nonstopnonstopnonstop

dear readers,

you should probably know that i shaved my head. i never would have imagined how prominent my temple muscles are when i chew! wow!

the pic above is from a park in caseyville, IL, where kyle and i spent the day hiking and with our baby girl and then got ice cream!

the pic below is from lollapalooza, chicago. a few friends and i embarked upon a sleepless adventure of driving the 4 hrs there in the morning, going to the LADY GAGA SHOW (!!!!) and then driving back that night, perhaps, we imagined, after an evening of dancing in Boys Town. unfortunately, things did not go exactly as we had imagined they might, and after the show we ended up getting lost in a park surrounded by prostitutes.




as i'm sure you can imagine, the show was completely worth it.





the fall semester has started and i am teaching english 101 as well as taking grad classes. i am fairly certain that these next few months will gradually turn me into a quiet sort of alcoholic, not the kind that has lots of friends and phenomenal stories but the kind who weeps into her hot tea splashed with plenty of irish cream at 2 pm while grading a massive stack of papers. i am getting stress-fat and in the process of forgetting how to have fun.

to end on a more happy note: kyle and i have nearly finished watching every episode of every season of THE GOLDEN GIRLS. this is particularly exciting for me because I did not grow up with parents who believed in television, and this will be the first t.v. show i will have ever seen all the way through!

oh yes. i would also like to announce that i am the proud mother of a mannequin head. His name is Joseph. He is quite fond of nursing Kyle. QUITE fond.

D is for dragonfly

So here is what's been going on with us.

To celebrate our first anniversary (yea!) the wife and I took a trip to Wisconsin. Our original goal was to stay in and around the Wisconsin Dells, but we quickly discovered that it just wasn't our kind of scene. We opted for the more outdoorsy areas, including a wonderful park at Devil's Lake. While hiking around the lake, we ran into a very distinguished gentleman who Lauren claims to be Michael Pollan, though I remain doubtful.



We had two animal encounters, both very different. We stopped by a big cat rescue shelter, which was amazing! 30 or so beautiful tigers, lion, and leopards, being cared for by a staff that obviously loved them, and all the visitors we talked with were very respectful and awed by these animals. You had the option of buying the cats a frozen chicken, a watermelon, or a cardboard box full of pine branches and sprayed with cologne (tiger cat-nip). It was a wonderful experience.




Our other animal experience was at a reptile exhibit (meaning an overpriced private zoo) in the tourist area of the dells. There were alligators, various snakes, and a few exotic frogs. Like the big cat shelter, you could feed the alligators, only this time, you could feed them live mice. Now, let me preface this by saying that I understand that reptiles eat mice, and I feel that is perfectly natural. However, there was a father with his two daughters, and his display of blood-lust was revolting. He continuously made comments about how the alligators weren't playing with the mice long enough, and how he wanted to see them suffer. That was enough to put a damper on the experience, and we left pretty quickly.

We also sampled the local cuisine (cheese) at the Madison farmers market. There were a few Amish gentlemen selling vegetables and such, and I was so impressed with their facial hair, I cut my beard to match!



I don't think Lauren is a big fan.

-Kyle

U is for UNICORN

step one: pick berries: this is the harvest kyle and i picked at the xcountry courses! gooseberries, blackberries, and garlic!

step 2: create pie. put in oven


step 3: bake pie!!!!!! take out of oven!!!!


step 4: eat pie! perferrably with vanilla bean ice cream

yes, kyle and i have begun scavenging for food and yes i baked my first homemade pie! oh my i am domesticated now for sure! n_n

Sadly one of my dermals started rejecting and kyle had to cut it out. according to him i was a "pussy." so this is me, sans makeup, laying in bed bleeding from just above my collarbone where there used to be a piercing, and pondering what to do with the dermal that is on the other side....it is lonely and lopsided without one the one i had removed! i love it dearly and don't want to remove it but i am feeling a bit too unsymmetrical right now.

SOME PICS FROM OUR BALCONY GARDEN:


the pepper plant is beginning to sprout baby bell peppers! this is so exciting it's almost like i'm giving birth via the plant. you know, watching the plant change, waiting expectantly for the fruit it will soon bear....






the balcony life--where kyle and i spend quite a bit of time, reading, drinking wine, eating cheese, getting yelled at by jerks out of their speeding cars.




upside down cherry tomato grower! CHIVES! Parsley!


in other news: my friend christy and i watched a documentary on women's bodies in advertising the other night. i think we were both expecting it to be a bit lame, more of what we have already heard: sex is not the same as gender, let's talk about what is biological verses sociological, etc.....but it was not that AT ALL! it was very revealing about aspects neither christy or i had even considered, extremly poignant and disturbing and has left me in a complete funk for two days since. if anyone is interested, the name of it is "The Codes of Gender"

in OTHER other news, kyle and i recently lost the lottery. we are both extremly upset about this. we were planning on going for a trip to italy and then coming back to live in the country and raise our own food, chickens, fruit trees, a vegetable garden, and goats included. we think it's sad that you have to get rich in order to live a simpler life.

this is me and an old friend from literally gradeschool. we got together to drink chocolate wine and dress up as animals this week. as you can see, she is a fish. and i am a unicorn.




and here is a pic of me and another friend, me: still a unicorn. her: a narwhale. we are engaging in an epic battle of forehead horns, land and sea.





alright, well i have been sitting here typing and pasting pics with orange dye in my hair...it's probably way past time to rinse so i guess i'm headed to the shower.

<3

lauren

Kyle's Post-

So I believe a brief explanation of what's going on here is in order. This is a joint blog for both my wife and I to use. As such, you'll see post from both of us popping up.

My name is Kyle. My interest include;
Martial arts,


My wife,


My dog,


Body modification,


And art.

In the beginning....

lauren's post:

kyle and i just spent over an hr researching names for this site--or rather, i spent over an hr frantically pouring though books for images and pretty word combinations while kyle looked up land we can't afford yet. in the end we decided to go simple, and didn't use any of the passages i had so passionately collected. expect them to come up later for picture captains.


here is a brief collage of us:




more pics of us to come. probably with captains i will spend hours picking out to find the most absolute most fitting and most meaningful words only to have kyle tell me it looks completely random like it just came out of whatever book i'm currently reading


kyle and i have been married for just over 11 months now. we had a traditional church wedding although we are discovering more and more that we are not that type of couple.

we enjoy reading together--we take turn reading the classics aloud, articles about religion, and when i'm lucky, at night he reads me children's stories until i fall asleep.

i am currently in graduate school, halfway finished with my M.A. in creative writing--specializing in poetry. This fall I will begin teaching introductory college courses for the first time. I enjoy dying my hair weird colors and I love sunflowers. this is what my hair looks like right now:

this is Frankenstein, our shit tzu puppy. she was born while we were on our honeymoon, to my parents dog. We named her such because I was threatening to have my name changed to Frankenstein but my mother was so appalled we compromised and gave the name to the puppy instead. It proved to be a fitting name. we love her more than almost ANYTHING.
my recent activities include pridefest, a naked bideride in st louis to protest oil, reading "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie, and making almond- golden raisen scones from scratch.