OK, so I realize I’m totally inviting dissent from those with different politics than me, and I’m hoping the comments section on this post won’t devolve into arguments and mudslinging, but seriously:

Hooray for health care!

In case you haven’t heard, the health care reform bill was narrowly passed today and is expected to be signed into law by the President soon.  It’s not perfect yet, but here’s hoping this is the first giant leap towards all Americans, including the poor and homeless, having affordable health care.  As of this moment, I have none, so if I get sick or hurt I’m screwed…but I sure as hell would love to be covered.  Fingers crossed.

Also, this guy is an utter douche clown.  That is all.

*Does the healthy dance*

Sorry about the glare and wet hair :-"

Happy St. Patrick’s to all!

Sage is making corned beef and hash and potatoes and other such things for the occasion, and the 10 or 15-ish people here on the lot are joining in the festivities, so I’m off to that in a few moments.

I actually do have stuff to post in the next couple of days, mainly human interest stories on homelessness that have captured my attention, and also updates on World Homeless Day and an interview with the founders/organizers.  Not much going on personally, except feverishly working to finish the book by deadline (June 1st, although I’m aiming for sooner) – somewhere my editor is screaming at me, I can feel it.  Also have begun construction and planning on the new domains that you will eventually find at briannakarp.com, which is currently merely a placeholder, so don’t get too excited juuuuust yet.

Yeesh, did you know everything that’s involved in going into business for yourself?  Incorporation paperwork, business plans, investor meetings… this is gonna be fun!  Let’s rock ‘n roll.

Also, I found adorable sparkly gold ballet flats at Goodwill for $1.50.  Sparkly gold ballet flats make the world a better, less daunting place, and me a happier person.  Sparkly gold ballet flats make everything OK.  It’s the little (and frugal) things, really.

P.S.  My full-blooded Irish friend Jon (from, well, Ireland!) gave me this yesterday.  Tell me this isn’t freaking hysterical!!!

Om nom nom.

…Ish muh 25th berfday!!!!!  Exclamation Point Central!!!!!

Plans include frolicking in the rain with best friend Brandon Quan, formerly aka Dwight on this blog (will we go to Disneyland again for their “get in free birthday club”?  See “Alice in Wonderland” in 3-D?  Grab a Subway sandwich and a boba tea and sit around his apartment watching “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” for the 18th time?  Who knows?!  The mind boggles to think of the possibilities! It’s so great to have a best friend you can count on!) and also German Chocolate Cake with candles from Sage (my first birthday cake!  Yay!)

* * * * *

There is also a special little quarter-century crisis gift to myself…I’ve traded in my mechanically unstable, inherited piece-o-crap truck for something older, cuter, cheaper, longer-running, easier to fix, and much more uniquely “me”…

I have named him Kermit. Kermit Kafka. If you don't know why Kafka (Come on, I assume you must know Kermit!!!), read more classic literature! Or, you know, just Google Kafka. We live in the information age, right?

Old cars make me happy.  And I’ve wanted a Bug for about a decade.  So now I have a little 1968 coupe. Just need to learn to drive stick, which Sage (proud owner of a Miata) has generously offered to teach me. Several years ago I drove a motorcycle as my sole means of transportation for two years, so I imagine it’s much the same principle…just using completely different appendages to operate everything.  Should pick it up in no time.  (Right?  Right???? – Gaaaaah! Terror!!!)  Plus, the engine on it has just been rebuilt, so yay!  No worrying about that for a while.  Whew.

Thanks to Sage and her mechanic friend Charlie for checking the car out for me yesterday!  It feels good to have somewhat reliable transport again, and something that doesn’t guzzle gas or pour clouds of black smoke when started.  Thanks also to the very kind sellers Marvin and Marjorie, who even knocked a few hundred dollars off the price for my birthday!  You guys rock, and also have the most lovely house ever (they built it themselves, and it’s chock full of antiques and much other loveliness).

Waking up to the California Sunrise...is not too shabby.

Well, I’m back in California this morning!  After sleeping off all my jet lag last night, I seem to be right back on PST time – albeit an early riser at 7:30 a.m., which I actually consider a great thing!  The lovely, one-and-only Sage picked me up from Ontario airport last night (thanks, Sage!)  She says I look like I’ve lost weight since she saw me 2 1/2 months ago, but I think she’s just being sweet.  Still, it’s definitely on the agenda, perhaps inevitable when you look at how hard I expect to be working in the very near future.

Very much missing Vicki Day and her daughter Alice Smith (along with tiny Mr. Biggie Fudgecakes the Chihuahua), who put me up in London, as well as Keith and Christine Best, the owners of Dunedin Guest House in Huntly, Scotland, who put me up there.  All of them did me so many kindnesses that I do not take lightly and will not forget.

While gone, I had let another homeless gentleman stay in my trailer (don’t worry, he’s since found another place to stay) and I gotta tell you, he’s awesome!  He rearranged everything in the trailer so that it feels much more spacious and open (flipped the bed around so that it seems like I have an extra room instead of just a platform with a big bed on it, etc.)  Man, I’ve got to take some interior decorating tips from this guy!

Something else I also need to do is get my butt in gear.  I’ve already started constructing briannakarp.com, which I’m hoping will launch soon-ish, and can be the central hub for several other sites I’m interested in opening.  Going into business for myself is also going to be possibly even more work than a full-time job, which is great for me – I love to work and keep busy.  Just have to figure out all the intricacies, keep my steam up, and not allow myself to get burned out.  Should be helped a fair bit by the fact that I’ll be (hopefully) making decent money to do things that I love, so you can’t really put a price on that, can you?

Weather here in CA is just as crisp and cold as in London.  I love this because it means I can snuggle up in some of my vintage coats, which I rarely get a chance to wear here.  I am SUCH a cold weather girl.  I love layered, winter looks.  Old coats are probably my favorite fashion item besides bright 1940s-1960s sundresses.  This is one of the main reasons I don’t know if I’m meant to be a California girl forever.  As much as I love my home state, I would rather be too cold than too hot.  You can only strip off so much in public before it becomes indecent exposure.  But you can continue layering clothing ad infinitum until you’re warm, or at least until you run out of clothes.  Believe me, I know.  At one point in Scotland, I was wearing every item in my suitcase – about 12 layers of clothing (including several pairs of jeans and pajama pants one on top of the other) and looked like a butterball or an oompa loompa.

Ooh, there’s another thing.  My mother texted a couple of days ago.  No greeting or anything else, as is her wont, just “The Memorial is on March 30, 2010″.  The Memorial, in case you were wondering, is the only ‘holiday’ type event that Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrate.  It’s considered the most important date of the year to them, and even many inactive and disfellowshipped JWs show up for it.  If you don’t show up to the Memorial, then you’re really a lost person.

So here we get to the crux of it:  My mom was happy to abuse me, happy to lie to me, happy to attempt to steal from me, happy to chuck me out homeless, and happy to tsk tsk about me being lost to Satan, but like all JWs, she feels that dropping a line once a year to try and entice me back into the flock is her duty (not sure how enticing that’s supposed to be though…usually people like it when you at least say ‘hi’ to them first and chat about your lives before putting on the pressure of emotional blackmail).  So at least she can wash her hands of it and think “there.  I did my part.  My conscience is clean.”

Mom, I know you read this.  Or rather, I know Brittany reads all of this and sends it to you.  I won’t discourage you in your pursuit of  voyeuristic thrills – indeed, I suppose a small part of me is proud that you’ll still read an “apostate” website or book when it suits you – it shows that you’re not yet completely under the mind control yet, despite the threat of disfellowshipping, you still have some personality and choice of your own.  To me, that is commendable, that’s the first part of the battle.  And I do love you, despite it all.  You’re my mother.  That’s life.  I am bound to love you in some way, whether that’s healthy or not.

You know I’m apostate (which by the way, is simply defined as “a person who leaves his or her religion”, no more, no less.  Certainly without all the perjorative associations that Jehovah’s Witnesses ascribe to it).  I can only say this so many times before realizing you’re too in denial or too brainwashed to get it, but I left because I don’t believe in it.  Let me repeat that:  I don’t believe in it.  I don’t believe in it.  I.  Don’t.  Believe.  In.  It.  IIIIII DOOOOOON’T BELIEEEEEEEEEVE INNNNNN IIIIIIIITTTTTT.  I never will.  Knowing what I know, I can’t.  You do.  Therefore, we are at an impasse, aren’t we?  If and when you ever admit that you need professional help as many have advised you, and if and when you realize that you’ve been raised in a cult which has admittedly played a mind fuck on you and 7 million other people and decide to actually get said professional help…then perhaps we can talk.  Until then, there’s nothing to say, is there?  I will never attend another “Memorial”, another “Assembly”, another “Meeting”, another bout of “Field Service”…ever again.  So I respectfully request that you cease asking, if indeed you consider a seven-word text “asking”.

Whew.  Rambling over.  And now, I think it’s time for me to get outdoors, get some sunshine, see everything there possibly is to see, work hard, and enjoy life.  Who knows how much longer we all have to live?  As the old cliché puts it, this is the first day of the rest of my life.  Don’t know about you, but I want to get out there and make the most of it.  Keep up with me if you can, world!