I guess whenever I say nothing to update today, I might as well add "yet" on the end: I started the gray trim a little. (I probably should have just finished this part off, but I only poured a small amount of paint out. Also you can see the difference from the cream color to the gray color.)



Obviously considering it's my house and all, I would not pick colors if I didn't like them, but I must say I did an awesome job of picking these!! Hahaha. I really love how it's turning out.

Hello,

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You have an opportunity to help scientists understand the ways that physiology affects behavior.

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I can't seem to get it into my head that yes, almost everyone does have some kind of acne or blemishes that they're sensitive about. Instead, I completely obsess about my own and they ruin my mood on a regular basis. They're not even "that bad"... and I know that logically, but I still think that everyone's staring at them and that people will think I'm a terrible person because I have like 2 or 3 zits. And I feel like everyone else has this beautiful, perfect skin and I'm the weird almost-20-year-old who still has pimples.
And advice? And not like acne treatment advice... I have all the stuff, it's just a matter of time, I think. Until then, though, I don't want to feel so awful about myself all the time.
Thank you:)

Hi! I just joined like, five minutes ago, and I have a question. When I was younger, I got severe sunburns on my shoulders on several different occasions - they would blister and it was just really bad. But, I've been noticing that now, several sunburn free years later, my shoulders are still really sensitive to the touch. They tingle and almost tickle - I can't have anyone putting their hand on my shoulder for a long period of time, or I start to squirm.


Do you think there could be any connection between the sunburns and my sensitivity?


Thanks,
Anna 

I know it's time for sleep when I start seeing mice darting around the very edges of my peripheral vision.

For the record, there are no mice here. I run a clean ship.

Due to packing and other preparations for my journey, the place looks like a bomb hit. Please, guys, wait until I am OUT of Los Angeles before leveling it, thank you very much.  Needless to say, no more visitors to my disheveled abode - they would trip on the rubble and I would have a lawsuit on my hands (it's normal here).

This is as close to living like Robinson Crusoe as I have come since leaving NY.

Today I finished touching up the paint on my Ugly Subaru Station Wagon Kit. See - I don't want anyone to know that it is actually a Rolls-Royce, because it could get stolen, so I hide my fancy car under the station wagon body - it's pretty convincing, eh? I aged it myself by driving through the woods.

:D


UPDATE - 5:40am - the truth is that I am too busy cracking up laughing about something which is too bizarre to mention here. It is good to be so vigorously amused, but it is keeping me hopelessly awake. I'll give a hint - it has something to do with a book by Hiroyuki Nishigaki...

I shall reveal no more...

so i think i'm going to go on the 2468 diet just to see how it works with my hydroxycut...

i just hate eating alot, it sometimes makes me sick just thinking about how much i have to eat... but then i burn it off so i don't know what i am complaining about... 

but tonight i have work at the strip club and i knwo its just going to HELL for my body... because I ONLY WORK DRUNK! 

i'm nervous though... i dont' know why i've worked there for like 3 months... 

but I HAVE to start getting my stomach flatter

everything is okay and nice to where i'm happier about it but i have a little itty bitty stomach pooch and its pissing me off... 

my boyfriend is graduating from his officer sea school... he's an E5 (which is really good) and i want to go to his graduation, so his parents (whom i have never met) bought me a ticket to see him... so here is my time line...

May 13- May 28 I am in Hawaii
May 28- May 29 crossing the ocean, going to texas but i have a 9 HOUR LAYOVER!!!
May 29- June 29 I am in San Antonio getting ready for basic training
June 30 I'm going to San Diego to see him graduate, and we are driving back to texas
July 1-July 15 spending time with him
July 20-September BASIC TRAINING!!!
September 2008- August 2012 JAPAN, KOREA, AFRICA, and IRAQ!!!

lol i have NO TIME to get FAT. 

and i know i am going to gain weight somewhere...

with my big fat huge poochy pooch. lol

I NEED TO GET RID OF IT!!!!

have any of you ever had a cortisone injection? i have something called a "trigger finger" on my ring finger- which means that it is slowly bending and it is very painful to straighten out. i type a lot and play the piano, but there is usually no initial injury that sets this off.
anyway, after 6 weeks of therapy with no improvement, i opted for the cortisone injection this morning. i know it is a steriod, but the site (the joint in my hand where it was shot) is SO terribly sore right now. she said after the bruise from the shot goes away it should feel much better. does anyone know anything about it? thanks ladies!

Hello all, I'm 19 going on 20, and attempting to go on a diet. My default weight is between 44 and 45 kilograms, but since I moved to Edinburgh (extremely cold), I've put on about 2 kg and now weigh around 47 or 47.5 (I hardly dare to check). It doesn't sound like much at all, but I'm only 5'1 and naturally pear-shaped, and it really shows, especially around my bum and waist.

So, ladies - if you want to lose a small amount of weight and stay that way, what do you normally do? What do you eat to reduce cravings? I think I should cut down on sugary food, but it's so hard not to want it. I also have this problem where I'm compelled to take one or two bites out of whatever dessert my boyfriend's eating, which I initially thought was a good way to enjoy dessert without absorbing all the calories, but I guess those bites do accumulate.

Today, for the record, I have eaten:
1. Bowl of semi-skimmed milk and Special K.
2. Banana.
3. Viennese truffle worth 55 calories
4. Chicken tikka wrap.
4. Muller's Corner (vanilla choco balls) yoghurt - apparently worth 226 calories.

Obviously I shouldn't have eaten the truffle and yoghurt, or at least opted for a healthier alternative - but I'm thinking since I don't eat dinner at all (yep, that's it for today) and chose a healthy lunch, I should allow myself some indulgence. And the truffles were going out of date (ha). Thoughts?

Apologies if a similar question's been asked.

Now you find out how weird I really am (as if you did not already know).  What is keeping me awake and writing at 3am?

Some of you know that I have a tremendous interest in a crumbling Victorian mansion in the Hudson Valley, known as Wyndcliffe. It's the one in my LJ userpics and the ruin in the background picture on my journal page. I have collected a variety of artifacts from the place including 5 different wallpaper samples (which I will frame when I get back East), an old decorative candle, two samples of etched glass from the hemispherical windows, an encyclopedia from about 1900, some samples of its elaborate brickwork, a curtain, some foundation bricks, and an ornamental silver cigarette holder manufactured in Mexico. After innumerable hours of research into the place, and many late nights, I discovered this veritable Holy Grail of Wyndcliffe artifacts.




This chair is nearly seven feet tall and was designed by George Veitch, the Scottish architect who designed the mansion for Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, its original resident, in 1853. It was part of a set of six that once stood in Wyndcliffe's entry hall, a room through which I have probably passed over a hundred times. It's a lot nicer than the tattered chair I used to have from there that I had to leave behind in a hidden location - I wonder if it is still there...

Anyway, I am currently in touch with the current owner of the chair who invited me to come check it out in NYC. A colleague of his has another chair from the set, and he believes the others may still be out there. An item like this retains its value forever, and is surprisingly inexpensive. The upholstery is original and in excellent condition. It is very likely that Edith Wharton (the niece of Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones), Henry and William James, and members of the Astor family have sat in these chairs. I would be telling a half-truth, however, if I left out that my embarrassing wish in collecting so many of these artifacts is that some ghostly, ethereal residue from bygone ages will somehow leach out of the objects and into my living quarters. It's a long shot, but I've had many of those. I have already experienced several inexplicable and sometimes frightening phenomena in that house, some of which were witnessed by others. I won't list them here, but ask if you are interested, even if only for the anachronistic amusement of listening to the ravings of a 21st-century man who believes in ghosts.

In 9 years of researching the mansion and 100+ visits, I have never seen a find like this. Short of digging around the mansion's basement with a metal detector and risking an arrest for trespassing (it was purchased by a very visionary person from NYC with the resources and formidable patience necessary to restore it) this is about the best artifact I could hope to find from that most mysterious of ruins. To a collector, it is just a dime-a-dozen Victorian chair. To me, it is a relic - I would be happy to have it just for its own sake. But if the new owner of the mansion is as hellbent on an accurate historic restoration as I have heard, then it will potentially be a relic for him too, and one that he might be willing to pay top dollar for someday to complete the set. It's a win-win situation.  Interestingly, the new owner used to camp out in the ruin some years ago, as I did. 

So as my apartment grows sparse with decoration and the stack of boxes grows higher, I find the increasing lack of distractions lends itself to ruminations. I remember Leonard Cohen singing "I choose the rooms that I live in with care, the windows are small and the walls almost bare, There is only one bed and only one chair." I am reflecting upon the past year, remembering how much work it was to pack everything up, sell things, and hit the road. This time, though, things are easier. I never really settled here - something in the back of my mind never allowed me too. Maybe it was an unconscious doubt that I could ever be at home in the city, or perhaps I was just being cautious about putting roots too deep into the pavement here. Either way, I am finding objects that I have not seen since I packed them a year ago. We'll see how the packing goes - I think once I ship the boxes I have packed already, I should have just the right amount of space.
Today I touched up the rust spots on my car and reattached a piece of trim on the outside that I had removed to do a repair but never got around to replacing.

I am trying to be more positive about my time here.  True, it feels like an exile of sorts, but maybe that is a good thing.  After all, this was a learning experience.  I learned about what I need in my life, and what I can do without.  I became more resilient, and more resourceful.  I know that I would have enjoyed this year more if I had stayed on the East Coast, but I very likely would have gained none of the wisdom my trials here have afforded me.

So, maybe on the surface, coming to L.A. was a mistake, but I shudder to think of myself without the acquired insights I now possess.

If all goes according to plan, thanks to the Internet, tomorrow I will have in my collection the complete, one and only (an prematurely canceled at that) first season of Cop Rock, the ill-fated musical crime show from 1990. Here is a memorable clip:

Death, old admiral, up anchor now,
this country wearies us.  Put out to sea!
What if the waves and winds are black as ink,
our hearts are filled with light.  You know our hearts!

Pour us your poison, let us be comforted!
Once we have burned our brains out, we can plunge
to Hell or Heaven - any abyss will do -
deep in the Unknown to find the new!

- Charles Baudelaire

Wow, I´m sick of doubt
Live in the light of certain South
Cruel bindings
The servants have the power -
Dog men and their mean women
Pulling poor blankets over our sailors
I´m sick of dour faces
Staring at me from the T.V. Tower
I want roses in my garden bower; dig?
Royal babies, rubies
Must now replace aborted
Strangers in the mud
These mutants, blood meal
for the plant that´s plowed

They are waiting to take us into the severed garden
Do you know, how pale and wanton thrillful
Comes death in a strange hour
Unannounced, unplanned for
like a scaring, over-friendly guest you´ve brought to bed?
Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings
Where we had shoulders, smooth as ravens claws

No more money, no more fancy dress
This other kingdom seems by far the best
Until it´s other jaw reveals incest
And loose obedience to a vegetable law

I will not go
I prefer a feast of friends
To the giant family

-Jim Morrison, An American Prayer

so alot of you have been asking about the hydroxycut hardcore and it seriously works, but you have to eat alot of protein with it.. .like eggs, beans, meat whatever... 

you can't really buy hydroxycut anywhere, someplaces its hard to find. since i'm military i can just go run over at the GNC and get it there... here's a website though... it has a link to where you can buy it... don't forget to take EXTRA VITAMINS!!!

http://www.muscletech.com/products/hydroxycut_hardcore/index.shtml

but with me... well i've been losing ALOT of fat and gaining "pretty" muscles... they aren't like the guy on the website but i look pretty nice.. kinda like christina milian's (sp?) body!  but i work about about a total of 21 hours a week. no breaks no nothing. i take a 5 hour energy shot and i good to go, even if i'm feeling sluggish.. they are 4 calories and they taste okay... 

but i've kinda stopped "shedding" the weight like i used to. but i'm still losing weight..  i'm looking nice and feeling great... since i have so much self confidence i dont' really binge anymore... and i also don't feel hungry. 

but we will see.. 

i'm sad though because i move from HAWAII to TEXAS on MAY 28!!! i'm going to miss HAWAII so much! thank goodness my parents live here, so i can always come home to visit! well we will see! but good going girls! i know that we can all do it!!!

sarah

I really wasn't intending to do any work tonight on the room. I bought this stuff earlier to strip the paint from the doors, and I thought I would at least put it on the one door because I could leave it for 24 hours if I felt like it. It ended up working so well (and there was only one coat of paint on the door apparently) that I am nearly done with the one door already! It obviously needs some work still, but for the first coat I think it went really well. I put another coat on, and I'll take that off tomorrow. Let it soak into all the corners.

The stripping stuff I got was basically the only one I saw that said it didn't have harsh fumes and require some serious ventilation. So it's not going to kill me (or the ferrets) even though it's cold and the windows are all closed, which is really nice.

I had to open the door at one point to get at certain parts, but I didn't want the kids running all around and eating paint stripper and just wreaking havoc basically, so I stuck them in the bathroom. They weren't thrilled about that, but oh well. When I went back to get them, Daisy was in the bathtub.



I don't really care for dark wood like this. Is it possible to stain it a much lighter color, like an oak, when it's so dark to begin with? Anyone know?