as i sit here, staring blankly at this computer screen, built to spill are probably playing their set at the dickson street theater... i should be there. i however, have the worst luck on the freaking planet [ok, maybe not the worst, but you get my drift.]. the bloody show sold out three people in front of me. i'm upset. truly, deeply upset. i know it's just a stupid show and whatnot, but they're one of my favorite bands... they play my favorite song... and i don't get to be there when they play it.
one could have bought tickets beforehand, but i'm poor and i didn't have the money to do so until it was too late. and then i get to the show more than an hour early and they sell out... and now i get to sit here and think about how i could be there... and it makes me sad... stupid, yes, i know... but sad nonetheless.
20050925
i thought my alarm clock made food...
so, at the moment, i am cursing myself for taking the job of being 'cnc and laser cutter operator' at the u of a, because i've spent the whole bloody weekend helping every other bleeding person in my freaking studio do their work and i've had no time to do my own. growl. yeah, punk, that's right, i said growl. do somethin'...
i got a new tattoo on friday night, 'small but tasteful' ... like my friend said, it's so much better than therapy... and so much cheaper than a shrink. i felt kind of bad, because it only took five minutes to actually do the tattoo and it took robbie more time to clean up afterwards... c'est la vie, i suppose.
as is to be expected, my life is otherwise sickeningly boring, because i am constantly at school or [less often] sleeping... but on tuesday, one of my favoritest bands ever - built to spill - is coming here... oh yes... and i will be up there for the concert, even if i have to sacrifice eating time on tuesday for it [because we have a crit with a guest critic on wednesday...].
advice to close - if you have to be up all night drawing or something of the sort - if you value your sanity and don't wish to have freakish scary nightmares - don't listen to pink floyd's the wall on repeat. just don't. the results aren't pretty... just trust me on this one.
i got a new tattoo on friday night, 'small but tasteful' ... like my friend said, it's so much better than therapy... and so much cheaper than a shrink. i felt kind of bad, because it only took five minutes to actually do the tattoo and it took robbie more time to clean up afterwards... c'est la vie, i suppose.
as is to be expected, my life is otherwise sickeningly boring, because i am constantly at school or [less often] sleeping... but on tuesday, one of my favoritest bands ever - built to spill - is coming here... oh yes... and i will be up there for the concert, even if i have to sacrifice eating time on tuesday for it [because we have a crit with a guest critic on wednesday...].
advice to close - if you have to be up all night drawing or something of the sort - if you value your sanity and don't wish to have freakish scary nightmares - don't listen to pink floyd's the wall on repeat. just don't. the results aren't pretty... just trust me on this one.
20050923
'you put the art in retarded'
i saw a brief segment of a 'the bravery' concert this evening... courtesy of university programs and such - basically, just a break from my brain [much needed]. i was greatly amused... with some of the most 'creative' lyrics i think i've ever heard [see above title... pretty creative, huh?]. the music was actually not that bad and the performance was interesting, but 'you put the art in retarded' was just more than i could handle...
20050919
this is why i will be leaving... and this is why i can't see you no more.
peaks and valleys, right? i seem to find myself in an ever-expanding valley of late. perhaps it's lack of sleep, perhaps i'm stir-crazy at the moment, perhaps i'm just sad. not really sure, don't really care. i do know that watching my close friends and my best friend battle the post-hurricane shit storm is breaking my heart just a little more each day... i don't know if it's possible to empathize oneself into a broken heart but the fact that i can't do anything to take the pain and the loss away, or even to ease it in the least kills me. like the my-heart-hurts-so-much-i-feel-like-i'm-going-to-die kind of 'it's killing me.' having to just sit idly by and watch the people i care about fall to pieces is a little too much to bear. the knowing that i am completely powerless to help other than to lend a shoulder to cry on, an ear to vent to... that's the part that's too much to bear.
20050914
tiny suns infused with sour
cold has turned to cough has turned into some sort of nasty bronchial infection. what joy is mine. what joy is mine is that i get really good medicine to play with... no, rewind. i get really good medicine to take and x-acto blades to play with. i know, i know... don't take 'narcotic' cough syrup and play with potentially lethal objects, but my friends, common sense left this particular equation long, long ago.
so, just back from a quick site visit to marfa, texas. lovely little town in the middle of nowhere, texas. home of the chinati foundation - the large compound of permanent art installations started by donald judd... really wonderful stuff. saw the marfa lights... and accidentally ended up watching an absolutely beautiful lunar eclipse. went to ojinaga, mexico for dinner and tequila. went to the mcdonald's observatory to look at billions upon billions of stars and clusters and nebulae and the moon through gigantic telescopes... [but i'm a geek, so this kind of stuff is incredibly exciting to me]. went to big bend to draw in the blistering sun... got to see an amazing thunderstorm in the big bend basin... an enormous peek amid a very large valley; very dramatic, very beautiful. listened to ridiculous amounts of funk [as if there is such a thing] on the many drives through the desert...
we got to drive from fayetteville, ar to tulsa, ok at 3:30 in the morning in order to catch a 6 am flight. suck. yes, i'm a night owl... no, 3:30 isn't an incredibly strange time for me on a normal basis. however, 3:30am after two days of no sleep whatsoever... not cool. not cool at all. particularly when you plan to catch up on sleep on the short flights and people keep talking to you. again, not cool.
anywho... i have lots of photos and as soon as i can figure out how in the bloody hell to operate this stinking contraption that will let me share my pretty pictures with you, i will have some of them posted... for the time being, back to playing with sharp objects under the influence of something i can't remember the name of. cheers.
so, just back from a quick site visit to marfa, texas. lovely little town in the middle of nowhere, texas. home of the chinati foundation - the large compound of permanent art installations started by donald judd... really wonderful stuff. saw the marfa lights... and accidentally ended up watching an absolutely beautiful lunar eclipse. went to ojinaga, mexico for dinner and tequila. went to the mcdonald's observatory to look at billions upon billions of stars and clusters and nebulae and the moon through gigantic telescopes... [but i'm a geek, so this kind of stuff is incredibly exciting to me]. went to big bend to draw in the blistering sun... got to see an amazing thunderstorm in the big bend basin... an enormous peek amid a very large valley; very dramatic, very beautiful. listened to ridiculous amounts of funk [as if there is such a thing] on the many drives through the desert...
we got to drive from fayetteville, ar to tulsa, ok at 3:30 in the morning in order to catch a 6 am flight. suck. yes, i'm a night owl... no, 3:30 isn't an incredibly strange time for me on a normal basis. however, 3:30am after two days of no sleep whatsoever... not cool. not cool at all. particularly when you plan to catch up on sleep on the short flights and people keep talking to you. again, not cool.
anywho... i have lots of photos and as soon as i can figure out how in the bloody hell to operate this stinking contraption that will let me share my pretty pictures with you, i will have some of them posted... for the time being, back to playing with sharp objects under the influence of something i can't remember the name of. cheers.
20050907
can we really see? we can look. but can we really see?
funny... the things that come into your head when you're supposed to be concentrating on something else.
my friend asked me how long i thought it would be before everyone simply forgot about everything that's happened and is happening on the gulf coast. how long it would be before people put the atrocities and misery and pain and destruction out of their minds. it's really very simple - people will remember until something bigger, more terrible and more 'press-worthy' comes along. because we have no foreign enemy, and nothing but our own ineptitude as a national body to blame, it won't be long before our attentions are diverted elsewhere. until those in power are directly effected, until their homes are fifteen feet under a stinking, infectious, toxic stew; until their parents, children, husbands and wives, friends and loved ones are missing without a trace; until they are trapped amongst rapists and murderers with no possible escape; until they have lost absolutely everything - any semblance of a normal life... until that happens, our attentions will be diverted elsewhere... to things less grim and - frankly - embarrassing.
yes. it is absolutely shameful that our organizing bodies - the people who actually have the power to do something, the people who have the bloody responsibility to do something - let tens of thousands of people sit, stranded in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. i read a new york times article entitled 'united states of shame' today... i thought it was a most appropriate title. it's simply ricoculous that we, as a country, didn't mobilize sooner to save our own people. we seem to have no problem mobilizing if it means that we get to destroy something. if we get to kill some other country's people. yet we trip over our feet and fall flat on our faces when it comes to helping our own people... yes, most of them are poor. yes, some of them are criminals. but it does not mean that they are sub-human and that it is somehow alright to just wait five days to do anything at all. five. days. five horrible, terrifying days.
mr. president - how can you stand in front of our nation and call yourself our leader, our commander in chief, when you didn't do anything. yes, i blame your government, our government, my government - not for hurricane katrina. not for the flooding and the destruction - a much mightier force than you did that [no, not god. NATURE: that force that you seem to so easily push to the back-burner of your mind when you make policies that blatantly disregard the environment, discontinue policies that would attempt to protect the environment, etc.]. i blame your government for letting so many die needlessly - for letting them sit and starve and whither away until every shred of that so-called 'civilized' nature was stripped from them. at the push of a button, the whisper of an order, thousands of people could have been mobilized immediately to start to do some good. but that button wasn't ever pushed, that order never given - at least not when it should have been. do you understand that possibly 10,000 or more could be dead? can you even begin to comprehend a number like that? not nameless, faceless people. your citizens. the people you and your cronies are supposed to protect. isn't that what you promised to do when our blinded nation put you in office? to protect the people. well, nicely done. swell job.
my friend asked me how long i thought it would be before everyone simply forgot about everything that's happened and is happening on the gulf coast. how long it would be before people put the atrocities and misery and pain and destruction out of their minds. it's really very simple - people will remember until something bigger, more terrible and more 'press-worthy' comes along. because we have no foreign enemy, and nothing but our own ineptitude as a national body to blame, it won't be long before our attentions are diverted elsewhere. until those in power are directly effected, until their homes are fifteen feet under a stinking, infectious, toxic stew; until their parents, children, husbands and wives, friends and loved ones are missing without a trace; until they are trapped amongst rapists and murderers with no possible escape; until they have lost absolutely everything - any semblance of a normal life... until that happens, our attentions will be diverted elsewhere... to things less grim and - frankly - embarrassing.
yes. it is absolutely shameful that our organizing bodies - the people who actually have the power to do something, the people who have the bloody responsibility to do something - let tens of thousands of people sit, stranded in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. i read a new york times article entitled 'united states of shame' today... i thought it was a most appropriate title. it's simply ricoculous that we, as a country, didn't mobilize sooner to save our own people. we seem to have no problem mobilizing if it means that we get to destroy something. if we get to kill some other country's people. yet we trip over our feet and fall flat on our faces when it comes to helping our own people... yes, most of them are poor. yes, some of them are criminals. but it does not mean that they are sub-human and that it is somehow alright to just wait five days to do anything at all. five. days. five horrible, terrifying days.
mr. president - how can you stand in front of our nation and call yourself our leader, our commander in chief, when you didn't do anything. yes, i blame your government, our government, my government - not for hurricane katrina. not for the flooding and the destruction - a much mightier force than you did that [no, not god. NATURE: that force that you seem to so easily push to the back-burner of your mind when you make policies that blatantly disregard the environment, discontinue policies that would attempt to protect the environment, etc.]. i blame your government for letting so many die needlessly - for letting them sit and starve and whither away until every shred of that so-called 'civilized' nature was stripped from them. at the push of a button, the whisper of an order, thousands of people could have been mobilized immediately to start to do some good. but that button wasn't ever pushed, that order never given - at least not when it should have been. do you understand that possibly 10,000 or more could be dead? can you even begin to comprehend a number like that? not nameless, faceless people. your citizens. the people you and your cronies are supposed to protect. isn't that what you promised to do when our blinded nation put you in office? to protect the people. well, nicely done. swell job.
20050904
your local coffee shop... or the gay-dar bermuda triangle
mother of god... i couldn't get sick the week before class started. noooooooo. i have to get sick in the middle of a bloody assignment. and it's not that here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of crap. noooooooo. it's the i'm-a-cold-and-i'm-going-to-make-you-miserable-for-ages kind of crap. and on top of feeling like your head weighs eighty thousand pounds and feeling like you're floating in some kind of soupy stuff, you have to dope yourself up to keep yourself from drowning in your own snot, then you have to deal with the aftereffects of the doping... i'm seeing little green spots everywhere. this is unacceptable. i am supposed to be doing a meticulously-accurate color rendering of a yucca seed pod. this is quite difficult when i feel like crap but now i have to deal with little green spots everywhere. unacceptable, i say. bah humbug.
i know i'm supposed to hydrate myself and whatnot, but i am also an architecture student. this, of course, means that i must consume ridiculous amounts of caffeine in order to function properly... this also means that i am now having to drink an absurd amount of water... grrr. but i digress - so, my friends and i went down to the common grounds today to have coffee, as the stuff they like to call 'coffee' at the campus coffee shop isn't and if you want anything with espresso in it, good luck. but i digress, yet again - while having coffee, my friends and i were treated to a wonderful display of employee art. neat stuff, i tell you. so, if you're in need of a caffeinated beverage of sorts and/or yummy edible stuff and/or alcohol in large quantities, you should head on down to the common grounds [this, of course, requires that you be in fayetteville, as that is where the common grounds is located] and check it out. yeah.
as i write this, i realize how incoherent it is... i apologize, but i lack the ability to be articulate at the moment. if you read my babble often, you realize that this is a normal occurrence - i simply have an excuse to be rambling, as i am under the influence of some weird purple cold/cough pills. if you are new to idontliketowearshoes, please pardon my current idiocy. i'm hoping it will wear off... but i'm not holding my breath. them purple pills have done me in. i am completely useless at the moment... and i'm loving it.
i know i'm supposed to hydrate myself and whatnot, but i am also an architecture student. this, of course, means that i must consume ridiculous amounts of caffeine in order to function properly... this also means that i am now having to drink an absurd amount of water... grrr. but i digress - so, my friends and i went down to the common grounds today to have coffee, as the stuff they like to call 'coffee' at the campus coffee shop isn't and if you want anything with espresso in it, good luck. but i digress, yet again - while having coffee, my friends and i were treated to a wonderful display of employee art. neat stuff, i tell you. so, if you're in need of a caffeinated beverage of sorts and/or yummy edible stuff and/or alcohol in large quantities, you should head on down to the common grounds [this, of course, requires that you be in fayetteville, as that is where the common grounds is located] and check it out. yeah.
as i write this, i realize how incoherent it is... i apologize, but i lack the ability to be articulate at the moment. if you read my babble often, you realize that this is a normal occurrence - i simply have an excuse to be rambling, as i am under the influence of some weird purple cold/cough pills. if you are new to idontliketowearshoes, please pardon my current idiocy. i'm hoping it will wear off... but i'm not holding my breath. them purple pills have done me in. i am completely useless at the moment... and i'm loving it.
20050902
as i tried to blink my nightmare away, i discovered, to my horror, that i had not been dreaming at all. my nightmare had come to life.
been listening to npr and reading cnn online today. i don't think i've ever been so disheartened in my life... as i listen to the reports from new orleans and the gulf coast, i can't help but have to remind myself that katrina really happened and that the terrors that are flowing in over the radiowaves are acually real. that they are not some work of fiction. that this isn't another broadcast of some demented new chapter of 'war of the worlds' newly sprung from the mind of a twisted story teller.
i can't help but simply, dumbly stare at the newspaper, at the images of utter devastation that glare back at me from the ink-covered pages i hold in my hands... blink in horror at the pictures of dead bodies floating amongst the debris flashing in front of me on the computer screen... much like i felt when i watched the images of the countries and people in shambles after the tsunami last year, i feel terribly powerless and small. what i wouldn't give to just have the power to help... to have resources at my fingertips to be able to do some good.
this time, everything is different.
my best friend lives [lived] in new orleans. her apartment and everything that she owns [owned] is now submerged in the toxic stew that has washed over the city. her friends are missing. my friends are missing. people i know - not just people on a tv screen, but people who mean something to me, people i've spent time with, gotten to know, talked with, drank with, care for are missing, displaced... maybe even gone forever... and my heart simply aches, for it can do nothing else.
i've never felt like less of a friend than when my best friend told me that she'd lost everything and all i could do was say 'i'm sorry.' how does one even begin to convey the regret, the desire to do anything one can to help in any way when someone tells you something like '... gone. everything is gone.'?
i can't help but simply, dumbly stare at the newspaper, at the images of utter devastation that glare back at me from the ink-covered pages i hold in my hands... blink in horror at the pictures of dead bodies floating amongst the debris flashing in front of me on the computer screen... much like i felt when i watched the images of the countries and people in shambles after the tsunami last year, i feel terribly powerless and small. what i wouldn't give to just have the power to help... to have resources at my fingertips to be able to do some good.
this time, everything is different.
my best friend lives [lived] in new orleans. her apartment and everything that she owns [owned] is now submerged in the toxic stew that has washed over the city. her friends are missing. my friends are missing. people i know - not just people on a tv screen, but people who mean something to me, people i've spent time with, gotten to know, talked with, drank with, care for are missing, displaced... maybe even gone forever... and my heart simply aches, for it can do nothing else.
i've never felt like less of a friend than when my best friend told me that she'd lost everything and all i could do was say 'i'm sorry.' how does one even begin to convey the regret, the desire to do anything one can to help in any way when someone tells you something like '... gone. everything is gone.'?
20050901
the hurting is so painless
if i have been a blogging-slacker, it is only because i have now entered the seventh circle of hell in architecture school, better known as 'comp studio' - which isn't so much like hell, as i'm actually enjoying myself quite profusely... it's just the whole i-have-more-work-to-do-than-time aspect of things that is the downer. i have come to grips with the likelihood that i will not have anything that could even be mistaken for a social life for quite some time - and the scary thing is that i'm strangely comfortable with this... considering that being constantly occupied by things-that-must-be-done keeps me from dwelling on other inconsequential nothings. insert sigh of relief here.
inconsequential nothings i now have an 'excuse' to be distracted from:
1] the ever-present pile of cardboard boxes full of my stuff that i still haven't unpacked after two months - that i really should unpack - that are taking up most of the floor space in my tiny little bedroom.
2] the stack of bills i have yet to pay for lack of funding.
3] the growing disorder that has taken over the aforementioned miniscule 'sleeping' quarters [i say 'sleeping' because i probably won't be doing very much of that until december... what joy is mine].
4] laundry... new philosophy - if it doesn't smell too terribly and if there are no obvious spots, the item in question is alright to wear... again.
5] hanging up the perfectly clean clothes that are scattered about my limited floorspace - i loathe folding and hanging things up... stupid, i know, but i can't help it.
6] grad school applications [not at all inconsequential, but they stress me out, so i shall allow myself to be temporarily 'distracted'].
7] all extra-curricular employment - the money would be nice, and is desperately needed, but the added strain would most likely bring on a very early heart attack and/or aneurysm... neither of which sound exactly pleasant to me.
currently, i am working on 'color studies' for a meticulous rendering of a yucca seed pod... which basically equates to a migraine from focusing my eyes for far too long on something that is entirely too small and entirely too intricate; getting to form caluses on my right forefinger and thumb from having to sharpen a prisma pencil about every two minutes; being positively terrified of fucking up a drawing after having spent 50 hours on it, having to begin again and finish before the original deadline [this will come in a few days, as i have just started said drawing... again, what joy is mine]; going through four books-on-tape in two days; and wanting to vomit every time i see a yucca seed pod. one more semester. one more semester. one more semester... and then i get to write a thesis. what can i say? i guess i'm just a glutton for punishment or something of the like.
ciao ciao kiddies.
inconsequential nothings i now have an 'excuse' to be distracted from:
1] the ever-present pile of cardboard boxes full of my stuff that i still haven't unpacked after two months - that i really should unpack - that are taking up most of the floor space in my tiny little bedroom.
2] the stack of bills i have yet to pay for lack of funding.
3] the growing disorder that has taken over the aforementioned miniscule 'sleeping' quarters [i say 'sleeping' because i probably won't be doing very much of that until december... what joy is mine].
4] laundry... new philosophy - if it doesn't smell too terribly and if there are no obvious spots, the item in question is alright to wear... again.
5] hanging up the perfectly clean clothes that are scattered about my limited floorspace - i loathe folding and hanging things up... stupid, i know, but i can't help it.
6] grad school applications [not at all inconsequential, but they stress me out, so i shall allow myself to be temporarily 'distracted'].
7] all extra-curricular employment - the money would be nice, and is desperately needed, but the added strain would most likely bring on a very early heart attack and/or aneurysm... neither of which sound exactly pleasant to me.
currently, i am working on 'color studies' for a meticulous rendering of a yucca seed pod... which basically equates to a migraine from focusing my eyes for far too long on something that is entirely too small and entirely too intricate; getting to form caluses on my right forefinger and thumb from having to sharpen a prisma pencil about every two minutes; being positively terrified of fucking up a drawing after having spent 50 hours on it, having to begin again and finish before the original deadline [this will come in a few days, as i have just started said drawing... again, what joy is mine]; going through four books-on-tape in two days; and wanting to vomit every time i see a yucca seed pod. one more semester. one more semester. one more semester... and then i get to write a thesis. what can i say? i guess i'm just a glutton for punishment or something of the like.
ciao ciao kiddies.
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