Well, of course, I overreacted about the wood. After going to Home Depot and Lowe's and not having any luck, I decided to just email my dad a confession. He assured me it was not that big a deal, that he had plenty more wood and stain for the wood, and that it could probably just be sanded out anyway. And I could breath again. Ahhhh.

Today I got my hair bleached lighter. I am seriously blonde now. I have this thing online called Mint that uploads all of my financial accounts and separated my spending, etc. into categories. It turns out I spend more money on my hair than I spend on food. Jesus! I guess my hair is to me like shoes are to most girls. Even when you're feeling fat and there aren't any clothes that fit, buy a new pair of shoes and all is well. For me, I really don't care for shoe shopping. I would go barefoot if I could. But my hair - I would go to the salon every week if I could afford it. I love how it looks when I leave the salon, so smooth and healthy, no dark roots, every strand in place, shiny, pretty, perfect. I do a pretty decent job with my hair, but nothing beats the work of a professional. In the past, before I could afford the salon, I dyed my hair every possible color. Every time something terrible happened, I would dye my hair. Every time I broke up with a guy, or if I had really awful PMS, I would dye my hair. After I left E and was living in the domestic violence shelter, I cut off my dreadlocks. Then I went on a platinum blonde crusade, stealing bleach and developer from beauty supply stores once a week in an attempt to get my hair to look like Marilyn Monroe's. It probably started when my Mom bleached my hair for the first time when I was 12. I don't remember if any tragic incident occurred before she did it, but I wouldn't be surprised, as the year 12 was a rather hellish year for me. We were living in these disgusting condos, Bellevue Manor, on 148th. It was the ghetto of Bellevue. Still is, in fact. My mom was in a relationship with TM, the biggest, fattest, loudest, most disgusting Italian jerk-off on the planet. His teenager daughter moved in with us, too. She was a crackwhore...no seriously...she was a 15 year old whore. I'm not positive if it was crack that she was after, or just the love and attention that her father never gave her, but whatever her reasons, she was selling her body. TM was horrible to me. He wouldn't let me talk on the phone. We had one phone line in the condo and in the living room, a little red light would turn on on the phone console whenever someone picked up the phone in any room. So if I picked up the phone in my bedroom, TM would see the light, storm in, and make me hang up. He wouldn't let me open the refridgerator. I would walk into the kitchen, reach out for the fridge door, and he would yell from his throne on the couch in front of the TV to back away from the door. When I would get home from school, I liked to watch TV for a while, but when he got home from work, he would tear into the living room, sit down on the couch practically on top of me, grab the remote out of my hand, and change the channel as if I did not exist. One time I came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around me (my bedroom was right next to the bathroom) and he came after me, screaming about something (I don't remember what), grabbed me the neck, and pushed me up against the wall in my bedroom. He was actually holding me up by my neck so my feet her dangling. My towel started to fall off, but he didn't care. He was up in face, screaming at me and I was terrified of this asshole. He was the most controlling jerk I'd ever known up to that point in my life. He was fat and he let his bodily functions fly whenever he felt like it. He yelled and swore all the time. He had road rage before there was a name for road rage. But my mom loved him for some reason, no matter how fucked up his kids were (his son was no better- in and out of jail and rehab and only 19 years old), and no matter how abusive he was towards me. So, I don't know, maybe in my mind, dying my hair is a way to escape pain? Maybe that's taking something superficial a bit too far, but I think there is some truth to it. She would also do things like take me shopping at Ross (Ross was third in my highest spending categories on Mint), and she would buy sweets and we would indulge together. She would buy 2 lb bags of peanut butter M&M's, or an entire cake, or a box of cookies and some ice cream. There were always sweets around, but especially if I was going through a hard time. Sweets were one the ways she helped me to feel better. And today, my three biggest spending categories are hair, food, and Ross. If I include all stores, not just Ross, shopping is the highest category I have. Five times that of hair. So I am addicted to dying my hair, shopping, and sweets. Big surprise. Mystery solved. But even if I am aware of the root of my compulsions, it doesn't stop them. I still want chocolate. I still want to be blonde. I still want a new pair of jeans. I wure would love a way to stop feeling like I need these things. I know I'm a shopping addict. I shop like I'm made of money, even though I only work part time and I am in major debt. It's actually really out of control. But I just want to spend. Sometimes it's not even the spending, just the shopping. The hours spent wandering around a store, picking things out, trying them on, making a decision. Half the time I don't even buy anything, even after spending hours in a store. There's something trance-like, meditative, about shopping. It's soothing and mind-numbing. Everything else just fades away, like how it would for a gambling addict when they're shoving quarter after quarter into a slot machine. The only time I come back to reality when I'm shopping is when I'm in the dressing room and i have to face how fat I actually am. Like today, for instance. I was wandering through Ross and I found some cuter jeans. I went to try them on and I could barely pull them up over my fat legs. They were glued to me, and they were a size 5! It's repulsive. It wouldn't be so bad if my stomach wasn't a bowl of Jello. I wouldn't mind being a size 5 if I had a nice, tight stomach but just had a big fat ass. A fat ass is fine if the rest of you is tight. Look at Kim Kardashian. She's made millions off that fat ass. But she has a small waist. That's key. My waist is soft and it has no definition. It has become grotesque. It makes me so sad because my waist used to be rock hard. You could see the muscles rippling through my skin. I looked HOT in a bikini. And this was only last summer. Now, it's Jello. Even though my stomach is still extremely strong, possibly more so than a year ago, you can't tell because of the fucking layer of fat covering it. I just wish I could get a handle on what I put inside my body. It's like, ridiculous because I can cut out meat no problem, eggs no problem, dairy no problem, soy only a slight problem, but for some reason sugar just has a hold on me. And sugar is the number one thing that makes people fat. Why can't I just let it go and stick to it? Why does it always creep back in, practically hours after I commit to giving it up. I just can't stop. I feel totally powerless over my cravings for sugar. Will I ever be normal? Will I ever be non-addicted? I feel like, even if I'm not drinking, drugging, or smoking cigarettes, my brain always attaches itself to something, clings to it and will not let go. How do people free themselves from addictions? I am tired of being ruled by outside sources, things that can never make me happy long-term, only fill a void temporarily, because the void always reappears. It opens back up almost instantly after the damage is done. All that money spent, all those calories ingested, and for what? I don't feel any better. I'm fatter and I have less money. That wouldn't make anyone feel good. I want to treat myself, my body, my money, my future, with respect and love. I want to save money and eat healthily. I want to stop this insanity because that's exactly what is is: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It will never happen. Blonde hair won't make me happy, chocolate won't make me happy, a cheap shirt that I won't even like in two weeks won't make me happy. It's no wonder I have piles and piles of clothes but nothing to wear. What would make me happy is a flat stomach and a savings account full of money. I don't mean that in the superficial way, either, I mean it in the sense that if I have a flat stomach, it's because I'm taking care of my body, and if I have a full savings account, it's because I'm taking care of my financial future. I want to be someone who treats themselves with that kind of love and respect. That's what would make me happy - being congruent with my beliefs. Being vegan is a fantastic start, but I still have a long way to go. I mean, let's be real, here: bleach is NOT vegan.

I just watched this doc about weed growers in Nor-Cal. I don't know why I torture myself by watching something that just reminds me of my dream. My whole life I've been trying to get to California, and every damn time I get there, something fucked up happens that sends me back to Bellevue. There is no place on earth as beautiful as the Northern California mountains. Those sun-dried rolling hills, the twisting, dense forest. I've never slept better in my life than I did when I lived in a tent off Bell Springs. It was so dark and peaceful, zillions of stars in the sky, only the sounds of the mountains themselves. I miss it so much. I pray for the day when I can buy my Nor-Cal land. Acres of property in the mountains, my yurt, my wind turbine, an organic garden, a well. My dogs and chickens, all that privacy! I realize I have a bit of a social phobia. I always think I want to hang out with people, and get really excited when someone asks me to do something, but the closer to the time when we're supposed to hang out gets, the more I start to think I really don't want to do it after all. What I want more than lots of friends or being invited out to do things I don't want to do, is just to have my acreage, my dream home, my dogs, and HAM. I don't need many people, or things. I would need a car with four-wheel drive to get to and from my home, and I'd love to have a gym. But that's the one major luxury item that I desire. I don't need a home theater or an olympic size pool, I don't need leather furniture (in fact I would NEVER own leather furniture) or whatever kinds of things rich people require. I don't need a huge TV or a tennis court, or even a hot tub (although I would like a hot tub). What I really want is to be peaceful and happy in the mountains with my little family, possibly growing weed, writing, sewing, growing my own food and raising chickens for eggs (not meat). The simple life. And a home gym. And not a lame "all-in-one" machine, but an actual gym, with mirrors, cardio machines, benches, free weights, a big mat, and various other workout apparati. Maybe a sound system and a TV mounted on the wall. That's my one luxury desire - not that big of a deal. But if I couldn't have that, I'd at least like to live close enough to a gym that it isn't an hour drive to get there. It took an hour to ge anywhere from Bell Springs. But it was way out in Laytonville, and Laytonville is already such a small town that even when you finally get to town, gas is about 500 thousand dollars a gallon and everything in the grocery store is inflated by 50%. There's one restaurant/ bar, a deli, a post office, a couple motels, a grocery store, a gas station, and a coffee shop with (surprisingly) wireless internet access. I'd rather live in the Ukiah mountains because Ukiah has more going on than Laytonville and Willits is so hick it might as well be Texas. But since my ex-fiance, ALL, is from there, it's really not a safe place to live. That's so unfortunate because I truly fell in love with Mendocino County and never wanted to leave. It's so beautiful there, and there's no traffic. I never had to wait in line at the post office and I never got stuck in rush hour. Granted, it takes about an hour to get anywhere in Mendo (if you're not just going to the grocery store down the street), but it's so majestic and filled with nature that I don't care how long it takes to get somewhere - the drive is like meditation. Not like rush hour, where sitting in my car makes me want to murder the person in front of me. Taking a long time to get somewhere due to distance is fine, it's taking a long time to get somewhere because of congestion that gets my skin boiling. But the fact is, that won't be a reality for several years. It's my dream, and I can't let it die. I will get there someday. Until then I have to learn to grow food and raise chickens, sew my own clothes, ferment my own Kombucha, use public utilities to run my appliances, and keep the hippie dream alive.