teaching me a lesson

I leave for school yesterday, gas next to my apt is $2.49.

I come home, gas next to my apt is $2.69.

I leave for work today, gas is holding steady at $2.69.

I come home, gas next to my apt is $3.10.

This, my good buddies, is trying to tell me to stop going to school! If I was a dog belonging to Pavlov, I'd have learned by now...

8.5 hours remaining!

Trojan Women is due tomorrow morning finally. No more extensions. No more excuses. Nothing. I'll head to work at 7:30 to drop everything off and get a good solid day of nasty, stinky, dirty, hard work in the prop shop in - and then I can start my homework for real classes (of which I'm back down to 3!!). I'm stoked.

I was told that my presentation handwriting and arrow-drawing skills weren't really up to par, so I'm practicing everything I write first to make sure it looks artsy enough. It's like kindergarten all over again. I'm supposed to practice my alphabet over and over again just as an exercise to make me better...

As for class... I'm designing a Harlem Renaissance/Motown version of Guys and Dolls. I'm super stoked! No more depressing German plays! Yipppppeeeeee!

THE VIRGINATOR!!!!

Sweet! Now I'm just waiting for my badge and my Virginator biorhythm microchip!

This is what my virginity looks like:

It's a magic eye puzzle! Anyone know what it is though? duck head? anvil? sideways butterfly?

How do you call your loverboy?

Baaaaby... ohhhh baaaaby..... my sweet baaaaby.... you're the one...

So how many times do you think a girl (we'll leave out her name to protect the nutty) can watch Dirty Dancing? It always turns out the same, but I, errr, I mean she can't help it!

nobody puts Alli in a corner... errrrr, I mean.... oh forget it. I love Dirty Dancing!

I rock!

And I'm not as funny as I find myself at 3:30am!

At least it's nice when I make something that I like, even if others (who shall remain nameless) find bones to pick...

My rock wall paint sample!

Gaaaaaaaaaa!

Went to bed last night before 5am so that I could wake up before 8am for a meeting about technical issues with my set. The meeting with everyone where they tell me again what all I've done wrong so far is tomorrow. Spent 2 hours polishing brass fireplace tools in a hot, unventilated basement room (my new workspace for the semester). Left for a world in Hobby Lobby where the overweight woman buying $160 in cake baking/decorating supplies (who kept exclaiming how her husband was going to KILL her!) in front of me in line had THREE unpriced items that they found SEPARATELY and had to send someone to go check prices....for a world in Home Depot where I have to park out in BFE only to not find what I want... for a world where the bank's line is OUT the door... oh, and I got a parking ticket.

Nothing a little bacardi and vanilla coke can't ease... bacardi and precision x-acto work.....hmmmmmm....

So much to do, so many revisions to make... at least I dropped my figure drawing class so I'm down to a mere full time 9 hours of spirit-squelching fun. No looking at naked people for me.... at least not in class...

Deep in the Heart of Dixie

Watching Dharma and Greg...

So they were pretending to be southern in a NY store just for kicks when Greg (the lawyer) met a judge that takes a liking to them for bringing back great memories of when he lived in Knoxville! They keep pretending and then include both sets of parents when the judge brings over Al Gore...

They have to learn phrases like 'mom-n-em' and the pronunciation of 'NawLens'...

They walk around barefoot to be 'authentic' and talk about speaking with poor diction so as to sound more 'ignorant' (I think I should be offended)...

They stand in the kitchen frantically trying to figure out what exactly 'sweet tea' (should it be hot or cold?? what kind of sweetener??) 'hush puppies,' and 'grits' are...

They have to learn songs to sing while fishing for catfish...

Then they close the show like the Beverly Hillbillies with a 'y'all come back now, ya hear?'

Sure makes me proud to be a GRITS!

Where's my Terrible Towel!?!

Steelers kick some Eagle Ass! Whooooooo! Bring on the regular season...

Two touchdowns in the first 2:05... the Offense wasn't even involved! Whoooooooo!

$4.48

Some nice person bought 25 cards with my little margarita painting on them for a total of $44.75! That means I earned a whopping $4.48 in royalties!! I'm so excited!

Somebody likes me! Somebody really, really likes me!

Rocky Top II

For all of you that have perhaps grown up with me in The South, or if you're curious about where a dear friend of yours is moving in The South, or if you are about to become a new resident of The South --- I've put together a few links that will help. Now, I'm not proud of all of them, but I'll do my best to be impartial. Some of the stories really made laugh because I know how true they are... Good reads either way

Not all about the serpents - very funny, and true, stories in the beginning

J. Pigg's Stink Bait

Only a Southerner...

Things you'd never hear a Southerner say...

Nickname: Knox Vegas


Hope y'all all enjoyed this!

Calling for photography opinions

Any one have opinions on cameras? I need one for my photography class this fall, but wow, this is going to be expensive. Gripes, must haves, or rants of your own?

This is what has been recommended for me to buy... with a 50mm lens with a f1.8 of course... and a couple 512MB cards... and a nice monopod... and all the other accessories that you need like a UV filter...

ack!

will make you laugh out loud!

Seriously :-)

T6nt5e

That's what the word Tontie looks like if you forget to change your keyboard back to the letter version...

Anyhow - sorry guys - couldn't get past level 9 on Tontie, but I still blame my lack of a keypad ;) There were just too many little tellitubbies dancing and swinging things around.

I do know who has the Walleye pike though!

Rocky Top

All moved back into my apartment in TN, though I'm using the term "moved in" loosely since my stuff is EVERYWHERE. Put my clothes and shoes away - even began a bag of things to take to the Salvation Army or Goodwill or whatever place we have nearby. Scrubbed the kitchen along with my bathtub which had grown the nastiest mold ever. But it's all better now. I even took my first bubble bath of the year late last night after hearing my neighbors either have a very violent argument or wildly passionate sex.

Peered in the window of the empty apartment soon to inhabit Greg. I'll make the walk up the hill another day when I don't lock myself out of the apartment. Grocery shopped like a champ and saved over $45 with my Kroger Plus Card! Broke down and bought the cheese dip in a moment of weakness - but at least it's half gone, so I'll only have to worry about it one more day :-)

Heading into the shop tomorrow--- yikes! Gotta get working!

kinda sad

All dressed up again, but this time I got to go out! Met Scott, Ryan, Justin, and Derek for beers and then a very nice dinner. It's been a hell of a summer, and I was often given strange jobs in my role of Jill-of-all-trades...digging up plants along side a highway, hiking through the woods looking for cypress trees around a lake, picking ticks off of me one by one in the Jamestown woods, organizing and sorting the entire project budget, finding a taxidermist that would freeze dry silkworms... but I'm going to miss this place and these people. Ryan said that I'm the only one that ever gets "going away dinners." I figured I should just come and go more often because those are the fancy nights :-)

I just can't believe this could be it for me and this city. Not that I'm so attached, but still. This was my first real job last time I worked here - my first real time functioning fully on my own. Lonely, but it's a great feeling to know you can take care of yourself.

Speaking of taking care of myself, mom's coming down tomorrow to help me move my apartment back up to Georgia. Then it's back to Tennessee in about a week.

Even hotter!

fortune

You gotta love thai fortunes:

It's not even a fortune!!!

pj's already

Stood up again.

Tomorrow, Stubby's, with all the project managers and the boss. I'll believe it at 6:30pm when I'm not sitting in a bar alone.

For now, I'm finishing the mudslides.

go josie go

Struggled this morning getting out of bed until The Outfield came on and kicked my butt into gear. Gave me the wiggles all the way to the shower.

Josie's so lucky, being on a vacation far away.

Last day at work... probably my last day officially AT themeworks ever, though the blow is softened by the fact that I get to stay on for the run of this Jamestown gig. I'm the official Tennessee ThemeWorks Consultant. But I had to turn in my hard hat...

not drunk but feeling hungover

So dinner w/ TWI peeps did in fact get moved to tomorrow, but Ryan took me to eat thai food. I just got a 3 hour lecture on how I should not take next summer off.... on how I should just pick a city and find all the places I want to work there.... on how I need to start building informal relationships with all these companies, starting with the secretaries...on how I should just go to said city where I can stay with a friend for a couple weeks and just show up at the places I've been talking to offering to just help out here and there.... for free. He even told me it'd be more fun than painting, building furniture, and working on my own portfolio. Why, oh why, did I decide to go into such an illusive field where I have to strategize, struggle, and beg my way in? So much for starting in the middle.

T-1.5 days

Semi-premeditatively overslept. I've even been semi-intentionally productive today too. All dressed up because we're all allegedly going out to say goodbye to me tonight, but so far no one has mentioned it. Hopefully I won't be all dressed up with no where to go. I'm supposed to get drunk and be fed for free damn it! Justin did bring me a beer that he brewed himself. A refreshing summer stout. mmmmm.

Dragon Zapper!

Oh yeah. I'm hot.

T-3 days

I've been at work for over 3 hours already. Let's see, I've redesigned my website, but so far it's just on paper. Perhaps I'll get some images ready this week while I'm sitting here. Too bad I can't bring my painting work in :) I showed Justin my miniature blood stained tile and explained my plans of having bloody hand prints smeared around doorways like people had tried not to go through the door, but were forced... and he said it was scary, and that I was starting to worry him.... perfect...

To be honest though, this morning when I woke up and realized that I had been in my pj's for 32 straight hours, I was worried a little myself.