On Sweatpants and the Grocery Mart

When I was living in a small town, there were stores the normal people went to and the store the meth-headed-making-babies-for-the-state-check people went to. We shall not name names. I joked I wasn't qualified to go there because I never had proof of copulation. Really. People went in their semen smear pajamas and 3 day old beards with baby guts hanging over their sweatpants. I could never bring myself to dress appropriately.

To this day I firmly believe it is not okay to wear sweatpants outside of the house after the age of 24 or giving birth. Or if you're a man who doesn't plan to live in your mom's basement all your life. NO SWEATPANTS IN PUBLIC.

Truth? I wear sweatpants outside the house. 

Readers, I have my reasons. 

• I leave for work at 5:30 AM
• The first thing I do at work is take a shower for biosecurity purposes.
• The last thing I do at work is take a shower.
• 50% of the time I'm headed to my other job where I will change into my uniform. 
• 40% of the time I'm headed home to get dressed in pretty clothes to go out or to change into "studio clothes to work on a project that is messy.

The problem is in the other 10% of the time when I might run an errand after work.

So I have rules.

The rules for sweatpants outside the house are as follows.

1. Sweatpants must be black.
2. Sweatpants must be clean.
3. Track pants and basketball shorts are not sweatpants and should never be worn in public. Even if you're a pimp or multi-platinum rap artist or professional basketball player off the court.
4. Active pants (yoga pants) fall into the same category as sweatparnts.
5. Sweatpants must have a flat hem. No elastic or cutoff or walked off bottoms.
6. Sweatpants must be accompanied by appropriate footwear. No flip-flops in winter or house slippers.
7. Sweatpants must be worn with an appropriate sized top. No oversized sweatshirts or undersized tank tops.
8. All mid-riff skin must be concealed, even when bending over to fetch the super size of cat litter or less popular flavors of Ben & Jerry's.
9. No whale tail's. EVER.
10. No panty lines
11. No camel toes.
12. You hair must be neat and presentable, not look like you just rolled out of bed. 
13. The only, only, ONLY exception to these rules is if you just busted your ass at the gym. If you're sweaty & disheveled because you just hit the gym and hit it hard, go ahead, walk around tall and proud in your nasty stinky sweats and show all the meth-headed-making-babies-for-the-state-check people what sweatpants were made for.

Lazy is never an excuse to wear sweatpants in public.

I am a hack.

Or at least I feel that way. Tonight I sat next to an art teacher. Someone who is paid to doooooooooo art. I, I am not paid to do art. I make it up as I go. Tonight I got funny looks as I thinned the $hit out of my acrylic paints to lay down a base layer. When asked about what I was doing I tried to explain as patiently as possible I was building a base layer, and this is just how I work, sometimes. Sometimes I slather it on with a trowel. But this one I'm trying to be careful (kinda) because I have a buyer for this painting. He saw a picture I took and asked for it as a painting. So I'm giving it a shot. Where do I show? For this event I'm showing at the bar on the boardwalk. Otherwise, I don't. I actually had to be talked into participating. Local art competitions? I swore off them earlier this summer. You're interested in having me paint your restaurant? Um, here is my card, I'm going to be up here this weekend, or tomorrow & I'll get some photos & work up some sketches. (side note: I still need to get sketches to 2 Shy Brew in Roseburg. I'm aware they are 8 months overdue. I'm not Catholic, but I a familiar with guilt. Don't worry Paul, I feel it!) (Sidenote #2: How much do I charge for that? $50/ square foot? Because I'm an unknown? Up the price $5/sq ft for every painting I sell? Ryan, the painting you want is $350) Return: I never expected to be serious about this artist gig. It is currently part of what fills my spare time. Along with friends, family & horrible bad habits. I got rid of the boyfriend, I have few obligations outside of work, so if I wanted too I could commit a lot more time to this. And tonight, after the feedback? I want to. I want to eat, sleep, breathe & the other two basic bodily functions that define animals this art/painting/photography/block printing/ figure drawing gig. Thank you to all of you with negative feedback who held your tongues. The kids who came & watched with jaws on their chests? They were the best! Also I'm pretty thrilled with what I got done tonight so as soon as I finish this beer (artists get to drink in bars by themselves, no questions asked) I'll go home & continue the painting I started tonight some more. Finally, I'm really grateful to my best friend for coming to sit in the cold with me.

Faceplant

Couple weeks ago I was minding my own business traversing the stairs as I do, half asleep, craving more sleep without a cat sitting on my bladder. Coming down the stairs I tripped & faceplanted, my head making impact with the floor, traveling a vertical distance of like 9 ft within milliseconds. Not being injured, I went back to bed and went to work where i relayed I was grateful for an easy night/help and told the story. The following Monday some weenie called in with sunburn. I was horrified that was an excuse as I had come in after faceplanting. This sent my bosses into an uncontrollable giggle fit. Apparently I can bring a smile to my brother in law's (who is my boss) by reminding him of my trip down the stairs.

Sooooooooo yesterday after a hard week I had promised to bring in homemade pie if my newest teammate reminded me to wake up today & bake it. She did text to wake me up, at 1 PM which is early considering it was a 12 hour night for both of us. Thinking it would be wise to wear pants while baking I put some pj's on & tried to climb the stairs to the kitchen. My pants are ill fitting and caused me to trip going up the stairs, faceplanting into the wall. Relaying this to my boss made the pie that much more delicious for my boss.
Do you feel the love?

Bang Bang Bang

I think it is safe to say most educated adults find trophy hunting reprehensible. Not the type where you join community rec leagues & try to beat other aging youths for a plastic cup on a faux marble base. I'm talking about going out with a big gun you've never held before and having someone lead you to a large animal and taking aim  and shooting an animal for no other purpose than to pose with the dead carcass. Because the meat isn't edible and it is illegal to possess the body part. i.e. rhino horn. 


This isn't something we come across in the course of our day to day lives, it is something I should think about more, with my degree being in zoology. But I don't, so when I came face to face with this in my world far removed from zoos and safaris and in my life that consists of WORK and FINDING A SCHOOL and MONEY and BEER and DIET and PAINTING and all my wonky priorities it smacked me & smacked me hard.


PEOPLE STILL PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO SHOOT INNOCENT ANIMALS FOR THE THRILL OF THE KILL.


I've been crying over this for 2 days.  Because it happened. It is still happening. And I was reminded in the harshest way possible. Some of the tears shed were probably in disappointment that I had forgotten. 


This is happening across the world, but worse yet, in the United States. A supposed first world nation allows men (and woman) to pay a large fee to hunt exotic species. Don't believe me? 

• http://www.continentalranchtexas.com/exotics.htm
• http://www.huntingtexastrophies.com/
• http://www.circleeranch.com/

Or Google search "exotic trophy hunt texas" yourself. Most of these animals are not listed as endangered species, but are unfortunate to be easily bred exotics.  When I worked at an AZA accredited animal park we had more eland, barbary sheep, and zebra born every year than our open range park could accommodate. But sometimes these trophy outfits get lucky and non-accredited "zoos" have going out of business sales and charismatic mega fauna (i.e. rhinoceros, giraffe, elephants, lions) are auctioned off. Don't believe me?

http://www.outofafricapark.com/animal_rescue.html

This link will take you to a page telling about Boom Boom, a male white rhino with a story with a happy ending.  At the time I was working at a park that received Jack, the other male rhino from the Catskills Game Farm auction, courtesy of Marc Ecko. 


Are you wondering about what it would cost to shoot an rhino? According to this man it was $35,000. Another site states "These hunts are not cheap, as Thormählen is pricing them upwards of $250,000." in reference to Thromalen & Cochran Safaris.


I'm at a loss. I can't act on the images I encountered. I've asked to never be sent to the site again, but I'm feeling helpless to stop this. I know as a nation a trade and travel embargo against nations that allow for hunting of endangered species is far fetched and there are many human rights issues that are going to take priority. So I feel first we need to ban trophy hunting at home.


I want to be clear. I AM NOT AGAINST HUNTING ANIMALS YOU INTEND TO EAT. I AM AGAINST HUNTING ANIMALS YOU INTEND TO HANG ON THE WALL OR POSE WITH THE DEAD BODIES OF. There is no purpose other to glorify your own ego.


To be continued...

Talking Shit

There has been a lot of dealing with shit in my life. Literally. Not figuratively.

My employment history is littered with experience cleaning restrooms. First it was working in the busiest day use state parks in Vermont & Michigan. The saying was guests left their brains at the gate when they entered. For the record, Vermont was cleaner. Take that Holland tourists!
Next came caring for animals, first as a zoo intern, then as a ranger at a drive through safari park. In the 2 years I spent cleaning up after animals I saw almost every type of excrement a land mammal could produce. I would consider tigers and hippopotamuses generally cleaner in their restroom habits than the general  human population. There are days I would really prefer to be knee deep in rhino shit again.
Having had over 20 roommates and driven cross country a couple times I was pretty familiar with the whole spectrum of conditions in which one can find a restroom in before I took my current job, and then I started cleaning schools. Oh my goodness. You people can not let your kids get away with this at home. And if you do, we are not friends.

What has me reminiscing on all the restrooms in my life is last night's foray into a building of educated professionals. These particular professionals were in the education business, the people who determine curricula and teaching methods and all that stuff. So you would think they would be capable of keeping their restrooms in better conditions than those of the public library. Not so. They were one instance of bodily fluid graffiti away from a homeless hangout. These are the people who are shaping your children eight hours a day. So cleaning tonight I thought why not go over the rules for proper restroom etiquette somewhere no one will see it? Maybe they can use this, and create a section in the health curriculum that features some of these tips. Heaven knows there are some schools in southwest Michigan that need some help. (E-mail me & I'll name names and you can avoid sending your kids to them.)

1. You should never spit in a restroom. Never. You are indoors. We, as a society, do not spit indoors. This applies to snot rockets also. If you feel the need to expel fluid from your facial orifices, use a tissue and dispose of it in the proper receptacle.
2. If you drop it pick it up. This applies to toilet paper, hairpins, trousers, paper towels. You don't scatter office paper throughout your neighbors' cubicles or leave a trail of candy wrappers down the street, nor should you discard the extra toilet paper on the floor in the stall. If you drop it grab a extra bit of paper, pick it up and dispose of it properly. Every second your cleaning person spends picking up toilet paper is a second they don't spend sanitizing the toilet seat. 
3. If you need to instigate the use of a new roll of toilet paper, put the wrapper in the trash. Some way, some how put it in the trash. Not on the floor. Same for the cardboard tubes. And the little scraps of paper that start the roll. Rest the tube & wrapper on the dispenser while you pull of your pants, then take them out of the stall & dump them. No one will look at you funny. They actually be very impressed by your consideration for the people following you.
4. Wash your hands. This should be obvious, but you will not believe the disparity between hand towel usage between men's rooms and women's rooms. There are reminders on almost every stall door, stuck to every mirror, and posted beside exits. Yet I watch you walk out without washing your hands all the time. 
5. Don't turn on the tap full blast when you wash your hands. The water pressure is not what kills the germs, soap is. Oh, right. Use soap. Turn on the water with one hand while using the other to get soap. Push once to dispense, wait until the soap is finished flowing out, then move your hands to the sink, proceed to lather, rinse, turn off the water. Take a moment to reflect as your hands drip dry before reaching for the hand towel. Don't shake like a wet dog. Dry your hands, grab a extra towel & wipe the area around the basin & the tap. The person following you will thank you.
6. Unless you are using the special stall because you have special needs, under no circumstance should you touch the stall wall, door, or divider between the urinals. You're not the first to touch it, nor will you be the last. Eww. I don't understand your need to brace yourself for the event, but if you do have that need, you should probably see a doctor. Along the same lines, it is not okay to wipe or spray anything on the walls. Please don't make me elaborate upon this. 
7. Woman: Put the applicator back in the wrapper, then toss. Better yet, use O.B. The planet will thank you. Wrap IT in toilet paper, then toss. In the special box. Not on the floor. 
8. Men: Stand closer & wait to finish before you start shaking. I've never been involved in potty training a male of the species, but I think this is something you were supposed to learn, like, before pre-school, alongside tying your shoes. You are so proud of your snow art but you can't control it in the restroom. WHY? Are you drunk &/or lazy at work? 
9. Before you exit the stall look around. Have you contributed to the mess in any way that would not allow you to look the next person in the eye? Discretely grab some TP and take care of it. You're going to wash your hands so it is okay. 

These are just some simple starting points. They seem like no brainers but you know...