Never Run Into a Burning Building
05/09/2005 07:21 a.m.
Our neighbor died in a house fire today. It was really, really suspicious and really, really terrible.

The short version is that we saw smoke. I called 911 and several of us neighbors tried to go in after the woman, but she ended up dying.

The long version is as follows:

I went up to Grandpa's after church and borrowed his tiller so I could finally get my hedgerow planted. Grandma and Grandpa were out to Mother's Day dinner, so I just went around back and got the tiller out of the shed and carried it down the hill to my house. It's just a little weeder tiller, so it wasn't too heavy to carry four doors down. On my way down the hill I saw one of our neighbors who I hadn't seen in awhile named Theresa going in her back door. She was wearing a bright tuqoise blue t-shirt and jeans. I thought about waving or something, but my hands were kinda full and she was never really sociable anyway. As I walked past her house, though, I remember noticing that when the electric company people came out and cut all of the trees back from the power lines, they chopped the whole top off of an oak tree that my friend David planted back in the day when he used to live there. I thought about bringing my sister's digital camera up and taking a picture of it to e-mail him later. This was about 3:30 or 4.

So later on in the afternoon I was out in the front yard tilling and Grandpa and Grandma stopped by to check on their tiller and then went on up the hill. And then Mom brought my dog home and we we sat on the front porch talking for awhile. I went back out to the yard to finish my tilling when Mom and Kempo started to leave. They had to stop up at Grandma and Grandpa's house before they left town, so they drove past me on their way up the hill.

Then I heard Mom honking the horn and yelling that "the house is on fire" and I looked up the road thinking it was Grandma's house, but it was white smoke coming out of the house behind the Community Center where the Phelpses used to live. So I turned the tiller off and ran in and got the phone and called 911 and ran up there while I was talking to the dispatcher. By the time I got off the phone, Kempo and our neighbor Joyce were trying to open the front door to see if anyone was in there, but it was locked and really hot. I yelled at them that I saw Big Theresa come home, but that I didn't see her car in the driveway. So I went around back because I heard their house dog at the back door trying to get out. I looked in the garage for a car on my way around back and yelled at everyone that the Mustang was parked in there so someone might be home and that we should try to get the dogs out. Kempo got the sliding glass door open and kicked out the screen so the dogs could get out and that's when we heard someone moaning inside.

Kempo yelled at everyone that he thought he heard a woman was inside. He made several attempts to go in after her, but it was too smokey. So I went in a couple of steps and grabbed a blanket off of the couch and drug it out. I thought that I could put the blanket over my head and crawl in after whoever was calling for help. I remember that house pretty well from when I used to practically live with the Phelpses and the noises sounded like they were coming from either the kitchen or one of the front bedrooms. I remember thinking that even if I could go in and get all the way to the front of the house and find the source of the moaning, I probably wouldn't be able to get Theresa out if it was her because she's really obese.

At that point the smoke was a good two feet from the floor and the fire was only in the front of the house, so I made a half-hearted attempt at putting the blanket over my head and crawling into the smoke, but I only got about two paces in before it got too hot. The woman sounded like she was too far from the back door for anyone to risk going in after her that way, so I ran around to the front of the house where Joyce had busted out the bedroom window. Grandpa brought his garden hose from his house and hooked it up. Joyce sprayed it in the busted out window towards where we heard the sounds, but the person wasn't making any sense or saying anything intelligible. It was just moaning and we hoped it might be one of their house dogs burning or something because it was barely human sounding. But at times it sounded like "help help". We just kept yelling in the windows for whoever was in there to get down on the ground and crawl towards our voices.

We were hoping that whoever it was could get out on their own, but the moaning had stopped by the time the volunteer fire truck pulled up. Stephen Harrell, a kid I went to high school with, was the first firefighter on the scene in his pickup truck and civilian clothes. All of us neighbors who were gathered around the house yelled at him that someone was in the house but we couldn't get to her. Joyce told me to get something to bust the front door in with, and I got a heavy metal deck chair off of the back porch and threw it over the fence. But Stephen told us not to bust out any more windows because the additional oxygen would feed the fire and make it spread faster. I kept expecting him to try to go into the house. It hadn't been too long since the moans had stopped and I was just praying that Stephen could go in and bring the person out and that it wouldn't be too late. But the fire was already spreading really, really fast. At first it was just the front bedroom, but then the second floor caught and there were flames coming out of the air conditioner in the kitchen, which was near where I thought the moans were coming from. We heard several pops or small explosions from the front of the house and Stephen told everyone to get away from the house, but we pretty much ignored him. Joyce kept spraying the water into the window and Kempo stayed at the back door yelling that help was on the way. Stephen radioed in from his truck for the EMTs, but he couldn't go into the house because he didn't have an oxygen tank or any of his gear. So we all just had to wait. We kept yelling into the house and listening for an answer, but I think we were all afraid that it was already too late.

I couldn't do anything but just pray and pray that it was a dog in the house and not a person. I went back around to the back door and we kept yelling in the open door that help was coming and to get down on the ground and move toward our voices, but there were no sounds now. An ambulance was the second thing to get there, but of course they wouldn't be able to go in either. When the fire trucks finally got there it took them forever for everyone to get into their safety gear and get all of the hoses and equipment set up. We told them that we had heard a female voice in the front of the house and they asked us how many people lived there. While they were still setting up, I had time to run up to Granpa's house and get his camera. When I got back to the scene, a fireman who I had just seen in church recognized me and came over and gave me a hug and told me to tell everyone to get back. Then they made us all go across the street while they got the main part of the flames beat back enough for the guys with the masks and stuff to go in. I took a few pictures of the guys hosing the flames.

When most of the flames were out, five guys in masks got the Infrared camera and lined up by the front entrance. The guy in front went in a little ways with the camera, backed out and signalled to the guys behind him and they all rushed in and came back out with a body. Four guys were carrying her, one on each arm and leg, and they took her out in the front yard a little ways and put her down. By the way they were all acting, we all knew she had to be dead. Her skin was all pink and puffy and her leg and arm were kind of black from being burnt. It occured to me that there would have been no way I could have drug that person out of a burning building by myself. It didn't look like the woman I had seen enter the house earlier in the day, even though this woman had a similar build. Whoever this was had shorts on and a dark shirt and not a turqoise t-shirt. The EMT just went over and checked for a pulse really quickly. He didn't rush or try to revive her or anything. His partner brought a gurney and they covered her with a sheet and left her in the yard for little bit while the firefighters got the fire under control a little more. Mom was hysterical. They loaded the body onto the gurney and took her around back to the ambulance, which sat there for like three hours while they finally got the fire out and finished going through the house looking for more bodies.

Anna Phelps was on her way home from her mothers and she saw all the commotion. She basically freaked out to see her childhood home engulfed in flames. She called her mother and her mother called the homeowner, but couldn't get ahold of her, so she called the homeowner's son, Jason. (See how everybody knows everybody in these small towns?)

I gave my statement to a police officer ans was told to stick around to talk to the fire chief. Everyone from Crandall was out of their houses by this time. There were like fifty people standing around watching the investigation and waiting to see if they found any other bodies. I kept joking that I didn't know that many people lived in this small town and that I hadn't ever seen half of these people before.

WAVE 3 sent a camera out and they interviewed Joyce. It was on the 11 o'clock news later that night. I could have weazled my way in front of the camera, but I didn't care much for trying to get on TV.

All of the neighbors sat out on the streets till after dark and speculated about maybe it being a meth lab or a suicide or something, but nobody really knew who exactly was living in that house at the moment since so many people seemed to come and go from there. We all thought it was really strange that whoever was inside couldn't get out in time because it seemed like an able-bodied person should have noticed a fire in the middle of the day in the room right next to them. It seemed to me that, unless the person was somehow incapacitated, they should have been able to crawl out the front door or the back. Even before the firefighters got there, I thought it might have been a suicide attempt or something fishy going on. Because if a person is aware enough to call out for help, they should be aware enough to try to flee the fire, but the moans never got any closer to either of the exits.

One guy who knew the people told Mom later that one of the residents had just been put on Xanax and was notorious for overdosing and completely zonking out. Several of the previous resident had had drug problems in the past, and one busybody swears up and down that ambulances had been called to the house several times because of attempted suicides. I don't know anything about that, really. All I know is that their dogs are obnoxious and yap all the time. (We caught the two dogs that we got out of the house and put kept them out of harm's way, by the way.)

The police came over and asked me if I saw anyone leaving the house before I called in the fire, which made me even more suspicious. I told him that I hadn't and that I had been in the front yard all day and hadn't seen any strange cars go by or anything, but that I had seen Big Theresa at the house earlier in the day, even though I didn't remember noticing her leave.

The victim's daughter told Mom that they had caught the bed on fire earlier in the day before Theresa left, but that they thought they had it out when they left for a birthday party. Now I don't know how in hell two grown women could catch a bed on fire if they weren't doing something highly unusual.

I called our local newspaper and told them that I had pictures of the fire if they wanted them. I got two of the body being removed from the house, but I don't think they want to use those. I ran out of film before I could get the all-important-sheet-covered-body-in-the-front-yard-while-the-firefighters-work-on-putting-out-the-blaze shot.

Anyway, it's been a terribly exciting day. By the time they had the body out and everything, I was walking around talking to all of the neighbors and I kept making jokes and stuff. I have NO IDEA why. It was so inappropriate. When the police officer asked me to make my statement I joked that it took me a long time to call 911 because I had to look up the number. Totally NOT funny. I guess I was responding to stress in some bizare way or something.
I am currently Thunderstruck
I am listening to Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah

Comments (0)

Right Answer
05/04/2005 12:19 a.m.
So I asked a friend of mine if he thought I was going to hell for illegally downloading Christian music. He says, "No. Jesus would have made music free to begin with." I just thought that was the perfect answer.
I am currently Glad
I am listening to Illegally downloaded Christian Music

Comments (0)

God Bless the Armed Forces!
04/05/2005 12:38 a.m.
Okay, so no snorkeling with the Navy Seals on account of the frigging monsoon! It was like some National Lampoon joke where as soon as we crossed the border into Sunny Florida the heavens opened up and 13 inches of rain fell in the first 24-hour period of our 48-hour stay in the Destin area. But the good news is that the Navy EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) guys were holding a carwash to raise money to get the names of the EOD members they lost this year inscribed on the EOD Memorial. And afterwards there was a Speedo Party on the beach involving some nudity and much intoxication.

The guy in the bottom picture is saying to Kaycee "Look! I can change the spelling of Hooters by squeezing my butt cheeks. Look, Kaycee, it says Hoters. Look!"

Oh yeah, and my friend Kaycee graduated as the most highly-decorated member of her class and she's only the 20th female EOD in the school's 50 year history. So we're really proud of her.

God bless the Navy! Mmm-mmm-mm.


I am currently Stimulated
I am listening to Jason Mraz bootlegs

Comments (0)

Vacation from Unemployment
03/28/2005 08:10 a.m.
Alright, who's bright idea was this anyway???

I'm going to Florida at the end of the week and I would be looking forward to it except that the entire state will be infested with blasted college kids. And I'll be stuck in a car for two days with one of my girlfriends who was supposed to be getting married yesterday except that her fiance was gay and so the engagement was a parless failure. And the other girl riding with us is recently divorced because her military husband decided he was gay a little late in the game, and this will be her first time away from her toddler. And we'll be listening to sermon tapes for most of the drive. Oh yes. I said sermon tapes. (Of Bob Russell from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY. He's actually a really good preacher.)

This whole thing came about when one of our girlfriends who is in the Army got shipped home from Afghanistan to attend bomb technician schooling. We all try to be really supportive of her since she's always deployed on insanely dangerous missions and she was our token Jewish friend in high school. We do little things like send her Hanukah cards and kosher cookies and stuff. Well, she was supposed to graduate bomb school last fall and we were going to drive down for her graduation at Eglin AFB in Florida to meet her new boyfriend and chill out on the beach. The problem is, she flunked a test, essentially "blew herself up" during a detonation test and so she had to take her last semester over again which pushed her graduation back to next week. Right smack dab in the middle of Spring Break 2005. And so it is.

The good news about her having to be held back is that she got put into a class of Navy Seals. So guess who gets to go snorkeling with the Navy Seals next week?? THAT I am definately looking forward to. It's probably like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities. I wonder if they have military issue Speedos....hmmmm...

So I had to go shopping for clothes since last year's summer clothes wouldn't even come close to fitting me. At this time last year I was a healthy size 9. Well, that's awfully optimistic. We'll say in all honesty that I was a slim 12. This year for reasons that are too numerous and medically complicated to explain right now (but bear in mind they are legitimate excuses) I am a depressive size 16. Oh yes, blame the medication, or the restricted physical activity, but this was the year of the 40 pound weight gain. Well, that's another optimistic estimate, but you get the point.

Anyway, I bought some new clothes even though I was downsized and have been unemployed for a couple of weeks, so I shouldn't be spending money on clothes. But one of the outfits I'm especially pleased with because, for the first time in 8 or 9 months, it actually makes me feel sexy. (I gave up most of my sexy clothes even before the weight gain on account of being baptized and embracing Christian modesty with a sigh of relief quite frankly) I know I probably still look like a sheet white beached whale no matter what clothes I'm wearing, but at least I don't feel completely unattractive. Besides, we'll be hanging out with Navy Seals in top shape and the primes of their lives, so any body comparisons would be completely skewed and unfair. So I really shouldn't worry about it, right?

The sad part is that the girls and I were talking the other day deciding what books to pack. And it suddenly struck me that I'm one of those old ladies who goes to the beach wearing printed floral pants with a camera slung around her neck and READS A BOOK when I should be in the Spring Breaker age bracket. But the amazing thing is that I don't find this fact all that depressing. I'm perfectly comfortable with the image of myself as a prematurely overweight snowbird. I would much rather spend my day on the beach reading chick lit in the shade (I'm on a medication that prohibits prolonged exposure to direct sunlight) than wretching up last night's trough of tequila and securing my mid-40s date with a melanoma.

Anyway, it's all awfully like an episode of Sex in the City where the girls go to The Hamptons for a week. I'll be sure so take lots of pictures and post an update.
I am currently Safe
I am listening to Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet

Comments (0)

The Dalai Lama's Right Hand Man
04/26/2004 10:22 a.m.

Everyone jumped when the drum sounded.  I didn’t.  Maybe it was my treehugger upbringing, but when I walk into a room and there is a bigass drum in one corner and a gong in the other, I just assume that they aren’t part of the décor. 

I look around at my classmates, seated on those hard metal foldout chairs that are manufactured for the sole purpose of making the poor souls who have to sit in them feel penitent.  I’m pretty sure I’m the only student in the room not fretting over my socks.  Everyone seems to be concentrating very hard on his or her feet, absorbed in a sort of self-conscious sock meditation.  I don’t understand this.  I’ve already nearly strained my neck trying to take everything in.  Of course, it is a rather smallish room; perhaps they had just been faster on the uptake than me and are now trying to concentrate on the ceremony. 

The student beside me is so intensely uncomfortable that I can nearly taste it.  I sneak a quick look at him, enough to discern that it’s not physical discomfort, apart from the wretched chairs.  He looks intent enough, but I get an intensely capitalist vibe from him that seems offended, as if the whole experience were an affront to his Americanism. 

I remember feeling gypped that we didn’t get to sit on the floor.  I had even remembered to wear my most comfortable drawstring stretchy pants especially for the occasion of attempting a lotus position.  Besides, those cold metal chairs were probably far less comfortable than the ergonomic yellow zafus that had been cleared out of the way quite unceremoniously.  If I were seated on the floor, maybe I would have felt less like a spectator and more like a sort of Buddhist for a day.  The service felt a little like a pageant and less like a religious devotional. 

I was proud of myself when I entered into the temple, shoes in hand.  I had practiced my one and only Vietnamese phrase the night before and I just couldn’t wait to test the waters.  “Chuc mung nam moi,” I say to the first person I see who looks even remotely Asian.  The beaming smile on that woman’s face faltered, she gave me that look that you give the McDonald’s drive thru speaker box when all you hear is muffled static.   I only hope that the Vietnamese I just butchered means Happy New Year.  I was just going to apologize for my pompous assumption that all persons of Asian descent speak Vietnamese when a light bulb seemed to click on behind the woman’s searching eyes, the beaming smile made an encore and she gave me a quick reflex bow.  I duck my head a little in response and suddenly remember that I know another Vietnamese phrase, which is di di mau.  I’m reasonably sure that it means “get the hell out of here.” 

I had been expecting more formality and age.  And I was definitely expecting more heat.  I had a picture in my mind of an ancient hall filled with hot, heavy air and great clouds of incense that never stir.  This place was meat-locker cold and not much more than a glorified pole barn. 

But the people, they far outstripped my imaginings.  I came in fully prepared to be intimidated by a line of stooping, saffron-robed cronies and drilled on how all of life is suffering and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it but close our eyes and shut out the world. 

As quite frequently is the case, I was wrong.  My initial response to Thich Hang Dat is that he was very upright, and quite possibly the most beatific being I’d ever seen.   He kind of floats in and I am so taken off guard and utterly consumed with his presence, that I haven’t much concentration to spare on anything else.  I can’t remember now if he introduced himself or just went straight into the bell-ringing, drum thumping chants.  Somewhere in there I remember feeling embarrassed that I actually wanted to read along, when all anybody else seemed to want to do was mumble. 

I haven’t slept in 30-something hours and Thich Hang’s broken English is sounding more and more abstract.  I’m drifting.  I noticed that when he smiles, which is often, he’s missing an incisor in his bottom row of teeth.  Otherwise his teeth are perfect, a real Hollywood smile, except that it’s genuine.  I latch onto only a few concepts.  “The Loving-Kindness and Compassion,” he says, and when he says it, you can just tell that it’s meant to be capitalized.

When the electricity went off, he came alive.  The candles on the altar that had been drowned out by the harsh halogen lighting now leap out of the suddenly dim corner.  It looks almost like the entire altar is suspended from these two points of light.  The whole room becomes infused with an intensity emanating from a central point—a little man in saffron robes still holding a useless microphone as if it were an extension of his hand.  I don’t think he noticed that the power failed.   

A young novice flitters back and forth, creating little currents in my concentration.  I’m not really absorbing what’s being said, but I’m soaked in the atmosphere of the place.  I stare at the somewhat murky light coming in from the window and am shocked to see Indiana woodlands out there.  I admire the musculature in the back of the beautiful young novice through his airy robes when he sank into a full bow, wishing I too could bury my face in my knees.  I discern a pattern in the blocks of color on a banner hanging over a heating duct.  I imagine that pattern repeating into infinity and it occurs to me that if you take the smiling Buddha down off the altar and put up a crucifix and you’d probably still achieve the same effect.  The Loving-Kindness and Compassion.  Yeah.

             It seems like an ancient memory now, glimpsed illicitly from the fog of some former life.  Well, if you believe in that sort of thing.  Some days, while drifting through my workday, I would stare into space and wonder if it weren’t just all a dream.  The chime on the elevator sure sounds a lot like that little hand bell.  Surely there wasn’t really a rather impressive drive up a horrendous hill, no perpetually smiling man.  Was he old?  Young?  Who could tell.  Ageless.

           The Loving-Kindness and Compassion. 

(This will be ammended at a later date and reworked into a reading peice for the next Bean Street.  Stop by if you're in the area.  It will be at 7pm, www.tellchristian.com/beanstreet for directions) 

Hmmm...
04/03/2004 05:26 p.m.
Who decided what a dial tone should sound like???
I am currently Bothered
I am listening to I'll give you three guesses!

Comments (0)

Oligopoly Watch
03/16/2004 08:13 a.m.

I cannot believe that I'm watching Spongebob Squarepants on CNBC.

Here I am trying to find out what the hell is going on with Nortel's accounting review (in the interest of full disclosure, I own fake Nortel stocks on the Yahoo stocksquest game) and instead of getting any relevant information, there is a man from ESPN on my TV screen telling me he has a certification in Bracketology. Yes, Bracketology. I hate the entire month of March. And in honor of Nickelodeon's 25th anniversary and 8th year of being the #1 kids network, there is the president of the corporation on CNBC completely trashing Disney.

So let me get this straight...GE owns CNBC, and Viacom owns Nickelodeon, and Disney owns ESPN... two plus two is...okay, bear with me...

GE is seriously trying to rally support behind the hostile Viacom takeover of Disney! Think about it. Invite the Disney Bracketology goon on to yammer and then toss a well-dressed exec from Viacom in the very next segment to talk about how they have completely undermined the Disney market share in the last eight years. (A market share that didn't even exist before Saint Walt created it, I might add.)

Hmmmm...stick that in your pipe and toke on it.

Did you know that there is an NCAA Special Advisor to the President??? To the PRESIDENT!!! Yeah, a nice man by the name of Wallace Renfro who looks like he just got back from burning on a beach. The man is a flaming capitolist. He even looks like Dick Cheney. Like a hybrid between Cheney and Bobby Knight. I am so not kidding.  

(you don't get the full effect of Renfro without his glasses on, which are so totally identical to Cheney's)

Words I have recently had to add to my spellchecker: outsourcing, selloff, iTunes, grey, Omnimedia

New Project (like I don't have enough to do)
12/27/2003 10:48 a.m.
I'm getting ready to start working on a book of photography and essays called Bleeding on the Inside: the art behind the violence of a bruise in conjunction with battered women who want to tell their stories. The project sprang out of an idea I got one night while taking a shower. While shaving my legs, I discovered a nasty bruise I had gotten from somewhere, and since I'm always looking for things to photograph, I went upstairs and set up a tripod and a macro lens. Turns out that really close macro shots of aged bruises look a lot like abstract paintings when lit properly, and ever since then I've been wanting to do a photo study of bruises. So, I was wondering where I could find an ample supply of nice, fresh bruises when it occurred to me to try to get involved with a battered women's shelter. While I was setting up to shoot pics of my first volunteer, the two of us were talking. And she naturally started telling me the stories behind the bruises. And thus, the idea of Bleeding on the Inside was born. I've stalled the project for now because I'm looking for an official affilliation with a battered women's shelter and trying to get the legal wording of releases figured out so I can eventually publish the pictures and stories I collect. What started with an idle thought in the shower is turning into a pretty massive undertaking, but I don't mind massive undertakings for the sake of art.
I am currently Overwhelmed
I am listening to Bag Lady ( my mother's theme song) -- Erica Badu

Comments (1)

It's all who you know...
12/27/2003 10:26 a.m.

So a friend of mine from Spyder's Empire of Poetry has a webzine called WORDsDance in which she published "Nothing Epic in the Epicenter" and "Will You Read Me for My Beauty?"  Just out of the blue, she e-mailed and asked if she could use those two pieces in her Winter '03 Issue.  Another friend of mine runs a 'zine in London called The Wolf, and I've been invited to submit some of the 2003 works.  And, of course, I would never had been a part of PHHIWWM at all if it weren't for Lorri Scott drafting me into the line-up.  And hey, the venerable David Salvo (of Bean Street's Thursday Night Reading Series fame) is starting a publishing company.  Can you believe it?  I luck into the best friendships.  Without ever having to actively seek a forum, I have quite a few publishing credits to my name now.  And if you can't see the hand of God in that, then you're a faithless heathen.

This is the house that dreams built...
12/11/2003 10:57 a.m.

Writting a story about some hippie friends of mine, and I inadvertently run across THE building material that will make all the crazy ass curved walls I've ever dreamed of not only possible, but simple!  I'm talking cob, baby!  Cob=Clay + Sand + Straw (roughly 25%, 75% and A LOT)  Cob, from the old English meaning "lump or rounded mass".  Building with cob has been equated to sculpting heavy clay.  And the best thing is that the red clay content in Indiana soil is prefectly suited to cob and the creek rock and limestone needed for the foundation is wonderously also an indigenous material.  (for Justin--I am Choctaw, I am one with the Land.)  For years I've been saying that it's a dream of mine to build a house in southern Indiana and quarry the stone to build it with off of the land.  But stone houses aren't always that pretty to me, and I just wanted to do so much with arches and domes, that limstone wouldn't really be the most cost-effective building material.  A single stone arched door frame of cut stone can cost 12,000.  And I don't know about you all, but I couldn't walk through my froint door every day knowing that the door frame alone costs more than I made last year!

And then there was cob!  I had rejected straw bale because it's too rectilinear, and adobe (though I love it) doesn't do well in wetter climates liked the Ohio River Valley...so I was looking into rammed earth pise.  But it requires building massive and (to my horror) mathematically precise forms, and costs roughly the same as traditional frame and sheet rock construction...Oh, but I found cob along the way, and now even the bas reliefs of naked bodies protruding from the walls in the bedroom are a possibility.  (Think, "Devil's Advocate"--Dustin Hoffman's office, but more innocent, ala Grecian Urn.)

And now I am actively looking for a piece of land, because I've decided that I'm going to build a house.  Being the architecture nut that I am, I have been designing a house for a long time now...and now that I know that it will be pretty cost-effective (mud is free, after all) to get the aesthetic features I want without haveing to rape the land or earn a fortune...well, it's on now.  I should be studying for a final I have to take in three hours,  but I'm not.  I'm drawing up plans for a window bench warmed from underneath by the flu from the bread oven.  And the round library that I'd given up on and decibed to make octaganol??  It's round again, and now I've added a revolving book case that leads into a bathroom (because I never realize that I have to pea really badly while I'm reading, and I end up doing this little "I have to pea" dance down the stairs)

This is a pic that I'm mighty proud of that I took of my hippie friends sitting in what will become their living room after the roof gets put on and a layer of Lime-kiln plaster put over the cob to seal it.  Note the beautiful inset benches ans sculptural details.  There is some beautiful work on the opposite wall where they've incorporated drift wood to frame a little ogee shelf.

(my apologies for any typos, it's finals week and I haven't slept in 30-something hours.)

Next 10 Entries