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.

In Which I Define A Native Inspired Diet

I am Native American- I am going to eat like it, because that keeps me the healthiest.

Fat does not make you fat, starches and refined sugars and fructose/glucose/dextrose etc. make you fat. Especially if you're sedentary.

I have a lot of recipes marked on Pinterest that are "Paleo". Paleo diet posits that cavemen ate lots of meat, that lots of grains aren't good for you, and that fruits, veggies, nuts and meat are the best diet.

I don't think this is entirely healthy. I am Native American, and I know what my ancestors ate in order to be healthy. They had a LOT of seed grains, no refined sugars, tons of fruits and greens and vegetables, and lots and lots of lean meats. I intend to eat like this.

So for recipes, I'm going to get Paleo and Vegan recipes and use them in my diet.
I get a cheat day per week to eat things like Panda Express, and I will be basing my diet in vegetables and fruits, with multigrains and seed grains, and then lean meats. "Paleo" doesn't allow dairy, and my own constitution doesn't technically either, but I love cheese, and butter is half decent for you, actually, in MODERATION.

MODERATION is key to everything in diet, as well as eating no more processed crap, eating things that are genuinely FOOD.

In Which I Resolve to Become Dangerous Again

I used to be dangerous. I was scary good. It was fun. I could depend on my body to do insane things for me.This was freshman year of college. I was physically competent to the point of skilled agility and defense. I could look at a lineup of ten people and say, yep, I could beat four of them- seven of them if I have a ballpoint pen with me. I could go exploring in the hills and rely on my strengths and senses to keep me agile, mobile and safe, with just a stick and a phone and a bottle of water. I could go running over a path full of obstacles and deftly avoid each one, reflexively.
I wanna do that again.

I've been sick for two months straight. Medication adjustment all of November, then sinus infection -> Bronchitis -> Pneumonia for all of December. I am so done being fragile. I wanna go run up mountains now, but that isn't going to happen. Contrary to how I was raised, you can't just barrel on through things because you decide to Keep Moving- that's how I got Pneumonia from a measly Sinus infection. I pushed too hard, too fast, trying to MAKE myself get better NOW.

Well, not this time. This time people who inquire after my health and insist I should push harder will just have to be patient, because I am not going to do anything too fast. THEY aren't the ones who will suffer if I overwork myself. Just repeat that. They are not the ones who will suffer if I push too hard, I WILL. I'm going to do this at a speed I can feel is right and healthy, no matter what anyone else says.
I will not let myself be pressured into doing more than I can handle.

I will not let myself be pressured into doing more than I can handle.

I will not let myself be pressured into doing more than I can handle.

So to be concrete:
January-
-I will get myself to the point that I can walk my dog myself, and move about the rest of an average day, without being utterly exhausted. I am too weak for this now, this must change.
-I will be cutting out all potatoes and white breads. Vacation's over. Multigrain or nothing, kids.
-I will be experimenting with new vegetable recipes, and trying to eat more fruits and veggies.

By March, at least two of my daily meals will be vegetable based. Somehow.

In Which I am STILL Sick. AGAIN. Send Help Plz.

SO I did my week or so of medical rest, and then a week sort of recovering from that and prepping for Thanksgiving, and then the day after Thanksgiving I let myself get waaaay too much exposure to freezing dusty desert air. No, really, literally freezing. I have not been that cold in a very, very long time. A few years at least. As could be easily expected, that night I felt quite dead and I woke up with sinus problems that turned into a full blown infection.

So here it is about a week later and I still can't breathe properly. I've spent all this time in bed, again, with a brief respite on Saturday when I thought I was starting to recover, and I got out of bed for a bit longer than an hour at a time and was able to talk with friends and sculpt a little and even ordered Pizza.

I am concerned that all the health I gained over the summer will have atrophied right off me after spending an entire month in bed. Lots of other people have worse conditions than me, and maybe if it were worse I could accept it more gracefully because it'd feel, I dunno more real? This is like a lousy false half sickness that will not loose its grip, and I am running out of things to do while sick in bed.

I also feel like a loser for whining and needing so much help. I am not able to get out of bed and perform any task more complex than make cocoa or heat food in a microwave. I certainly cannot drive a car right now.
So for a bit there things got kind of desperate because I ran out of groceries and out of laundry and out of room in the bin to put my trash, and my dog was just not getting enough exercise. My friends work and my family are busy.
Luckily I was able to get help- My parents came at night and walked my puppeh, my wonderful friends came over Saturday and helped me with dishes and trash and they brought me bread and milk, and today my lovely Mother came, walked my dog and brought me clean laundry and cough drops.

Now If I could just get some sleep instead of trying to hack up my lungs...
I don't want pneumonia, I've had it once and it's exactly like another month or two of this...

In Which I Have Made Myself Sick, Sort Of.

Argh. I have been on bed rest for the whole week. Not. Fun. Rar. I'm just not used to this kind of thing.

I am adjusting a medication of mine, but the darn stuff is so freaking strong that one has to drop the dose in increments, and every time one does this, one ends up knocked for a loop and in bed for a week- One of the reasons I want OFF of this drug is that it is so very strong and messes with my health like this. So not worth it, can't wait to be free of it.

I have a dog to take care of, dishes and groceries needing doing, and a life to live, and very few local friends with time to help out. Grr. Impatient.

Luckily for me, I do have some friends and family who have been very patient with the whole, Wah, I can't do anything Mess. They've been bringing me food, or walking my dog, or just keeping me company online.

In Which I Mention the Dolls

So, feetofclaydolls.blogspot.com is my other blog, and it is all about my dolls. I collect and customize special art dolls called Ball Jointed Dolls. Unlike typical collector's dolls, these are not mean to only sit on a shelf. They are made to be customized and personalized, and are extremely posable.




They are not limited to baby dolls and toddler dolls as is normally popular, and my own collection has every age from toddlers to a fifty two year old man.




They can be photographed beautifully and are capable of looking very human.



Check out my doll blog for more info!