Used books! Free.

Typing this sucked... I will keep updating! Let me know if there is anything you want. We can meet up! If you want me to ship something it is easy enough. You can send me the cost of shipping via paypal and I use stamps.com. The books are free. I forgot I had some of these... *tear*
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Communion by Whitley Strieber
Women Who Love Sex by Gina Ogden, Ph.D.
Lust Never Sleeps by who the fuck cares it's porn
The Casanova Complex by Peter Trachtenberg
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Naughty Tricks & Sexy Tips by Dr. Pam Spurr
The Look of the Century by Michael Tambini
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality by Lonnie Garfield Barbach Ph.D.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (I borrowed this when I read it then bought this copy so it is new)
Sex: A Bedside Library by Anne Hooper
The Best American Erotica 1996 Edited by Susan Bright
The Fountaihead by Ayn Rand...
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and It's All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, Ph.D.
For the New Intellectual by Ayn Rand
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
The Wonderful Wizard of OZ by Frank L. Baum
Emma by Jane Austin
The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
The Bad Girl's Guide to the Party Life by Cameron Tuttle
Rosie by Anne Lamott
Japanese Death Poems by Yoel Hoffman
Apt Pupil by Steven King
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank (2)
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
It's Not Easy Being Green by Jim Henson
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danieleswki
The Sory and It's Writer by Ann Charters (6th Ed.)
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
City of Big Shoulders A History of Chicago by Robert G. Spinney
Rockin in Time A Social History of Rock and Roll by David P. Szatmary
The Ultimate Guide to Fellatio by Violet Blue (you might already have this! I gave them out as Xmas gifts a few years ago along with a book on Cunnilingus
Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons by Mo Willems
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski (the fuckin man!)
Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski (*******)
Burning in Water Drowning in Flame by Charles Bukowski
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories by Charles Bukowski
Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals by Maggie Estep
Whip It by Shauna Cross
The Prisoner of Sex by Normon Mailer
Existentialism and Human Emotions by Jean-Paul Sartre
Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
Bitch by Elizabeth Wurtzel
The Orange Tree by Carlos Fuentes
The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
How to Be Single Liz Tuccillo
Short Cuts by Raymond Carver
Beauty by Robin McKinley
The Conscious Mind by Kenneth Walker
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry edited by Alan Kaufman
Books of Blood by Clive Barker
Harry Potter- Goblet of Fire, Order of the Pheonix (both HC) by J.K. Rowling
History of Film by David Parkinson
Frank Lloyd Wright Master Builder
Enhancing CAD Drawings with Photoshop (probably obsolete but whatever)
Rodale's Flower Garden Problem Solver by Jeff and Liz Ball
The AHS Illustrated Encyclopedia of Gardening: Container Gardening
The AHS Illustrated Encyclopedia of Gardening: Houseplants
Prohibited Book by Luis Royo
Dreams by Luis Royo
Thai (cookbook)
Japan (cookbook)
American Root Music
3 BHG books (they were free)
Encyclopedia of Furniture
Salvador Dali
Making Books By Hand
Fantastic Finishes
Creative Interior Design
Chicago Architecture and Design 1923-1993
The Houses We Live In
Bauhaus Textiles
The Taoist I Ching
Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
No Exit and three other plays by Jean-Paul Sartre
The misadventures of Maria O' Mara by Deborah Skelly
Are Men Necessary? by Maireen Dowd
Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, Ph.D.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
A Return to Modesty Discovering the Lost Virtue by Wendy Shalit
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Text books... when did I go to college? They are that old...
Textiles for Residential and Commercial Interiors
Color in Design
Physical Anthropology
Sociology
Psychology
Composing with Confidence
Human Relaion
Economics
Questions that Matter blah blah blah Philosophy
The History of Western Art... pretty beat the fuck up
Reality through the Arts... also loved in excess
The Western Heritage
Planning & Managing Interior Projects
Architectural Graphics
Architecture and Interior Design
Interior Design
Specifying Interiors
Interior Lighting
Woodworking...
Building and Construction Illustrated
The Codes Guidebook for Interiors

Composting Options

At the moment I have a vermicomposting system set up with red wigglers in a 32 gallon garbage can. I have found composting to be very rewarding. When I am shopping and cooking I think "can I compost this" and that has improved my diet. I also create less trash. Between buying reusable or minimally packaged products, composting and recycling I hardly throw away a thing. Then I get use the compost in my garden... when I don't screw it up... =D
About my bin...
I drilled holes in the side and made a good base of torn cardboard then layered with shredded paper and kitchen/garden scraps. I still don't think it got enough drainage and airflow. I considered putting gravel under the cardboard and installing a tapper close to the bottom, but I decided I didn't usually have that much excess moisture.
I actually flooded one bin... really a drunken asshole sailor pissed and vomited in it, but anyway that's the great thing about sailors... they always ship out. I digress. Cleaning up the stagnant mess of waste and dead worms was stinky and depressing. I lost all of the compost I had ready for my garden. Only my flowers made it.
I'm going to be moving from Chicago to Austin over the winter so I am starting to break down my bin and considering new options for when I get settled. Today I went through the bin to see what I had. I had a lot of unprocessed material, a bazillion worms and some rather muddy compost. I took it all apart and rebuilt it. Along the way I pulled a decent glob of worms to find a new home. I also started another small bin with compost that was nearly ready for use. I will probably do this a few more times until I am ready to dump the remains into my outdoor system.
Now on to the fun part! Shopping for a new, more functional and possibly sophisticated system!
The main thing I have to consider is space. I will have a lot less. I'll also have less mouths to feed, less material and less plants. So what are my options?

Another bin... this time something shorter and wider that I can fit under the sink. It is inexpensive to start and does the job as long as I don't screw it up. However, harvesting is labor intensive and it can get stinky. This is a seriously no frills option.
The opposite end of the spectrum...THE
NatureMill: PRO XE Automatic Compost Bin!
http://naturemill.com/pro.html
I saw this at the Museum of Science and industry Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit.
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/smart-home/
It is a cute story really... A man who worked there jokingly compared my Monkey to a red wiggler and showed him their vermicomposting system. Chad replied in his typical "you can't tell me what's what" tone "Oh my Mommy does composting. We have lots of worms." The man looked at me in full make-up, hair and wardrobe.. he was obviously skeptical. I nodded and after talking a bit other people joined in the conversation. They showed me two brochures. The first is a great resource for children. The Adventures of Herman at www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/worms/ teaches is all about worms but there are other parts of the site dedicated to rivers, tree, insects etc. Then they showed me this amazing composting technology in the Smart Home brochure. I can in no way afford this.
There are less expensive and worm free indoor systems like this...
http://www.compostbins.com/compost-bins/kitchen-composters/scdhappyfarmerkitchencomposterkittan.cfm which utilize "fermented organic matter" to break down material into compost tea. Um... okay, this is neither scientifically or technologically interesting to me, but I guess it does the job and is practical for apartment living... blah.

Here is the option that makes the most sense for me at the moment.
The Worm Factory® 360 Recycled Plastic Worm Composter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VR1bE5Z6y0&feature=player_embedded
Given the amount of money I have already spent on supplies to re-purpose old ugly stuff... and that I will not be carting old ugly stuff across the country... it just makes sense to buy something designed for worm composting that is actually kinda cute. I like that the system is divided into trays. I'm not sure how much material the boy and I will produce so I can expand as needed. It will also be less labor intensive for me. Digging in a 32 gallon can just to separate material into trays... kills my back and keeps my lazy ass from harvesting when I should.

I am sure there are a lot of other systems out there and will continue to research them as my moving day approaches.

I hope you have been inspired by my efforts as a single working Mami optimistically planning a high efficiency-economical-nature friendly-Ueber healthy-micro home. Advice, opinions, corrections, and compliments are welcome.

Quotes... Because Other People Say Things Better.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (this is from the movie)

Rochester: We've been good friends, haven't we?
Jane Eyre: Yes, sir.
Rochester: I've a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string, somewhere under my left ribs. Tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave, I'm afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I'd take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me.
Jane Eyre: How? I have lived a full life here. I have not been trampled. I have not been petrified. I have not been excluded from every glimpse of what is bright. I have known you, Mr. Rochester. And it strikes me with anguish to be torn from you.
Rochester: Then why must you leave?
Jane Eyre: Because of your wife!
Rochester: I have no wife!
Jane Eyre: But you are to be married!
Rochester: Jane, you must stay.
Jane Eyre: And become nothing to you? Am I a machine without feelings? Do you think that because I am poor, obscure, plain and little that I am soulless and heartless? I have as much soul as you and full as much heart! And if God had blessed me with beauty and wealth, I could make it as hard for your to leave me as it is for I to leave you. I'm not speaking to you through mortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit. As if we'd passed through the grave and stood at God's feet equal. As we are!
Rochester: As we are.

Saying a Good Word is Like French Kissing... Myself.

Linguistic masturbation.

I love good words. I once had a suitor that called me at night and read from a thesaurus. I loved it... It never got him laid, but about 15 years later I had a one night stand with his hotter-younger-dumber brother. *SMILE*

I was listening to a new hip-hop song and I thought the lyrics said "I'm despondent like that." I thought that was pretty brilliant.

*I love the way my mouth feels when I make an effort to enunciate it.
*I love the thought of a sexy man (the vocalist) being trisyllabic.
*I love the sound of repetitive, hard consonants. Okay... breathe Savvy.

... I had no idea what it meant, but damn it got me going.

de·spon·dent (d-spndnt) adj.
Feeling or expressing despondency; dejected.
de·spondent·ly adv.
Synonyms: despondent, despairing, forlorn, hopeless
These adjectives mean being without or almost without hope: despondent about the company's failure; took a despairing view of world politics; a forlorn cause; a hopeless case.
Antonym: hopeful
*The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Turns out that wasn't what he was saying. Not even close. Maybe he'll change it for me?

Even if I did hallucinate this word I think it came into my life right when I needed it. Thank you malfunctioning brain.

This will be a new list of word that make me want to have sex with an intellectual... or his hotter-younger-dumber brother at a later date.

Acrimonious. I've always loved this word. It describes... me. I think the writers of Rescue Me love it too because they use it a lot.

acrimonious [ˌækrɪˈməʊnɪəs]
adj
characterized by bitterness or sharpness of manner, speech, temper, etc.
acrimoniously adv
acrimoniousness n
*Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

To be continued...

Pain/Sleep

I do not "enjoy" my job so I am not saying this intending for anyone to be impressed or interested. I am, at the moment, a retail floor planner for a major drug store chain. In my initial excitement of actually being employed, I paid close attention to the lineal space allocations for each department.

I'm sure you understand that space allowance depends on sales and that depends on the location of the store and it's average customer. Cosmetics is, by far, allotted the most space in the best location in every store. The pain/sleep department also caught my attention. "I have pain. I want to sleep." Pain/sleep can take up from 18' to much as 30' and that... is pretty much the length of one side of an aisle.

People have pain... people want to sleep.

Like any creative self-medicator I have fussed with my formula for years trying to get it just right. I've tried chamomile tea, Tylonal PM, NyQuil, a healthy diet and exercise and, of course, bottles of various kinds of liquor.

I'm a pretty typical Gen-X girl. I have my cell phone, Ipass laptop, Ipod, GPS, efficiency cooking appliances, etc. I want to be able to wake up and go to sleep with the ease and convenience of everything else in my life. Results. Now. Though my body is vintage, c.1980 (ahem), it is an ancient technology. It is not responding as needed. I need to be able to sleep immediately and then wake up if my son calls, when my alarm goes off... if someone comes into my room or if there is something more dangerous in my head that I need to get away from. Something... spiritual or subconscious... untouchable... is wrong.

I have these nightmares. I had them as a child. They were usually about being eaten alive by bugs. I watched them, in a panic, tunneling into my skin, but as a teen the pests went away. In my early twenties they were about being attacked and abused by men... I'm sure I was a delight to sleep next to. I stopped sleeping. They started again when my son was seven weeks old and I chose to be a single mother. They are about all sorts of things now, but usually natural disasters and living a post apocalyptic life.

It's embarrassing when I have a friend in the passenger side. I had a friend who would sing to me... a crooner. Another who would leave... a Nazi. Another who would restrain me so that I couldn't get up and wander... he's too fresh for classification.



Lately my sleeping has been irregular... too deep... too light... no sleep... nightmares... no dreams... odd dreams and lovely vivid dreams... dreams so sweet that I am Éponine Thénardier... finding solace in saccharine.

Haha theatrics.

Anyway. This will be my sleep log because I like lists as much as I like rambling. My informal sleep study.

* I am literally running through the streets of a city. I'm very serious and intent, but not crying. I'm going from church to church... of any and every religion and praying... on my knees with my hands on my heart. I have no idea what I was praying about, but I was very sure of myself in my dream. In reality I have been resolved in my Atheism for 18 years.

* Again I am in a city, but this time walking on a sidewalk holding my son's hand. We are dressed casually. There are other people but it's not overly crowded and the city sounds are muffled in the background. I ask him if he likes it here and he says yes. We turn a corner and go down some steps, but this part I am watching from behind myself and then we are gone.

*I dream of this guy I'll spare you the dirty details... it's too hard to write about, but he is a total douche... anyway there are bats too. They fly at my head... maybe I need to wash my hair more? Gonna wash that man right outta my hair... oh yes...South Pacific. How is that for proudly waving a big dork flag?

Skin Care for the Apocalypse

I have a borderline addiction to beauty products and makeup. I follow the releases of new collections and read reviews. I buy buy buy like a good little girl, but with skin care I wanted to try something different. I wanted to go all natural. I wanted to use products that are inexpensive, easily obtained and multipurpose.

This is what I am doing at the moment and it appears to be slowly creating a balance in my skin and removing impurities.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- cleansing oil
Apple cider vinegar
- Toner
Aztec Secret Indian Healing Clay
- facial mask
Manuka Honey
- spot treatment
Water
- hydration


My goal is to get by on waterproof eyeliner and mascara when I move to Austin or in the event of an apocalypse. I'm open to suggestions.

Literacy is the Old Black

This will be a running list of books I am reading or have read... I'm more of an appreciator than a writer. I buy most of my books used... Online or at resale shops. I like knowing someone else traveled the road I'm on... that's about the highest level of intimacy I can handle.

***Summer 2011***
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. by Chelsea Handler
Dorothy Parker Collected Works
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Max Tucker
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Truth and Consequences by Alison Lurie
The Rescue by Nicholas by Nicholas Sparks

***Currently Reading***
I and Thou by Martin Buber... I felt I needed to replenish the brain tissue annihilated by my recent selection of reading material... I may have been a bit ambitious. I am NOT this fuckin' smart.