The front porch, which you can see has been stripped of ivy, and the ivy stripped the paint. Also the front bushes, the bricks I’m gunna eventually use to line the garden area then mulch.

Thanks to the heatwave, the sixth one we are on now, I basically stopped doing yard work. It was just too nasty. I figured let the heat kill all the weeds, overgrowth and crud; it will make it somewhat easier for me. I’ve sense moved my focus indoors. Most people never realize unless I show them that we actually have a second bedroom downstairs, aside from the Wonder Woman room. It however has become a storage nightmare. The Wonder Woman room is too honestly. I can make it look nice, just don’t open the drawers or look in the closet

Even opening the door to the room is a nightmare . . . . don’t because the cats like to rush in here and then it’s a bitch to get them out!

I have wanted to organize it and the other room for YEARS now. In fact I had told John over the winter we were to get things in order . . . it didn’t happen. So I went out and bought a second bookshelf. I had wanted, and blogged, about a book shelf for the living room/dining room corner for awhile. Especially during the Christmas season to put the never ending nativity on. I never got around to it, and never wanted to make the purchase. I had been eyeing a nice looking one at Le Tar Jay for a year, but then I saw the cheap 26 dollar version. 120 dollars for the exact same thing, just with molding to make it look pretty . . . or 26 dollars for the plane jane version. Hmmmmm. Yeah if I’m paying over 100 dollars for furniture then assembly should not be required! I went cheap.

John of course did not like the cheap. Ewwwww pressed wood! Ewwwww! Well the 120 dollar one was pressed wood too, just like anything from the Swedish Superstore would be. I told him he was welcome to go out and buy something nice and fancy if he wanted. He also complained that I wanted to stack it with DVDs and videogames. Currently they are separated and either on an bookshelf in the Wonder Woman room, or in several different drawers in the TV cabinet. It can be a bitch to go searching for what I want, but John’s point is “they are hidden away rather than on display, which makes us look like grown ups.”

Well first, the only people who see inside our house are my friends. They look through these same things as much as I do, so I feel they’d appreciate the organization Second, who cares what the inside looks like when the outside looks the way it has for years Third, John is the King of Clutter and has no room to talk here really, cause I know I’ve blogged about his mountain sized piles of unopened mail that cover his desk. They get so bad that I end up having to go through it all and throw out (sorry recycle) countless dollars worth of unread magazines he subscribes to. I just glanced over there right this minute and their are packages on the floor and stacks on the desk I can see. Pfffft!

I told him that I would eventually move the book case out of the living room (though I might need another for Christmas!) and into one of the other rooms. However before those rooms can be cleaned, shit needs to be put in order! I want to put the DVDs/Videogames in the living room, use the Wonder Woman Room bookshelf for actual books, and the TV cabinet for CDs (which again are ALL over this house). From there I can begin dealing with the closets and drawers (which ALSO have CDs, videogames, old computer components). I’ve bought a few plastic bins for some of this stuff. The drawers which hold a good number of my clothes are actually collapsing. I need a new set of drawers honestly and soon. The ones I’m using now? “Pressed wood furniture” from Ikea . . . that belonged to John . . . yeah . . . . grown up stuff

My eventual goals for the two rooms, probably not to be fully realized till next year cause I only work on them in spare time, are to use the cluttered room as a guest room and turn the Wonder Woman room into an office and if needed a guest room. There is a pull out couch bed in the cluttered room I’d move into there.

As for other stuff, the second boot camp begins in four weeks and runs two weeks up until the start of the fall semester, when I go back to teaching. It’s my last hurrah of getting a bunch of stuff done and in order. The jobs for fall look good, 2 classes, both the same class, both I’ve taught before. I had tooled with changing the books, but killed that idea. I have the lectures and class done as is, I don’t have the time or desire at this point to change it and all the lectures. Yeah I’ll tweak them, but I don’t have to rewrite them. Then 2 classes at least in the spring, hoping to get one more.

My mom said the dogs went nuts about 45 minutes before the quake. Demanded to go outside, sniffed the ground all over. When they finally came in, moments before the quake hit, they went to alert again.

I can’t believe I slept through it! I’m so effin pissed! I know, weird, I wanted to be in an earthquake. Again this isn’t some 2012 or California type one, though we are on a major fault line here on the East Coast. Most don’t realize that, and one day we might get a big one and several of our cities will be in big trouble as most buildings aren’t built with earthquakes in mind.

I finished sweeping and clearing off the patio this morning. Tried to power spray the dirt away and really clean it, but it’s not working too well. Ending up having to just shovel the mud film left after I sprayed. I set up the fountain again. Poor Pan got knocked off long ago and the fountain filled with dirt and crud. I’m amazed it still works, but Pan has suffered a serious leg injury . . . . poor guy.

As you can see I have my grill out to grill this weekend. Happy Fourth everyone! I’m actually grilling tonight. Unfortunately here it’s going to be 97 degrees on the fourth and 99 on Monday and Tuesday. Not sure how many people will actually brave that to go to Philly to see fireworks. We’re not! I’m hoping John gets off work early enough tomorrow and he’s not too tired that we can go out to eat and see the fireworks from the parking lot after. That’s what we did last year if I recall.

Oh and to show that once upon a time, our yard did actually look really nice . . . . a photo from six years ago. Princess playing in the flowers. I think this is actually the day I brought her home, or very shortly after.

I normally don’t go in for torture movies, but that is exactly what this is, on many levels. I also admit to FFing a few scenes cause I couldn’t watch. This movie could probably best be described as “Saw” meets “Heathers.” The story centers around a group of kids at a high school, the outsiders that everyone picks on . . . . tortures you might say. They decide they’ve had enough and plot their revenge, inspired by a history lesson. They invite all the cool kids, and the kids who stood by while the cool kids tortured them, to a cabin in the woods where a party has been planned. The kids arrive and promptly drink drugged drinks. When they wake up they are all chained to the floor in the center of this cabin, the outsiders are dressed in ghoulish costumes and begin the torture. They tell them off the bat, “We won’t kill you, we’ll just make you wish we did.”

Like I said, the movie is a torture movie, but on several levels. The torture bullied kids go through, and the physical torture they inflict upon their tormentors. You really want these kids to get away with it, but things of course get out of hand, and you know there is no way they’ll get away with it . . . yet you still have a little bit of hope they do. The end however is as fitting as the moral of the whole movie. It touches on mainstream societies need to basically ignore this problem of bullying, to cover it up, to try and pretend it doesn’t exist or isn’t the problem it really is.

If it wasn’t so violent, it’d be good mandatory viewing for all high school students. Then perhaps the majority of asshole kids wouldn’t grow up to be asshole adults. Though there will always be assholes in the world, and they’ll be the ones who when they die the only thoughts about them are “good riddance.”

For me this movie came at the perfect time. For months I’ve had this little asshole coming to my blog leaving nasty homophobic comments, like I have AIDS or I’m a deviant and I need to stop molesting children. I am not dumb, I know where he came from, I tangled with him on NJ.com back in December. Since then I guess he’s decided to gay cyber-stalk me on my blog. He reared his ugly head again last night after months of being gone with his idiotic comments. I turned the shoutbox off for awhile cause unlike him, I had better things to do on a Friday night than sit here on my blog banning him over and over as he keeps trying to get back on. I put the box back up this morning, but may just remove it all together honestly since only my mom seems to use it anymore But anyways after I turned it off, I watched this movie and felt a lot better. Karma is a bitch to assholes. In the end, it always gets them!

My writing boot camp started last week. So far so good. There is one more week left, then another 2 week one in August I plan to sign up for. I am determined to get everything done this summer and am now delaying rewards as incentive. As of yet no January vacation has been booked. Originally I had said with the economy and until I knew what my job outlook looked like for Fall and next Spring there would be no booking. Now my job situation looks okay. However I’ve decided I’m still not booking anything. When I defend, booking that January vacation is the reward Other little things I want to buy (videogames) and big things (the new iPhone) are rewards for good progress done with chapter edits, rewrites and stuff.

That’s about all I have to say for now. Until my next check in, which hopefully will find me itch free!

Uma Thurman played the character of Poison Ivy in one of the Batman films, which is where the title of the post came from.

I recently moved my tomatoes together into the backyard where they get more sun. They get about 6 hours a day now, but probably need more. However there aren’t many options as to where I can get these shepard’s hooks into the ground well enough. The best place of course would be in the garden/barnyard behind them in the above picture. The barn had been converted to a garage long ago. Unfortunately, the garden area has become the worst and most overgrown area of all.

The second photo is actually after I hacked away and sprayed for two days with weed killer. The water weeds and such were over four feet high. It was NUTS. You can still see some wilted ones behind the back fence/dog house. I’m planning to go in later and start carting them away. There is so much I don’t know what to do with it, I’ll fill the measly yard waste cans I have in seconds. I wish I could just burn it all.

The fence around the whole area is a rotten falling apart mess. I have wanted for years to take it down. Gophers and ground hogs have dug under it so many times there is a mount in one corner. The dog house is 20 some years old too and needs to go.

I have a lot of work cut out for me! I’m making this and the yard my summer sanity project so I have something else besides writing and editing to do. Plus it should get me back into shape

So I planted my tomatoes today! I got me 2 Topsy Turvey’s and selected two different varieties of medium sized tomatoes. Don’t ask which ones, I’ve already forgotten. I think a Jersey Red Rutgers and some kind of Celebrity variety, Early Girls or something? We shall see how this goes and I will keep you updated, though as I never grew tomatoes period I don’t have much to compare this too. If it works I’m going to have more tomatoes than I know what to do with. I guess I’ll be making a lot of sauces! I will probably also be giving them away to friends if they want them.

My friend Kaitlyn said I was a dork for doing this, given I’m dating a farmer. John told me I was a goober and that growing tomatoes was highly over-rated. I couldn’t make them see that this was “As Seen On TV Upside Down Tomatoes!” Everyone knows anything you make from an “As Seen On TV” product is always superior. These tomatoes will be redder, juicier and plumper than anyone else’s!

Upon arriving we went to the Mall of America, where we did some shopping and rode some coasters. One of them was impressive for a coaster In a shopping mall!

I broke down and bought some of those Sketchers Shape-Ups. I have had pretty poor shoes lately un terms of support, so I wanna see if these do what they advertise. I just thought they helped your back, but they are supposed to tighten the buttocks and your abs as well. We’ll see!

We spent two days in Wisconsin Dells at the Great Wolfe Lodge water park. It was so empty that we walked onto every waterside and ride. We also did a number of other things like Wizard’s Quest, Magi Quest and the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum.

On the way back from the Dells we hit this place called The House on the Rock, a unique house built on an old Indian Rock Shelter by this guy who collected anything and everything. He had guns, cars, armor, dolls and dollhouses, pipe organs and a giant carousel. Very neat place, the dolls were a bit creepy though.

We hit their hometown nightspot Friday night, The Wild Moose. This band Jonah and the Whales was playing. I got a bigger kick out of the two Asian/Malaysian drag queens on the dance floor dresses up like they were some anime super heroes or something.

Tonight we hit Minneapolis. Actually today. We are on our way now. Hoping to see a museum or two, have yummy food, then go dancing.

Things had begun to look up. I got an email from University M asking if I could teach some classes for then next fall and spring. I thought combined with University R, I might make a decent wage! However University M is a hike, an hour and 20 minute hike! So I was weighing my options, thinking maybe a part time job locally at the pet store would be better. Of course it wouldn’t look as good on my resume.

Well the choice got taken out of my hands, as an issue came up with the class I was to teach at University R in the fall. As it stands it’s in limbo, but the department is trying to make it work. It’s budgetary problems and shuffling stuff, nothing that reflects on me. I’m still scheduled to teach in the spring. However this means possibly no income for fall. Yikes!

I have since interviewed with University M, and officially applied to teach up there. We’ll see how it works out, and maybe they’ll pay well. Keep your fingers crossed!

I may still entertain a part-time job, depending on how things go. If both University’s work out for the fall, then I won’t need to, and I am not going to work over the summer. I really need to use the summer to finalize my giant ass dissertation draft and get the whole monster turned in and over with. I’ve already registered for writing boot camps to get my ass out of the house this summer.

Anyway, all I have to do now is finish grading and turn in my students grades by next Monday. My conferences are over, thank the Baby Jesus. I do however really like this paper I gave, and think it is one of the best I’ve done. I might entertain editing it over the summer and submitting it for publication in some journals. We’ll see. After next week I can finally write full time, not being able to has been stressing me. Between now and then I’m taking a mini-break. I’ll be going to see Heidi, and doing my best to relax. That’s never easy for me. I’m gunna try and get a massage at a place we are going to, I just hope that small asian woman from the cruise isn’t there. She hurt me!

The conference was at this fancy estate in Delaware, which as it turns out was the Dupont’s summer home. Yeah, fancy! No we didn’t stay there though. We were put up in the visiting scholar’s residences, which were the old farmhand’s houses. Not only were they creepy, they were quiet . . . really quiet. It was erie, and I didn’t sleep too well. The beds didn’t help, these old singles much like you’d find in a college dorm. But hey, it was free

We got a tour not only of the University of Delaware’s campus, which looked oddly like Williamsburg, but also a tour of the Estate, which is now a museum. It reminded me of the grandmother’s house from “Flowers in the Attic.”

Right now I’m feeling very drained. Conferences always do that. I’m not only mentally drained, but physically drained. I walked around all day with a backpack packed with things, including my laptop and a bunch of student’s paper’s I had hoped to grade. Needless to say I hurt, and the weather changes today didn’t help. Getting old sucks! I am planning to take a nice bath as soon as tonights TV shows are over.

On another note, I took the advice of many people and started reading the Percy Jackson books. I am liking them so far. Very much a Harry Potter ripoff in many ways, but then I’m sure Harry Potter didn’t invent the mold (Wrinkle in Time, Narnia Books, etc . . . ). I got the first for the kindle app on the iphone to try it out. It is nice to read in bed at night without having to turn the lights on, and after awhile it helps me get to sleep cause of reading off the phone screen. I’m not so sure if it’s great for one’s eyes, but then neither is looking at a computer screen most of the day