May 7, 2010

I need a change, stat. My life isn't working for me right now. I feel stagnant, stuck. My good friend's sudden and spontaneous decision to relocate to Sacramento (she'll be moving in with me) from Santa Cruz, where she's lived for the last 6 or so years, has prompted me to make the change that's necessary in my life. Perhaps not prompted, but pushed. My mind has been going back and forth about my current relationship. What do I do? My heart is still in it, but it's slowly crawling away, pulling back. I love him, but it's not working. It hasn't been working. I know he might read this, chances are, he will someday soon, but I've just got to write, got to get it out. I've got to end it.

My friend from Santa Cruz will be moving in with me. She has her choice of 2 - count 'em - 2 very comfortable vintage sofas in the living room. The gurgle of the fishtank pump will lull her to sleep. The morning sun will wake her up, shining through the wall-sized living room window. It will be cozy. It'll be a house full of single girls. Think positive energy, home-cooked dinners, and parallel menstrual cycles. Our place will smell like lavender or vanilla, perhaps with the faint hint of reefer in the air. That's how we'll roll.

So she'll move away from the place she's called home for the past 6 years, probably more like 7 or 8 really, and I'll do what I need to do in my life to free myself of this feeling of non-progression. It's just like, you can try and try and try and try and try and sometimes you have to admit that maybe it just won't happen, the thing you want to happen. And it breaks your heart. But you just can't go on like this.

We're hiring at the restaurant where I work; she's going to drive to Sacramento on Monday, hopefully in time for an interview. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I guess they already are. I think it would be wonderful to have my friend in town.

I still want to return to Germany one day. That's my goal. Save up enough money, pay down the debt, and go teach English. Hell, I'd even be down to go back with the pub crawl, if they'd have me. Until then, I can feel good about being here, in this city, surrounded by these people. Some of my closest friends are my co-workers. It's ok, where I am, right now. There's just that one thing... Which I promised myself to change. So I'm just going to have to do it.

Fried Chicken and Macaroni & Cheese

Sounds so gosh darn good to me right now. People in Sacramento, have you ever been to Sandra Dee's? I used to live right by it, in Alkali Flats, a lower-income (ok, yes, slightly worn out and tore back) area of Sacramento. Is it even considered midtown? I guess now. I was at 13th and D, Sandra Dee's is at

Sometimes when I'm bored...

I visit my blog and read about the things I was thinking about in days past. Sometimes I hit the "next blog" button at the top of the screen; I usually don't find anything worth reading. Today, though, as I was revisiting my (admittedly neglected) blog, I hit that button and found this: http://pillowtalkisextra.blogspot.com/

It's pretty cool, written by a young 20-something gal in New York City. Hers is a much more personal blog, and many entries deal with men and the problems that come with them, but I like her writing. It's snappy. Kinda like how I think about my own. There's no photo associated with the blog, but given the subject matter, I can understand why she would value her anonymity.

So I read other people's blogs, but I don't keep up with my own. In past entries, I spoke so much of projects, this website that I was going to build, the idea that I could create an awesome space for people to communicate about conscious travel. Sadly, It's still not formed into anything. It makes me feel like I've failed myself. It reminds me of what I need to be doing right now, what I should have been doing for a while. I don't like this feeling of guilt, self guilt. I haven't really let anyone down except for myself. So I don't know if that's better or worse than letting down another person.

I should be devoting more time to building websites, finishing projects, and helping my family. My father has all this radio equipment gathering dust in the garage on the property they own. Some of it's pretty valuable too, or at least could get a pretty price in an online auction. These are the things I need to do.

Usually writing helps me. It helps my thought process gather in one place, from a jumbled together pile in my brain to a linear, succinct story on a page. In note form. Do this, remember that, be grateful for this, and so on. The problem is, unlike Cleopatra Jones, the author (pseudonym, I can only assume) of the aforementioned pillow talk blog, I can't share with you what's really on my mind. It's relationship stuff. I guess that's all I can say.

I have figured out one thing, though, and I would like to share it. If you love something, let it go. Be gentle and don't hold on too tightly.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope ya'll got some. Enjoy, from my friend Patryk in Berlin.

Jury Duty

I got a letter in the mail from the city the other day calling me for jury duty. I'm supposed to report the the Sacramento Superior Court on Monday, March 15. Perhaps if I were older and retired with nothing better to do than reading crime mysteries, golfing on the weekend or knitting, I'd be into it. It might be interesting, a witness to our legal system at (dis)work.

Unfortunately, I need to keep working to pay the bills.

Crap. I need to get out of Jury Duty!

I was going to leave a comment on the post below, one in response to those who commented on my blog, so I started writing. But that comment turned into an essay, so I've decide I would just post it, anyway, as a new blog. It's been forever since I've written anything, After thinking about it, I think I'll be heading back to Berlin before I end up in Asia.

However, that doesn't mean that I'll never go; on the contrary, one item on my top ten list of things to do before I die: teach English in Asia. Someplace that will just blow your mind. Some town tucked away in lush green hills or a gaping, writhing, technologically pregnant super city with concrete rectangles that scrape the sky.

It'll be different from what we're used to in Western culture, and you know what they say friends, different is good. Navigating your new Asian territory that may make you burst out laughing even though you're alone, or leave you clutching your hanky in tears of frustration. Either way, culture shock only makes you smarter. Nothing is familiar, you have little to no advantage to knowing much about the city.

Dirty Thirty

My 30th birthday is knocking at my door. It's right around the corner and about to bite me on my ass.

Monday I'll be 30, launching myself into my third decade as a human being on this planet. Perhaps for a lack of anything else to do and a little bit of time on my hands, I've decided I should dedicate a blog entry to the subject. It is, after all, a big deal, isn't it? Eh, I think not. It's just another day, the sun will rise and it will probably be chilly, a breeze might hang off the skeletal branches on the tree above our house, but it will set, and time will go on, and the day will pass and another will come. I'm not the only one with a birthday, and if anything, I should be celebrating my parents on that day.

I'm still here, which is nice. I think, all in all, I'm doing quite well. I feel I've been blessed so far, with family and friends and the things I love all gathered in heaps around me. I lucked out.

I'm back living in Sacramento, not downtown but in east Sac, where the trees are much prettier this time of year and you don't so often see derelicts rummaging through your garbage bins or hear the 2am bar crowd stumbling home drunk in the moonlight. Nothing against derelicts. I have a job and I'm making money. I'm keeping on top of my bills, not just barely but kinda almost.. My lifestyle is simple though, and I don't find myself wanting much, at least not in the material sense. I dream of travel but I'll always dream of that. Anyway, it's nice to dream of something.

Next year I'm planning on moving abroad again. I'll be honest and admit that I don't know where I'll end up or what I'll be doing, but I know one thing - I'll be gone. Chances are, I won't be going alone. I've found someone who also dreams, and, low and behold, dreams of very similar things. He's open to embracing mine and merging his to make an ours. Sweet! And just how long have I been looking for this??

Berlin is in the race, natürlich, but so is teaching English in Asia. Tawain sounds promising, as does Vietnam. For many of those jobs, only a Bachelor's degree is required, and often times, a salary accompanies room and board and sometimes a round trip flight.

Really, what else am I doing? Our economy is in the shitter; California's unemployment rate is nearing 20%, and I graduated college 6 years ago and work at a restaurant. It's not like I'm doing a whole hell of a lot here - really, the only thing keeping me in the area is my family. If I had a partner to run away to Europe or Asia for a couple of years, living the expat "poor but sexy" lifestyle, I'd be stoked as a mother trucker. Looks like this dream is on the verge of becoming a reality.

In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, or "Beautiful Island." Don't just take their word for it. See for yourself.









A change of scenery is always good, as is a new perspective. It scares me a little to think of going somewhere as far and as foreign as this little heavily colonized, tropical (yes, tropical!) economic superpower of an island off the southeast coast of China, but a little fear is good. Manageable, too, especially if I don't go alone.

So I'll be thirty on Monday and it should be good. Life, so far, has been good. The past is rosy and the future is bright. I've got my dreams, I've got my plans, I've really got nothing to complain about; only, perhaps, too few stamps on my passport.

How to get a work visa for Germany

Friends,

So you've found yourself, somehow, The following post is lengthy but priceless.

german/berlin links - tandem partners and internships

Expat resources, Germany:
http://www.erstenachhilfe.de
here is the link for the website where you can find
>>tandem-partners or where you can offer your english
>>teaching skills.
>>http://www.erstenachhilfe.de
>>registration is free and there are lots of berlin
>>people registered.

I've just got a press-information about internships:

This is the site:

http://www.praktika.de/

Offering internships in Germany:

http://www.praktika.de/praktikum.html

If your looking for an internship in other countries they provide information here:

http://www.praktika.de/cms/Auslandspraktikum.959.0.html

Infos about Countries + interships-offer:

http://ausland.praktika.de/home/praktikanten/katalog.phtml

Ordering the PRINTED new catalogue about internships abroad here:

http://www.praktika.de/cms/anfordern.1433.0.html

spark

It's funny, the connections we form with certain people, the lack of those that are never formed with others. How does one person, one day, strike you in the way a wooden match would when dragged across a brick fireplace, with such a spark and such an energy that they are forever imprinted in your mind? And depending on certain variables - the size of the spark, the voracity with which it was lit, and the length of time before the fire (when there was only darkness and it was cold) - the imprint grows. The connection strengthens. The purest, wildest of fires burn fast and with intensity. Chaotic.

I am drawn to the flames. I've stretched my arms out, palms facing away from me, and found the fire. It wasn't hard to find; I helped strike the match.

It's been warmer lately, and bright. Aren't these things supposed to start in the spring? Is it fitting that we found each other after the days have started shrinking and the sun's heat is at half mast and I need to put on my warmest socks and bundle my skinny body up into layers of thin clothing and burrow deep down into my double bed to escape the chill? You're there often, underneath the covers with me. That's when it gets hot enough for the clothes to come off.

And that will be my fall. The trees that line our streets will burn with orange and spark with gold and then fall will turn into winter. It will start getting wetter. The trees will shed their clothes too and the rain will come often. Piles of leaves will turn to mush and start to disintegrate, their energy seeping back into the vessel from which it came. It will get colder but I don't mind. I'll have you.

Eventually the sun will want come out and play, and so will the birds. The leaves will be picked up or become compost, now blackened with rot. Buds of green will burst open into reds and pinks and whites on the trees on our streets, and the water that runs off the mountains and down through our rivers will be warm enough to swim in. The same shades of green, and different ones too, will cover the landscape, from lawns to fields, and critters will stir in the ground and in the sky, their offspring falling out of nests or being eaten by predators or growing up to mate and have babies of their own.

Fires will ignite in the hills. We can find a cliff overlooking a valley, some electric orange ball of energy licking and engulfing and blazing below. We can stand there, bodies touching, and feel the heat.

Fuck Fridays is back in Sacramento.

October 17th work

The kind of thing I have to experience at my place of work is interesting, to say the least. Unsettling, to say it best. I've been to hell and I'll spell it brunch. I am a hostess at a restaurant downtown - and kids, I'll shit you not and tell you it's the place to go for your hangover with a side of breakfast.

But for me, I no longer have the privilege of weekend brunch. I won't be enjoying it; I'll be working it. Taking names and numbers and handing out pagers, constructing puzzles out of tables. I wear a smile well and often - I soothe the weary, the hungry, the cranky. I fluctuate so that you will have a wonderful experience. It may take a good deal of energy, but I'm usually brimming it, even first thing in the morning, if forced. The coffee helps a great deal, and honestly, I enjoy running around and chatting with people all over the restaurant. It keeps me busy.

But because I work brunches, I have to experience a loss. Beautiful breakfasty things slip away. Mimosas no longer have a meaning to me; they are transformed into a shiny orange bulbous tumors on a glass stick. The french toast is always burnt. The potatoes are over-fried. The company is cranky and hungry and the syrup-covered infant at the table next to you is shrieking. Pleasant.

So I run around and I hand out menus and then I pick up menus and I try to appease the servers by rotating the sections fairly and try to appease the customers by seating them in desirable sections and make small chat with the customers and try not to trip over the kids who are running around unsupervised while avoiding the plate of food that is being run out the door and the bosses who are either flirting or scolding or joking with the rest of the staff. It's a hectic place. I'm surprised so many customers want to deal with that. I wonder if, while stuffing a fat piece of our famous french toast into their fat greasy mouths, the customers are able to feel the pulsating energy that engulfs the places, seeping out of the mop closet in the back and sizzling with the pomme frittes in the deep fryer, gurgling along with the scalding coffees behind the bar or oozing out of the ketchup bottles. I wonder indeed.

I dream of going out to breakfast with friends. I cherish it when it happens. I never go to my restaurant, I never dream about work, but I dream about my friends at work. The other day I dreampt I was smoking a spliff with my boss. I wonder if he'd be interested. Maybe in the next dream I'll offer him some.

Oh help me god I'm building a website!

I'm about to wade through the choppy ocean waves of website development, chasing the idea that could quite lead to the manifestation of a tangible form of my dream, all the while gasping for breath and fighting off sharks, trying to stay afloat.

Welcome that to the world of creating a one-dimensional structure on the internet. Friends, I'm building a website. I've scoured the internet, or "the web," as the cool kids say, for a cozy little spot to burrow down inside of and nest for a while. Building. I thought of a name and bought it and am starting to construct.

The website I'm building is called The Conscious Nomad. It's true, there's nothing there yet but don't fear friends! Something will be there soon. In fact, I should tell you that I'm currently looking for writers, either travelers who write well, back-packers who blog, or writers who travel write. I'll take any submissions. Just think travel - but consciously. Look for the official invitation and more on the subject of conscious travel in the next blog, coming very soon.

But, in the beginning... There was the World-Wide-Web. That's a mouthful, for sure. So is WWW, really, and especially the way our ex-idiot-in-chief president used to pronounce the letter. Ah, the world-wide-web. Worldwide! Where would I be without you? You came into my life when I was just a young lass of 13. I would stay up way too late, using my father's computer to log in to CompuServe and chat with faceless humans all over the states. Mostly, we'd chat about music - Nirvana and Pearl Jam were the ones that I liked the most back then. Heck, Eddie Vedder circa 1993-1997 was a big topic for me. I had such a crush on him. Eddie, if you're out there, I'm available!! ;)


My relationship to the World Wide Web was indeed magical. World Wide Web, I fell in love with you then, a little bit. Ours was a co-dependent relationship - you liked the feel of human fingers on your buttons and I was absolutely enthralled by your endless possibilities. I'm still in love with you in, internet, and you're still as elusive and enigmatic as ever. A little bit like the Loch Ness monster. Just not as wet and chilly.

The internet is everywhere. It's vast, stunning. Stretching. Expanding to farther and farther slightly darkened corners of the earth. Hell, it's even finally working itself into Africa, broadband style, so that the dark continent will soon be lightened up a bit and can finally start inching it's way toward a level playing field to compete with the rest of the world upon.

It's everywhere. It's wireless signal is creeping slowly out of your home office and into the hallway, circling around your kitchen frigerator. It's crawling on the floor and into the dining room, slithering around your couch until up on the sofa and right in your face. The world-wide-web, much like Mr. Lovegrove, is ubiquitous, and it's getting bigger by the nano-second, fucking and multiplying like rabbits and their wretchedly cute offspring.

The Conscious Nomad is my new project and I'm finally dedicating time (not nearly enough, though) to it, like a poor little unattended baby. There, there, child, I'll come back to you soon. My problem is, I suppose, time management. I'm so fixated to living in the now that I let the now overtake me, leaving no breathing room for later. Maybe all this "be here now" mantra stuff I've adopted is reaching into my brain and taking hold of the frontal lobe or wherever it is that old Id of mine is located and sneaking up and shaking it's hand, helping the little Id on it's way. Perhaps this living in the now, care little about the future body of thought has gotten to be too easy to accept. I think that's why I'm trying to devote time to this project; this idea, this website, this realization that I can manifest something if I keep moving forward and try the best I can. I believe in this for everyone; being conscious that your situation is changeable, maliable, flexible. I don't want to hear excuses. Sometimes we can be in pretty deep; I realize that. But then we must make little changes here and there. They do make a difference.

I like the budhist way of living. I don't know a great deal about it but what I know I agree with and respect. I try to incorporate some of that tradition into my life; it just makes sense. The living in the now, the acceptance that perhaps this is all we have, this moment, and everything else doesn't exist. I don't mean to deduct importance from the past, or question the leviety of the future, but all I have for sure is right now.

I do have a tendency to ramble, don't I? What does that characteristic say about someone? (Rhetorical, of course). Back to the website. Having a project is important. Having goals are important. Having lists and being able to cross items off said list is important. That's what I'm trying to do; keep moving forward. Maybe I had felt a bit stagnant there for a while, and still feel a bit in limbo (do I stay in California? Do I go back to Berlin?) and, admittedly, always staying incredibly busy, but I'm discovering avenues to pursue that hopefully lead to forward motion and freedom. I just need to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to realizing these things.

Manifest. Don't forget it.

So I'm stoked. And I'm killing time, waiting for a conformation email to reach me from WordPress headquarters. And then I'll be off to start the process - which, at this point, will be downloading WordPress software on my computer and installing. Then I'll be off to build! So, if you'll excuse me, I must be running. It's time to kickstart the ignition and take off.

Put on your thinking cap

and write yourself a blog. To sort it all out. Because, right now, like Kyle from work says (and, holy HELL if I had not turned on this computer to write myself a quick blog I would have completely forgotten to call the kid to let him know about the evening's events - more later on that) "I'm a little cloudy." Meaning, literally, I'm a tad bit stoned; figuratively, I got some shit I got to sort out, in my head."

So welcome to my thinking session.

I've had a great day. It's at the in-between right now; the I'm-here-but-I'm-supposed-to-be-on-my-way-to-there state

Google Fortune / Google Biz Kit is a SCAM

And I just got taken.

For $1.97. But it could have easily been more. A link was sent to me via email from my father, who I trust. So I clicked and I read and I signed up. The website looked legit; a falsified site called The New York Gazette (which appears like a newspaper but in small print is written something like "not affiliated with any newspaper publication") and hypes up the product - a product that boasts that even children can work for home, do virtually nothing, pay virtually nothing, and make a shit load! What a deal! Well I totally fell for it. We must remember, kids, what dear old Grandmother used to say: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

End result: I've had to cancel my debit card. Shame, shame, shame on me for giving that site my number over the internet. Not a smart move. And of course that $1.97, which, for now, I'll deduct from my "that was a really stupid move" account.

Goodbye stranger

Does everyone remember the drug dealer? I wrote a blog or two, two or three blogs back, about this gentleman. Well, sports fans, I've received news. He was allegedly recently arrested. On charges that I will refrain from mentioning at this point, not only because they make me feel very nauseas inside, but because the facts haven't been verified yet. Awesome. I sure know how to pick 'em, eh?

I did, however, call the Davis county jail yesterday and spoke with a very unfriendly, unhelpful woman who told me "well why don't you just ask him yourself" when I asked if she could look up if they his name on her inmate list. Thanks bitch. I was hoping that my questions would have been answered, will be answered. I would like to know if it is true. I would like to say it doesn't matter either way. But it does. Don't get me wrong, I'm still done with him, done with that situation, and hopefully done with dating crazy men in their mid-twenties, but I still want to know if it's true. It most likely is.

Gosh golly, I guess I'm a bit frustrated. Do I tell people, "Oh yeah, the last guy I dated is in jail on charges I would rather not discuss." Hmm? At least I was able to get out of that one before it went barreling off a cliff with me strapped inside, screaming and plummeting.

On a somewhat unrelated side note, I've decided to sign up for okcupid.com. (Remember I said I was frustrated?) Arghhh. Argh argh and double argh. Maybe signing up for - gulp - online dating will only further frustrate me. Yeah, online dating, friends. I'm going to try it out and see how it goes. Does it offer criminal background checks? It should! No, actually, to be honest, I had also just tried a 3 month trial membership on Match.com that ended as uneventfully as it started. I met - let's see - 1, 2, 3 guys from Match.com. Two were quite nice, just no sparks. One is now a peripheral friend. The third guy was not cool, definitely not cool, in a sorta pushy and almost grabby way. I got out of there as fast as I could muster.

Back to the facts. I'm single and I'm ready to mingle. Really! I'm not gonna lie about it. I'm a bad ass chick, too, let me tell you. And that's why I can post this sort of shit on my blog. I don't care what people think about me; I don't really care if ya like me or if you don't. I'm just me and I think that I'm a pretty chill chickadee. I'm trying to live my life in the most badass sort of way right now. Making every moment count, although still, in the back of my mind, dreaming about Europe, about Berlin. I can't wait to go back.

So I'm off to finish up my new okcupid.com profile - oh how I detest yet secretly kinda like those things - and start trolling for guys who are hopefully far from the troll type. Wish me luck.

Be here now.

Well internet friends, I'm back! Back on the internet, back in a new place, back working for the man - possibly, about to lose my job - and back on the market again. Yes fellas, I'm single. Step right up.

Pretty cool, eh?

I wanted to send a near -end of summer shout out to all of you. August is almost done. The sun is slowly disappearing. Your trees will lose their foliage soon. It's sweater time, my friends.

Get ready. Hot cocoa and marshmellows by the fir- wait, what the heck, it's still summer! And I'm day-dreaming about winter! Remember kids, buddha says, "Be Here Now."

Now off with you.

Well, friends, I'm back. Back up north in Sacramento, where the breeze is slight but sometimes still and the sun is hot and the streets are tree-lined and shady. The shops and cafes and freeways are simple and accessible. San Diego was beautiful. San Diego has the ocean, the surfers, the cool air, the hills and valleys and bomb mexican food. But I'm glad to be home, although that too will be changing soon.

In two weeks I'm moving out, it's looking like more changes are on the horizon. So I go back to work and see my friends and exist in Sacramento but it feels like my heart is elsewhere. German music is on the radio, I've just finished a spliff, and it seems that my heart is in Europe. My heart is in Berlin. I don't know how it makes me feel that when I look at Facebook and see photos and updates from friends back there. I suppose it's a bittersweetness; I'm happy for them but wish I could join in the fun, especially when my friend Christian posts his photos from the Kit Kat Club in Friedrichshain, Berlin. That, friends, was a place like no other.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Kit Kat Club, I'll say it in two words: Hedonistic Debauchery. Wait. Three words. Hedonistic Sexual Debauchery. That's better.

Kit Kat is located in Friedrichshain, Berlin, on the corner of

I might have to throw up a warning for our younger views, but I think it's appropriate to share some of my Kit Kat Club photos with you.

Road Trip 09

I'm going to San Diego tomorrow. Leaving right after work, driving down with Ashley and Katie in Ashley's black or so dark blue it looks black under moonlight early 2000 volvo. Tough as nails. Like a tank.

We're driving down straight after work, we're getting the fuck outta dodge. This is my summer trip, folks. This is it. Stuck in the system of the United States' rapidly drowning economy, I can't quite take trips with the frequency I would like. But I'm leaving for 5 days and 4 nights - that's solid! We'll be staying with Ashley's friend Benny. I'm determined to go rollerskating next to the ocean, to find some tacky Chinese lanterns to decorate my new backyard, to swim in warm, Southern California waters.

I'm getting out and the gettin's gonna be good.

Rock Stars have way more fun than normal people

It's 3:04 in the morning and I've just returned from a rock-star themed party at the Flame Club -a somewhat scummy bar located across the street from the Memorial Auditorium in downtown Sacramento. The place was closed for the night, only friends were allowed in. Drink tickets were given at the door, as well as poker chips for several card tables that were set up, and there was food galore! I myself gorged mostly on the chocolate-dipped strawberries, but satisfied my craving for something savory with the shrimp cocktail. Mmmm..... chocolate strawberries and shrimp cocktail. Almost makes ya want to throw up a bit in your mouth, right? Well it was tasty. And I was drunk. Perhaps that's why the combo was so delicious!The dj was rocking it and I danced until the vintage shoes on my feet could move no more.

A couple friends came over earlier; we drank red wine and played dress up. Ashley went as Joan Jett, Lorea'l as Gwen Stefani (singing all the throughout the night, "the shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S), and me, you ask? What alter ego did I don for the night? None other than Madonna. Somehow, a black corset on top of a red fishnet long sleeved shirt, home-made lacy black pettifore-slash-tu-tu thing as a skirt, and purple, yellow, pink and blue heels from the 80s worked well. A couple guests at the party even knew who I was. Sweet.


After we took this photo, Ashley and I realized just how tall I really am compared to her. She looks a little pip-squeak compared to my giganticness! You know, though, if I had actually started preparing for the party before the day of, if I had had a bit more time to scour the thrift stores for a better costume, I woulda gone as Prince. No doubt about it. Purple velvety clothing, white ruffles, jerry curl in my white girl hair - err, ok, maybe not the jerry curls. But velvet and ruffles, for sure. Aww, cute little androgynous Prince. I just want to pinch his cute little butt cheeks!


Anyway, I get back home and start playing around in Google. Unfortunately, up until this time, my hours on the internet have not been spent wisely. Admittedly, my navigation rarely spawns beyond Facebook, Google, Craigslist, and the New York Times. Where, or where, are the bad ass websites? Where can I actually go to feel good about wasting time inside on the internet? Honestly, I try to keep my relationship with my computer short and sweet - I know there's a whole world out there, a world full of rivers and foreign countries and beautiful people - so I try to keep it brief. In and out.

However...

I've decided I'm going to make a living on the internet. Perhaps I've been inspired by a new friend, or perhaps it's been something creeping closer and closer into view. Ever since I returned from Berlin, the world of internet sales (vis a vis my father's Ebay business - brokering used radio station equipment) has been all up in my grill. It's time to become open to the possibilities of selling over the internet.

I'll embrace it. I'll welcome Ebay, I'll welcome Pay Pal. Internet commerce, welcome to my house! It's very, very good to have you. I want to build a website (hopefully using the sweet web design skills of my ex of four years, Jonathan, little boy wonder who now works for Apple), and sell stuff through it. I'd like to write articles about the products, do reviews, and have freelancers contribute as well. I'll pick products that I like, that I trust, that I recommend, and make them available to the world. All in one place. All awesome. All on a website that I will have created. Therefore, all revenue from the sales of the products I choose, as well as any ads placed on the website, will go to me... Muah ha ha haaaahhh!!

Ahem. I want to learn more. I heard today that DUI attorney ads, placed on the right websites, will earn the owner of that website up to $100 bucks. A hundred dollars! Can you believe it?? My good friend Megan has a younger brother, Byron. He's a reggae dj in Sacramento, and, although I love the kid to death, he's dealing with his second DUI. How could you be so stupid?? First of all, is fucking costly. Second of all, you could kill someone. Or yourself. Now how would that feel?

But, of course, as it's my style, I digress. I've decided to manifest making money on the internet. No more working for the man. No more working weekends. No more wasting hours and hours and days of my life doing something I could honestly care less about, all the while KNOWING that I could be doing so much more for myself and not working so hard. That's one of the problems with America. We accept that hard work is the only way to go. I know, I know. It's the "American Dream." It's the search for wealth, for power, for status. It's the willingness to step on your peers to get ahead; use other human beings for personal gains and then throw them away. All for what? A big house on the hill? A white picket fence? A big screen tv in the living room and a maid on the weekends and a family that doesn't know how to communicate with each other?

No thanks.

I'm not selling out, I'm just thinking smarter. I've always known there were other ways to find freedom.

Dear Adsense,

Please work for me! I want my weekends back and I want to travel the world and work from anywhere and someday soon return to Berlin so I can feel that energy again, like being re-born. Click away, folks, click away.