In Which I Ask For Seconds of Zucchini

I am not a veggie person. I taste things on a level most people do not. I have a highly keyed sense of taste and smell. Not bragging, because it's no picnic, but them's the facts. Supposedly there are certain bitter chemicals in many vegetables that some people can taste and others can't- this is what determines if you like that vegetable or not. I can taste a lot of said bitter flavors in pretty much every vegetable. There are some, like green beans, that will make me physically sick just imagining the taste of.
And tonight I ate "second helpings" of Zucchini.

I mentioned earlier in this blog, about two entries ago, that I am changing how I eat. The zucchini thing is a response to a severe pizza craving. Now, I love pizza. I am a critic of pizza like some people love fine wines. I can tell you which delivery pizza has which qualities to it, which ones are crap and which are heavenly, and which frozen pizzas are best, and which places in town serve the best oven baked pizza. I love pizza so much. So now I am not letting myself have white flour and the thing I miss most is my beloved New York Pie.

I hollowed out some zucchini, spread them thinly with coconut oil, sprinkled on garlic and Italian spices, then roasted them. For the last few minutes of roasting I filled them with pizza toppings. Then my friends and I ate them.
It ain't pizza, but it ain't bad.
Next I'm going to try this cauliflower and egg "crust" someone else on the internet has made. I'm using the site Pinterest to get good recipes and keep all my good ideas for food together, and I'm going to try a few new recipes each week. The Zucchini pizza boats were very fast to fix, and very easy to do, so they will probably get repeated later, often.

In Which I Log the Saga of the Pothead Neighbor.

Every freaking where I live there's some idiot smoking. At the apartment in Downtown, #444, it was tobacco, but not very often, and we used to "wash our windows" to get the downstairs neighbors to quit puffing outside our window- with the knowledge and approval of a very cool manager.
At the house on Beech Tree it was my Charming Neighbors, who had a neurotic dog and a perpetually lost cat, very loud parties and far too many pricey cars for one house, and they would toke up occasionally when I had the windows down on nice evenings. In CA the smell of Pot is Probable Cause for a search, and the cops dealt with those lovely people regularly, thanks to an anonymous tipster. Ahem.

But now.
Oh, now this is the worst, right here in lovely innocent Utah. One of the people I am forced by heater vents to share air with is a pothead, and is forcing me to inhale their nasty acrid smoke almost daily. I've been sticking notes about it on facebook, as follows:


Nothing like being home with an upper respiratory infection when one of the people connected to you by a forced air heating system decides to light up some weed. *chokecoughhack* I am sealing the vents. I'll be cold, I don't care.
Like · · December 14, 2011 at 4:21pm


If you're connected by forced air to several other apartments, is there any way to find out which, specifically, of them is smoking pot and choking you while you fight off a lung infection? Because I do not at this moment Love my Neighbor as Myself.
December 15, 2011 at 2:27pm
Heather I had that problem at the timbers. There is no way they can fix it. Only way I know of is to move. I hope you feel better soon though!
December 15, 2011 at 2:54pm · Like
Jennifer check with the property manager to see what the smoking policy is
December 15, 2011 at 3:07pm · Like
Carly Rat them out!!!
December 15, 2011 at 3:25pm · Like
Jason You said once that you have good senses, why not sniff them out? When somebody is smoking weed I can usually smell it through a door. Failing that, just wait until you pass somebody who reeks of weed and see where they go.
December 15, 2011 at 4:07pm · Unlike · 1
Peter Whichever one is also listening to pink floyd or bob marley :)
December 15, 2011 at 4:26pm · Unlike · 1
Laura Good luck, with whatever you do. I hope you get over the lung infection!
December 15, 2011 at 5:03pm · Like · 1
Nicole I'm sorry you're having that problem, but I love your last sentence. It made me LOL.
December 15, 2011 at 10:32pm · Unlike · 1
Me Thanks guys. If it happens again when I can afford to be outdoors in the cold, I'm going knocking on doors until one opens and the smoke wafts out. Then I am calling the cops.
December 16, 2011 at 4:46pm · Like · 1

I never did get to go knocking doors, because that lung infection- bronchitis from a sinus infection- turned into Pneumonia, which I am still trying to recover from here as I post this in January. I still have to avoid cold air whenever I can, so yeah. It goes on:


Saga of the pot-neighbor continues! I am using an air purifier to make my bathroom breathable. Last night whoeveritis decided to get high again at my expense, so I had to go use the shower at Mom's. I can't tell if they're doing it again, or if it's just fumes from last night. Merry freakin' Christmas.
Like · · December 24, 2011 at 11:03am

I sort of feel sorry for someone who has to get high on Christmas. But only sort of. Inflicting it on other people, who have lung and breathing problems, that right there kills my sympathy.
I didn't make a status every time they smoked pot from here on because it has become pretty frequent, increasing in frequency and intensity:


Saga of the Pot Smoking Neighbor continues: Spoke to an Ossifer, and he says they can't enter someone's home or arrest them without actually seeing them doing it. Seeing them with drugs in hand. Even if the whole place reeks. Greeeeaaaat. I can pray the smoker is stoned enough to answer the door with joint in hand.
Like · · December 28, 2011 at 9:02pm

Smoked out of my apartment by acrid marijuana fumes on Saturday, forced to go use a friend's bathroom. Unable to sleep thanks to intermittent fumes all of Sunday night. Had enough. I am going to the management in person. Either they evict this piece of crap or I am moving, and taking my substantial rent and deposit with me. I can't live like this.
Like · · Yesterday at 6:35am

And so we're up to date.
By this point it has gotten so bad it's ruining my ability to sleep properly, I get woken up by the stench. I've had to leave my house and go be with friends to escape it, it keeps me from showering because I can't shut the vents in my bathroom. I choke on it all night. My friends won't come over because they can't deal with the stink of it and a bathroom they can't use either.

I am breaking down. I am contemplating violence. I am wondering if an Assault charge on my public record would be really so bad. I am so very glad the Management has refused to tell me which apartment they think is doing this to me, for my own sake. I am ready to do something phenomenally stupid. I dunno what but it would be violent and stupid. I scream at the walls. I have started phoning Management to leave a message every time the smoker lights up and fumes my house some more, just so they get a sense of the urgency of the problem.
Which brings us to today:

Saga of the pothead neighbor continues: I have contacted the Main Management, described my rather hellishly fumigated weekend, and have given an ultimatum to them. Either they evict this person or I am leaving. End of story. I think they see my point now, and have told me they'll call me back this afternoon.
Like · · 25 minutes ago

If they don't want to lose an exceedingly high amount of money, they will get rid of this problem. I seem to have made them understand that whatever they have said to this person, the Pothead clearly has No intention of ceasing to poison my air and is ruining my health. I have also told them that if I have to go to a hotel, I will be sending them the bill. Money talks. They have said they will contact me this afternoon. I dearly hope it is to say they will have this person thrown out. My sympathy is done.

In Which I Don't Care if No One Buys, I have a Storage Unit.

I have a weird problem.
I would go into the studio and make random series of art night and day, churn out mad rows of paintings… except what the heck would I do with all of those when I was done?
I realized one of the big things stopping me from doing art is that finished,

it has to go somewhere.

And unless I paint nothing but kittens or weeaboo-stuff, no one is going to want my paintings. The paintings I have in mind are NOT going to be my usual fare.
But you know what? If no one is going to want them, then these paintings are not for those people. These paintings are going to be painted for me. What happens to them after that is just the epilogue.

So this year,
I am going to do it anyway and sell em all via etsy. I'll link here once a piece is done and up for sale. If you want exceedingly unique art for your home or apartment, actual art, not prints, get ready.

Part of my subconscious issue with painting for art's sake is that people always ask you to explain it. They almost never ask for this with a photograph. They accept a photo as An Image, but they want a PowerPoint slideshow with interpretive dance to help them "get" a painting. It's like if you spent a whole ten minutes telling someone something, and right at the end they say, "So, yeah, I heard all that 'blah blah', but what do you actually mean?"

I am very inspired by Ursula Vernon's approach. She just paints whatever she feels like painting sometimes, and other than a few words, doesn't bother trying to get people to understand any of it. The art's the point. No explanations this time. Art for art's sake. So far my best answer to narrative seekers is, "It's a painting".


...Now I just need a clean studio.
Crap.