Southward!

Off on a 15-hour drive for a week and two days ultimate frisbee, Southern hospitality (?) and general spring break revelry. Oh and hundreds of pages of reading on Confucian Humanism.

Onward, ho!

puzzling

In response the the new-blogger, old-blogger question: I don't know who's the creator. I'm not because i just switched over and it wouldn't let me switch this one. Maybe Juli? We're the two admins.

no more booty calling!

My cell phone died, so please e-mail me if you need to contact me.

Oh my gosh, I just realized that means I don't have anyone's number. Oh. Oh, that blows.

Eye Candy, Food for Thought

One of the best photos that was overlooked.
-------

"Before, I spoke of clear periods, those on which the light fell. Now I'm talking about the hidden sketches of that same youth, of certain facts, feelings, events that I buried. I started to write in surroundings that drove me to reticence. Writing, for those people, was still something moral. Nowadays it often seems writing is nothing at all. Sometimes I realize that if wirting isn't, all things, all contraries confounded, a quest for vanity and void, it's nothing. That if it's not, each time, all things confounded into one through some inexpressible essence, then writing is nothing but advertisement. But usually I have no opinion, I can see that all options are open now, that there seem to be no more barriers, that writing seems at a loss for somewhere to hide, to be written, to be read. That its basic unseemliness is no longer accepted. But at that point I stop thinking about it."

Marguerite Duras, The Lover

Boys with Guitars

They are a rarity here.

What a shame.

Scraps

Air - Talkie Walkie
Album of the Week

--------------------

Choice quotes from recent reading for class:
"Fat sheep make good mutton but poor parchment."
Thompson, The Materials of Medieval Painting.

"...Or take the umbrella. It is an ingenious, thoroughly functional device, neat and practical. But you simply cannot imagine it in company with the racquet or the riding boot. They do not speak the same language. There seems to be something finicky about an umbrella, something rather cold and reserved--an air of diginity which the racquet utterly lacks."
Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture.

"When the possbility of sudden failure exists, a larger factor of safety should be used than when failure is preceded by obvious warning signs."
Beers et. al. Mechanics of Solids.

"The 1370 foot high tower that serves as a prow for Manhattan continues to construct the fiction that creates readers, makes the complexity of the city readable, and immobilizes its opaque mobility in a transparent text." This one isn't funny. It just makes no sense.

It's Saturday afternoon in San Diego and it's 84 degrees out. I'd love to stay here and tell you more, but I'm going out to my balcony to enjoy this crazy February weather. I have homework due tonight so I'll be doing that... but it's so nice out I don't think I'll mind too much.

My bone

My intention is not to make you jealous (hey--i might be in your neck of the woods next year) but it's probably in the 40s or 50s? And it's not raining yet though it's supposed to.

Have I ever told you that I love your words? I love your words. You say everything I want to say, everything that's trapped in my mind and i'm afraid to admit, everything I can't articulate in words or sounds... i'm so far gone into journalism that I can't write about my day without a lede and a nut. Feelings? They have no place in a news article. And I can't talk to anyone without my list of questions.

The "you" I am talking to is LeeAnn.

Four years into college I can finally admit I do not like weekends. Weekends in college are like bricks thrown into my face every week, bricks that tell me I do not have any friends, nor can I do anything productive with limitless free time. I've almost given up on them, content to stay at home on a Friday and watch a movie by myself, content to not even make an effort to go out. It's always the same boys and beer and shots anyway, walking with heels and taking makeup off, making meaningless conversation. I used to go out with the hope that i'd meet a boy. But now that i'm on the older end of the college crowd, most do not exude the level of maturity i'm looking for. I then went out for the alcohol. The amazing freedom of conversation and action it provided, the endless random excitement. But now I never really get drunk enough to stop thinking about what I really think of the guy i'm talking to. I also went out because I knew people. And now I know people, but if I see them we stay in. So it's the weekend. And I have a paper to write and four books of Victorian blank verse to read and a future to plan and a full Netflix queue and a whole week of work ahead of me. And a few actual plans. Can't I just enjoy that?

I could just enjoy that. I might just enjoy that.

My random evening that consisted of everything I already mentioned also consisted of me and two friends ending up in the apartment of two girls I barely knew in high school. Different social circles, that sort of thing, but four years later we can have a beer together and admit we know each other's names and had classes together four years ago. It's funny the extent to which all that just doesn't matter anymore.

Hey Halfwhat

I'm losing perspective, here. Throw some bones from your respective Californian locations--I'd like to forget that it's 20 degrees (feels like 6) out!

Are you hip?

Ukulele's are so hip right now.

Measurements

I am testing the space between his jaw and his shoulder, measuring with the modified arc built of my forehead nose and lips to see if I fit there.

Along the landscape of a longer neck that fit upon a broader collarbone, one that usually smelled of bread and cigarette smoke and sometimes of sheets and soap, I had once found a hollow that held my cheek and my closed eyelids and my hair-draped forehead against it as a cradle held its charge; that is, dutifully and gently.

The space is smaller, though, on this one. His jaw is in the middle of my forehead, my chin rests on the plain of his chest. I think I can fit here, though; I can imagine getting comfortable with this uncomfortable position. After all, crossing the street, opening the front door, embracing, kissing-- at different, earlier points in my life I didn't like to do those things, either; and all still hold their small and thus insidious elements of danger and risk.

His hands aren't much bigger than mine, and he wants to hold me in them. They get clammy fast, with too much touching, and I let go to spare him the embarassment of realizing this for himself. I know exactly what to do and what to say, which words and expressions to deliver in how many doses to make him sufficiently desirous, to make him feel sufficiently at ease. I am overestimating him in order to feel like less of a predator--he must know my game. (This conclusion, of course, is irrational. He doesn't even know me. He wouldn't know a game from the most genuine sentiment. He is nothing to me; I could be anything to him.)

But at some point, I didn't play and I didn't know, either. I took it slow and did it by intuition, by touch, by moving slowly, uncertain day by uncertain week, feeling my way through and closing my eyes when hoping not to come up short or overshoot. I wrote pages filled and overflowing with those innocent expressions of first infatuation; I wrote and deleted and saved countless emails; I waited for him to emerge and I waited for him to leave. I couldn't control anything. It brought about the best sort of inexact and overwhelming and satisfying love--slowly built by serendipity after serendipity. I can't hope for it again, so I won't. I won't wait for the shoulder that's just right; he's come and gone. I could settle for this. I could settle for a little bit smaller, a little safer, a little more sterile. I can't adapt, I can squeeze in like I belong here. There's no infatuation to swell me up and give me away; there's no uncontrollable desire to make these lips move in ways I don't want. This could be safe; this could be right by decree.

But decree leads to repression; safety leads to curiosity; I will balloon with guilt and longing for nothing in particular.

This is bullshit, dude. Can't do it.

Blank Wave Arcade

The Faint
Blank Wave Arcade

---------------------------------------

And to continue in my return to regular program, I'll blog about the weather.

"ARCTIC AIR WILL CONTINUE TO INVADE SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND TODAY. THE
MERCURY IS ONLY EXPECTED TO REMAIN IN THE TEENS DURING THE ENTIRE DAY.
THE WINDS WILL BECOME STRONGER AS THE DAY PROGRESSES...WHICH WILL ONLY
ADD TO THE BITTERLY COLD CONDITIONS WITH WIND CHILL VALUES REMAINING
BELOW ZERO FOR MOST OF THE DAY."

Cookies for you, then, buddy.

Dear Self-Righteous Pole Vaulting Star,

I find it terribly silly for you to say in that terribly haughty voice, "I don't smoke marijuana" just after telling me that your butt is covered in marker from your drunken evening of Track & Field Initiations.

Sincerely,
Me.

SPAWN!

When did Harvard become a breeding ground for bankers?

For God's sake, keep your souls for yourselves and let Goldman Sachs suit up someone else! (This I sigh when I know the girls who work those 15 hour days and go for schmoozing weekends in New York--not weekends in museum galleries that aren't opening, closing, or throwing a gala--are the ones who can afford to try on heels at Christian Louboutin. It is a twisted world.)

Heads Up

The Roots will be in Universal City with Jill Scott & Lupe Fiasco on Feb. 10, and then at the House of Blues in San Diego on Feb. 12 (without Jill Scott).

Or come to Boston and see them with me in March!

Another journey on the road has yet to be documented. New York, New Jersey, three museums, one concert, one surreptitious jam session, some really spicy vindaloo--altogether a good time.

Hell freezes over?

Leeann's post reminded me, last week there was snow in LA. Weird, yeah?

I don't own a camera; this is better.

The View from Here

It's snowing.

It's beautiful.

I'm... almost done with finals.

Revelation

So cool.

Just wondrin'

Is it against some kind of unwritten law if I listen to the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas after Christmas? It should be called A Charlie Brown Walk in the Cold Morning Air.

What to Do When you Get a Splinter

Yesterday, I was gleefully sanding down the edges of my simple woodshop project of the weekend (backing Masonite boards with frames for my triptych), moving my hands quickly as if to simulate an expertise that I surely do not have. Suddenly, my hands fly apart, and before it's actually registered with my brain, my eyes are staring at a sliver of wood peeking from my cuticle. It appears to be very small, and begins to moisten and become translucent as it settles into my finger. I'm picking at it with my fingernails, trying to act the part of tweezers and tug it out, but it doesn't want to budge. I think first that I might just be picking at flesh, but wiggling it causes a sharp, hard sensation; I then imagine that the monitor on duty in the shop reading his paper might be able to help, but he hasn't looked up yet, and it looks small enough to get out with some perseverence.

I am starting to panic, and it's trickling blood; I wonder if I could just leave it there till I get back to the room and ask my roommate for eyebrow tweezers, but I still have quite a bit to finish up. I wonder why it's hurting more and sort of flail my arm to make it stop. Finally, the adrenalin and frustration peak, I shut my eyes, and take a final, swift, wild pull at the nub, and then stare in wonder at the inch-long splinter that emerges as my finger begins to throb and pump blood. What a terrible relief.

I can hardly see the entry wound now, but just beyond my cuticle, the finger is sore for about 3/4 of an inch.

On New Year's Eve, I made some bad choices involving gin, rum, whiskey, vodka, and champagne (although, in retrospect, I think the champagne doesn't count), and ended up with my head in a bucket, letting the tears flow along with the other internal juices. They say alcohol makes one more truthful, and there I was in Taiwan with a few near-strangers (including two saints) telling them, emphatically, without reserve and with the greatest humility the most plain truth of all: "I miss him. I miss him so much."

It's the special kind of drunk saved for New Year's Eve. A total uncorking of the last repressed feelings, a total disregard for responsibility or decorum or precedent or consequence as you panic in that moment between last year and new year. All of that residue lodged numbly in your being is removed; it's catharsis, or at least, it's a giant vomitous mess, unleashed. And boy, it's the kind of drunk that makes you really glad you're leaving the country later that day and not going back for a long time.

I am currently attempting to create a special concentration involving elements of Engineering, Chemistry/Physics, Visual & Environmental Studies (Studio Art), and History of Art & Architecture. I know, it takes multiple breaths for me to say it, but I like to call it "A Comprehensive Study of Materials." I hope it will take me to Venice this summer, Paris next spring, and to a dozen labs, firms, and studios where I can work hard with my hands and forget what I'm feeling in my heart.