Isn't a 'Hello Hug' enough?

You really don't expect a guy to reach out and yank the zipper on your shorts while you're buying body lotion.

A hello crotch grab is a little much when patronizing a local store, even for this week.

Cruiser Research

Doing a little visual research before work and I always love seeing my favorite happy little bench.

Really glad to see this house is still being maintained in the same spirit of its original owner. Gotta love a little crazy!

Insanity / Sanity

Holy work exhaustion, Batman.

A couple of restaurant staff down and I become a full-time waitress for a stint. I remember how this went when I first got down here and it wasn't pretty. At least this time I know how to relieve it.

The job compilation I have set up is a delicate balance. Too much of one thing and the whole system can zap me. I consider it my work souffle and its quite a sight when it collapses.

I have been searching for my brain after the week's last restaurant shift on Wednesday. Its been a happy daze. You know you're too tired when the things you think in your head start bleeding through to your mouth and you just don't give a crap. It can be kinda freeing and definitely entertaining.

For example: This week a guy trying to be funny while asking for random things during my time waiting on him and his bachelor party gave me an open invite to enjoy my exhaustion. After finally claiming he was from the "Land of Oscar Meyer", I had no choice but to ask him if he had a little wiener. Something else discovered this week is you can say just about anything with a mischievous giggle and a smile.

Solutions come out of nowhere. Like wearing a wetsuit on my bike after 5 days straight of rain. I thought it a bold fashion statement and after thinking of chaffing, I instead I settled on bikini bottoms and boat shorts while riding to and from work in order to avoid having wet swamp ass. This is the only time I truly miss my car.

My brain turns off after three restaurant shifts in a row and it must of been how I ended up at Don's place with the staff. Twice.

If you do this kind of work full-time, kudos Sir, cause that's some hard livin'. You have to release it somewhere which I begin to realize as time quickly ticks away while having a beer or two at Don's. For some reason there is a time vortex there which is slightly freakish and absolutely frightening.

Just like Cinderella's pumpkin turning hour, the bewitching hour at Don's is 2am and it consists of service industry staff getting off work and ready to explode in all its glorious forms.

Yes, that man who served you snapper demurely earlier this evening has now morphed into a Mad Max thunderdome extra booming at the top of his lungs that he is the cornhole king. I hope you enjoyed your evening - his is just getting started.

Its always good to mix it up a bit and see how the other half lives but I believe I've had my fill of Don's for a while. This has now become my benchmark for knowing I've had one too many restaurant shifts. Getting dragged to Bare Assets and being asked to throw a wad of cash at a stripper is a further confirmation of that.

My restaurant peeps are some funny people and I love them to death. I haven't laughed as hard as I did at Don's in a while which was awesome and worth the exhaustion I now feel.

I have one more week of this schedule and boy howdy can I see the light at the end of the tunnel. A tunnel that includes Fantasy Fest so it should be an interesting ride. Mostly I want and need to get back to the creative projects I had to shelve for a little bit. It's all good I'm getting more ideas and losing more filters. All to benefit the true creative process which the regular jobs are a definitely a part of.

But alas, this craziness has got to change soon because when you respond laughing with "I feel dead inside" after a co-worker asks you how you are, that is probably not too healthy. At least that's what Oprah tells me.

As tired as I am, I pray for more water days. On Thursday, a nice couple from Brazil, a paddleboard tour and a change of scenery - I almost felt almost human again. The restaurant in all its wonderful forms is insanity and water is my sanity.

Good thing I live a block from the beach.

Lock and Load

September was a busy one. How is it that 2011 is almost over???

Lots o stuff been going on. What you ask? Well....

20 year high school reunion with the Catholic high school girls.

There was wine.

Midwest meals. Soul food restaurant owned by an old back up singer for Ike and Tina Turner. Fried catfish and chicken anyone? It was gooooood.

A visit to the St Louis botanical gardens. This is the climatron and I used to want to live in it.

I realized after walking through it looks just like Key West.

The best part of the gardens is feeding the Koi fish in the Japanese garden. Man have they grown! They still stick their mouths open for you to feed them.

I love them!

These are the bastard ducks that reached into the fishes mouths to get the food. It felt like a carnival game to try to drop the food directly into the Koi mouths. I got a few direct hits.

Fun with acrylics and clothespins = mailbox clips.

The final schellacked frappuccino vase.

The pickle pen jar came out nicely. Inspired by Ecuadorian fish graffiti. I'm currently painting dirt. Yes dirt - you'll see.

I'm starting to see my obsession with all things fish.

The new round of printed cards just received yesterday. The upgrade in camera and computer are definitely working out! Will be good for the website stuff.

Saw a great couple exhibitions at the St. Louis art museum with Mom. One of Francisco Clemente and his woodcut prints. Lots of ideas going.

Now off to write a press release.

Home Sweet Home

Has it already been a year? I've found so much comfort in my home, choosing to spend another year in it was a no-brainer.

Signed a new lease this week for my apartment and while doing so, I realized this will be the first time in six years I haven't moved. Six years... No running or scrambling to find a safe place to be.

Good place to live.

Great places to work - I feel like I have two families.

A place to be inspired and create art.

Its all led me here and today I'm so grateful for it.

Sanity only costs $3.98

Let me introduce you to my newfound best friend. Lavender, oh how I love thee. Let me count the ways...

I started feeling really off the last few days. I chalked it up to exhaustion and maybe a bit too much end of the summer fun but it felt like more than that.

My ayahuasca sessions continue to unfold in real life as each month passes. I cannot believe its only been 3 months - it feels like a year.

Many of the lessons I learned in Peru, I learn here now and am continually grateful for. On one of those nights I spent talking to Mother Ayahuasca, I got a real gut check on things. Literally.

As we were chatting, I started to feel ill out of nowhere. This is not an uncommon thing for the experience as you usually have your own personal bucket "just in case" la purga hits. So while chatting to the soundtrack of painful groans in the room, I got the sudden urge to find my bucket and fast.

I went to grab it but was confused cause I didn't feel sick. While trying to figure that out, something came over me quickly and I decided it was time to wrap my hands around that beautiful yellow cracked gem.

As I was purging, I heard a voice clearly speak. "This is not yours."

"Oh my god, you're right. It's not." and with that realization, I stopped.

The painful feelings from somewhere in the room I took into my own body. Thus the feelings - the sickness were not my own. I never quite understood that feeling before but I sure as hell did now. Enlightenment found at the bottom of a bucket.

After hearing that voice, I kindly told her I was done and pushed the bucket away. And you know what? After realizing that, I never needed it again.

Fast forward to this week. I started feeling really uncomfortable. I'm generally a pretty happy person but some negative stuff started to engulf me and I suddenly felt swamped. The usual confusion started, but this time I knew what to do. I looked inward at what I was feeling and realized maybe it wasn't mine.

Two days of it seemed like enough torture and so I gathered all the tools that had been researched in the last week to combat it. One of which began with a special dish whipped up at the restaurant this week.

As our chef was preparing it, I looked on. A familiar scent drew my attention immediately and my gaze directed at the source. "Is that lavender?" I asked staring hungrily at the bowl of salt.

Oh yes, it was. And I had the strong urge to dive into that bowl.

Been reading a bit up on empaths after a conversation with a good friend who suggested I look into it. It's been interesting to read and there are a lot of forums on it. Many that help you to deal with "the gift". Two things that are on there? Salt and Lavender.

One thing I fallen in love with is epsom salt. It's become my cure all this year for aches and pains due to the physical work I do, but it's something more. I always feel so much calmer and sleep like a baby after an epsom salt bath. The easiest way for me to relax and get back to feeling like myself is a mere 15 minute soak.

Apparently lavender has the same effect. So in the past two days I've gone to Sugar Apple to get me some lavender soap and the home depot for some lavender plants. According to sources, it cleanses the negative energy you may inadvertantly pick up from others throughout the day. Think I'm crazy? Well, I'll tell you what, when I got that lavender soap home, I ripped open the top and once that smell it my nostrils, all swamping feeling stopped immediately. So onward and upward!

Today was a day for the depot. I picked up two lavender plants and then crossed the street to get two pots at Ross.

Funny I couldn't smell them when purchasing them at the depot, but the scent amplified upward as soon they were placed in the pots I was taking them home in. It was intoxicating happiness and a complete bargain for only $3.98.

It's so crazy. We as a society spend a ton of money on pills to make us better but really it's all in the plants. I can now add pharmacy and art supplies to purpose of my visits at the Depot.

Starting to realize that the more I know myself and what I need, the easier things are. It's a good place to be.

Oh Lavender, how I love thee.

End 'o the Summer

Hmmm...how to re-visit and old work site? With a giant inflatable penis. Classy!

Jello shot madness. My face is proof I've past the jello and reached the shot.

End o the Summer. I'm ready to get back to work after a week chuck full of social functions. Bachelorette party, birthday party, party after party.

It's been a really fun summer.

Wake Up

I did not expect to yell at 6 women on a pontoon boat atop a highway bridge today. Guess it was loud cause two heads in an open Jeep swiveled around right after my first go round with it. "You're tearing up the seagrass!" I yelled to the boat in an attempt for them to notice the carnage created behind them on this perfectly sunny day.

Would that wake them up? Nope, the lady just kept putting it in high gear looking forward like she was on her way and didn't have a care in the world. And when I yelled out to them a second time, they still didn't care. At most, all I got was a lackluster shrug accompanied with an annoyed "Well, what do you want us to do?"

How 'bout, get your head out of your ass for starters? Maybe have some sort of awareness of what kind of damage you're doing or even care about it for that matter?

We all make mistakes but when you just don't give a shit about your surroundings or when you trash them while taking no responsibility for the situation you have gotten yourself into? Well then, you madame, are an asshole.

It kills me to see this stuff and this is the weekend for it. Labor Day, a.k.a. "the end of summer" This holiday weekend usually scares me more than most cause people get very angry about summer ending. There's a higher idiot factor due to the fact that they don't want to go back to their real life. And it gets a little ugly...

Hey look, I know it sucks to have to go back to that office, but please keep that to yourself. Don't come down here and trash my office.

My wish is that people would wake up and understand...If you care about your surroundings and the people in them, they will care about you. I think that's why many say Key West is so different than any other place they've visited in the US. They care and you know what, I'm damn glad they do.

Definitely started thinking about it this week. All the people in this town are my family. It's not always perfect but we care about each other and are connected. Get the right band playing at the Parrot and it's like a goddamn group hug.

So try it. You might like it. And please be kind to my island.