Tequiliaice

Yeah, I pretty much never post here anymore. You're lucky if I even check to to read it once-a-month. Please e-mail me if you have vital news you wish to express... or get on MySpace already!

I know, I never update this thing anymore. What can I say: I'm a MySpace whore now.

New record: Berkeley Holiday Fair. 2 days. 137 shirts.
All money went to bills.

On the 17th I'm leaving to LA for the California Gift Show. It's costing me almost $3,000 to get a booth there, but it's a private trade show open only to the 27,000+ buyers registered to attend every year. If this doesn't get me into some retail stores, I don't know what will.

Juror2 is ready to launch, sir.

The one month of "no fighting" has been holding up nicely. The cat helps all around by being fuzzy and cuddly and only purring when we both hold him at the same time. Our relationship is back to being normal and mellow. I dont know where all that feistiness came from!

In other news: I sold 58 shirts in 2 days, busting every previous record I had clean out of the watter. I used the money for bills and to pay for a ticket to Hawaii for Dana's wedding - much to the joy of the family.

See Juror2 shirts for sale/ondisplay at SkateWorks in Redwood City, and The Coffee Society in Cupertino by the library! Soon to be seen at: Entour in San Francisco just off the Castro on Mission!

I'm still poor, but business is definately picking up.

How many times do you have to hate yourself to tears in one month's time before you do something about yourself? Am I abusing myself? Am I abusing Ben? I reject him for sex, I don't respect his wishes, I blatantly do stuff that he has asked me not to, I hurt him verbally... why would anyone stay in this relationship? If I make him so miserable that we can't go a week (much less the month we agreed to on Sunday) without me hurting/annoying/rejecting/offending/angering him... then I don't understand!!! Why do i feel confused all the time! It used to be so easy, so effortless... what changed? When did everything I do become so horrible? Have I always been this way? Is Juror2 making me into a bad person? Ben used to make me feel like I was working hard to impress him and make myself a better person. Now I feel like the harder I work, the more it pushes him away. When the irony is, I work hard so we can have a future together. Afford a wedding. A home. Children. Right now we don't even know if we can afford rent. I really need my cat.

At the flea market today, the booth next to us was empty. So Ben set out a hat, rolled up his sleeves, made a sign that said "Will FLEX for tips!" and then stood in the middle of the empty space, and quite literally flexed his arms at the passerby.

A japanese guy videotaped him for a minute.

One guy told him "Here's a tip: Don't flex!"

He made eleven dollars and two cents.

Wolverine anyone?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458525/

So, a couple things.

1) I have a crappy MySpace page, by request, I don't know why. Username: Juror2

2) I've been hiring hot models to pose in Juror2 shirts and paying them one t-shirt apiece so I can make brochures and have nice pictures on my eBay store (See: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140009292008 .. hubba hubba!)

3) Ben re-designed juror2.net, but it's not up yet.

4) Jaimie got the cutest pug on the planet. She snarfles a lot and her name is Oregano. She's 4.

5) I bombed at the Berkeley Flea Market, but I think it may have been the heat. Will try again when it's cooler.

6) I should have enough pictures to make a brochure/pricelist so I can start pitching at stores in a week or two.

7) I work entirely too much. I am burning out to the core. If anyone EVER wants to sit with me at flea markets on Saturday's... somewhere, or Sundays in Santa Cruz, please please please let me know. I am desperate for the company and the extra help! You will be rewarded with dinner. DeANza is the first Saturday of next month and I am DESPERATE for a companion!

Santa Cruz Flea Market kicks ass. Sold almost 30 shirts in 2 days. Can't wait to make it a regular thing!

No wonder there are so many homeless people in downtown Palo Alto! I shit you not when I say I saw a homeless man outside Whole Foods last night leaning on a big sign that read "Memorial Day Blowout for the Homeless! Beef, beer, chips and dips needed."

Are you fucking SERIOUS?!?? No wonder they never work! God, sometimes I just HATE Palo Altans!

I hardly see my friends anymore. So, in case y'all have been wondering where I am:

Jen's Time: All present and accounted for, SIR!

I work three jobs: 1) Steve Montes Special Events doing catering 3-4 days a week (Note: On days when I work for Steve, I generally have to be up by 5am, at Steve's by 6, and I don't get home till 10pm or later; thank god for overtime!). 2) Pheonix Designs for David Ray doing silkscreening in Lakeport 1-2 days a week (takes three and a half hours each way to make that ugly ugly drive to Lakeport). 3) The other 1-2 free days (usually Monday and Tuesday) I am home working on Juror2.net, special projects like my aunt's church project, designing business cards and brochures freelance for random businesses, doing presentations for schools, meeting people for Craigslist sales, and cleaning up around our domicile. My free time is scarce and valuable to me. Ben works 5-6 days a week for Steve Montes Special events. When he is not on a job, he works in the warehouse loading the trucks. The way Steve schedules us for jobs is that he calls us the Wednesday before the weekend and schedules us Thursday-Thursday. So we found out the Wednesday before Easter weekend that there were no jobs scheduled for April 15th and 16th! We seized the opportunity and took an inexpensive overnight trip to Monterey. We spent two days walking around, visiting the aquarium, window shopping, and Ben ate his first whole crab.

Ben and I are trying to save up for our future. We opened a joint checking account 2 months ago. We each contribute $350/month to pay for rent, utilities, gas, and the occasional dinner. We are upping that to $500 each per month because we have recently decided to invest in a TempurPedic mattress. We're both way too young to be waking up with the aches and pains we have. We should invest in the Salon-Pas company at the rate we go through them. It was installed yesterday and this morning I already feel 10x better.

At the end of May, I am going to stop working for Steve on Sundays and get a contract with the San Jose flea market to have a booth for a month of Sundays. I was given some good advice by another flea market regular who said I would thrive there and gave me a contact name in the office. They give priority placement to "interesting and unique" booths. I am going to ease into doing Juror2 full time. My next free weekend will be used for a garage sale, and the following one will see me in Santa Cruz peddling my t-shirts to the mom and pop stores to see who will carry them.

Ben and I have taken up swing dancing at JLS on Monday nights. He is taking Real Estate classes at Foothill on Tuesday nights to get his brokerage license. His scarce free time is spent throwing knives, studying, cleaning, and meditating. When we're both home, sometimes we play video games together for a half hour or so.

Ben and I are a team. We work together on everything. We both take care of the cat, clean the house, and contribute money to expenses. We both have goals and ambitions and are striving to achieve them. Ben is not fragile and I don't need to save him. But he is young, and sometimes he asks me for advice, and I do the same of him. Once a month he has us sit down and does a "progress report" of our goals. Are we meeting them? Have we met the checkpoints from the previous month? Do we have any new obstacles? What is happening with Juror2? Etc. etc.

Tried talking to Nana on the phone the other day. Bad news. Nothing but gibberish and non sequitors these days. We don't think she'll last 2 more months.

And the baby lambies are still as super-cute as ever.

PS: Silent Hill is a winner.

*** WE HAVE LAMBIES! ***

Twins, to be exact! Morag had her lambies this morning and they are tiny, healthy, and cute as buttons! I didn't get to pet them yet, (dad wanted them to bond with mom first) but he says definately by monday.

Aggie is very depressed though. Stands in the corner of the pen all day mourning her lost babies. Breaks my heart. :-(

Aggie had her lambs this morning. They didn't make it. They were both stillborn. They were a little bigger than Liebchen and when I saw them... they just looked like they were sleeping. They were so small and fuzzy and cute! There is much sadness around the Kirsch household. Dad is VERY sad.

Send a prayer out for Morag's impending delivery, won't you?

Hot Topic called again. They want me to send them 5 sample t-shirts for evaluation.

(dontfreakoutdontfreakoutdontfreakout)

So, he gave me his e-mail, told me to send him some shirts, and contact him in 2 weeks to see what they think. I'm having trouble deciding between the following:

1) ChefChop
2) FireSkater
3) Tape Accident
4) 20/9mm Vision
5) Corporate Inferno
6) BoogeySnack
7) Taste in Music
8) Attack of the Fuzzies - white on black sweatshirt

What are your top 5?

Hot Topic called me back and left a voicemail about my t-shirts. ...maybe just to blow me off, but then why would the assistant to the novelty t-shirt buyer for the company want me to call him back at 4pm tomorrow?

(OhIhopeIhopeIhope!)

I don't feel any particular way about our prez... but this is pretty funny.

--------------
Dateline Germany, January 2005. Police in the sleepy hamlet of Bayreuth are in a bit of a pickle. Someone -- or something -- is jamming miniature toothpick flag portraits of U.S. President George W Bush into piles of dog shit on sidewalks, public parks, and pedestrian thoroughfares. Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth, said: "This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be 2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that time."



The dog-shit-on-a-stick motif was originally thought to be some sort of protest against the US-led invasion of Iraq. When the structures survived for several consecutive seasons (weathering rain, snow, and extreme temperatures in all directions) the flags were thought to be a protest against Bush's campaign for re-election.

In 2006, the dog shit Bush parade is still going strong. Police say they are completely baffled as to who might be responsible.

"We have sent out extra patrols to try to catch whoever is doing this in the act," said police spokesman Reiner Kuechler. "But frankly, we don't know what we would do if we caught them red handed."

Legal experts claim there's no law against using dog shit as a flag stand, although Federal legal analysts warn the Constitution is vague on the issue. One possible source of all the dog shit flags has been identified only as the makeyouthink online entity, which offers downloadable PDF templates for printing, folding, and concealing in a backpack.



To be sure, dog shit is annoying and problematic in every country -- but is it really subject matter capable of depositing a huge, flaming bag of controversy on the entire world's doorstep?

Juror2 is my life. I'm re-scanning sticks in hi-res, fixing blemishes, and saving them to convert into good transparancies. I've also been making new silkscreen frames, with dad's help. Big enough for 1 full-sized stick and 1 small tank-top sized stick. Then I'll get to make all new screens, finalize the look of t-shirts, and after that it's simple production. That's when the marketing starts. Real, hardcore, every day every spare moment, calling Hot Topic, going to Santa Cruz, talking to shop owners, doing anything I can to get my work OUT THERE. To get my t-shirts on the shelves, to get them to my target market: highschoolers, gamers, & college kids. The work is tedious and slow going and I love every solitary second of it. I can't wait 'till my new screens are done and I can start printing my new line!

In other news, the cat's thin again, I just celebrated my 6-month anniversary with Ben (he bought me Uggs with pockets!!), I sold my second shirt through my Juror2 eBay store, I'm still catering (and skipping my cousin's wedding to do so), I got a new color laser printer, Jaimie bought a LoveSac, so now we have two in the living room in addition to our new bad-ass couch, I got a firewire card for Valentine's Day so I can finally use my iPod on MY computer, I'm curing my headaches with SmartWater, and basically stress is kicking my ASS. I'm becoming obsessed with work. I love it so much I just want to do it all day! Constantly refining... because it's all mine, and I'm doing this totally on my own and God help me I probably need an employee, but oh well. When the funds start rolling in. Yes. Then...

Time is so tangible when you're in pain. When you're healthy, whole afternoons can be frittered away playing the Sims or watching House and you go to bed that night wondering what happened to those big chunks of time you woke up with. But one headache and it all comes to a screeching halt. I'm sitting here having an IM conversation. I finish typing and send my message; I put my head in my hands and wait for the reply... every second ticks past like a giant pendulem swinging to and fro. I miss my boyfriend. He's out there doing male motorcycle bonding. My day was so long. So many days with not enough sleep. I think I'll ask for a good head rub before I pass out. I love my cat so much. Kimmay's sad. I never know how to comfort her so I bombard her with logic instead; my usual tactic. Fuck, does that EVER work? I guess it works on me because dad does it and I pretty much only listen to him when it comes to relationships. Most people would pity me for that. I could care less. My dad's been happily married for 40 years and few people can say the same. So despite all his cold, negative, stubborn qualities, I think I could afford to listen to him about something like that.

We tried letting the cat regulate his own eating habits. It's a pain in the ass having his snip at our heels or howl for food every time we walk down the hall. The result? He positively gorged himself around the clock for a week, became grotesquely obese, cranky, and refused to cuddle. We cut him off cold turkey and went to Lakeport for 2 days leaving him to starve during that time. When we came back, he wouldn't leave our sides. He's purring in my lap as I type this. So, he's back on his diet of 2/3 cup of weight-loss food per day and he's a supreme cuddle slut. I've never been happier.

Now if I could only get rid of this headache... it scares me a bit, you know. Third headache in a week. I rarely get headaches. Hoping it's from the new birth control. They said side effects generally stop after 2 months. We'll see. I hope I don't have bigger problems...

Definitely. You scored 45% Cold and 64% Level-Headed!

You can kill. But the question "Why would you?" arises. Out of safety or cruelty?

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 45% on Cold You scored higher than 67% on Level-Headed

Link: The Can You Kill a Man? Test written by notmarkflynn on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Who doesn't need a knife block shaped like a human head?

This guy Dan (the owner/operater of Coffee Society) came by the DeAnza booth on January 7th and kept commenting on how much he liked my shirts. I told him about the website and he said he'd already seen it because he picked up my card the previous month. (!!!) I told him about the upgrades to the site and the new eBay store and he seemed impressed. He watched me make a shirt on my ironing board right in front of him and said it was totally one of the coolest things he'd ever seen. Then he asked if I'd be interested in setting up some shirts in his coffee shop. He said the place was new, and business was slow because the civic buildings across the street were still going up, but that it would really be picking up once they were finished. He also mentioned that there would be 4 bands playing this Friday night and he wanted the walls of his place to be covered in decoration before then so people would remember it. He said I could put up some shirts, magnets, posters, whatever I wanted. The place is small, but I had permission to go hog wild. He asked me to swing by as soon as possible to check it out so I could have merch up before Friday. He said there might only be 20 people who show, so I wasn't to get my hopes up, but he'd really like the atmosphere.

The Flea Market was Saturday, I measured up the store Sunday morning, and brought back merch to decorate on Sunday night. There are about 13 shirts and 11 magnets currently decorating their store. Monday afternoon, I brought them a book with all the designs and a stack of order forms and business cards. They're going to take t-shirt payments and put them in an envelope for me and I have to go pick up forms every night to fill out orders. When business picks up, they said they plan on taking shirts on consignment so they can mark them up and make some money off it as well. It's only been 2 days and Dan and Billy (Dan's brother) said they've received a lot of positive feedback.

This could work.