cats and allow them to stay in the building. How cool is that?

I'm excited about tonight. Green Eyes and I are working the front door. We get to check people off the list with an air of importance. I'm a little sad that we don't get headsets so that I can talk into mine and say things like "Um, VP, we have a situation out here" and "Code Blue! I repeat Code Blue!" (I don't know what Code Blue would mean, but it sounds cool).

I am determined to be lazy all day so that I can be not so lazy tonight. This evening is going to be an important one for networking and looking good. Heh.

vampire hunting & vegetarian hypocrisy

If there is one thing that I learned about vampire hunting this weekend, it is that vampires are tricky little creatures that won't die unless you employ three weapons in succession: garlic, a wooden stake and a sword. How do I know this, you ask? Did I spend the weekend staring glazedly at episodes of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" ? Did I find the need to go to the library and max out my library card on vampire literature? Do I harbor an as-yet-unpublicized obsession with the novels of Ann Rice? No, no . . . and no. And, in case you were thinking it, I most definitely did NOT watch "Interview With A Vampire."

I did, however, battle zombies, werewolves and vampires with J.HumHum this weekend. He came to visit and brought the board game "Vampire Hunter." You have to play the game with the lights out and there is a tower in the center of the board that glows red and blue and lights up various parts of the game board. We each got a little plastic vampire hunter figure in order to Battle Evil and I have to say that my vampire hunter was definitely the more capable hunter. True, techinically I didn't win the game, but my hunter fought her way through with more finesse and I'll just say it . . . good, plain old sanity, than J.HumHum's vampire hunter - who had a tendency to hang by his head from the tower, cry with fear when approaching monsters . . . etc.

It was fun. :)

Before we fought the Powers of Darkness, we had to satisfy our appetites, so I introduced J.HumHum to the Richmond restaurant scene by taking him to Iponema, a vegetarian restaurant down in the VCU area. Neither of us are vegetarians, but I enjoy hummus (as everyone knows) and they have a really good hummus sandwich and the bartender has a really cool beard AND there is a wooden mermaid on the wall. We discussed whether or not they would be able to tell that we weren't "real" vegetarians. Luckily, we made it through dinner without blowing our cover. On Sunday we further buried ourselves in vegetarian hypocrisy by eating at Double T's, a barbeque place in Carytown. But I had the situation all under control, as I kept my eyes peeled for Iponema spies. True, one might argue that neither one of those places really cared about whether we were true vegetarians because heck, we paid them for their food . . . but you never know.

It was a good weekend. A Frisbee was tossed, a lake was admired, a shirt was purchased that says "Don't play leap frog with unicorns" and a metal robot found a new home. Good times.

smile pretty rue, come on now . . .

First of all, I've eaten an ungodly amount of hummus today. Just so you know.

So, today was Rue's big Photo Shoot. I "hired" as in "kindly asked/begged" my new friend The Photographer Extraordinaire to take some glamour shots of Her Highness as I did not have a digital camera and the film that is currently in my camera is black and white . . . which doesn't do much to highlight her beautiful orange color.

Rue wasn't very cooperative to begin with. Probably because I got her high on catnip and although that occupied her for eh . . . 5 solid minutes . . . it left her a little spastic for a while. I kept trying to distract her with toys, snap my fingers to get her to turn her head in a particular direction. It was like I had a child and was busy making goofy faces behind the camera in order to catch that "moment." But 4-year-old cats are smarter than human babies, I think, and Rue soon picked up on what was going on.

She picked up so much on what was going on that she finally realized that this photo shoot was all about her and began to perform brilliantly. Once The Photographer Extraordinaire and I got her on my bed, she was striking poses like a seasoned veteran. Some really cute pictures were taken of Rue and me.

Here is a list of various expressions Rue decided to portray in her first photo shoot, this day, the 18th of April:
- Annoyed
- I'm Cleaning In Between My Legs Why The Hell Are You Trying To Take My Picture
- *Blink*
- Catnip-Induced Blank Stare
- Catnip-Induced Psychotic Stare
- Butt-Wiggle In Combination With The I'm About To Pounce At That Motionless Bit Of Feather NOW Stare
- I'm Pretty.
- I'm Really Pretty.
- I'm Prettier Than My Owner.
- Seriously, I Am.

The Photographer Extraordinaire is working on loading the pictures onto his computer and once I get them I will probably post a few. :) How exciting!

By the way, I'd like to give a shout out to the most dastardly pirate out there: J.HumHum. Avast! Walk the plank! Aargh! Treasure! Woooooooot!

Ok, now I must go and work off the ungodly amount of hummus that I ate.

automated paper towel dispenser therapy

Today I discovered some really good therapy for those days when you are pissed off at the world and those days that just completely and utterly suck (both of those types of days = today). If you are fortunate enough in your place of work or wherever you happen to be to have one of those motion sensor paper towel dispensers, then make one of the paper towels come out and then RIP IT OFF AS FAST AND AS FURIOUSLY AS YOU CAN, like you are ripping someone's head off their neck and you don't care in the slightest that this means that they will die. Honestly, it feels great. Just channel all of your rage into a comparable level of aggression towards the paper towel and just RIP. If it wasn't for the automated paper towel dispenser in the ladies restroom today, the stapler might have been in trouble.

a pool shark who hates her car

If a "pool shark" is defined as someone who, on occasion, gets the intended ball into a pocket (by accident) and humbly provides amusement for the rest of the people playing pool by completely missing all the balls on the table . . . then I am a bona fide pool shark of the highest order.

We got off of work early today and a bunch of the Creatives invited me to come with them down the street to play pool, drink beer and overall to just be cool for about two hours. I sauntered on into the place and found a great place on the wall from which to observe the hard core pool players but someone (me) managed to get wrangled into joining one of the teams. Ok, it wasn't really "wrangled" so much as " jumped at the chance." There I was, playing pool with three guys. My partner and I talked trash while we continued to lose (although, I have to say that at one point I got two balls in the pocket in a row and we did win one game . . . out of three) and I did my best to get three beers into my partner because apparently, that's how many he says he needs in order play pool well. Yeah. I told him maybe he should try three at once next time. :)

It was a lot of fun. Actually, a whole lot of FUNNY because when one of the guys was bending over to shoot pool some of the other ones would yell, "I wish I could QUIT you!" a la Brokeback Mountain <---- so began a multitude of Brokeback Mountain jokes. And my personal favorite, from The I'm Always Fabulous One : "So . . . my first . . . kiss . . . was on top of a pool table" - from which followed the successive whiplash of all of the men near us towards our direction and inquiries along the lines of what exactly happened on the pool table again??

Now on to the part about how I hate my car. I hate it. I have evidence now about my Murphy's Law of Shopping. I go and buy a bunch of stuff from Target and then the @#(*(@#* plastic thing that shifts the gears in my car decides to break! GAH!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank goodness I plan on winning the $220 million dollar lottery tonight, even though I didn't buy a ticket. If that somehow falls through, then I'm going to trade my car in for tricycle. I'm serious. A blue one. With silver metallic tassles.

i present to you a dandelion

So, I was just sitting at my desk this morning. Mind you - just sitting there - when a boy comes in with his mother who happens to work at the company here on the first floor. I'd say he was somewhere in the age range of 10-13, black, on the chubby side and was wearing a gold turtleneck. I shall dub him The Golden One.


The Golden One says hello to me when he comes in and I say hello, thinking nothing of it. Then he comes and sits on the chair right in front of my desk . . . and he just sits there . . . and stares at me . . . for 15 minutes. Me, being rather disconcerted by this attention, decide that it is in my best interest to avoid eye contact. So, The Golden One gets up and leaves. He then walks back in and hands me a dandelion. I was rather startled but managed to get out a "Thank you" followed by "What's your name?" And sorry - I can't remember it now. I think that I said "thank you" at least 3 more times after that because I really didn't know what to say.


Ok, so then his mother is finally ready to leave and they walk out. I get back to work and then happen to look up at the door to find The Golden One there. I let him in and he hands me a McDonald's happy meal toy (a plastic hand-held sega genisis) and tells me how to turn it on. Then he precedes to continue to stare at me as he walks out of the door.


???? I'd like to know exactly what it is that I'm doing. For some reason, every male in the world who is either collecting Social Security, is a baby, is a Chester with a molesterstache, or an unnattainable man, is attracted to me. Not that I'm complaining, attention is nice every once and a while . . . but I'm starting to notice a pattern here that I'm not too fond of.

Maybe the supposed "clump of eyeliner or mascara" located on my lower right eyelid (a fact pointed out to me by The Zim) is to blame for this whole thing.

of trees and valleys

The following is a true account of the events that conspired during the weekend of April 7th through April 9th, in the year 2006:

So, last weekend, The Shamana and I went to Massanutten to escape from the craziness that has been our lives since the beginning of the year. Right after work, I bolted home, hoping to see The Shamana waiting in the parking lot outside of my apartment. Alas, her SUV was no where to be found. So, I putzed around the apartment, kindofsortof finishing packing, but in reality, just tossing a few things into my suitcase every five minutes in between playing with Rue, begging her forgiveness for leaving (which she seemed to know I was about to do) and watching the news. I also tried calling The Shamana, but she wasn't answering her phone. From the news I learned that there were an abnormal amount of accidents on 64W, which of course caused a delay because all you need on 64W anyway is for someone to look at a tree as they are driving by and then there is a 6 mile back up. Anyway, The Shamana finally arrived and I finished packing and we set sail . . . minus the sail part. And the water.

Gas was needed for "Becky" (The Shamana's name for her SUV) so we went to a gas station down the road. While The Shamana got gas for Becky, I recounted to her my amazingly fun anecdotes about how this gas station was normally inhabited by sketchy Mexican men with a penchant for blantant staring at anything female that is mildly attractive. Well, I guess just anything female. But of course, no sketchy Mexican men appeared when we got gas this time so my stories were unsubstantiated. After getting gas, we needed to get ice for our cooler - and friends, events occured with the getting of ice that I have never seen before. Mum's the word on that story, however.

As we were leaving the gas station this occured:
*SUV drives over large metal object, creating unnaturally loud noise*
*Kelly jumps ten feet in the air and by reflex utters a string of profanities that would make a veteran sailor drop his jaw in shock*
*The Shamana stares at Kelly and starts laughing. Continues laughing and reliving said experience for rest of trip. Even goes so far as to make an acronym of said bad words for easy use*

Anyway, so we're driving to the mountains and it's dark because we were late leaving. Then, of course, we drive right into a torrential downpour. Great lightening show, but we weren't too fond of the driving on mountain roads in the dark, in a near rain out with trucks in front of us splashing water onto the windshield. The Harry Potter audio book that we were listening to offered relative comfort, but as mentioned in the previous post, thoughts of imminent death were not far from our minds. At one point where visibility was in the lower 10 percentile, we were screaming things like "AAAAHHHHH" "Dear God!" and "If you survive, you can have my stereo."

We finally make it to Massanutten and head into the check in area, which surprisingly was full of extremely attractive male workers our age, minus one female who looked like a man. As is our life, we get the gender-ambiguous check-in lady and therefore can not put our powers of flirtation to good use in order to obtain free perks. After obtaining our keys, we get in the car and wander aimlessly up and down summits until we find our condo, which we initially miss, causing The Shamana to have to do a K-turn on a tiny mountain road with a plummeting cliff on one side. Up until that point I had been singing "Climb Every Mountain" (something that I had been waiting to do all evening) but my serenade was then interrupted by me praying that we didn't fall off the cliff.

We eventually find our condo at the top of the summit and it was amazing. Nicer than any hotel that I've stayed in. It was absolutely huge - had a master bedroom with it's own bathroom and tv, another bedroom with two twin beds, a massive bathroom with a huge jacuzzi (seriously you could fit 6 people in there, and the walls around it were covered in mirros . . um . . yeah . . .), a kitchen, dining room and living room with a gas fireplace and big screen tv. We also had a screened-in balcony with a gorgeous view of the mountains and the valley. The rest of the night we just chilled out. Watched tv, relaxed . . . made smores.

Saturday it rained all day, so we stayed in for most of the morning and afternoon. It was sooo relaxing. We watched movies and each did a painting. That afternoon we went to The Shamana's sister's house to visit her brother-in-law and nephew because they live close by. They took us to a local book fair, which was my heaven on earth. It was a warehouse full of new books that ranged in price from $1-$4. !!!! I bought two books for $6 - one containing Oscar Wilde plays and Vanity Fair. Yeah, I stuck with the literature genre. Then we went back to the house and ordered Chinese, played with their kitty Ezzy and with The Shamana's little nephew (who by the way is adorable). On the way back to our condo, we checked out a movie at Blockbuster, where I decided to make friends with/scare shamelessly the cute checkout guy:

Blond check out guy: Ok, let me get this over with. *ahem* Would you like to buy a tub of our popcorn to enjoy with your movie? . . . Sorry, I have to ask.
Me: We just ate, but thank you.
Blond check out guy: Sometimes it's a good snack . . .
Me: We just had Chinese.
Blond check out guy: Oh. Maybe it's not such a good idea then.
Me: Probably not. Chinese and popcorn . . .mmm . . .
Blond check out guy: This is due back next week.
Me: Well, we're only here for the weekend. *WINK*
Blond check out guy: Um . . . ok . . . uh . . . have a good night . . .

After we watched the movie, I took a nice, long bath in the jacuzzi. Oh, it was soooo nice. Sunday morning we decided that we wanted to go for a hike. So we pack up my bookbag with water bottles and granola bars, a camera, a map . . . and we can't find the dagon trail for the life of us. Here we were, all prepared to scale mountains and brave the wild and we couldn't even find the trail. So, we decided on the next best thing . . . putt putt. In order to pretend like we are hiking and getting at least a little bit of exercise, we decide to walk to the putt putt course from where we parked our car looking for the trail.

We get to the putt putt course and get our clubs, balls, etc. The man at the front desk was a little unclear as to how we were supposed to get to the "lower course" so we end up walking around the outside of the fence that surrounds the entire course, having to scale rocks and traverse over grassy knolls, all the while looking like idiots to the cars passing by and the putt putt players on the other side of the fence. Eventually, us two college graduates figure out how to get to the first hole (which really just involved walking into the actual entrance to the course). We pretended like we were on a vigorous hike during the course of the game, stopping for water and granola bar breaks inbetween holes, garnering the raised eyebrows of numerous people around us. I got two hole in ones (very unusual for me) but only won the game by one stroke.

After putt putt, we get back to the condo, clean and pack up, then hit the road. We decide to take the back country way (as it was sunny and nice outside) and stop by a pottery store/studio that was off the road in the mountains. It has gorgeous pottery, and I wanted the entire collection, but decided that I should hold off on such a big purchase. We managed to head the wrong direction on the road that we were traveling but eventually figured it out . . . the rest of the drive was uneventful. Although, I have to admit, that after a few hours of beautiful countryside and back country roads, we were more than ready to hop on an interstate. We managed to find 64E and got back to Richmond in one piece.

Ah . . . but we didn't want to return.

indiana jones & co. in the mountains

So, The Shamana and I are about to embark on a journey of epic proportions a la Indiana Jones - fighting evil, raiding arks that are lost, locating temples of doom, Winning The Good Fight, looking dusty, rugged (and muddy) from struggles through vast wastelands in search of legendary treasure (yet still looking incredibly hot) . . . all in the course of one weekend. Except we will be in the mountains, far from deserts and temples of doom and lost arks. And we'll be staying in luxurious accomodations on the summit. We won't even have to cook over an open campfire, because we have a full kitchen. But the spirit of adventure is still with us. And count on it - if we come across Evil & Doom, we will kick its butt. And take names. Although, I guess their names would be "Evil" and "Doom." Eh. Whatever, I'm beginning to digress.


My only area of concern is the drive up the mountainside. Brave and heroic that we are, full of all that is courageous and Good, one of us (me) has a penchant towards motion sickness and hilly, twisting roads do not get along with my tummy. The Shamana sometimes thinks that massive hills and mountains have a death wish against her car/jeep/vehicle. I can see it now:

*mountain looms*

The Shamana: Oh Dear God.
Me: I think we are going to die.
The Shamana: I think so.
Me: So this is what it feels like to be practically vertical in a moving vehicle.
The Shamana: Do you feel like we're about to plummet backwards onto the cars behind us and explode into a ball of fire?
Me: I was just thinking that.
The Shamana: Huh. That would suck.
Me: Yeah. But at least we'll die in the mountains . . . which are pretty? Right?
The Shamana: I guess it's the whole "the more beautiful a thing is, the more deadly it is" concept.
Me: Hence why we're so deadly.
The Shamana: . . .
Me: Cause . . . you know . . .
The Shamana: . . .
Me: Ok. I was just trying to make us feel better about ourselves before we die.
The Shamana: Oh. Yeah. Um. I feel better.

richmond, i duel thee

The only thing that I have ever known that I am allergic to is penicillin/amoxicillin - you know, life-saving drugs. And I can deal with that fact. One thing I cannot deal with, or I guess, would really like to not have to deal with is the fact that I may be allergic to Richmond in the springtime. Here I present my evidence: I constantly have a stuffy nose and my head feels like it is not attached to my head for a good portion of the day. My head has been tight and headache-y since the trees began to bud. Furthermore, I have never lived in Richmond in the springtime and there could be flora and fauna here that don't reside in Virginia Beach where I grew up, so my body is like "Whoa. New tree. I think I'll have a headache now," and (to my nose) "GAH! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!! IT'S RICHMOND POLLEN!"

Now, I know some of you out there are like, "Well . . . you know . . . there is such a thing as allergy medication . . ." Believe me, I know. I suffer through the commercials with the rest of America. But, I'd prefer not to take allergy medication for various and assorted reasons. I know - then I am willingly letting myself suffer and I shouldn't complain about it. To that I retort, "Well, there are other ways to fight allergies!" *slaps Richmond with a glove.*

In other news: My cat Rue decided last night that the best place in my apartment to sit was on top of my bills - while I was working on them. I informed her that I, too, did not like bills - looking at them, or paying them - but if she didn't get off of the bills and I didn't pay them, then she'd be out of a home, and food . . . and toys . . .