i have a very slim chance of getting an interview with a huge company for a ton of money. and it's downtown, which i miss so much. if i even get an interview, i have an even slimmer chance of getting the job. it's a conserative company, as in, not a lot of tattooed chubby girls running around in weird chunky shoes. if i can get my resume perfect, and get an actual interview, i can cover most tattoos (see above pic) but not the neck one. so to be perfectly honest, the only way i am getting in is on personality. now, i can be a good bullshit artist, but i don't know if i am THAT good. but it's a huge amount of money, especially for a chick with a high school diploma.

so the game plan is beef up the resume, get rid of the blue toe nails and get an outfit together that hides most of my ink. if i get in, then the weird shit can slowly start to come out. although my poor little mermaid baby (see above) may never see the light of day at this place.

come to me.....i am your leader......... that halloween costume was the best ever!!!

this week has been a long one. stuck at work late, tired and itching (not sure why.) but i noticed that after writing my blog about being fat and not feeling ashamed, something changed. i felt better and was happy to eat healthy. i decided to give up wine completely. and for the last few days i've felt amazing. i can't sleep for shit, but who cares?

ok, i am still stuck at work an insanely tired, so i'll end this and write more later. ba bye!

my friend cathy emailed me some important info and i wanted to spread the word:

Paramedics will turn to a victim's cell phone for clues to that person's identity. You can make their job much easier with a simple idea that they are trying to get everyone to adopt: ICE.

ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. If you add an entry in the contacts list in your cell phone under ICE, with the name and phone no. of the person that the emergency services should call on your behalf, you can save them a lot of time and have your loved ones contacted quickly. It only takes a few moments of your time to do. Paramedics know what ICE means and they look for it immediately. ICE your cell phone NOW! Please pass this along

another blog about a pet....



i figure eventually i will introduce them all. also, i like the idea of these animals who were once homeless and unwanted now being famous. because my blog is famous of course....

this is lucy. my vet rescued her as a stray who was having a litter of kitten and very sick. he got all the kittens adopted out, but no one wanted lucy. she was very shy and nervous, and sort of odd looking. a stump tail and bowed legs, with lots of mangy hair. when i brought her home she lived under the couch for days. she was sick for the longest time and the other cats hated her, so she "moved in" to my bedroom. she loved having the room to herself and started getting better quickly. within weeks she started strutting around, chirping at me to pet her now! she grew a beautful coat in and loves to be the duchess of the room. she's starting to be comfortable with me leaving the door open at night so the dogs can come in. she's very strict with them, and they know their place. last night she even let the other cats in. at one point i was in bed with a giant cone-headed dog and 3 cats! i looked around, took note that my life is insane, and fell back asleep.

today i have no real topic in mind, so RANDOM BLABBER it is!!!!! this is a pic of amy sedaris, one of my inspirations. she's crazy and funny as hell! the pic above is her in character from "strangers with candy". i decided today that i love corn on the cob. one of the best foods ever. if only it weren't so messy.... i am addicted to wikipedia. if you saw the things i search on, you'd put me in the looney bin. i go from the facts of life to munchausen by proxy to poop. the poop wiki is great because everyone is arguing behind the scenes about whether to include a photo of human poop. good stuff! i was thinking today that more people should be into tom waits. ah, i want give give a shout out to my friend lisa r. she's one of my best friends and we've been friends since the age of about 13. that's over 20 years! god, we're really fucking old. but we still have fun! what else to ramble on...... i hate summer and want snow NOW. griffin is doing good and may get stitches out a little sooner then we thought. i lost about another pound. work is stressful but fun. i need to go eat another ear of corn. sweet dreams people.....

the inevitable blog about being fat.....

so why am i fat? is it because i am lazy? do i eat like a pig? should i feel ashamed?

it seems to me this is one of the last remaining acceptable prejudices in society, to make fun of or look down on people who are overweight. now mind you, i'm not sensitive about it. i thought "shallow hal" was funny. and i loved the story line on "friends" where they would flashback to monica as obese teenager.

but think about even the word FAT. no one, especially girls, likes to even use the word. instead we say chubby, plump, heavyset, stocky, thick, buxom, etc... the thesaurus lists "gross" as a synonym for god's sake!

i had weight loss surgery in 2001. since then i have lost 150 pounds, and have gained 50% of that back. i was so careful to do the research, to make sure i was successful. i avoided every pitfall mentioned. i followed all the rules and got down to my goal weight. i also dealt with major depression and anxiety. losing 150 in a year is amazing, but also terrifying. i didn't recognize myself in the mirror. i was a size 8 and still didn't think i could fit in a booth at a restaurant. with all that going on, the boys came out of the woodwork. i ended up in 2 of the worst relationships of my life. and to deal with this all, i picked up a nasty drinking habit. it completely snuck up on me. i had never been much of a drinker before surgery, but after i found that wine had the lovely effect of relaxing my horrible anxiety attacks, and helped me fall asleep. no one in my family had a drinking problem, so it didn't seem like a big deal.

it was a big deal. i ended up getting wasted every night for almost a year. worried my family 1/2 to death. now that is something to be ashamed of! but i worked on the problem and even went to therapy! since then it's sometimes still a struggle, but i feel good about the work i did to improve. i sometimes try to drink moderately for a while, then go back to quitting completely. it's something i am still working on every day.

so how did i gain all this weight back? too much wine for sure. going on anti-anxiety meds that caused me to gain 20 pounds over 3 months didn't help. i basically ruined my metabolism in junior high by starving myself through puberty. my dad's side of the family have weight issues. i sometimes make bad food choices and eat too much fast food. i have trouble exercising due to the metal plates in my leg. i am lazy. that's just off the top of my head!

here's the thing. i made some bad choices, i had some bad luck.... none of it makes me a bad person. it sucks being fat, but i am tired of feeling ashamed. i mean, i'm not going to be "pro-fat" by any means, just done beating myself up over it. i have made some improvements by giving up fast food and only occasionally having a glass of wine. i am eating tons of fresh fruits and veggies, which is drastic for me. it's just going to take a really long time.

what prompted this rant? my mom and sister have lost a ton of weight on weight watchers. mom has become a bit of a nazi about the whole weight thing with me. she means well, but is making me a little koo koo. so thank the sticklady for this one! hahahaha....

p.s. i just found the perfect photo for this blog! LMAO!!!!!!

ah, time for more evil fun!!! this is rachel, one of my best friends since our marching band days in high school. she's also my landlord. she came by to mow the backyard (which has gone wild with weeds and overgrown vines.) she forgot to bring shorts to change into out of her work clothes. so i picked the worst, most unflattering pair i could find. she was horrified! then i took her pic, now it's blogged! ha ha ha ha ha!!!! i am making an exception for rachel and including a photo where you can also see how gosh darn pretty she is. and she's got a great body, too bad you can't tell with those hot pink shorts on. ha ha ha!!!

oh another note: i wanted to say hello to my friend cathy. she actually reads my blog and comments, so she is my new best friend. forget that rachel chick!

i can't believe i haven't written about dixie yet! the best dog ever on the entire planet! yes, i am wild for this dog. the above photo is her after i gave her a bath (and she promptly roll in the dirt and grass.) in this photo she is barking at me. she hates baths and told me so. this old dog is smart and funny. i'm so glad i decided to adopt a senior rescued dog. i know she had a hard life before the volunteers at the cleveland kennel rescued her, so i spoil her as much as possible

as for griffin, i have never known a more kind and loving dog, but the boy is a handful! we are going on the 4th week of the cone on his head. hopefully the stitches will finally come out next week! ah, i do love that old griff, even if he is a spaz.....

today i have guests over for lunch, but i am so crabby. i am being a bad host and playing online. if anyone has tried to call me this weekend, you can't get through because my phone line has problems. it should be corrected by monday. this photo of a french monkey is making me a tiny bit less crabby.

this is my favorite pic of myself. my friend's daughter selena took it. she also took the photo of me that appears in the upper left corner of my blog. she's my own personal paparazzi. selena is a great kid who, besides being obsessed with her hair, is a blast to be around.

anyways, i am in a funk today. getting nothing done around the house and watching bad lifetime movies. just zero motivation. i read the william styron book about his own experience with depression and he describes it perfectly. the word "depression" itself barely describes it. i once read some saying it feels like "unfocused dread" and that has always stuck with me. i don't like to tell people i suffer from depression because they have little understanding. they think it's a mood and something to get over. cheer up! i try to explain it to people by comparing it to diabetes. depression is a problem due to lack of enough certain brain chemicals (no matter what that asshole tom cruise says!) so telling me to cheer up is like telling a diabetic to produce more insalin.

wow, that turned into a rant. now it's time for me to get off this computer and clean my house. enough of this moping around! i need to cheer up!!!!! hehehe....

This is one of my favorite Henry Darger painting. It's from The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. He worked on the paintings and story his entire life. He also wrote The History of My Life, a book that spends 206 pages detailing his early life before veering off into 4,672 pages of fiction about a huge tornado called "Sweetie Pie."

this is the best monkey picture ever! i saw this monkey on the news a while back. he was in india and loved this dog so much, he carried the poor thing with him everywhere. he ran around the marketplace and show everyone his puppy, but never let them touch it. he was so proud of his dog! it was one of the funniest things i've ever seen, and now rachel has sent me this photo. dig it!!!

short bus cartel in the house!!!
(chris, me and zak. craig not pictured. it's ok, he's an asshole and you don't need to see him. ha ha ha!)

these are some of my work pals. i was thinking today how we love to fight all day. play fight. basically annoy the crap out of each other and laugh all day. my family and friends are the same. we just love to upset each other. play crazy tricks, say inappropriate things. here's a list of some random horrible things we've done:

zak likes to announce when he's going to the bathroom to "drop the cosby kids off at the pool." i pretended i was going to hug my boss because i know he hates it. i arrived at work this morning and announced to chris i would be touching his deformed ear (i think it's cute) and by noon i had touched it. i am now blogging about said ear, only sure to upset him more. my friend rachel is afraid of whales and we continually give her xmas gifts like whale calendars, whale mugs. i call my mom and make her watch sad country videos that i know will make her cry. my mom calls me to make me watch horrible medical documentaries because she knows they will make me sick. rach & i once almost gave david a heart attack by placing a fake crow outside the window. he screamed "aye! shoo bird!" and clapped his hands at it, trying to scare it away. i spent $5 on stuffed bunnies to hide all over jon's desk because he hates bunnies. my former officemate (and current friend) spent the last 2 years picking up my coffee every morning to smell it, which made me crazy. my sister hates having her photo taken, so i've started taking "paparazzi" shots of her as she's getting out of her car or carrying groceries in. david once took my pic into photoshop, and turned me into a black infant in a bonnet. david lived in the apartment on the other side of my wall. he got upset that i wouldn't talk on the phone one night, so decided to record himself yelling at me to pick up the phone, then play it back full volume with the speakers aimed at my wall. i was so scared i collapsed. GOOD TIMES!!!

i don't know why, but pictures of monkeys are always funny! it's just a fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page this is an amazing website. it's an online encyclopedia and an amazing reference tool. you can look up any person or topic and generally get a ton of info. the amazing part is anyone can contribute information. people add or edit entries all the time. go to the site and look up wikipedia for a better explanation. then look up henry darger. i found him by looking up "outsider art". he was mentally ill and did some insane paintings. go check it out. NOW! (i am getting so bossy in my old age.)

griffin update: the vet had to replace 13 stitches and has never seen anything like that in 30 years of being a vet. we can't figure out how griffin did it, except that he is "special", and not in a good way!

you know it's bad when i don't even bother to post a photo.....

griffin is developing another hematoma at the tip of his ear. i have caught it in time and so far he's in no pain. so tomorrow it's another trip to the vet. they won't have to put him under, just sedate him, drain the blood and restitch. i just hate having to take him because he gets so scared. the other stress is money. my mom has a credit card i have been using for all my crazy vet bills, but it's almost at it's limit and it upsets her, which upsets me. blech!!!!! i have decided to take today to sit around and feel sorry for myself. i am going to sulk and mope to my heart's content! then tomorrow i will cut this shit out and get on with things. the dog will be ok, my mom will chill, and someday the great cone-headed nightmare of 2005 will be over. thanks to everyone for listening to me bitch and moan about this over the last 2 weeks!

here's a pic of phil spector on his first day of court. no, he's not crazy, not at all....

rodeo monkey! check it out. they ride border collies usually, so i am thinking of quitting my job and taking dixie out on the rodeo monkey circuit.

my mom thinks my blog needs to be more "edgy". she read an article about blogs and went online to check some out. apparently mine isn't as cool as www.jeffbridges.com. i am awful tired and need to do some chores, so i dug up some old artwork i did a while back. this is my sister and mom picking up sophie from the kennel. this is obviously before they lost all the weight and i played around with PAINT. enjoy.....

insomnia post- i can't sleep, so i'm back to blabber....


this is a pic of my friend lisa looking cranky. i love it! it's one of my favorite pics of her and makes me chuckle. i am putting the photo on my blog as punishment. you see, she has ignored all my bossing to check out my blog. she's always so damn busy. but i figure when i tell her she's online, she might come take a look. i need to be creative in my bossing!

random observation: celebrities seem to have become fond of having nervous breakdowns in public. all the new celeb-reality shows are disturbing. bobby & whitney are bat-shit crazy. tom cruise is fighting with everyone because he's "studied the history of psychiatry". of course he doesn't have a high school diploma, but i guess scientologists don't need it.

check out carlo's blog. he posted the best chicken marinade recipe ever!

this is a pic of my mom and her 2 dogs. maggie is on the right and sophie is in the middle, making "the face". it looks like she's being mean, but it's what she does when she's happy to see you. it's her grotesque smile. oh, my mom would want me to tell you she's lost a lot of weight since this photo was taken. she's back to her "sticklady" ways...

on another topic. i've been making a list in my hand of bands i think are overrated. here goes: the doors, the beach boys, red hot chilli peppers, all motown, and the worst of all....rush. read the lyrics to "tom sawyer" and you will agree.

catch the mist, catch the myth, catch the mystery, catch the drift........

i miss the old doctor..... i guess the fun stopped for him, and it was time to go. i can respect that. people mainly know him as some deranged drug addict from "fear and loathing in las vegas." they miss the point that the drugs weren't the story, the real story was about his search for the america dream (or the death of it.)

as for me, i got some good news from the vet. i stopped for more tranquilizers (for the dog, not me!) and dr. bedi had some good ideas to try to keep griffin from shaking his head and damaging the ear. and when i described what the ear and the 50 stiches looked like, he said thAASD

ah, sorry about the typo. griffin just came flying back into the office and knocked into my chair. anyways, the ear sounds like it's healing nicely, so good news!

as for me, i am exhausted from this cone-headed dog, but otherwise hunky-dory.

btw- i added a link for my friend stacy's blog. she's hilarious! my old friend from OSU. she was this little punk rock girl who rode a skateboard on campus and used to stage dive at shows. now she's teaching her kid henry how to skateboard!

sigh................. i am ruined. this crazy dog won't stop shaking his head and slamming into things. he's going to end up back at the vets. i wonder if they can amputate the god damn ear? well, i am too exhausted to write anything interesting or funny. blame griffin for this shitty post.

it's official: i am a complete wreck today. exhausted from running an animal hospital at home, getting no sleep..... i have been a complete loon at work today. and it doesn't help that my little friend here is feeding my obsession with discussing "the facts of life". sadly we are discussing the horrible sitcom and not actually talking about sex. which makes us insane.

we are so obsessed about facts of life and making so many jokes and scenarios. he was talking about a japanese kubuki theater (NOH) doing a version of the show and i almost lost my mind.

kablooie_ranks: btw, NOH Facts of Life would be the funniest thing ever

kablooie_ranks: [a white-faced man in a Blair wig and a smear of bright-red lipstick crab-walks onto the stage.]

tootie: stop!

kablooie_ranks: [He is wearing a black and white kimono with a beige sweater vest draped over it]

tootie: it's too much!

tootie: the crab walk is killing me

tootie: i need to start wearing kubuki makeup.

tootie: like diana vreeland used to

kablooie_ranks: ["Blair" stairs at the audience while in a low, wide stance to a clatter of Japanese cymbals]

kablooie_ranks: "GARRETTO!" he blares. An atonal cacaphony of koto strings resounds.

tootie: there's something very wrong with us

last night i saw a description for a law and order SVU episode that is the craziest thing i have ever seen. "detectives discover a baby's finger in a rape victim's purse." that is nuts, but make me feel so much better about my own life.

on a final random note, griffin is doing pretty well with the ear, except for excessive head shaking. so he'll be on sedatives for a few more days. he's such a spaz. he runs into me constantly, as well as every fence on tree in the yard. the cone is so dented, it looks like it's been run over by a train!

it's been almost 2 weeks since i decided to eat healthy and give up fast food. the fast food drive thru window is my weakness and cause of much recent weight gain. it's almost 2 weeks now, but today i caved. i was running early and mcdonald's in like a block from work. the good thing is that it wasn't that great. not at all as good i remembered it. so hopefully i will get back on the fast food wagon. or am i getting off the wagon? either way, mcdonald's is dead to me!!!

update on the cone-headed dog.....




the top pic is griffin on monday, the bottom one today. he's back to his goofy old self. also back to be the worst "under foot" dog ever. it was bad enough tripping over the 80 pound lug without the cone! but i am just so happy to see him back to "normal"

this is my dog griffin, just home from the vet. i noticed his ear was extremely swollen and he was digging at it and crying. my vet came in to the clinic since the emergency vet clinic was booked up. griffin was terrified and had to be muzzled until we got him sedated. the vet drained a large amount of blood from his ear, bandaged him up, and sent us home. my mom and i dragged this 70 pound dog home and now he's passed out in the kitchen. tomorrow morning he goes back for surgery (to repair the damage in his ear.) then home with the crazy cone thing on his head for 2 weeks. poor griffin.... and i am a nervous wreck. he's starting to wake up now, so i better go.

i had another dream about tornados........

i've been having these dreams since i was a child. the dreams are always very vivid, and i am trying to escape the tornado, but am also fascinated and can't stop looking at it as it barrells down towards me. last night's dream had a cluster of tornados in the distance, and they were red. i was at the old house on forest grove and i was trying to save all the pets. very odd......

this is my friend james smith. just looking at the photo makes me laugh. i decided this blog shouldn't just be about me, but also about some of the amazing people i've met in my life. the ones who aren't around anymore. this is james. he lived at the group home where i worked in columbus. we were friends for almost 4 years before he passed away. he wasn't actually mentally retarded. but he had spent his life in an institution and needed help with things. i met his sister once, at his funeral and she told me how he ended up in an institution.

he was born a "blue baby" (lack of oxygen) and had some health problems. his dad had passed away and his mom couldn't afford the doctor bills, so she gave him over to the state. he was in an institution from birth until he was in his 50's. when i came to the group home to work, he was about 60. and i was wild for him from the moment we met. he had a wicked sense of humor and was a total curmudgeon. he was stubborn as hell and very impatient. he would scream and curse at red lights and if dinner was late, he bitched. once he was so made when i told him he'd have to wait for dinner, he wrote a poem.

wait for the wagon/ wait for the duck/ wait for the monkey/ suck suck suck!!!

he said it off the top of his head and then stormed out of the room. everyone loved the old man. he was full of mischief. always playing jokes. and he loved to make everyone guess. i could spend an hour just trying to figure out what he had for dinner. "james, what did you eat for dinner?" "you know........" was the answer. he once, while waiting in traffic, asked me to explain what surgery was AND potpurri. when i tried to explain surgery, he told me to go to hell and that i was lying. when i explained potpurri, he giggled and said that a bowl of scented leaves and twigs was nuts. he also asked me to explain what retarded meant. that was tough.

his kidneys failed and he started dialysis, which is painful and tedious. but that last year of his life, he got to move into an apartment with 2 friends. for the first time in his entire life, he had his own bedroom. he picked out all the furniture, although i ended up helping with the decorative things. he just wanted to spend his money on baseball cards and junk food. that summer we went to cedar point. i convinced him to drive one of the old-timey cars. he didn't notice the bar on the ground, so i convinced him he was really driving. he screamed and cursed me the whole time, but then wanted to do it again. there were a group of little kids watching and laughing. they loved him and asked him to go around a 3rd time.

he was like an odd combination of a friend, mate and grandfather, and i loved him a great deal. i was so lucky to have known him, and when he died it felt like a little color in the world was gone. my friends and i decided that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, he should get to come back as a spoiled, pampered and loved child. he was a blast to hang out with and helped me with my college math homework. and now he's online! i like the idea of a little piece of james out here on the internet....

this is a photo of my cat hank. he has taken to sleeping in a grocery bag, every night for a month now. i can understand why. things around the charlton estate haven't been all fun and games. broke up with my boyfriend, running low on funds, and a messy house. i am taking today to just be lazy, do a little cleaning and update my blog. i had my "weigh in" today for weight watchers. 1 week and not cheating, and i didn't lose a pound. but i am not giving up (cue katrina and the waves "walking on sunshine".) actually, cue a good song. paul simon's "graceland"

there's a girl in new york city who calls herself the human trampoline/ and sometimes when i'm falling, flying or tumbling in turmoil i say oh, so this is what she means/ she means we're bouncing into graceland....

a very insane and random conversation...

skullranch: hey, have you ever brought a fly back to life using salt?
jennifer c.: what???
jennifer c.: you kill a slug with salt.
skullranch: and you bring a fly back to life with it. I swear to GOD I used to do it as a kid, and I've got one on my desk buried in salt and if that thing wakes up everyone in this office will believe.
jennifer c.: wow, you are real bad nuts
skullranch: Jennifer, why won't she come back to life?
skullranch: well, this dead fly has backfired on me. everyone's making fun of me. I'LL SHOW THEM!
jennifer c.: oh god.....LMAO
skullranch: the thing won't wake up. I just threw it in the garbage. I actually found online the trick: the fly must die from drowning. then it's really not dead because there's oxygen in water, blah blah, the salt somehow dehydrates the fly and the electric in the salt kicks it into gear...
skullranch: so, as usual, I'm not crazy, but I'm not magic either :-( I got ripped off. Why didn't I realize we were always drowning the flies before waking them up?
jennifer c.: hahahaha!!! you are killing me today
skullranch: it's true, old Clem "Huge Cock-n-Balls" Hartly ruined my life with his science lies!!
jennifer c.: what? who???
skullranch: told us our intestines when unraveled would wrap around the world 3 times... bringing flies back to life... what a rip!
jennifer c.: oh god, i remember you used to fight about whether starting with cold water made things boil faster....
skullranch: CLEM HARTLY! that's who started that. I got in a fight about that with another coworker just last night.
skullranch: And I remember saying, "Clem, does that mean hot water freezes faster than cold..." He got mad and left the room, we watched him outside smoking cigarettes.
jennifer c.: he he he........crazy
skullranch: He was in a coma as a child and looked like Herman Munster.
jennifer c.: who was?
skullranch: Clem "Huge Cock-n-Balls" Hartley
jennifer c.: and who the hell is this clem person????
skullranch: My science teacher from 6th grade!
jennifer c.: why does he have that nickname?
skullranch: Because he loved the girls, and would sit on the edge of his desk and had to lift all his junk up before sitting right on the corner, then it would flop around. He was about 8 feet tall, deep set black eyes, huge head and club feet.
jennifer c.: david
jennifer c.: come on
jennifer c.: that's horrible.
skullranch: hey, that's science.

i was trying to get a good pic of my sister (jennette) because she's lost a shitload of weight. instead i got a photo of her trying to scare her dog with a grill lid. and you can tell by her wild laughter, it worked.

my rambling post: greetings from the bunker................. after last night's power outage and today's lunchtime discussion of 9/11, i realized i need to be prepared for anything. http://www.virgin.net/music/musicvideos/futureheads_houndsoflove.htm this is the best new band and i love the video (they have dogs!) it's a cover of an old kate bush song and one of the best things i've seen in a long time. also, i hate computers. i was so excited about this blog until i had to spend over an hour reinstalling AOL, then connecting on my slow ass modem, all to make a little post. check out chris's blog to see a very bad pic of me. i am adding a link to my dear boy carlo's new blog. everyone's blogging, it's all the rage!