Saturday, March 31, 2007
on the eve of the eve of starting a new job
"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."Labels: growing up, quotes
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Close Up
For my Marker Rendering class, I'm designing and creating a series of fashion illustrations for my "dream line" of clothes. I keep putting off sketching out full ideas though because it seems that everything I'm working on looks like something a chicken scratched out with a pencil in bescaled claw. So I took pictures of the homework assignment that inspired me to take on this grand exercise of vogue. And also to share with those of you who were, like me before this class, bewildered at what "Marker Rendering" could entail and why it would be on a college curriculum when 2nd graders are given the priviledge of marker handling.
I'm also focusing on making this blog more focused on my art/craft/photography so that I can track my own progress and see what staggering paths this can take.
Labels: artsy girl
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
You go back to her, and I go back to black
I caved and bought the Amy Winehouse Back To Black album. I just can't resist a good soul voice that sounds like it's been dragged through a gutter of cigarette ashes and razored hearts. Some times there is nothing better than lying on the carpet of your studio apartment with a stack of NYLON magazines, a glass of red wine or strawberry soy milkshake (your choice), and a really good record on.
In other news, here is a photo I took last week on a walk seeking to document all the beautiful flowers and bushes around my neighborhood (click on it for a few more on Flickr).
 Labels: music, photolog, spring
Punch Drunk Love
So despite all my time off last week, I neither blogged nor uploaded photographs. Instead, I spent most of my time reading fashion magazines, sewing felt cozies, drawing for ATCs instead of Marker Rendering, catching up with friends by phone/mail/AIM and wallowing in a deep funk mostly induced by isolation but possibly also created by an overbearing mother. Oh, and I watched Jesus Camp and Thank You For Smoking. My Netflix queue is coincidentally arranged so that the pairs of films I receive seem to be perfect companion films for each other. Jesus Camp was really quite disgusting. But in a brighter outlook, I have La Dolce Vita and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg coming tomorrow.
I also cleaned my apartment and baked these owl sugar cookies (spiked with half a cup of flaxseed to counteract the two sticks of butter) from the owl cookie cutter my friend Darlisa gave me a few weeks ago:
On Saturday, I went to Disneyland and then had the best chocolate milkshake of my life at Denny's afterwards. On Sunday, I helped Ryan streamline the cut-out editing process for his film ;) I'm leaning towards graphic design and illustration as a future career path; my ideal future career is to be a writing professor and a freelance illustrator. I'm planning on spending this next year developing my drawing skills, while steadily expanding on graphic design skills (to be moved forward this summer when I purchase a nice scanner!)
In more exciting news, Ryan got an Airport today and I'm playing my iTunes playlist from my laptop out of the loudspeakers in the apartment while he's printing Andrew Loomis books out of our now-wirelessly-connected printer! We're officially in the 21st century, and it feels so good.Labels: daily, foodie call, photolog
Monday, March 19, 2007
The Beginning
So much has happened, friends, since I last wrote! I can finally break my mysterious silence; I gave notice at my last job on Friday (effective immediately) and man, was that empowering. I was working upwards of 10 hours a day, commuting an hour, had taken a pay cut, and living under gestapo-like watch. Then two weeks ago I received a fantastic job offer, and will be starting this new job in two weeks. Which gives me two glorious weeks to sit still, in silence, breath deep, take in everything that has happened in the last six months and choose my next steps carefully.
Over this past weekend I went on a wonderful, short hike with Ryan and his family. All the hatless acorns made me realize how I should spend my next two weeks: taking the time to stop and marvel over all the little things. To see what acorns REALLY look like, to know what actually working on my novel feels like, to experience what sitting still and relaxing is all about.
Ryan and I also saw 300 yesterday, which turned out to be a lot better than I had expected. It was really quite beautiful, the story just hanging on enough and the gore didn't make me want to throw up -- however the gratuitous nudity did. I give it a B+.
I stocked up on magazines (including Blueprint, Glamour, Elle, and Preen), books to read (The Anti 9-to-5 Guide, The History of Love, Fast Food Nation, Jane Eyre, The Glass House), felt, drawing pencils, stamps, ATC swaps and food. I'm ready to start enjoying my next two weeks, and be sharing it all along the way with you!Labels: films, photolog, twentysomething
Sunday, March 11, 2007
What happened to the girl who got everything she wanted?
She lived happily ever after.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
The Secret Life of Music, and Other Things
Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere album will always remind me of last August, with the dregs of summer on everybody's nerves and the impending Big Move to LA on my mind I had an ulcer in my stomach that rendered me practically catatonic during all my waking hours; probably not a surprise considering the dozens and dozens of resumes I had sent out seeking my first "real world" job thinking (ha!) that I could somehow work on my terms. Despite the chaotic job hunt and the toxic apartment I was living in, I had my friends. My amazing friends who I went swimming with, danced at the Whistlestop with, saw shows at the Casbah and Belly Up Tavern with, that I just lolled away afternoons with.
St. Elsewhere reminds me of driving out of PB at sunset, seeing the orange pastel clouds in my rearview mirror as I drove down to spend the rest of my night with Ryan in his stuffy one bedroom second floor apartment with the flamboyant neighbors next door playing Cher and Yanni at all hours and eavesdropping on the loud obnoxious drunk neighbor downstairs yell at her boyfriend for cheating on her (which she only found out because she got an STD).
There are all these memories swimming in my head, all that has happened in the past 9 months that I never dreamed possible. And through all of this, I haven't written more than a few words on a sheet of notebook paper -- and only because I had to when Dori and I forced ourselves to write a few times.
Right now I'm feeling particularly chaotic and overwhelmed; is this a sign that I just can't handle growing up or that I don't deserve everything in my life -- or none of the above? I feel like I need just a little goddamn guidance, and the only people who hear this are the people who are in the same situation -- swimming in indecision, stuck at crappy jobs and feeling overall stalled at starting their Lives.
Also, WTF, Men in Trees sucks. What a thinly disguised Sex and the City wannabe -- a bad one at that; who the hell would fall in love with this paltry lumberjack Alaska they've created? I mean, they even have Mario Cantone as the EXACT SAME CHARACTER (I know he always plays himself, but STILL). Jenny Bicks, I've got your number.Labels: growing up, music, twentysomething
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Roadside Dinosaurs
Don't mean to be so quiet lately, but so much has been going on. How do people balance whole families and houses and mortgages with full time jobs and lives? Of all the life lessons I'm learning this first year out of school, I think the most important and pleasurable one I've learned so far is that it's important to HAVE FUN and play hooky once in awhile. Be a little reckless in your twenties; I know I'm having fun being rebellious.
Went on a road trip to Arizona for a wedding this past weekend; it was so much fun. Especially the ride home, where we meandered through the California stateside and pulled over whenever we saw something bizarre and kitschy (although we realize that this is how most horror films start). But when else are you going to experience dinosaurs on the road side or the General Patton Memorial Museum?
Last night I saw Zodiac, which turned out to be better than other friends had been suggesting. But how can you go wrong with Jake Gyllenhaal for me?
And even though I should have been cleaning my apartment, I made a bigger mess by making my first ATC (Artist Trading Card) for the ATC & Teabag swap on SwapBot. It was so much fun; I want to make many more soon.
I'm also so excited about TV on the Radio later this month and Wicked in May!
My life is perfect, even when it's not.Labels: arts+crafts, photolog, twentysomething
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Photo Betty
Name anything in my house, that I own, or nearby, or in my life that you are curious about, that you would like me to take a picture of, and I'll take a picture of it and post it.
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